Think Peace - Part 6
Practising Peace
The last of six articles exploring the meaning of peace.
What will we lean on when the music is gone?
... the song will be Truth, Peace, Freedom and JusticeTerry Callier, When the Music Is Gone
This series of articles has considered aspects of peace, as shalom, in terms of integrity in relationships at every level - individuals, communities and nations.[footnote 1] This final article suggests some practical possibilities for a commitment to peace: as everyday celebration, creativity and thoughtfulness; as authenticity in relationships; as participation in a social conversation about how we might best live; as refusal to live within a lie; as resistance to violence and oppression; and as prophecy.
Creating
As a way of 'choosing life', a peace commitment reflects the conviction that the integrity and abundance of life matter. It can begin with a fundamental affirmation of being alive, a celebration of the profusion and integrity of life, and a desire to participate abundantly in it. In this respect, thoughtfulness, creativity and friendship are as integral to peace as political action for social change. Peace is present in the meeting of friends, sharing a meal, reading a book. In this way, a commitment to peace, as shalom (being the wholeness and integrity of life) is more than a moral obligation - an 'ought'. It is a form of creativity in, and with, the whole of life.
In this respect, a commitment to peace belongs among the most profound expressions of our humanity, through which we become fully alive, fully human beings. If this understanding of peace is framed within a faith perspective, in which shalom is God's will for the world, then every time we meet with friends, cook a meal or read a book, we may be doing something that God wants us to do. The first practical imperative of peace might therefore be, 'Live well!'
This is not to say, 'Live comfortably!' From a faith perspective, a commitment to peace is a form of solidarity with ourselves, with others, with the wider body of life to which we belong, and with the power that makes life possible, which we call God. Jesus' life and ministry can be understood as a form of solidarity with us, for example. But to be in solidarity with life is necessarily to be in partial yet profound conflict with the way the world is, insofar as it is marked by fragmentation, oppression, violence, falsehood, apathy and injustice. By definition, solidarity with involves resistance to, so to stand with life is also to resist what inhibits or violates it. Peace therefore involves a tension between affirming the world and being in conflict with it. It can be an uncomfortable commitment to hold, not least because it requires a reorientation of how we live as individuals and as society.
This reorientation first needs to find expression in the way we organise our own lives. It involves striving to reflect, in the way we live, our political concerns about the environment, economic justice, and nonviolence. Peace is present, or absent, in the ways we earn and spend money, how we consume, how effectively we realise our responsibility of ecological stewardship, and also how creatively we spend our time. Similarly in business, peace is a matter of economic, social and environmental stewardship. According to one business manager, a values-based approach signifies 'maturity in business, when you start to think beyond the financial bottom line'. In his case, he began to appreciate the working community and the environment as ends in themselves, to which his business had a responsibility of service. [footnote 2]
In a competition-driven, capitalist system, this application of peace to daily life is demanding - some would say ultimately impossible. The typical British High Street shows that the consumer is presented with options that largely conspire against thoughtful and creative living, while market forces cajole businesses to put profits first or perish. Even so, progressive steps towards lifestyles and businesses that authentically reflect a commitment to shalom are possible and necessary nonetheless. Moreover, they can be powerfully liberating by releasing us, step by step, into the larger freedom of the simple life, thoughtfully and creatively lived.
Relating
As the previous article suggested, peace concerns the quality of relatedness between persons (or communities and nations). Specifically, it involves valuing together, in creative tension with one another, the interests of one's self, those of 'the other' and those of the wider group as a whole. So another challenge of peace, which applies to individuals, communities and nations alike, is to seek this quality of relatedness with others, including with those whom we fear or dislike. We will not always know how best to do this, especially at times of conflict. However, the commitment to peace is made real in first seeking right relationship and in developing skills and attitudes needed for relating to others as authentically and abundantly as we can.
Sometimes, the most authentic relationship with another is found in being in conflict with them. Contrary to the common perception that peace means the quiet life, it often requires a willingness to initiate conflict when appropriate, as well as to respond mindfully to conflict when it comes our way.
The previous article argued that the authentic approach to conflict within the meaning of shalom is grounded in solidarity both with ourselves and with our opponent. This is to be contrasted with imagining success in conflict as the subjugation or oppression of one's opponent. This latter reflects a desire to succeed through enforced domination, for which there is no place within the meaning of peace.
Jesus' advice, 'Love your enemies' is a way of responding to conflict (Matthew 5:44). This is often thought to mean, 'Let your enemy trample you down'. However, this would reflect an attitude of passivity, whereas to love is active engagement, going out to those with whom we are in conflict, being in solidarity with them. The advice is also pragmatic; an attitude that combines solidarity with ourselves and with our opponent can be an effective basis for transforming relationships and challenging injustice.
