Refugee Week

posted by kathy


It's Refugee Week again and I'm late in posting links and details.

The Refugee Week website gives plenty of information with details of events nationwide. There's a special Simple Acts campaign this year. We're asked to do just one simple thing to change the way in which refugees are perceived in Britain. You might cook a meal from a different country, tell or read a story about refugees, get to know local asylum-seekers or join a campaign.

As my contribution, I'm going to mention three familiar stories about people in exile who rely on the kindness and hospitality of others.




My first choice is the story of Odysseus. When the Trojan war is over, he spends years trying to get home. The Odyssey praises the people who show kindness to strangers and treat them generously as guests. The picture shows the princess Nausicaa, who finds Odysseus exhausted and naked on the shore. She invites him to the palace for food, drink and rest.





My second choice of story is Sleeping Beauty. Beauty is an exile in fear of her life, who receives hospitality in exchange for housework.






My final selection is the story of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, fleeing persecution by leaving home and spending a time in Egypt - a country with different customs, religion and language.




All these stories agree that hospitality to those in need is important. Kindness to vulnerable and needy strangers is a theme of many old stories. They often suggest that such hospitality is a sign of a good society.



There are plenty of events near Beeston - you will find details below. Jonathan asked me to draw attention to the City of Sanctuary meeting (tomorrow!) and the whole City of Sanctuary movement.



TUESDAY 16TH JUNE
Learn how to DJ workshops (FREE)
… and make tunes using technology and cutting edge software. All levels welcome
Venue: SEND Project Studio, Greenway Centre, Trent Lane, Sneinton NG2 4DF Time: 3-6pm (8-14 yrs olds); 7-10pm (14-19 yrs olds) Email: beats@sendproject.com

Capoeira Angola Special Beginners Dance Sessions (FREE)
Venue: New Art Exchange, Hyson Green Time: 7:30 - 9:30pm Contact: Just turn up. (Wear comfortable clothing and light shoes)

Taxi to the Dark Side
US 2007. Dir Alex Gibney. 106min. Certificate 15
This Oscar-winning film is a gripping investigation into the use of torture by the US military as part of its ‘war on terror’. A documentary murder mystery, the film examines the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram Air Base, exposing a worldwide policy of detention that condones torture and ignores human rights.
Venue: Broadway, Broad Street, Hockley NG1 3AL

Quiz Night – Who wants to be a Zimbabwean Billionaire?
Pub Quiz on the Citizen Test
Organised by Nottingham Zimbabwean Community Network
Venue: Lincolnshire Poacher, 161 Mansfield Road NG1 3FR Time: 7.30pm


WEDNESDAY 17TH JUNE
City of Sanctuary Open Day (FREE)
Speaker: Craig Barnett (The National Organiser) What is the City of Sanctuary movement?
Hear the stories of people seeking sanctuary in Nottingham. How can we, as the host community, help? Get involved as a City of Sanctuary volunteer. Vegetarian food provided
Venue: St Stephens Church, Bobbers Mill Road, Hyson Green Time: 11am – 1pm

Jupiter's Dance (FREE FILM)
Producers: Renaud Barret and Florent de La Tullaye DONATION FOR FOOD
A documentary film set in the ghettos of Kinshasa in the 1970s where street children, beggars, prostitutes and disabled victims of polio, strive to find their daily bread in an urban jungle that has plummeted into poverty and violence. The film shows how music is allowing these disenfranchised Congolese to stand up and be counted. Jupiter’s Dance should be obligatory viewing for all lovers of African music, as well as those who want to admire the defiance of the human spirit in this beleaguered nation.
Venue: SUMAC Centre, 245 Gladstone Street, Forest Fields Time: 7pm vegan food – 7.45pm film
Tickets: Admission free – donation for food. All proceeds to NNRF Tuesday Project For more information: www.smallworldcinema.wordpress.com


La Forteresse (The Fortress) - UK premiere
Switzerland 2008. Dir Fernand Melgar. 104min.
For the first time, a camera looks into the hidden world of a Swiss reception centre for asylum seekers. Awarding it the Golden Leopard, the Locarno festival jury cited ‘a remarkably sensitive film exhibiting profound human intelligence.’ www.laforteresse.ch
Venue: Broadway, Broad Street, Hockley NG1 3AL Time: 8.15pm


THURSDAY 18TH JUNE
Refugee Rights FREE
What are they? How are they under attack? How can they be protected?
Speakers:
Alice Edwards, Lecturer in Refugee & Human Rights Laws, University of Nottingham
Vincent Fox, Solicitor, First Call Immigration Services, Nottingham
Venue: Refugee Forum, The Square Centre, Alfred Street North NG3 1AA Time: 7.30pm followed by Q&A


FRIDAY 19TH JUNE
Rainbow Project Fundraising Dinner
Delicious African and Asian Food served with Caribbean Punch. All funds to support people seeking Asylum and Refuge
Venue: The Vine Community Centre, Bobbers Mill Road, Hyson Green Time: Arrive at 7pm – Eat at 7.30pm
Tickets: £10 / Asylum seekers & refugees free / unwaged & senior citizens (donate if able) Contact: dskerritt@southwell.anglican.org

