Stonehenge
The letter from our Friend in Tasmania (12 July), for me, put a new spin on the subject of someone throwing orange cornstarch at the stones. The first of course is whose heritage these stones represent and how loosely we approach ownership and belonging in a multicultural society that still bears the taint of ‘imperialist’ and ‘colonial’.
Are we so distant from Stonehenge that we have no emotional attachment? What would I feel if something more local and ancient were targeted? Callandish, Skara Brae, the graves at Culloden? A local cenotaph? Where does respect start and end?
The second, and possibly more important to Quakers, the first I knew of this event was a newspaper calling the man a Quaker. We are a passionate people but… our Tasmanian Friend is quite correct in asking if the action was undertaken with the blessing of the individual’s Area Meeting. To be called a Quaker action, this is the least we should expect. We seem to have forgotten the process of testing our leadings. What makes us a community? The editorial seemed to skip this radical change in our proceedings. It matters less that the man was a member or attender than that his action was taken to represent a Quaker action. I am deeply ashamed and offended that this man was called a Quaker. If he were a member of the Church of Scotland or England, would this have been mentioned? And what does it mean that he was called out as a Quaker?
Margaret Roy
