Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 6
‘We need to show a better society is possible.’
Quaker Social Action (QSA) offered a session asking How do Quaker faith and values inform social action? More than forty participants heard from QSA director Judith Moran, Giles Robinson, communications manager, and trustee Caroline Humphries. The session started with a short video about QSA’s work and the impact of its projects to alleviate poverty.
Caroline spoke about how QSA’s deep experience of the systemic challenges and injustices faced by individuals guides their desire to affirm people’s humanity through their work. Judith talked about the importance of collaboration with other organisations. Giles explained how they use plain and inclusive language on their website to enable people to easily access the information and support QSA can give.
A question and answer session covered a wide range of topics, including how QSA is funded and how the cost of living crisis is going to impact or influence QSA’s work.
One participant wanted QSA’s claim that they are able to influence UK government decisions substantiated. The example given in response was their work on funeral poverty, which has been ongoing for twelve years. QSA produced a report entitled Fair Funerals and found MPs from all parties willing to ask questions in parliament. This built enough momentum that it was discussed by the Work & Pensions Select Committee, where QSA gave evidence. The Select Committee decided the funeral sector needed to be investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority, which reached the conclusion that the funeral industry needed regulating.
On Monday, twenty-four Friends met for a Quaker Universalist Group (QUG) session in which Friends shared insights from their recent conference on Health and healing worldwide.
Tony Philpott introduced QUG and what Quaker Universalism is: the belief that ‘spiritual awareness is accessible to everyone of any religion or none, and no one person, and no one faith, has the final revelation or monopoly of truth’.
He went on to present summaries of the four talks that were given at the recent QUG conference: ‘Health and healing in the context of the Kelabit people of Borneo’ by Monica Janowski; ‘The healing ministry among Quakers’ by Gervais Frykman, of the Friends Fellowship of Healing; ‘Healing in Eastern cultures’ by Ranald McDonald; and ‘From division towards wholeness’ by Neil Morgan. Other Friends who had been at the conference also shared their highlights from the event.
The group were then asked to choose a breakout room to join, each with a different question themed around one of the talks, before coming together for a concluding plenary discussion.
An immersive session led by Ellis Brooks and Isabel Cartwright from QPSW looked at Peace education in practice.
Nineteen participants took part in an interactive lesson structured as a QPSW peace educator would deliver one in a classroom to young people. After stretching and doing a mirroring exercise to prepare and focus, the lesson invited participants to imagine they were an eighteen-year-old basketball-playing schoolboy with a strong peer group, a younger sister and parents under sixty. An interactive pinboard had everyone’s name on notes and participants were invited to place their name on the side to ‘Fight’ or the side to ‘Not fight’.
There followed a thought-provoking story of the young basketball player, which Ellis slowly unfolded, pausing after each change in circumstance to ask participants to re-evaluate whether they thought that, if they were the young man, they would fight or not. Quite a few participants moved sides two or three times during the story as the situation in the young man’s country began to change rapidly and the impact that had on his family members. There was discussion of the decision-making abilities of a teenage brain still in development and some participants felt better able than others to inhabit the brain of a teenager, although almost all found it hard to disconnect from their personal values of pacifism. The story was, of course, reflecting the current war in Ukraine.
Ellis also introduced participants to the ‘Conflict Escalator’, which starts at the bottom with different goals and moves up through take a stand, blame game, loss of face until outburst is reached at the top of the escalator. A sharing of well-informed views followed, discussing which key historical moments could be placed at which step on the Conflict Escalator to reach the point at which Russia invaded Ukraine.
Participants were also told about other peace teaching that QPSW delivers in schools, including the laws of war, conscription, a brief history of conscientious objection with YouTube videos posted recently by young conscientious objectors in both Russia and Ukraine.
In Voicing our values in Europe Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) gave a quick review of their five main activities: network building and advocacy; quiet diplomacy; creating events for Friends and others across Europe; targeted campaigns on key issues; and producing publications and statements including practical resources.
