Nuclear dialogue initiative builds openness

“To rely on the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent is faithless; to use them is a sin.”

Meeting for Sufferings, 1955

As Quakers we are united in our opposition to nuclear weapons, and for many of us, our Quakerism moves us to action to try get rid of these genocidal abominations. However, many people are working to end the era of nuclear weapons, and the question arises: “What action can we take that Quakers, because of our beliefs, values or ways of working somehow add value to, that others campaigning against nuclear weapons could not do as well as we could?”

The Dialogue for a Nuclear Weapon-Free World is a project that combines the Quaker strengths of openness and listening, and the expertise in the field of disarmament of BASIC (British American Security Information Council), who have been working with Quaker Peace & Social Witness for the past year on this project.

The idea is for individual Friends to build up a relationship with one key decision-maker, who may be a government minister, an interested MP, a senior civil servant, a political party’s advisor on nuclear disarmament, or even a general. They may not normally get correspondence from the public, or may get a lot of letters pressing them to do this or that, but never listening to their responses. We hope by building this relationship we can open up a space for dialogue about disarmament, in contrast to lobbying rather aggressively, and push for an end to all nuclear weapons.

John Asher, who has been participating in the dialogue initiative, described his experience:

“I found [the dialogue initiative] extremely challenging: you have to really try to understand the person with whom you are communicating and it is very heartening when you do get a response which is positive. It seems so many politicians’ hearts are in nuclear disarmament and the more support they can have the better.”

We are looking to relaunch the dialogue initiative with mostly new decision-makers, as many of them changed after the election. For this we need some new Friends to participate. It takes a bit of persistence and patience to build up a relationship with a decision-maker, but we will support you by answering questions, sending you regular briefings, and letting you know the background of the decision-maker to whom you are assigned.

If you are interested in taking part in the dialogue initiative and would like to register to be allocated a decision-maker, or if you would simply like more information, please get in touch.

Contact:

Sam Walton
disarm@quaker.org.uk
020 7663 1067