Letters - 09 September 2016

From caring to goodness

Who do we care about?

I am both saddened and, yes, angered, by the article by Peter Staples (2 September). As far as I know, Friends try to seek that of God in everyone. That includes people we disagree with. Peter asserts that the people who run the EU ‘aren’t remotely interested in individual liberty or justice, compassion or equality’. How does he know? I have met quite a few of them while working in Brussels (for the Quaker Council for European Affairs). They are caring, honest people, in the main. They are not power hungry for themselves. They care deeply about peace and prosperity in Europe. Some of them are Quakers. If we care to, we can hear their names and see their faces.

I fully understand that there are many reasons why people voted to leave the EU – some of them might well have been understandable, even good reasons. And no doubt, the EU needs reform – much as our own government does. But that sweeping judgement on a number of institutions and the people who work there does Quakers and their reputation no favours.

Martina Weitsch

No human is really a faceless bureaucrat, and, if their work or circumstances make them appear so, we must try to see beyond that to the child of God beneath, and to change their situation so that their humanity becomes visible.

Oliver Robertson
Clerk, Quaker Council for European Affairs