Letters - 03 February 2023
From QCEA to Quakers going ‘whoosh’
QCEA
Rebecca Bellamy’s report on her QCEA (Quaker Council for European Affairs) study tour (16 December) was very moving. So much of the focus on Brexit has been on its economic impact and less on the loss of the rich cultural benefits of working creatively with our closest neighbours.
Around the time of the referendum in 2016 I was working on a pan-European storytelling project with a gifted storyteller.
The Aladdin Project focussed on the development of intergenerational workshops for disadvantaged young adults provided by retired senior volunteers through specialised storytelling technique training.
The project was delivered by five organisations from France, Hungary, Catalonia, The Netherlands and the UK, and financed by the European Commission. A Storytelling Conference had been planned in Warsaw and we had been invited to contribute. We were very excited to meet other storytellers and filmmakers from across the continent. A few weeks before we were due to fly out and participate we received an email saying our invitation had been rescinded and our flights cancelled. ‘But why?’ we emailed back. ‘Because your country has chosen not to work with us anymore.’
It still hurts.
Kevin Redpath
What does ‘Ubuntu’ mean?
I was pleased and excited to find out that ‘Ubuntu’. is to be key to the ‘agenda for 2024 FWCC (Friends World Committee for Consultation) World Plenary’. (20 January 2023).
It is a word and concept I have been familiar with for years, so wondered why the difficulty in translating it? For me, it is ‘I am because you are’. Simple, but perhaps profoundly difficult for our highly individualistic western culture to get to grips with.
Tim Gee seems to be trying to translate ‘Ubuntu’ in terms of our beliefs, values and principles, rather than in terms of how we relate to one another – which for me is what ‘Ubuntu’ is all about.
George Fox did not tell us that we have ‘that of God’ in us, but rather to ‘answer that of God in everyone’ – that is to relate to them as spirit-filled beings. So for Quakers ‘Ubuntu’ could mean ‘answering that of God in everyone’.
The gospels are much blunter: ‘Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?… and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me…’ (Matthew 7:22, 23 King James Version).
‘Ubuntu’ asks us to orientate ourselves away from our deeds and beliefs and towards knowing the other, and tells us that when we do, we will find ourselves – and then find the divine or the spirit and then find out that which we must do.
Gordon Ferguson
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