The theologian Walter Wink has argued powerfully that Jesus' advice to us when faced with oppression concerns how we challenge it, rather than merely endure it. By going the second mile, giving up our cloak and turning the other cheek, we can create dilemmas for our oppressors and expose their unjust practices (Matthew 5:38-41; Luke 6:29).
Under the law of Jesus' time, a Roman soldier could require a civilian to carry their pack for one mile but no further. By going the second mile, the civilian would force the soldier to break the law, putting him unexpectedly in a potentially difficult situation.
'Give your cloak to the man who takes your coat' and you embarrass him with your nakedness and implicate him in it.
A back-handed slap to the face was a typical way for the strong to insult the weak. It was always administered with the right hand, for the left was considered unclean, Wink explains. But turn the other cheek and your right-handed assailant cannot slap again but can only land a full blow, which he would only generally do to a social equal. Thus, turning the other cheek would have actually forced a relationship of either equality or non-violence with an assailant, neither of which he wants. [footnote 3]
Conflict presents some of the most difficult challenges of peace, whether between individuals, communities or nations. As part of a commitment to healthy relationships, there is some room for things to go 'wrong', and it may be that sometimes things need to go awry before they can come right. Through forgiveness and reconciliation, relationships can often be healed, restored and deepened. Authentic relationships require that risk. However, forgiveness and reconciliation are only possible within a commitment to healthy relationships, and even then some wounds may not be healed.
Refusing
In many respects, our culture and social systems encourage us to relate to ourselves, to others or to the world at large in ways that are wantonly harmful yet presented as liberating or redemptive. Consumer culture makes life better or the stranger is our enemy are examples. Oppression, whether of a conscious and deliberate form such as imperialism or a more tacit form such as consumerism, is sustained on a currency of such falsehood.
However, the lie becomes oppressive only if it is passively, unquestioningly accepted as the truth; yet if scrutinised and rejected, it is exposed and undermined. When early Quakers refused to doff their hats to their putative social superiors, they refused to be part of the lie that there is such a thing as social superiority in the eyes of God. With this simple refusal, they undermined the basis of inequality on which the practice was formed.
The first and fourth articles in this series drew on the work of theologian Andrew Shanks to suggest that becoming aware of the falsehoods within which we live makes them more intolerable to us. A desire to live within a deeper, authentic truth can then lead a wholesale reorientation of our lives and society. This begins, Shanks argues, with a refusal to live within a lie, leading to a 'genuinely open-minded thoughtfulness' at odds with the 'unquestioned prejudices of our culture'.[footnote 4]
The fifth article in this series argued that peace, as shalom, affirms mutuality in relationships. A consequence is that there is no place in shalom for domination-centred systems and a peace commitment will involve refusing to contribute to them. The Israeli peace group New Profile, for example, first names and so exposes the lie that it refuses to accept:
We understand that the state of war in Israel is maintained by decisions made by our politicians - not by external forces to which we are passively subject. … [W]e now realise that the words 'national security' have often masked calculated decisions to choose military action for the achievement of political goals.
Then, the group proclaims its refusal to participate in the lie on which the system of domination depends:
We are no longer willing to take part in such choices. … We refuse to go on raising our children to see [military] enlistment as a supreme and overriding value …[footnote 5]
A right to life implies a complementary right to refuse to kill, and so another expression of peace as refusal is conscientious objection to compulsory military service or taxation for military purposes. Camilo Mejia, a soldier in the US Army during war over Iraq in 2003, having reflected on what he saw there including prisoner abuse and the killing of civilians, concluded that the war was illegal and immoral. For Camilo, the war had become a lie in which he would no longer participate. He refused to return to battle and filed an application with the US military for conscientious objector status. The military sentenced him to one year in prison for refusing to fight. Like all conscientious rebellion, Camilo's act was also fundamentally one of affirmation. 'By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being,' he said. [footnote 6]
Throughout the long history of conscientious objection, many thousands have faced worse penalties than Camilo's, including execution. According to the Shot at Dawn campaign, in the First World War the British and Commonwealth Armed Forces carried out 346 military executions of service men and boys who refused to fight - a refusal that some had taken on grounds of conscience. [footnote 7] Although those executed are still considered criminals and a Royal Pardon has so far been withheld, their stand helped to pave the way for the legal recognition of conscientious objection in 1916 and its broader acceptance since. For example, today the Council of Europe legally obligates its membership - some 46 countries - to recognise the right of conscientious objection to military service, although some lag behind.
