Letters - 27 November 2020
From An invitation to help to It's a wrap
An invitation to help
The massive and devastating Port of Beirut explosion on 4 August, 2020 resulted in widespread damage and destruction of many homes and businesses in Beirut. Subsequently, many companies closed shop, and family breadwinners were laid off during already challenging social and economic circumstances brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the devaluation of the Lebanese currency, and the uncertain political situation engulfing Lebanon.
Members of the Brummana High School (BHS) community were not spared the effects of this tragedy. Several families lost their homes or businesses – including families of the many BHS staff, senior students and old scholars (alumni) who rushed to help those in distress and later volunteered to clean debris from the streets and buildings and to collect and distribute food and clothes. These BHS families are now in dire need of financial support. BHS is doing its utmost to help them rebuild their lives and, most importantly, to allow their children to continue their education at the school uninterrupted.
The Brummana Monthly Meeting is reaching out to Friends and all their friends worldwide with a plea to support BHS in its Beirut fund drive to help students and families whose welfare was devastated by the Port of Beirut explosion.
Any amount you donate will go a long way in helping students and their families. The tuition fee for the academic year at BHS is around 7.5 million Lebanese lira, which translates to around £1,500 at the current exchange rate. To date, over thirty donors have committed over $17,000 to the fund in Lebanon, and the school’s governing body in the UK, the Quaker International Educational Trust, has already collected close to £10,000 from generous donors too. If you are considering a donation, and with the extra option of UK Gift Aid if applicable, please follow this link: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/quiet.
Thank you for your help. May you be spared hardships and may your generosity be rewarded.
Sami Cortas
Brummana Meeting, Lebanon
YM 2020… virtually!
‘We did conclude among ourselves.… to see one another’s faces… as formally it used to be’ (Quaker faith & practice 6.02).
During the Covid-19 restrictions imposed on us this year, the thing that has upset us most has been the deprivation of contact with our family and friends.
We found it a joy to recognise and have a fleeting glimpse of so many familiar Friends at Yearly Meeting this year.
We are grateful for the special effort of the clerks and the technical skills of staff and others who made this possible.
Gillian and Donald Robertson
Despite the many new obstacles Britain Yearly Meeting 2020 turned into an amazing achievement. Thank you friendly clerk and team, thank you wizards of Zoom. It was an uplifting, spiritual experience of Quaker faith and practice. Go well.
Anna Seifert
Heartening and inspiring
It is so heartening to read Elizabeth Coleman’s article (30 October) about her group’s relationship with people from the Congo. That it is real relationship and working together. Inspirational. Yes, I will watch the space with interest.
Susan Groves
At last
At last the voice of reason and compassion crying in the wilderness! Thank you Pete Duckworth (letter in the 13 November edition of the Friend).
Jenny Vickers
Hostile language
In Cardiff Meeting we have been appalled by the insensitive and hostile language used recently about asylum seekers and refugees. Islands in the south Atlantic, and even disused oil rigs or ferries off the British coast have been suggested as places to process applications. There were reports that asylum seekers would be sent to Moldova, Morocco or Papua New Guinea. None of this has been refuted by the Home Office.
The home secretary and the prime minister have attacked lawyers representing asylum seekers with such terms as ‘lefty human rights lawyers’. The legal profession has protested, to no avail.
This intemperate language from the top of the government leads some in society to feel justified in attacking refugees and asylum seekers; some immigration law firms have been threatened.
As a Sanctuary Meeting, Cardiff – like other Meetings up and down the country – welcomes asylum seekers and refugees and tries in a practical way to help as far as we can, and so we have been moved to protest strongly at this hostile language.
Our clerk has written to the home secretary urging that when the asylum system is reformed, Britain’s responsibilities as a signatory of the Geneva Convention on Refugees should be upheld.
We have also asked our MPs to urge the government to refrain from hostile language in relation to asylum issues.
Leela Attfield
Please don’t cross your legs
Please, please don’t cross your legs in Meeting. I once had a herniated disc in my spine. I was flat on my back for many months and needed two operations to put it right and get me out of pain.
If you cross your legs, you put pressure on your spine, so please don’t do it!! It is very difficult for me to worship properly, if I see Friends with their legs crossed.
Jill Allum
A good re-read
Those who use lockdown to re-read books may appreciate In Fox’s Footsteps (1998), an elegantly written, digestibly scholarly, and at times very humorous account of the origins of Quakerism by David Boulton, one-time editor of Granada Television’s World in Action, and Anthea Boulton, a former storyline-writer for Coronation Street.
David Birmingham
It’s a wrap
I had hoped to stay out of the ‘Great Polywrapper’ correspondence, having imparted my knowledge on the matter directly to Diana Lampen (9 October). However, those pointing out that, generally speaking, home composting doesn’t generate enough heat to decompose the ‘biodegradable’ plastic are correct.
Putting them in food waste collection bins should do the trick, as food waste goes to anaerobic digestion plants, not burnt for fuel, I was relieved to find, checking the appropriate website for Sarah Early’s local authority (6 November), where it is converted to compost, with gases being used to generate power.
If you haven’t got a food waste bin, don’t for heaven’s sake put biodegradable poly bags in collection bins at supermarkets designated for polythene bags. Ordinary poly bags can be recycled to make drain pipes, waterproof membranes, and garden furniture, but serious problems were found when these products started to disintegrate after a while.
Investigation showed – yes, you guessed – inclusion of biodegradable bags was the problem!
Nick Francis
Further to Diana Lampen’s query on composting our mailing wrappers, I recall that when we first used recycled plastic envelopes in 1997 (when the bigger page size was introduced), readers started re-using them.
Suggestions included repurposing as sandwich bags and pooper scoopers – you’d have to use scissors to cut the end off our current wrappers to do that.
As regards the compost heap, gardening expert Bob Flowerdew is a staunch advocate of using urine as a ‘bio-starter’ for compost, to encourage the decomposition process – a real permaculture solution.
George Penaluna
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