Letters - 1 April 2022

From Ukraine to In wise relations

Ukraine

For the past few weeks it has not been an easy time to be a pacifist. It did not seem easy to suggest to the people of the Ukraine that they should turn the other cheek. 

However, for Quakers, pacifism has always been about more than refusing to fight. It is also about seeking to address the causes of war and trying to promote reconciliation, and Quakers have tried to do this through Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), the Quaker Council for European Affairs, the Quaker United Nations Office and many others.

It was our hope in 1945 that the determination of members of the United Nations ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’ would have prevented a conflict such as we are now witnessing in Ukraine.

What this conflict has demonstrated is the extent of the need to put more effort into peace work.

The UN secretary general has warned that the war in Ukraine risks putting global climate targets out of reach. QPSW Central Committee has highlighted the priority of peace and climate change in our centrally-managed work and I hope that Friends will consider whether they might be able to contribute more funds to support this.

Trevor Evans

Testing times

With respect to the letters from Peter Jarman and Elizabeth Gruar, (18 March) I’ve never been able to give a straight answer to the question ‘So, as a Quaker, are you a pacifist?’ My rather evasive response has always been ‘I don’t know – I’ve never been tested’.
I’m part of a lucky generation which has never been called to fight. I just don’t know to what lengths I would go to defend my family, my friends, my community, my country. Am I wrong to love all these entities, in that order?

I suggest that it ill behoves those of us who – for the most part – live in unthreatened comfort to advise those facing Vladimir Putin’s appalling aggression as to how they should behave. We can certainly say ‘I wouldn’t start from here’, but that’s not much use when bombs rain down, chemical warfare is threatened, and your children cower in an underground shelter. And yes, Elizabeth Gruar, I believe that you and I can still say that we are Quakers.

Steven Burkeman

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