Letters - 16 May 2025

Further demand

In attempting to validate the official reason given by police for invoking the Public Order Act in banning the demo at the BBC headquarters in January, Ol Rappaport (Letters, 2 May) continues to dig a hole for himself by doubling down on the falsehood that Palestinian demonstrators are in some way a threat to Jewish synagogue-goers. The police justification for the order does not stand up to minimum scrutiny, for reasons already given.

Antisemitism exists. Along with other forms of racism, it is overwhelmingly associated in the UK with extreme nationalist and white-supremacist groups – ironically some of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Israeli state. The continuing attempts to conflate it, without any evidence, with progressive causes such as opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, is frankly despicable. One of the dangers of doing so is that it trivialises actual hostility to Jews, focusing as it does instead on criticism of Israel, and seeking to demonise campaigners by setting out to raise alarm among Jewish communities.

Antony Rawlinson

Regarding the response in the 25 April edition to Ol Rappaport’s previous letter: would Friends try to correct with the same force a member of any other minority group? To explain at such length that they were mistaken to perceive prejudice against them?

We know that on 14 January 2025, three Youth Demand (YD)protestors were arrested outside Broadcasting House. They were there in support of Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC), who marched on the following Saturday, the 18th. The YD protestors seem to have been in breach of a notice intended in part to keep protestors away from the Central Synagogue and the BBC on the 18th. The march went ahead and there were many arrests there, dozens – including arrests for suspected support for terrorist organisations and for placards bearing material critical of Israel which crossed the line into antisemitism. 

However much some Friends may agree with the motives, or the practices, of YD, and perhaps the PSC which they acted to support, are Friends really sure that the right response, the Friendly response, to a Jewish Friend having concerns about those organisations, is to lecture him about how wrong he is?

Keith Braithwaite

Down to Earth

Thank you Paul Hodgkin for your uplifting, inspiring, positive, hopeful and encouraging article (‘Down to earth’, 25 April).

l am an artist, gardener and dedicated organic allotment holder. Some years ago I decided it was time I ‘came out’ as a Quaker on my professional CV and added part of the quote from Advices & queries 42: ‘We do not own the world, and its riches are not ours to dispose of at will’. It goes on, ‘Show a loving consideration for all creatures, and seek to maintain the beauty and variety of the world. Work to ensure that our increasing power over nature is used responsibly, with reverence for life. Rejoice in the splendour of God’s continuing creation.’ Hallelujah!

Caroline Coode

Reading of Paul Hodgkin’s moment of Copernican significance, the realisation came to me that our lives are our opportunity joyously to give and give and give again from a life lived in a spirit of eternal thankfulness.

Chris Hall

One of the central sayings of Quakers is the call to acknowledge that of god in all, which has been a smug stance for me for decades. Very slowly that stance has moved to accepting, against great internal resistance, that god is present in all that has been created.

Very reluctantly I came to acknowledge that, if god loves every human being, then god loves unconditionally, the victims, the bystanders and the perpetrators.

The notion that I am ‘part of creation’ set me outside creation, a bystander, an onlooker.

Paul Hodgkin’s article more accurately describes a recent understanding that I am an integral component, for a short period, of all that has been created.

The pain, for and of other human beings and of the Earth, is ever present but not restricting: from that place comes action – never enough but what I can do.

Thank you, Paul, for expressing what is on my heart and soul.

Margaret Calvert

Pop: the questions

I have not replied to the two letters from Roger Plenty (most recently, ‘Pop: the question’, 2 May) because he and Quaker Concern Over Population, which he supports, take no account of forecasts that there will be a very different scenario by 2050. By then, according to the Lancet website, over three-quarters of the world’s nations will not have fertility rates to sustain their population. There is so much evidence to back this up that Quaker Concern Over Population is not a group I can support.

I suggest Friends can best care for our planet and all its people by supporting bodies which focus on the ongoing climate and nature crisis and work for a healthier future for all.

Peter Varney

Roger Plenty’s question seems to imply a particular answer. To answer it honestly and intelligently requires much more expertise in various sciences than most of us possess and I suspect many of us are taking the line of ‘where angels fear to tread’. 

Of course, nature has its own mechanisms for balancing populations and resources but to allow it to operate unfettered would mean cancelling charities such as Water Aid, Médecins sans Frontières, Practical Action, Save The Children, etc. And obviously we aren’t going to advocate that. One could argue that, human nature being what it is, wars are also a natural population control. 

I believe there are various family planning initiatives in operation but I don’t know the scale of their effect. There is also the fact that research is active in developing new resources of nutrition, such as from seaweed and from lab-grown plant-based foods. 

Much industrially-produced food is doing a sterling job in curtailing the length of human lives in so-called developed countries. If one considers only the population of the UK somewhat simplistically, there are two causes for growth: first, the unusually large number of people surviving into extreme old age (a tribute to wartime childhood care and modern medicine) and our generosity in welcoming refugees arriving in desperation, some admittedly uninvited. Since it is forecast for younger generations not to live as long, plus the declining birth rate both here and in most European countries, and declining male fertility, this will automatically reduce the population as all we oldies quit the scene. Clearly, this is an extremely complex question with no easy answer.

Dorothy Woolley

Perhaps, instead of asking the same question repeatedly, and then complaining when no one replies, Roger Plenty should spend some time reflecting on the idea that: ‘No response, is a response.’

Jan Lethbridge 

Burial places

Further to Andrew Backhouse’s article about burial grounds on 18 April, Bunhill Fields Meeting maintains Quaker Gardens, the burial place of George Fox and about 20,000 Quakers (in partnership with Islington Borough Council, but we are the main gardeners). We aim to make the garden biodiverse and nature-friendly. Local people still sometimes scatter the ashes of their loved ones in Quaker Gardens.

Many and diverse people have over the years enjoyed Quaker Gardens. Children are particularly busy in the garden. 

When we tend the garden we talk to pilgrims and visitors and it is always interesting to hear what they say, and about their connection with the burial ground. People say that they enjoy its sense of peace, biodiversity, wildness, and the variety of plants.

Brigid Philip