Letters - 21 June 2024

The futility of war

The futility of war is once again becoming plain to see. The waste of human lives and natural resources on armed conflict between two neighbours in Europe is in many ways completely illegal and the fighting must stop.

The effect of the conflict reaches far beyond the battlefields on the ground with many Ukrainian towns and cities suffering missile attacks on a regular basis. The defenders have a right to defend but the aggressor had no right to attack. A political system made rigid by lockdown and grown heavy with militarisation, provoked by terrorism and threatened by a much larger expansion far to the south. An overspill, an accident of protocol.

Then a refusal to give in, a calm, concerted even considerate effort to politely repel, maintained now for over two years, with success. The aggressor is stuck in his own accident of fate, in his own racist diatribe and introverted conceit. The conflict is costing too much money, too many lives. It’s just a question of when the words can be eaten, the face saved and removed from so many channels.

The old industry will be gone along with the hopelessly bad housing and the zero sum outlook. Some will return to rebuild but it will be different. Circular communities with green spaces, arts centres and workshops, carbon neutral industries, clean public transport and safe employment for all. This is possible but first the fighting must stop.

Martin May

Israel-Palestine conflict

How to resolve the seemingly intractable conflict between Israel and Palestinians?

So many dead. So much destruction. So much trauma, past present and future.

For every Israeli child orphaned, a Palestinian family should raise that child as a Jew with all their traditions.

For every Palestinian child orphaned, a Jewish family should raise that child as a Palestinian with all their traditions.

Then perhaps there will be peace.

Gerard Bane

Blended Meetings

Uneasiness has recently been expressed in the Friend about the use of electronic attendance at Meeting for Worship. Perhaps our experience at Newark Meeting might help to clarify the situation. 

We are a fairly small Meeting, less than thirty in total. Sunday Meeting usually consists of an average of about twelve physically-present participants and up to seven on Zoom. The latter comprise those whose age and/or infirmity make physical attendance very difficult and those who live up to sixteen miles away, even two in Spain.

I have consulted with both groups and the united opinion has been that it is a very successful arrangement, mainly because of the numbers involved. We don’t know what the optimum number might be but beyond it we don’t think a gathered silence would be possible.

Contributory factors are that the technical equipment is unobtrusive, merely a computer screen on a tiny table in a corner and a microphone attached to a central ceiling beam. We are blessed in having a Friend who is a professional sound engineer, though it took a while to get the system working satisfactorily.

Also it gives the opportunity for the Zoomers to have sympathetic conversations after Meeting, perhaps not always so possible in the enthusiastic babble in the Meeting house.

For the Zoomers it is a valued benefit. The apparent division is less extreme than it looks, as some are able to attend midweek Meeting for Worship at a later time of day, and informal visits are made between times to keep in touch physically.

Dorothy Woolley

What do you think?

The Friend (7 June) reported on the Meeting for Sufferings discernment about the re-recognition of Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP). Clarity of thinking about the objectives of QCOP and the word ‘population’ is needed. A lot of assumptions appear to be being made about the word ‘population’. 

For those interested in asking questions about population please note that on 6 July there will be a Britain Yearly Meeting special interest group exploring the relationship between international development and population.

On Saturday 27 July there will be a QCOP stall at the groups fair at Yearly Meeting. Come and ask questions and then make up your own mind about Quakers considering population issues.

Martin Schweiger
QCOP convenor

Residential Yearly Meeting

I didn’t know that there are no plans for residential Yearly Meetings. I’ve never been to one but have heard so much that is positive from fellow Friends.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the announcement of one. Elizabeth Coleman (31 May) talks of coming back being inspired and renewed. I’d love to be part of that. I remember feeling that way returning from trips to Woodbrooke.

I have attended Yearly Meetings online twice but have found them quite dry and even alienating at times. I want to make new Friends and see old Friends. I’d certainly want to come to something that was ‘the biggest ever Quaker gathering’.

Deepa Parry-Gupta

Meetings and the future

I have been following with interest the letters concerning the future of both Meeting for Sufferings and Area Meetings.

I became an attender around sixty years ago after I married my wife, whose parents and grandparents were Quakers, and taught me about Friends.

An important thing that I learnt about the organisation of the Society of Friends was that it was, and still is, a ‘bottom-up’ organisation unlike most churches led for example by archbishops, popes, or primuses.

Ordinary members of Local Meetings are appointed to Area Meeting, which in turn appoints members to Meeting for Sufferings, and other committees to run the Society.

Local Meetings’ concerns had direct access to Area Meeting which decides whether to support the concern and pass it on to Meeting for Suffering or other central committees for further discernment or action as needed.

Charity regulations then interfered with this procedure and trustees had to be appointed to manage the ‘secular’ aspects of the charity – for example accounting, legal compliance, and safety.

Trustee bodies were set up, in my opinion, which I raised at the time, mistakenly, for each Area Meeting.

Now proposals are in place for large-scale amalgamations of the trustee function but not, I hope, for the spiritual and governance functions which need to remain with Area Meetings as they are now.

I understand that the future of Meeting for Sufferings is also up for discernment.

I believe that, if we proceed with the proposed large-scale amalgamations of Area Meeting trustees and potential loss of Meeting for Sufferings and Area Meetings, we are at risk of turning the Society from a ‘bottom-up’ organisation to a ‘top-down’ one with the equivalent of a chair, board, and a chief executive instead of a recording clerk as we have now.

Are members being kept sufficiently aware of the consequences of these proposed changes?

Robert Campbell

Merging Sufferings with YM

I would like to thank Anthony Wilson for his letter in the Friend on 26 April regarding Yearly Meeting (YM), trustees and Meeting for Sufferings.

Ever since I heard about the proposal for merging YM and Meeting for Sufferings I have been sceptical that this is the right way forward. Anthony’s letter gives a very clear reason to be sceptical.

Later in the same Friend Carolyn Sansom and Ann Kerr have given some history to how the proposal came about but give no detail. That is to be given in online YM sessions in July which I hope to attend.

They speak about making the process more representative. Well, actually I think the opposite more likely to be true.

Donald Stubbings