Let slip the doves of war
Rosemary Burton believes we need to speak truth to power to those who ‘operate in the shadows’
At Meeting in Hexham on 13 October many Friends were moved to speak about the questions and paradoxes of pacifism. Ministry and ‘Afterthoughts’ ranged widely over the subject, recognising how easy it can be to talk of pacifism in the abstract but how important it is to ask whether one brings a true pacific spirit to bear in daily life. An account of a stand-up fight between two lecturers within the Bradford Peace Studies Department prompted welcome laughter, but there was no laughter some years ago when I tried to explain to a poppy-seller why I preferred a white one. On a small local scale that encounter caused conflict, literally on my doorstep. Some people now wear both a white and a red poppy because, sadly, a white poppy alone can cause others to ‘see red’.
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