White poppies

posted by kathy

If you feel uneasy about red poppies and would like to wear a white poppy instead, I have some which I ordered from the Peace Pledge Union. I'll try to remember to bring them to Meeting next Sunday, or you can ask me beforehand, if you would like. (Martin also has a couple in case of requests.)

The Peace Pledge Union offers a range of resources which can be ordered through their site. These include a history of conscientious objection in World War I which is recommended by Martin. Apparently First World War conscientious objectors lost the right to vote until 1926. I hadn't known that.

Here are a couple of useful on-line links:

The chapter on peace in Quaker Faith and Practice.

Quaker activities at Faslane.

Details of the Quaker-supported Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases at Menwith Hill.

Information and ideas on campaigning from Campaign Against Arms Trade, in which many Quakers and others are involved.

A useful article I found on the BBC website (from an interfaith group in West Wiltshire. This includes a particularly challenging sentence from John Woolman:

“May we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.”

It's a helpful reminder that wearing a white poppy may not be enough.

Butlin's for Quakers

posted by kathy

I've just realised that Summer Gathering is a sort of Quaker Butlin's. Not the new Butlin's, where people do their own thing, but the old-style Butlin's, complete with organised activities, plenty for children and a full-time entertainments team. Summer Gathering has its own redcoats, though there are differences. For a start, they don't wear red coats but blue scarves - unless they're working with the children, in which case the scarves are orange. Quite often the Summer Gathering entertainments team will suggest a period of silence. So far as I know, Butlin's never provided that. Butlin's redcoats are employees. Ours, known as the "core team", are hard-working volunteers.

There aren't quite wall-to-wall entertainments and activities but sometimes it feels like that, especially when there's a hilly campus to cross. The marquee hosts events which range from Meeting for Worship to the end of Gathering ceilidh. There's community singing, talks and an evening when Quaker groups can lay out their wares and talk about their activities.

We also have small base groups, although I've mostly given mine a miss. I got into the swing of Summer Gathering too late. Events meant that I had to bring some work with me and that ate into my time. I didn't get much chance for informal chats either, which was a shame. Still, the talks I've attended have been good, even if I found myself too tired for the final Meeting for Worship. (Well, I expect there'll be an epilogue after the ceilidh.)

I did get to the Leaveners' production of George and the Chocolate Factory, after a Friend in my flat got a ticket for me. And I decided I ought to go to some of the activity sessions. After playing safe by choosing poetry, I decided to "live adventurously" by trying art and handbell ringing. These may not be activities I'll try again, but I found them absorbing and am glad to have had a go.

There's a Quaker bookstall and a fair trade stall in one of the university buildings. I spent a lot of time wandering round but didn't buy anything. I would have done, but fairtrade orange juice ran out on day 2. And there are all kinds of events in seminar rooms and lecture theatres. For the duration of Gathering, rooms were renames after fruits or vegetables, according to which building they were in. This caused a great deal of confusion. "But tomatoes aren't vegetables - they're fruit," people complained until the daily bulletin issued a firm announcement that, for the duration of the Gathering, tomatoes were defined as veg. Meanwhile a group of dissidents stood round grumbling that bananas weren't fruit or vegetables but, properly speaking, herbs. Fortunately the "bananas are herbs" lobby didn't go quite so far as to demand a new building.

As it all comes to an end, I realise I've missed most of it. I wish I'd gone to Faslane (Butlin's holiday camps don't offer jolly holiday protests) or to see New Lanark on the excursions day, but I didn't book, thinking there might be a chance when I got here. In the end I was just too tired.

Most people look tired by now, though children are bounding with energy. Teenagers struggle to stay awake from breakfast till after midnight, making the most of time with one another. Friendship bracelets are everywhere and much music is made. Activity holidays are hard work. I didn't have much energy when I arrived. Still, the campus is lovely, I've met some old friends (too briefly) and heard words that will stay with me for a long time. Nor shall I forget the kindness of the university staff, which went far beyond their terms of employment. I think that is enough.

Ordinary people

posted by kathy There's a myth that Quakers are extraordinary people.

I'm coming to think that they are actually very ordinary - but some do extraordinary things.

The young man and woman giving the George Gorman lecture (regularly given by young Friends) described a life that was in many respects ordinary. He works for a charity. She teaches in a primary school. These are useful jobs but not unusual. Yet within the space of three weeks he had been deported from two countries, Israel and Russia. Presumably they were suspicious of this young English Quaker because the charity he works for is Islamic Relief. He was aware that his experience was not exceptional - he met others being detained in the Moscow holding cell - and that he was in some ways lucky. People knew where he was and would check on his safety.

An older woman spoke yesterday about her experiences as a volunteer in a Palestinian village. She was there for three months. Her job involved recording what happened as the village farmers, who were Muslim, attempted to reach their fields and olive groves beyond the Separation Wall. They would be stopped at checkpoints and many would be turned away. 75% of their lands are beyond the Separation Wall. Her work also entailed being prepared to defuse conflict non-violently if that seemed necessary. What she had done took courage - but she looked like any woman you might meet in the post office or supermarket queue.

These were not exceptional people but people who took an exceptional path. They tried to see the humanity of immigration officials, prison guards and young Israeli soldiers (just out of school, we were told, and scared of the "terrorist" olive famers). They looked for and found humanity and courage elsewhere - as in the Israeli peace activists who came to harvest the olives for the Palestinian farmers denied access to their groves and livelihood.

We heard too of surprising encounters. Arrested demonstrators at Faslane sat in a police van, glad to be out of the rain. They discussed their plans for the evening. One wanted to see the Michael Moore film Farenheit 911. Another, who had seen the film, was about to embark on an account when the policeman guarding them intervened. "Don't talk about that here," he said. "You'll spoil it for me. I'm going to see it tonight."

None of the Quakers was arrested at Wednesday's Meeting for Worship at Faslane, although some Japanese protestors were taken into custody for their protest. Two coachloads of Quakers - old and young - went to take part in that Meeting. I heard about it from a young Friend who found it a special occasion. That's what she chose to do as her excursion on the free day for fun.

If I'm right - if these are ordinary people who manage to do extraordinary things - that raises a question for me too. I'm asked not only "What canst thou say?" but "What canst thou do?"