Cabaret Sorbet
Cabaret Sorbet is an audio-visual live performance night incorporating an eclectic mix of music, dance, illustration, sculpture, spoken word, body art, film projections, and theatre. This month’s event has contributions from international artists / artists in exile.
Venue: The Art Organisation, Station Street Time: 8pm – 12 midnight Ticket: £2 / £3 on the door (bring your own booze)
Contact: Via myspace or facebook by typing Cabaret Sorbet, or email: cabaret-sorbet@live.co.uk


SATURDAY 20TH JUNE
Family Fun Day
An afternoon of puppet-making, storytelling, dance and art workshops for all the family. FREE and open to all.
Venue: 1st Floor, Central Library, Angel Row Time: 12.30 – 3.30pm Contact: Juliet / juliet.line@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Doctor Who, Action Men and video games

posted by kathy

Like many people in Britain, I watched the Doctor Who Easter special.

I've been watching Doctor Who, on and off, since the first episode. I'm a fan.

I've often been impressed by the way in which science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy and graphic novels consider possibilities for society and ethical dilemmas. It's hard to avoid doing this when creating other species, worlds, super-powers, futures, etc.

One of the themes of the revived Doctor Who, for instance, has been the Doctor's relationship with the daleks, who have destroyed his home planet and all the people on it. The conventions of the series demand that he fight the Doctor, but episodes have raised the question of whether, in doing so, he becomes the same kind of inhuman killing machine as them. Non-violent resistance is never raised as a possibility but the series does assume that it's possible to make friends with aliens (the Doctor is an alien himself) and to find the good in individuals and species.

The Easter episode was a disappointment. I had high hopes of what would happen when a London bus was whisked through space to a distant galaxy. But the characters were rather obvious and the most threatening aliens looked disconcertingly like skate. The whole thing ended with a mixture of shoot-up and hair's breadth escape but I didn't feel much anxiety about the outcome. The Doctor and bus passengers had to re-start the bus and make it fly again. Meanwhile on earth the police and army massed with the usual fairly-ineffective-against-aliens weapons. There was brief consideration of an ethical dilemma, when the army commander suggested closing the fabric of space, which would kill the Doctor and bus passengers, so that the rest of humanity would be saved. Somehow I knew the Doctor would make it.

But the closing minutes did worry me - and not because a few of the skate-aliens swam-flew the fabric of time and to be shot by women and men with guns..

Among the bus passengers whisked through space were two lads who did their best to help, engaging in such necessary activities as shovelling sand and tinkering with the engine. They were presented as typical teenagers without many plans for their present, let alone their future - but they were moderately engaging characters. The Doctor - usually the voice of moral authority in the series - recommended them to the army commander as useful recruits, suggesting that a stint in the army was all they needed to sort them out. And that bit of army propaganda in a children's TV programme was too much for me.

As job opportunities plummet, there's a huge increase in the activity of the recruitment and public relations branches of the armed services. New advertisements urge young people to "Start thinking soldier" by playing online video games which offer a limited number of choices. The videos say they are "intended purely for users aged 16 and over." That warning is probably a huge draw for a number of under-16s, who may be attracted from the army recruitment site's Teen Zone, where 13-16 year-olds are encouraged to play other computer games by joining Camouflage and getting access to "piles of free stuff".

But promoting the army start with younger children. My son was about seven when he first asked for an Action Man toy. We were both unhappy with the military theme but there's a shortage of male dolls for boys. I compromised with Action Men engaged in non-violent activities: driving a moon buggy for instance and scuba-diving. They seemed to increase the scope for imaginative play.

Since then, Action Man has fallen out of favour in Britain so that the toy is no longer marketed in Britain. The Ministry of Defence (public relations division) has seen a gap in the market. They are sponsoring dolls under the "HM Armed Forces" brand which will be dressed for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan with suitably scaled-down replica equipment.

The Ministry of Defence assures us that these aren't a recruiting toy but a matter of "public relations" - and that's quite a different thing.

So presumably the dolls - and the TV campaign and the video games and the Camlouflage website - aren't supposed to persuade under-16s that they should join the army. They are just supposed to convince children that, whatever their parents think, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a good thing and lots of fun. I don't suppose the Ministry of Defence is encouraging the production of toy blood and wounds and wheelchairs, let alone any games that involve post-traumatic stress or dead and wounded civilians.

I don't feel happy at the idea of children playing games that involve killing Iraqis and Afghans. I loathe these toys. And it worries me that, as the army recruitment and public relations machine reaches out to young children, Doctor Who has also been conscripted to tell us that slightly under-achieving teenagers would blossom and fulfil their potential in the army. He didn't mention that they would be trained to kill or that they might end up injured or dead.

I suppose it's a coinicidence that Character Group plc, which is developing the new army action figures in association with the Ministry of Defence, also markets and distributes Doctor Who action figures.

