Letters - 13 September 2013
From slavery to nominations
The financial system and slavery
I am very supportive of, and feel deeply, Sue Holden’s concern about how the financial system compromises every one of our Quaker testimonies (6 September). But I have to point out that the financial system is not a ‘modern form of slavery’ – it is pernicious, entrapping, destructive and against our testimonies, but it is not slavery.
Slavery is, today, what it has always been: the complete control of one person by another, maintained by violence or the threat of violence, with the aim of economic exploitation or sexual use. Those in slavery cannot exercise free will. Put simply, they are treated like property and cannot walk away, even into a worse situation.
I appreciate the temptation to dramatise an issue by calling it ‘slavery’, but that simply devalues the situation faced by the more than twenty-seven million people in slavery in the world today. Friends are justly proud of the work they did in the past in bringing legal slavery to an end. Sadly, our testimony and commitment to end slavery has, mostly, fallen into disuse since then.
There is, today, a growing global anti-slavery movement. It is the fourth major anti-slavery movement in human history. Quakers started the first and contributed mightily to the second and third. My hope is that Friends will accept that we haven’t finished the task we set ourselves to end slavery and join with this growing movement, which aims to eradicate slavery once and for all.
Kevin Bales
Mental health
I came across the article ‘Mental Health in Meetings’ (12 July) quite by chance. I know just how difficult it can be to understand and respond to a loved one with mental health issues. Health professionals don’t always have all the answers. A ‘happy ending’ is often not possible. But I commend the Friends in the unnamed Meeting for pulling out the stops and trying to do their best by a member of their Meeting.
I very much disagreed with Keith Walton (16 August) that it is wrong for anyone to expect more than love, fellowship and friendship from their Meeting. Is the Religious Society of Friends, then, just like a comfortable armchair, a sort of religious bridge club or golf club in the leafy suburbs?
The Society must offer more to those members of its community who are in need than a signposting service to help outside its doors. This help is increasingly hard to find.
For the Society to be of real value as a spiritual community it must maintain a commitment to care for its members characterised by trust, cooperation and good sense. But such care, whether for mental health needs or other issues, will have its limits. I’ve no idea what those limits should be. I’ve no idea how much of a resource of pastoral care we should and need to develop for Britain in the twenty-first century. I’d be more than happy to learn from other members with a greater experience of this area.
James Garry
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