Love your enemy

Ian Flintoff explains how listening must triumph over ‘trouncing’

by Ian Flintoff 6th May 2011

I’ve occasionally had the fantasy that if early Friends had lived for several centuries they would have watched how their earliest hopes had, or had not, been fulfilled. Committed to peace and nonviolence, for instance, they could only be confused by the way scientific progress is hijacked for the most efficient and cruellest forms of destruction. Nuclear energy is discovered and nuclear bombs are made. Infectious parasites are isolated by biologists and used for germ warfare. Communication systems are extended and refined and used for propaganda and psychological violence. Women’s rights are sought: the sex-trade and pornography ensue.