'Conversing'
Other articles in this series argued that it is much more difficult to take responsibility for our lives in circumstances - cultural, political, material, social - that are debilitating rather than empowering. Therefore, we need not only to make mindful choices about how we live and relate to others, but should also try to work for a society conducive for making those choices.
Within the meaning of peace, as in democracy, decisions about the organisation of society need to be commonly shared and owned, rather than imposed. To this end, a social conversation is required at every level - from the individual to the international - based on the question, How can we best live in relation to one another? The success of this conversation depends not on any one party to it 'being right' but on how vigorously it takes place, and how inclusive and mutual it is.
Quakers have much to offer to that conversation. Testimonies to peace and nonviolence; simplicity and plainness; truth and integrity; and equality and community together provide a basis for contributing to public discourse, as well as for the forms that those contributions take. Even treated as secular values, the testimonies offer a manifesto for a world in which war and oppression could not persist. Essentially, they exhort us to live more simply, with greater integrity, in a way that recognises the radical equality of every person, and with a commitment to living in the flourishing abundance of peace. They are more than secular values, however; they are the culmination of a faith commitment and represent how Quakers have come to understand the divine order for the world. In other words, it is faith that makes the testimonies possible. This, too, is an important message to contribute to a social conversation taking place in a largely secular society.
The social conversation, in the sense described here, is of an existential kind - that is, it concerns how we live in the world. It therefore needs to include but also transcend political debate. The arts, for example, can communicate to us and transform us in ways that political discourse cannot, not least because to understand is more than an act of reason, but also one of the imagination. Moreover, the social conversation is charged by what we do, not just what we think, as the activist Liz Yates argues:
It is important to act as well as communicate a message. Action without communication is cynical. Communication without action is sentimental. [footnote 8]
Similarly, whilst George Fox encouraged early Quakers to 'spare not tongue nor pen' in spreading their message to the world, this was meant to be integral with making our lives a faithful witness of our truth.[footnote 9] He encouraged all to:
…be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people…'[footnote 10]
It can be difficult and demanding to be an effectively positive presence in society but it is not beyond anyone to make a contribution. The discipline is in doing no more and no less than we are able. The most immediate opportunity is provided by everyday relationships, in which we are constantly influencing others and being influenced in turn. Beyond this, opportunities for social and political engagement for positive change are limited only by the imagination.
All the major advances in our own society have depended initially on few determined people taking a lead, usually in the face of scepticism and direct opposition. For example, Quakers have helped, along with others, to establish a wide range of citizens' movements and organisations, such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Shelter and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. [footnote 11] All these have helped to gain public and political recognition for values and policies that had been widely considered to be unrealistic goals beforehand. The first article in this series suggested that initiatives such as these have helped to create a society that is culturally more resistant to violence, war and oppression than it was two centuries ago.
Insisting
It is impossible for society genuinely to choose its future without the social conversation, yet it is often absent where it is most needed. It is hampered by public inertia and deliberately stifled by those who see it as a challenge to their power over others.
An example is the marked lack of a conversation about whether the UK should retain nuclear weapons after the current Trident submarines reach the end of their working life; a decision is due in the current Parliament. Over the last fifteen years, public concern about nuclear weapons has all but dried up in the UK, despite the growing dangers arising from their further proliferation. [footnote 12] To compound this, every major decision that the UK has about nuclear weapons has been in secret, pre-empting the thorough public and parliamentary debate that the issues deserve. [footnote 13] Public apathy and state secrecy seem to be combining once again to enable the Government to evade proper accountability. Many believe that a decision to keep nuclear weapons has already been made for ideological reasons and without a considered assessment of the UK's security needs or how best to meet them. [footnote 14]
The current Government is willing to hold limited but welcome discussions on certain global issues, such as the world trade system and global poverty alleviation. On its own initiative, it has also launched national debates about genetically modified crops and road pricing for consumers. However, it is very difficult to pursue a meaningful debate in any areas of strategic military policy, including such vital issues as 'ballistic missile defence', arms exports, military expenditure and the military and intelligence relationship with the United States. The reason for this is arguably that these issues strike at the heart of how a Government, especially one that once enjoyed an empire, conceives its power in the world - a power to which it clings tenaciously.
