‘I joined the Quakers as they felt like rebels to me.’ Photo: by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Rebel with a cause: Sanjive Mahandru’s Thought for the Week
‘Diversity can be love.’
At a mental health conference last month I learned how black people are about eight times more affected by mental health issues than the white population of the UK. I am a brown Indian Quaker, and suicide has affected my family, so I attended because I too am affected by a mind that is sometimes sad.
Most attendees were black, and it always surprises me how most of us in the UK live in our own isolated boxes, even when issues like this affect us all. What affects black people affects me, and vice versa. I go to various places of worship in Birmingham, and I am sometimes the only brown face. Recently I was at the theatre and I might have been the only Indian in the audience of about 250 people. On another occasion I went to see classical south Indian Khatak dancing and saw only one white person in the audience. It annoys me that people do not go to an event unless it is specifically aimed at them. Do we feel safer or more comfortable when we spend time with people from our own society? Do we feel we are not invited or not welcome when we go to an event not aimed specifically at our religion/society/country/colour? All cultures are missing out by not walking fearlessly into something new. In the UK we do not need to go across the ocean and the continents to see diverse cultures and peoples, it’s on the doorstep of our home.
Quakers are known to be adventurous, open-minded humans, which is one of the reasons I joined. Early Friends were known to break the status quo; they were persecuted and put in prison for their beliefs. As someone who feels uncomfortable and anxious about how modern society is set up, I joined the Quakers as they felt like rebels to me.
I am encouraging all Quakers to take a leaf out of their history. It would be nice for people to know me just as a person, not an Indian brown-faced person, and vice versa. Diversity is an achievable aim. It can be fun, it can be a learning experience, and it is a way of breaking down barriers. It can also be a way to learn about yourself, by sometimes putting yourself in uncomfortable situations.
Diversity can be love.
On a Sunday when I do not go to Quaker Meeting I go to white- or black-majority churches, or Hindu places of worship or meditation centres, to mix and match, to enjoy the travel and reach out. If you had to put a label on it, I am part of the Quaker/Arya Samaj movement. This Vedic philosophy teaches that the primeval cause of all genuine knowledge, and all that is known by means of knowledge, is God. Perhaps that makes me a real rebel Quaker.
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