Looking for a touchstone
Richard Seebohm writes about Quakers and Europe
The Woodbrooke course ‘Quakers and European Politics’, held between 9-11 February, was led by Andrew Lane, director of the Quaker Council for European Affairs office in Brussels (QCEA), and, for me, it had a special importance.
I was part of the group calling itself Quakers for Europe that campaigned passionately for a Remain vote in the European Union (EU) referendum. In my view, our attempt to relate our message to the Quaker testimonies was coloured by our understandings of the many secular issues that made departure from the EU look like self-harm.
I was, therefore, brought up short by the Meeting for Sufferings minute of 2 July 2016, which goes: ‘We have taken time to reflect on the outcome of the EU Referendum held on 23rd June, and to reflect on what Love now requires of us.’
At the Woodbrooke course, with Maud Grainger as the fluent facilitator, we were taken gently through the background thickets of what Europe as a geographical fact of life was all about: for example, we saw a video of Serbian and Croatian young people cheerfully sharing a meal in Quaker House, Brussels. Their only common ground until then had been a common enmity. But we started with William Penn’s 1693 An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe by the Establishment of an European Dyet, Parliament or Estates.
This, coming shortly after a terrible war between the French and the Dutch, lay unrealised until the EU ball was set rolling by the 1952 Coal and Steel Community.
William Penn had some wonderful insights. Justice prevents the need for war, but no one should be judge of his own cause (so much for vilification of the European Courts) or punishers of their own wrongs. Meetings of member states would foster personal relationships. He invents in full the idea of qualified majority voting.
In the context of smaller armies, mainly to preserve order but also to keep the Turk at bay, the population would not be made effeminate (sic) as long as education was provided – by the state – for all, both in useful arts for economic development but also in agreeable arts to give men (sic) understanding of the world they were born into.
Peace is cheaper than war. William Penn was particularly upset by wars of Christian against Christian. He wrote: ‘[Our] Saviour… came to save them and not to destroy the lives of men.’
In the light of the Sufferings minute, I found myself dragged back into Quaker witness. In this light, a group of us on the course formulated a statement that may still carry weight as a touchstone of compassion in the current chaotic state of British politics.
We hope it will resonate in wider circles than among Friends.
One of the many documents that we have brought back from the course is a tabulation of the numerous groups supporting the Remain cause, each with its own leader and seemingly unable to truly make common cause.
Quakers have a vision of a society rooted in equality and truth. Only if we seek the truth in the most detailed and unambiguous terms will we recognise the real effect of Brexit on those who are suffering most from the unequal society in which we now live.
Only this transparency will enable British politicians and public to see whether or not withdrawal from the European Union serves the common good.
Further information: qcea.org
