Letters - 22 April 2011
From wage ratios to Quaker action
We’re not all in this together
Barbara Forbes (‘We’re not all in this together’, 8 April) asks if Friends House meets the Wage Ratio Campaign standard of 10:1. The wage ratio for Britain Yearly Meeting staff, including contractors, is less than 4:1.
Michael Hutchinson, acting recording clerk Britain Yearly Meeting, Friends House, London
Discernment
Martin Ward’s article (11 March) explored very well the Quaker understanding of discernment, in terms of preparing ourselves for and trusting to the process of discernment. However, to be really valuable, discernment depends upon knowledge, knowledge of facts, knowledge of people and their customs. Only then can the Spirit do its work.
With Yearly Meeting Gathering in Canterbury fast approaching, those attending and those sharing at a distance perhaps need guidance upon the larger issues to be raised. We can all perhaps cope with improving the planet’s sustainability in our own homes, but economic issues and suchlike cannot be approached without accurate and non-political information.
Is there a recommended reading list available on some of the topics to be raised?
Kenneth Bird
Boycott, divestment and sanctions
Naturally, the Quakers’ role has to be that of peacemakers. Surely that always has been our role. We spoke out about the evils of slavery and that of South African apartheid. Does that mean that on this occasion the oppression and brutalisation of our fellow human beings, the Palestinians by an all powerful state continues to be accepted?
I was at the QCEA/QPSW conference in Brussels in October 2010. I can assure Friends that there was an overwhelming consensus for corporate action by Quakers. I also travelled to Israel/Palestine three years ago. What I witnessed with other fellow Christians was a most awful military repressive show of brutal force towards a largely civilian population. People there are humiliated and made to wait for hours, sometimes days, at hundreds of checkpoints. They are often not able to reach hospitals, families, work or friends – and this is after all their land! Their olive groves are cut down or burnt, their homes bulldozed, their land stolen,their human rights totally ignored.
I believe, and Philip Hills and Sarah Lawson in their letters (25 March) reinforce this belief, that all this is allowed to take place with the active help of the US and other Western powers. We are still wearing blinkers because of the past sufferings of the Jews. Israel allows no criticism. When we do so, we are immediately accused of anti-Semitism. The same accusation applies to international organisations, such as the UN. Why, even ex-president Jimmy Carter’s constructive efforts were demonised as anti-Semitic.
One reason I joined the Quakers was because I thought they do not shrink from their responsibility to their fellow humans and they call a spade a spade when they witness injustice, cruelty and oppression.
If we continue to talk and not take action, I believe we betray our Quaker tradition. I know that boycotting Israeli goods will not change Israel’s determination to grab ever more land and to confine Palestinians to be an insignificant minority. (Do we see a parallel to American Indians?) However, a boycott would send a clear message to Tel Aviv that Quakers do not accept their evil deeds.
Giampiero Zucchelli
In a letter (1 April) it was suggested that as we perceive ourselves as peacemakers we should not boycott goods from Israel and the West Bank as we might appear to be taking sides. I believe this argument has severe flaws, two of which are:
• The argument that Israel is surrounded by nations who proclaim in the most violent terms their hostility to the very existence of a Jewish state reflects exaggerated Zionist propaganda. The overwhelming majority of Muslim and Christian people wish for peaceful co-existence. More people need to visit and talk to Palestinians and others themselves.
• Those who have visited Palestine recently also know that the present Zionist government takes no notice of peace efforts, but continues to escalate its ethnic cleansing and blatant racist policies. Palestinian homes and olive groves are still destroyed. Land is still taken for settlements. The illegal wall restricts movement and access to Palestinian land.
Surely supporting the boycott is one small way in which more Quakers can show that they feel that what the Israeli government is doing is extremely wrong. Can’t we love the sinner but hate the sin?
Ben Barman
Philip Hills struck a chord with his letter (25 March) concerning the need for us to support both sides, and be seen to do so, in the Israel/Palestine situation if we are to be effective peacemakers.
I have most serious reservations about the decision by Meeting for Sufferings to commit Quakers nationally to support a boycott of goods from the Israeli settlements as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. If this is to become a defining issue of British Quakerism then should this matter not have been forwarded for decision to Yearly Meeting Gathering, which starts on 30 July?
Neil Simmons
Sufferings has reached the conclusion that we should boycott goods sold from Israel but produced by the settlements on the West Bank. This reflects views of peace organisations in the region, the need to support the UN Resolution of 2004, denouncing the occupation of the West Bank by Israel, and our horror at the behaviour of the Israeli authorities there.
However, speakers at Sufferings also commented on the history of barbarity of Christians to Jews, as well as the millennia of conflict between Judaists and Muslims in the region, the vulnerability of Israel as the USA is likely to withdraw its support and as new regimes emerge in surrounding Arab states.
As Quakers we seek to end violence and discrimination and the reasons for violence and discrimination wherever these are found. We seek to help those in conflict to transcend violence and to establish dialogue and a peace process. Our ability to do this depends on our being even-handed. Most Palestinian political organisations have yet to renounce terrorism and violence. They derive funding from elsewhere in the Arab world, and that funding largely comes from sales of oil.
We may wish to again express our condemnation of violence and discrimination from either side as a solution to the conflict, and take practical action by redoubling our efforts to reduce our dependency on fossil fuel. Britain currently sources only a tiny proportion of its fuel from the Middle East, but fossil fuels are traded on world markets.
Alick Munro
Walk the walk
As a follow-up to Leo Vincent’s article (‘Walk the Walk’, 15 April), let me reassure Friends that action is very much happening at a European level. The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) is working on a programme relating to the EU role in Palestine/Israel; this includes work on the issue of goods from the settlements, which are illegal under international law, coming into the EU. These goods are not eligible for preferential treatment for the purpose of import duties under the EU-Israel Association Agreement; however, in many cases, and due to the labelling of these goods and the fact that they are often shipped in mixed consignments with goods coming from Israel, there is serious concern that some do get into the EU market with such preferential treatment. The EU has issued detailed guidance to customs authorities but this guidance is not always followed, sometimes because of staff shortages, sometimes because there isn’t enough pressure from the public to ensure that it happens. QCEA supported, through an action alert, a Written Declaration in the European Parliament in November 2010 that called for better labelling. Many Friends from all across Europe responded to this alert and wrote to their MEPs; many received encouraging responses (though some responses were less so).
The other issue is the labelling of these goods once they are on the shelves; the UK has been trailblazing on this in no small measure due to public pressure. QCEA is now undertaking a survey of labelling practice in other EU Member States (this is currently underway) and we will take action in terms of calling for further EU level legislation or guidance as appropriate when we have the results of this survey.
At the most recent meeting of the QCEA Council we were informed of the Minute of MfS and agreed the following (part) minute of our own: ‘Council encourages all Yearly Meetings to inform themselves on the issues of settlement products, boycott, divestment and sanctions, as well as the call made by Palestinian Christians in their Kairos document, especially from the Friends in Ramallah, and to search their own hearts on what love requires of them in their circumstances.’
I hope that Friends will be reassured that Friends do walk the walk; if you are not already on our action alert list for actions you can take (on Palestine/Israel issues or on all of our programme areas), please just send me an email and we will add you to the list.
Martina Weitsch
Quaker Council for European Affairs
email: mweitsch[AT]qcea.org
