Letters - 16 August 2024

Regeneration

I am with John Lampen in his article on economic growth (26 July). Infinite economic growth is simply not possible if the means of life on Earth – its natural systems – are to survive our plundering of it for economic use. Yet John is also right in wondering if environmental groups are failing to carry the public if their message is too often one of fear, not of hope. However, I am suggesting it’s not a matter of fear or hope, but of regeneration.  

 First, we have to recognise you can’t put new wine into old wine bottles, or, as often quoted, you can’t use the cause of a problem, along with its inevitable negative outcomes, as the means of changing it. Because when John says our leaders are best placed to create a blueprint for change and a new vision, that is what he is suggesting. 

This is to take, as writ, the centralising and globalised mindset, dominated and owned by global corporations, causing us, as economic dependents on it, to blight the Earth – while also leaving us isolated, struggling, probably angry, and depressed. 

And so, while we feel hopelessly unable to make the changes needed, our leaders’ focus is on the status quo, not new visions. Which is why we all pin everything on the delusion that by fiddling at the edges with tick-boxing schemes for wildlife restoration together with piecemeal tech fixes, it will all somehow be sufficient to mitigate against the disintegration and collapse of Nature – leaving us to carry on as usual, consuming and charging around everywhere in compensation for our discontent.

And yet, we have always had the actual solution in our own hands – increasingly localised, community-sharing material arrangements. In effect, ‘indigenous’ economies, which is how small social groups have lived within and as part of the Earth’s modus operandi. Most of us are in some position to build towards this, now, co-operatively, thus also building-out the isolation and personal and social disintegration that we see all around us. Our testimonies in action, in fact. 

Andrew Sterling

On the market

John Lampen’s article was thought-provoking. He says that he’s aware of the need for more money to halt the decay in hospitals, schools, prisons and public services. I’d like to question some assumptions. Are hospitals trying to do too much, especially as we approach death? Do we need to spend the existing (or a reduced) NHS budget more wisely? Is keeping children in schools, commonly from the age of four to eighteen, really in the interests of children and society? 

 John is right in saying that we need a vision for positive change and that it can grow from the grassroots. Quaker testimony, especially in relation to simplicity, provides such a vision and many Friends live a simple lifestyle. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of Friends who continue to live in a way that’s extravagant with Earth’s precious gifts (resources) and this undermines the contribution that Meetings and Friends in Britain might otherwise make, by failing to embody such a vision.

‘Will we only change when catastrophe forces us?’ I fear that the answer is mundane. By failing to be the change that’s needed, we pave the way for authoritarianism that will compel us to change. 

Wendy Pattinson

The Salter Lecture

I was at the Britain Yearly Meeting session in which the Agenda Committee clerk Fred Langridge gave the justification, in terms of alleged failure to deal with antisemitism, for the decision to ask for the Salter Lecture to be moved away from Friends House. 

I believe the invited Salter speaker Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have been the victims of a quasi-judicial process in which those accused are prohibited from challenging the accusations made against them. 

The biggest targets of these accusations were, and are, Jewish Corbyn supporters and Jewish Palestinian supporters. The ‘evidence’ on which these accusations are based consists of half-truths, anecdotal tales with no specifics, and misrepresentation of legitimate political action and comment – such as Labour members defending the reputation of the party against these very allegations.

It is particularly ironic that the Agenda Committee clerk should express the wish to avoid being seen to ‘treat antisemitism as less important than other forms of racism’. 

The moral panic over antisemitism during Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party came at the time when the Windrush and Grenfell scandals were becoming publicly known. Unlike the contentious social media posts which form the substance of antisemitism concerns, Windrush and Grenfell involved policy decisions made by powerful people that continue to affect profoundly real people’s lives, yet they were made to take a back seat while nebulous claims of antisemitism were given priority for years on end.

The Agenda Committee clerk referred to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report of October 2020. This does not address antisemitism as such, but rather Labour’s handling of complaints about antisemitism – without ever examining whether those complaints had any merit. The EHRC brought harsh conclusions, which are not supported by evidence within the body of the report (other than of the nature referred to above). Far from condemning Corbyn’s handling of the issue, the report explicitly states that the complaints procedures were improved under Corbyn’s leadership!

Antony Rawlinson

Stonehenge

I was troubled by the two recently published letters about the action by members of Just Stop Oil in spraying food-dyed cornstarch on a few of the stones at Stonehenge. 

I know the Quaker concerned, through a Quaker online worshipping group that we attend each week. From his ministry in that Meeting, I know that his actions with Just Stop Oil are undertaken after very careful discernment, and careful planning. The actions are undertaken to draw attention to the dire situation facing our planet through the damage our way of life and economic systems are causing, not just to the climate, but to ecological equilibrium. 

I spoke to this Friend at Britain Yearly Meeting, expressing my dismay at the letters. He explained how the timing of the action was carefully considered: to take place a full day before the solstice, knowing that English Heritage would have plenty of time to clean the three (out of fifty) stones sprayed, before the event and before the arrival of many visitors. The purpose was to draw attention to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Just Stop Oil (and many others of us) would like to see our government sign. 

I find it bitterly ironic that the action at Stonehenge, causing minimal and temporary impact, attracts so much anger, when the long-proposed road tunnel close by (only very recently removed from the road programme) would have done irreparable and permanent damage to the archaeological heritage of the area.

The person concerned is driven by his conscience to act with Just Stop Oil; his actions stem from his Quaker beliefs, but he does not claim to act on behalf of Quakers in Britain, as the two correspondents clearly assume. Surely, if a Quaker acts under concern, on their own behalf, they are entitled to do so without having taken that concern to their Area Meeting.

Rachel Berger

Love and justice

The Britain Yearly Meeting 2024 Epistle says: ‘Loving is different from liking. It is an action, more than a feeling.’

Paul’s Epistle says the opposite. The spiritual impulse and motive of love matter more than the action. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.’ And George Herbert agreed. ‘The Elixir’ ‘Makes drudgery divine:/Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,/Makes that and th’ action fine.’

Ben Jarman’s inspiring Swarthmore Lecture seemed to urge a change of heart for those of us who need to understand justice and inclusion in new more loving ways.

Priscilla Alderson