Some will object that accusing the Government of curtailing meaningful debate is gratuitous and cynical. However, the Government will often use the law and the political system to create democratic distance between these issues and the people. For example, successive Governments have refused to answer Parliamentary Questions about certain military matters on grounds that this would jeopardise national security, even when this has been manifestly untrue.[footnote15] The Royal Prerogative is another device for bypassing democracy. It is an arcane foible of English law that allows the Government to act on the international stage in ways beyond reach of parliamentary, public and judicial scrutiny. [footnote16] The run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 showed that the privilege of power alone enabled the Government (and many Parliamentarians) to defy dissenting views with relative impunity, even when the majority of the population were well-informed about the issues at stake and clearly opposed waging war under the circumstances of the time.
To hold the privilege of power responsibly requires deep integrity of character reflected not least in good faith and political competence. It is a demanding standard for anyone to meet. When those with power - and we all have a measure of power - do not appear to meet that standard, they should be brought to account. That is, they need not be infallible, but they should be accountable. If they evade accountability - the union-intolerant corporation is an example of this - they become anti-democratic (corrupt) and should be challenged. So whilst those in positions in power are able to serve us, they are also able to suppress and marginalise certain vital expressions of democracy and the social conversation on which it depends. A commitment to peace will involve insisting on opening the social conversation with those refusing to hold it, as Jesus exemplified.
On 28 December 2004 - Holy Innocents Day - six Christians began to convert the lawn of the Ministry of Defence into a cemetery in memory of those killed as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They planted wooden crosses in the ground, dug graves and wrote memorial messages such as 'Remember the Iraqi war dead' and 'Father Forgive Us'. The testimony of one of the activists, Martin Newell, shows that the action was a way of insisting upon a conversation that those in power did not want to have:
I believed that the best way I could try to prevent the high crimes of our government and country in Iraq, was to disturb the consciences of the military and political decision makers in the MoD and Whitehall: to remind them of the death and destruction, the grief and the blood that is still being shed in Iraq. [footnote 17]
Resisting
Peace as refusal is choosing not to participate in violence or the lie that sustains it. It involves a conflict not of our choosing, but to which a commitment to peace prompts a response. Peace as resistance is different; it involves going out to meet the lie and confronting it, so that, with grace, it may be transformed. As such, it is a chosen conflict.
Much direct resistance to war and militarism has arisen as a response to barriers that the Government has erected to evade democratic and legal accountability. The case of the 'Trident Three' is an example. In 1999, three women sought to disable the UK's Trident nuclear weapon system by boarding a barge that contained essential computers and throwing them overboard, which they succeeded in doing. Their ensuing trial effectively put Trident in the dock, which exposed its dubious legal status and led to their acquittal.
Views vary about how best to engage politically when those in positions of power evade the accountability that democracy demands. Many argue that the proper route for change is through our system of Parliamentary Democracy. It is relatively robust, it was hard-won and the claims of conscience felt by a minority are not sufficient to bypass its authority. Others believe that it would be naïve to assume that the establishment has the good faith, competence and democratic credentials that peace and justice require of it; these goals are too important merely to entrust to a few people in positions of power with conflicting interests of their own.
Within the Quaker tradition, as well as that of many other faith groups, civil disobedience has been recognised as a necessary expression of a nonviolent conflict with the forces of injustice and oppression. The Catholic writer Thomas Merton believed that conscientious resistance to the abuse of power is not only justified in faith, following Jesus, but also an urgent need and requirement of the Christian vocation in our times:
That is to say, the Christian is bound, like the martyrs, to obey God rather than the state whenever the state tries to usurp powers that do not and cannot belong to it.[footnote 18]
Generally, the law is there to protect rights and support social cooperation, but when it is used to consolidate injustice, then refusing to be bound by a law in a given circumstance might be a faithful witness. It is not a conclusion to arrive at lightly, and nor is it the only valid response to injustice, but arguably breaking the law can be divinely and socially instrumental. Conscientious defiance of the law has led many social advances of the last three centuries, such as those in civil rights, religious toleration, environmental issues and popular resistance to war. Indeed, laws often change and become more just largely because some people have been challenging them in conscience - the legal right to worship is an example. However, the moral limitations of the law do not justify unconstrained personal action; conscientious rebellion still needs to be accountable to a mutual social conversation. Just as the powers should be accountable, so should the rest of us, and there is nothing mutual, accountable or even conscientious about a conviction that is 'unshakeable'.
Accepting
In 'The Kingdom is Theirs - Five Reflections on the Beatitudes', Rowan Williams writes that resistance goes hand-in-hand with 'acceptance'.[footnote 19] There are many influences on the process of change besides our own and many contrary to our own, yet '[t]here is a potent seduction of the spirit that says, "total change can be achieved in finite time".'[footnote 20] This can easily grow into the falsehood that the fate of the world is our personal burden, when in truth we share this responsibility with six billion other people.
