Quakers highlight Alternative Security Review
Quaker-backed ‘worry box’ survey found ‘a country deeply concerned about the viability of its planet’.
Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB) has said it is looking at ways to share the outcome of the Alternative Security Review (ASR), a three-year project to create public dialogue in the UK on human and ecological security.
NFPB highlighted the work done by Friends to contribute to the project. This includes one Bath Quaker who helped to create a ‘worry box’ to gauge perceptions of human security.
Judith Eversley joined campaigners from September 2022 to April 2023 to collect nearly 200 individual ‘worries’ from fellow citizens about the future.
The review is due to publish materials that will promote a human security strategy this autumn.
Writing for Rethinking Security, the organisation which runs ASR, Judith Eversley revealed that the findings of the worry box suggest ‘a country deeply concerned about the viability of its planet, the misdeeds of its politicians, and a failing and divisive economic system’.
The responses were collected anonymously at a weekly peace vigil.
Judith Eversley said: ‘The single largest of our respondents’ worries was about climate, whether expressed in terms of climate change, crisis, catastrophe or insecurity. More than a quarter of respondents focused on climate and ecological concerns.’
Many expressed unhappiness about the government, particularly ‘politicians who are dishonest or put the interests of the elite first’. Other concerns were poverty, greed, and social and economic inequality. ‘War certainly featured… yet… appeared primarily in the context of fear of wars arising from resource scarcity, or nuclear war escalating out of smaller conflicts.’
She added: ‘These worries strengthen our conviction that traditional ways of thinking about security are wrong, because they divert attention and resources away from action to protect the environment and distribute the world’s resources more fairly. A more holistic human security approach would address those concerns.’
The research followed an online survey that also revealed that, of all thirty topics mentioned, the climate and ecological crisis was the single largest source of insecurity, with over seventy-five per cent of people saying they worried about it ‘a lot’.
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