Watford Friends Sharing

by Rhiannon

Just a quick post to alert you to an interesting Quaker project (I'm not supposed to call it a blog, although it runs on blog technology): Watford Friends Sharing. Watford Meeting's Outreach Committee are aiming to post a piece of poetry, writing, or art every First Day, on their newly redecorated website. (The art currently takes the form of the selection of large photographs at the top of every page; at least one of those photos is mine, so you should click onto some other pages to see the rest.)


My excuse for posting about this is that yesterday they posted a poem of mine, Quaker Cake. It was written in Edinburgh in 2007, but reflects my experience of Quaker Meetings up and down the UK: I think Edinburgh is the furthest north I've ever been to Meeting and Come-to-Good the furthest south, but Watford, Beeston, Holyhead, Exmouth, and others have all been important to me, and were in my mind as I wrote.


Some might read the poem as gently mocking. I'd like to assure readers that it is done with great fondness.

The battle of the buses

posted by kathy

The atheist bus campaign has come to an end for now. I've found it rather cheering. Theological debate on buses seems a worthy successor to the wonderful poems on the underground. Since the atheist buses launched, there have been Christian buses (in at least three varieties as well as a brilliant suggestion for a Buddhist bus. I briefly wondered about a Quaker bus and started to think of suitable slogans. But all I could come up with was the famous George Fox quotation urging Quakers to "walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one." I'm not sure the bus companies would like the bit about walking - it might interfere with their revenues.

I was forced to question my enjoyment of the bus campaigns when I read of the driver who refused to drive a bus with an atheist poster on the side. This wouldn't be the kind of poster that worried me. But for one driver this was a matter of conscience so serious that he was prepared to risk his job.

Are there posters that would cause Quakers similar concern? How about a bus which carried an advertisement urging young people to join the army? Would a Quaker bus driver have problems with that or would the driver decide that it was more important to get passengers to their destinations?

Are there any Quaker bus drivers?




(photo by Jon Worth, British Humanist Association)

What can we do about Gaza?

posted by kathy

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the first subject mentioned after Meeting was Gaza. We've been following events separately and wondering if there's anything we can do at this distance. It didn't seem that, individually, we could achieve much.

As pacifists, we have a responsibility to act as best we can. Pacifism isn't a matter of sitting at home and saying "Oh dear." Pacifists are obliged to act for change. John Woolman, the 18th century American Quaker, urged us to look for the "seeds of war" in our possession and daily life. He also set us the example of acting to bring about change for justice. John Woolman was one of the people responsible for Quakers' opposition to slavery as a body. But he didn't see the end of slavery in his lifetime.

Thinking about Gaza, we decided to use this blog to share knowledge and ideas in the hope that it would help. There's considerable ignorance about the Middle East. Even our Member of Parliament, writing for his constituents and the Guardian newspaper, wasn't aware that Hamas had won the majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority elections in January 2006, nor that the response of the West to this victory was to freeze humanitarian aid. Many people are unaware of the effects of Israel's blockade of Gaza. This imprisons the residents in a tiny area. Those who wish to leave have been forbidden. Students were for a long time denied visas to take up scholarships abroad. Attempts were made to stop Gazans from representing Palestine in the Olympics. People needing medical treatment outside Gaza were prevented from leaving.A year ago, UNICEF reported their serious concern for the safety and well-being of children in Gaza.

We can't undo the events of past years but any attempt to improve the situation must take them into account, both factually and by considering the effect these have on all the individuals involved. We need to know what's happening now as well. The local blogger and poet Litterbug posted a helpful link to the Oxfam site which includes reports from an Oxfam worker in Gaza city. (To look at reports as they arrive, go to the Latest from Oxfam page and check regularly - or follow Oxfam on Twitter for more general news.)

This post isn't an exhaustive list of information - I'm asking Beeston Quakers and others to contribute ideas and, in particular, knowledge, by posting comments. Please add what you can.


If you are relatively new to blogs and/or the internet, it may be helpful to know that the text in green is "hotlinked" to the relevant pages or sites. You can post a comment by clicking on the word "comments" at the foot of this post and then following the instructions.

Battery Recycling

As a result of an enquiry to Broxtowe Borough Council from Beeston Quaker Meeting, the council are investigating various options, but one in particular we feel is insufficiently well-known: several battery producers have freepost addresses to which you can send dead batteries for recycling.

They are:

Duracell Customer Service, FREEPOST OF1503, Aylesford Road, Thame, Oxfordshire, OL9 3LJ

Energizer and Eveready, Recycling Division, FREEPOST LOL2311, Dunstable, Bedfordshire, LU5 4YY

Varta Limited, FREEPOST BS7487, Crewkerne, Somerset, TA18 7BR


Happy recycling!

Nottingham Quaker Quest

posted by Rhiannon

My apologies being a little late posting these dates.

Dates for Nottingham Quaker Quest (at the Friends Meeting House, directions here) are as follows:

15.10.08 Quakers & Worship

22.10.08 Quakers & Faith in Action

5.11.08 Quakers & God

12.11.08 Quakers & Peace

19.11.08 Quakers & Christianity

26.11.08 Quakers & Equality

On a lighter note, you may like to know that International Talk Like A Quaker day is coming soon.