Letters - 12 March 2021
A beacon of light to Sheep and goats
From A beacon of light
Last year David Gray, principal of Brummana High School (BHS) in Beirut, and Sami Cortas, clerk of Brummana Meeting, appealed to Friends for support for families at the school affected by the terrible explosion in the summer, and the wider economic problems this country is facing.
We are really grateful that many Friends did respond, along with other donors in Lebanon and throughout the world, to support the school families directly affected by the devastating 4 August Beirut port explosion, who tragically lost either their homes or their businesses.
Thanks to you and the other many donors those families can now be assured that their children can continue their quality education at BHS.
Since the beginning of August 2020, over $130,000 for the Beirut fund as well as the bursary and capital funds has been raised from 175 donors across the world through our three donations platforms in Lebanon, the UK and the US.
This campaign has been a truly remarkable community activity with students, staff, parents, old scholars, trustees, governors and friends of the school all participating. There have been many inspiring fundraising stories, not least from the school’s Quaker trustees, generously providing a $10,000 ‘BHS Gives’ matching gift, several UK Quaker schools responding to the call for help as well as fundraising by the current BHS Student Council, whose president Franchesco Jarjoura was voted in on the back of his commitment to financial aid. Perhaps one of the most enchanting stories has come from the UK and from a British Friend, Sarah Barrett, whose great-grandfather was among the earliest pupils at BHS. Sarah was able to raise over £2,000 through her cycling fundraising efforts in the UK, travelling by bike many hundreds of miles across the east of England.
Due to the continuing multiple crises in the country, there is little doubt the school is going to need more generous support in the coming months and years.
As the principal David Gray consistently reminds the community: ‘We live in hope, however, and shall not give up. Lebanon is in a state of collapse: our job as educators is to provide a beacon of light and rebuild.’
Thank you very much for so generously supporting Brummana High School families during such desperate times.
Will Haire
Convenor, Fundraising Committee,
Quaker International Educational Trust
Environmentally friendly
The 12 February edition of the Friend has just reached me, and I have read the report about those objecting to HS2. As someone who for a period worked for the rail industry, and is still involved with TravelWatch NorthWest, I suppose I am biased.
A big part of the problem with HS2 is its name: many people think the project is about getting from London to points north more quickly – we can get there quickly enough already they say. But the greatest benefit of the project is creating more capacity on the railways, particularly for freight trains, and, moreover, ones with electric locomotives hauling them. Is it not a good thing to get diesel-engined heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) replaced by electric trains?
Living in Carlisle I often see the daily ‘Tesco train’ come through. This one train takes forty HGVs off the M6. Once the first part of HS2 is completed there will be many more opportunities for such rail movements.
Do the objectors to HS2 really disapprove of the transfer of freight from road to rail, and from diesel power to electricity?
Ian K Watson
Friends House accused
I was saddened to read of the breakdown of relationships and accusations of discrimination by race and religion at Friends House (26 February).
But I was also concerned over how to react to this report. Should I be pleased at the openness that led to the publishing of this news, angry that we are ‘washing our dirty linen in public’, or curious about the motivation behind publishing this news item? One thing is clear: the Society of Friends is potentially no better than anyone else in dealing with discrimination.
We should not make judgements based on the report. We were not involved. We can ask whether the line managers would have treated a white person the same as the person of colour.
Equally, we can ask whether the claimant would have responded in the same way to a line manager of colour as she responded to a white line manager. If the answer to both questions is no, then no discrimination is evident.
Discrimination is treating people differently based on some personal characteristic, as opposed to their expertise or experience. That characteristic might be skin colour or religious faith.
It might equally be physical ability, sexual orientation, status, wealth, age, regional language (and plenty more). Part of our biological programming is to react against anything different. Therefore it is difficult to train ourselves not to discriminate.
We may believe that we are all born equal, children of God, but until we see every person just as a person, we have not mastered our instinct to discriminate. Putting our belief into practice is not easy.
So our prayers and support should go to all at Friends House involved in this breakdown of relationships. May they heal what can be healed and learn from the experience.
Geoff Pilliner
Question of racism
I think we are starting to have too much of ‘a sinner that I am’ attitude on the question of racism. Hoonie Feltham (22 January) wrote: ‘A question struck me “Am I a racist?” The inescapable answer was “Yes”.’
So what is the definition of a racist that we Quakers mostly accept? The Cambridge dictionary says ‘someone who believes that their race makes them better, more intelligent, more moral, etcetera than people of other races and who does or says unfair or harmful things as a result’.
According to that, Hoonie is not a racist.
Eric Walker
John’s gospel
The fourth gospel was written near the end of the first century, but its author had been just a youth at the time of the crucifixion, which he alone of the disciples witnessed, and he lived, as Irenaeus tells us, to that late date. Irenaeus was a most-respected authority whose teacher, Polycarp, was a disciple of the author, John Mark. John certainly claimed to be have been loved personally by Jesus in life.
I would not claim that John Mark was better informed on all of Jesus’ life, only the last three years in Jerusalem. John’s Greek is not ‘sophisticated’; it is plain, good classical Greek.
He certainly does not present Jesus as the incarnation of the Greek logos. Rather he recognised that the reverence of the Ephesians for the doctrine of their great forebear, Heraclitus, who called the origin of all things in the world ho logos, bore resemblance to the Jewish reverence for Yahweh (not Jesus) as Creator. Great preachers begin by finding common ground with their congregation.
John had lived long enough in Ephesus to recognise the need to do so.
Elaine Miles
Sheep and goats
Whenever the ‘overseer, episkopos, bishop, crook, shepherd, pastor’ sequence comes up, I’m reminded of my upbringing on a sheep farm in County Durham.
The main function of a shepherd’s crook is to catch the leg or neck of a sheep that’s running away from you.
Of course, good shepherds do care greatly for their flocks, but we should bear in mind that the point of a flock of sheep is wool, and milk, and leather, and meat.
Terry Pratchett considered the shepherding metaphor for religion in his novel Small Gods. What if, he asks, the central metaphor was instead goat herding? Sheep, he suggests, are stupid and must be driven (that’s something of a slur on sheep), but goats are intelligent and must be led.
Keith Braithwaite
Comments
I hope no Quaker has racist beliefs in the Cambridge dictionary sense. However we may be racist in that we have taken into ourselves the unconscious social assumption that white people are worth more than Black people, men than women, straight than queer, and abled than disabled. This unconscious system, rooted in colonialism, persists, and affects how we interact with each other. It is striking and shaming for those of us consciously committed to equality to recognise in ourselves.
I find Leticia Nieto’s explanation useful: https://beyondinclusionbeyondempowerment.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/nieto-articles-understanding-oppression-2006.pdf
Meeting someone new, we assess and categorise each other before either speaks. The higher ranked, which may be on the basis of colour, etc, receive advantages or privilege, and is more likely to take a leadership role in the interaction.
Before we can discuss whether Quakers are racist, we need to agree what “racist” means in this context. None of us claiming that there is widespread racism in the Society has said anything to suggest that we mean the Cambridge definition. But that the Society is whiter than the population at large is evidence. Listen to BAME people’s accounts of their different experiences of Quaker gatherings.
By Abigail Maxwell on 12th March 2021 - 13:42
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