It was an interesting look at how well staff are adapting to the major changes in Europe. They had a significant involvement in COP26 in Glasgow and continue to have climate change at the front of their work. Now that Covid-19 is starting to wane in Europe they are again able to provide a quiet space for officials and diplomats to speak together on important issues.
Brexit has created a loss of links to Europe, and QCEA sees its bridging role as increasingly important.
It was particularly concerning to learn about the way that the arms race has taken off in recent years in Europe – well before the invasion of Ukraine. QCEA has recently organised meetings and publications on Europe’s military drift from a soft power union to ‘security provider’. This drift has resulted sadly in a noticeably increased reliance on technological fixes rather than diplomacy and discussion. QCEA is looking closely at the root causes of our current conflicts – climate change leading to increased migration and more refugees, which in turn has resulted in a military response to population displacement. QCEA’s network building and advocacy, and quiet diplomacy for peace, will be even more needed in the troubling times to come.
On Tuesday QUNO staff looked at Building community in multilateral spaces during difficult times. Forty participants, including Friends from Namibia, Pacific YM and Southern Africa YM, heard director Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge say that QUNO is redoubling its commitment to building a world where peace leads the way.
The last few years of Covid-19, wars, deepening inequality and climate crisis have shown both human vulnerability and interconnectiveness, she said.
Presentations from other staff were detailed and informative, giving a glimpse of the wide-ranging and important work QUNO Geneva office is doing to uphold the Quaker values of peace and justice.
Friends had some challenging questions: Had anyone done any modelling of what the world should look like built on equality and sustainability? Nozizwe said that Quakers had been doing this for generations, living how the world should be, challenging the exploitation of people and the planet and making this better world visible.
To close the session, Lindsey Fielder Cook read the COP26 Interfaith Prayer.
The Protecting and promoting democracy session had a trio of well-informed and active speakers: Jun Pang of Liberty; Ryvka Barnard of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign; and Grace Da Costa of Quakers in Britain. They provided a useful reminder that the human rights legislation that Quakers fought so hard for in the past is under attack. All the speakers thought there was an increasing democratic crisis in Britain, with the start of significant clampdowns on opposition to the government, and reductions in our ability to protest at injustice.
Jun spoke about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which will enable increased police surveillance, limit demonstrations and significantly oppress Roma people and travellers. The move to requiring photo ID for elections, despite minuscule evidence of fraud, may result in the disenfranchisement of two million people in Britain, mostly from the from the most disadvantaged parts of our population (though some Friends mentioned that this form of ID is widely and successfully used in Europe). The Nationality and Borders Act will have a major effect on migrants and refugees. These ‘divide and rule’ tactics are already evident in the increasing use of the terms ‘legal/illegal migrants’.
Ryvka talked about the attacks on the rights of local authorities to promote boycotts and make ethical choices in their choices of investments. There is a danger that ‘guidance’ may become part of law in future. We have already seen attempts to prevent charities and Meetings deciding not to invest in armaments or tobacco. BYM’s ethical investment criteria (also used by the Friend) may become illegal. We were reminded that investment boycotts were a key tool to end apartheid and are part of UK life.
Grace described the slide in Britain towards authoritarianism, the increasing adoption of ‘the strong man syndrome’ by many in our population. She saw the importance of Quakers working with others in civil society networks to defend our democracy and defend human rights. Current proposals to change the Human Rights Act to a much weaker UK Bill of Rights have to be opposed. Each measure becomes part of the bigger picture of authoritarianism, which is rarely opposed due to the government’s large majority. Friends were in agreement when she said that by just sounding negative they could be seen as promoting the status quo. ‘We need to show a better society is possible’, she said, and develop new tactics as the old ones have often failed. We also need to be prepared to work with previous political opponents to forge a new shared progressive consensus. Our vision must be contrasted against the complacency of the view that ‘authoritarianism can’t happen here in Britain’.
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions reporting by Alastair Reid, Annique Seddon, Elinor Smallman, Joseph Jones, Laurence Hall, Rebecca Hardy and Sarah FitzGerald.
Comments
Please login to add a comment
