‘Values, concerns, worries, hopes and visions all have a sharper focus.’ Photo: by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash.
Safety first: Philip Austin from Northern Friends Peace Board
'Values, concerns, worries, hopes and visions all have a sharper focus.’
A few months ago, I was thinking of doing some work from the Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB) office again, after months of home-based working. But that will have to wait. Bolton, where we’re based, feels as though it’s been a bit of political football in the pandemic. Covid is bad here: once more I hear the distress of a Muslim friend describing how overwhelmed he is by the number of burials he’s having to organise. These things are not just practical inconveniences; there is real pain in what we are living through.
While we’ve not been able to gather for our interfaith work, the connections locally and across the country have remained important, albeit stretched. I think Friends have found this as a collective as well; our way of relating is very different, more intense. Values, concerns, worries, hopes and visions all have a sharper focus. New projects and initiatives have emerged from discussions online, and we’ve dug deeper, reached wider, felt more keenly. But it is hard, and the way forward is indistinct. This is unsettling. What makes us secure, as individuals, as communities, as nations is a question we are each living with.
The Rethinking Security initiative, of which NFPB and Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) are both part, launched a blog shortly before the pandemic, and this has proved to be a rich source of material that has highlighted many aspects of security in the current context. Contributions have highlighted, for instance, that while resources have been so lacking and inadequately used to address some of the means of managing the pandemic, military spending and support for arms exports are undiminished. The gap between human and planetary need and government spending priorities seems to be more visible. We are reminded of the fragility of our societal structures. This time is an opportunity to reframe the discussion and to assert that wellbeing, fairness and planetary care are at the heart of genuine security.
It has been inspiring to see different parts of the peace movement continuing to address these issues head-on. Campaign Against Arms Trade’s second legal action to prevent the government permitting arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in the Yemeni conflict – against the outcome of the earlier Supreme Court ruling – is a recent case in point. It is also good to see QPSW supporting the legal action against recent government guidelines on teaching, which seek to suppress the discussion of alternatives to the economic status quo.
Focus and purpose, vision and connection, readiness and care for one another are all ingredients to help us in this situation. Our online meetings of members and other Friends have been opportunities to weave these threads. We would also be interested to hear from Friends who might wish to explore with us organising an online workshop or facilitated discussion on a peace theme. This is a time for action, but also reflection and finding new ways of being a loving and dispersed community.
Philip is the coordinator of Northern Friends Peace Board.
