Testimonies to equality and peace?
Alec McPherson-Glasgow queries whether we are living up to these testimonies
In the 1930s, Ben Greene (cousin of Graham) was a Friend and Peace Pledge Union signatory: and Treasurer to the pro-Nazi British People’s Party, for which he was later interned. Nor was he the only signatory to the PPU associated with Nazi groups. The racist policies and use of political repression in Nazi Germany were known, but the PPU newsletter frequently dismissed testimonies of refugees and the threat to Czechoslovakia. My friendliest assessment of Ben Greene’s motivations is of semi-detached idealism: a Tolstoyean approach which sees that of God in everyone, rather than a Dostoevskian appreciation that there may also be a bit of Satan. Pacifism calls for immense inner strength to call for restraint when one’s own child is being attacked, rather than someone else’s child. Wolf Mendl spoke to my condition about this contradiction (Quaker faith & practice 24:22).
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