Letters - 26 August 2016
From being a public nuisance to Trident
Public nuisance
Like Eunice Gillingham (19 August), I am also incredulous – not at the image of those engaged in nonviolent protest against our nation’s ownership of weapons of mass destruction – but rather that a fellow Friend should think antisocial behaviour to be somehow not Quakerly. We belong to a tradition that has seen many of our number mocked, incarcerated and even martyred for ‘antisocial behaviour’.
We have a spiritual ancestry that includes the likes of Mary Dyer and James Nayler. We have our roots in a Judeo-Christian tradition that includes Jesus being nailed to a tree, and prophets like Ezekiel doing all sorts of odd things in public.
Early Friends saw themselves engaged in a ‘Lamb’s War’, a struggle with nonviolence and vulnerability at its core, but a struggle nonetheless. Will the Kingdom of God be won through quiet politeness and a concern for obstructed pavements, or through passionate and prayerful engagement with the powers of evil in the world where we put our bodies on the line? If we’re not causing a stir and upsetting the ‘powers that be’, then we haven’t fully grasped the challenge of living in a world so steeped in violence, greed and injustice.
Mark Russ
Eunice Gillingham dismisses the recent blockades of Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishment on the grounds that the Quaker way of protest is ‘self-controlled, dignified and peaceful’. However, these three adjectives could describe most direct action at Burghfield.
Nonviolent direct action involves recognising the humanity of opponents and police and behaving with dignity and self-control. It also involves considering the safety of all involved. The fact that something looks chaotic in a picture does not mean that it is disorganised.
I find it sad that Eunice chooses to apply the label ‘antisocial behaviour’ to nonviolent protest rather than to the production of the nuclear weapons that were the target of the protest. When Martin Luther King was accused of stirring up tension, he replied: ‘We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.’
Advices & queries encourages us to bring the whole of our lives under the ordering of the spirit of Christ. Jesus was arrested and executed after leading a disruptive protest in the temple in Jerusalem. The grace of God is manifested in all sorts of ways through active nonviolence.
Symon Hill
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