Acceptance involves letting go of the struggle to control the outcome of our witness, recognising that ours is to abide in the power of truth that changes, not to try to wield it as an instrument of control. If we trust that the power of change is within us, but not of us; and if we are open, even vulnerable, in relation to this power, then the serenity of acceptance is possible. For we do not win the peace; God wins it through our faithfulness.
The theologian and activist Ched Myers reminds us that Jesus also encouraged us to nurture the serenity of acceptance:
And when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. These things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the labour-pains. But take heed to yourselves; for they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them. (Mark 13: 7-9)[footnote 21]
According to Myers, Jesus is telling us here:
- That we should witness steadfastly and faithfully, which includes accepting situations of risk to ourselves, for we are 'to bear testimony before [kings and governors]' and 'be beaten' (or persecuted) for our stand.
- That even so, we will not necessarily stop wars from taking place, for we are not in control of those who make war.
- That even when the 'labour pains' of war are taking place, something redemptive is being born.
- That we should 'not be alarmed' (that is, distracted from our witness to peace) by the increasing prevalence of war, for the 'end is not yet' (the period of war will not last forever and things will get worse before they get better).[footnote 22]
For me, Myers paints a picture of a gathering storm of war and violence, which will test our faith and faithfulness, not least the disciplines of acceptance and resistance. Our situation is precarious and there is no room for complacency, although there are forces at work that we do not understand, and which we have to trust.
Speaking for God?
At the heart of Quaker faith and practice throughout the tradition has been the conviction, wrought in experience, that God is at work in the world. In being attentive to daily life and worship, God's presence is discernible to us, and the claims that this makes upon how we choose to live can be felt.
The second article in this series suggested that peace is made possible in the world not only by God nor only by humanity, but through a covenant between God and humanity. In this covenant, we have a share of responsibility for ourselves and for the fate of the world. As the Quaker activist Helen Steven writes:
If we are intent on destroying each other and the world we live in, God will not intervene almightily to stop us. I believe that God only intervenes in history through our deeds of faithfulness.[footnote 23]
Our English word 'prophet' is derived from the Greek for spokesperson, and so 'deeds of faithfulness' are prophetic insofar as they speak for God in the world. In the Hebrew scriptures, a prophet was originally understood to be one endowed with clairvoyance or the special power to enter a mystical communion with God, not unlike a shaman.[footnote 24] Later, a prophet was understood more broadly as one who spoke out to the world, expressing a vital and resonant truth on behalf of God at a time when it most needed to be heard.[footnote 25]
A peace commitment in this context seeks to speak for God through deeds of faith - prayer, communion and worship; creative and thoughtful living, speech and writing; compassion; and social and political engagement for positive change. It wells out from the covenant (relationship/partnership) with God, and thus with humanity, and is a form of solidarity with both.
In 'Apostles and Prophets - Can We Speak For God?' Rowan Williams sets a high standard for the meaning of prophecy and cautions against diluting it.[footnote 26] One cannot just decide to be prophetic, he says. Rather, our whole life must bend towards making space to be called to act for God; this is at the heart of what it means to be a church community. As an example of this commitment, Williams recalls that on the day Martin Luther King gave his famous 'I Have a Dream' sermon, he was weary and did not want to preach, but he had to, for his life was no longer entirely his own.
Williams' description of a demanding Christian responsibility need not obscure the many smaller ways of speaking for God through daily life and relationships with others - practices that express to the world, albeit in a modest way, the same timely and vital truths. Personally, I find that a musician who takes care over her art speaks for my God, just as the anti-nuclear activist does. Perhaps we are all 'called', in some way that may not be immediately obvious to us, 'to speak for God'; the challenge - and the greatest of joys - is to respond to that call with the whole of our being.
A tall order?
Is a peace commitment a tall order? Yes, as tall as our humanity, as long as our lives and as deep as our faith. Yet it falls within what is possible. For me, shalom is a commitment to life: to live well in relation to ourselves and to others, and in solidarity with God, humanity and all life. Peace is something to grow into; it is the process of becoming a person, a church, a society, a universe fully alive, flourishing in abundance.
* * *
Epilogue
In El Salvador in the 1970s, a tiny fraction of people owned 40% of the land and the oppression of working people was the norm. Workers responded by forming autonomous Christian groups to study, worship and discuss social issues. Landowners were alarmed at the workers' newfound autonomy and sought to marginalise and ridicule the groups, while gangs persecuted them with violence. The authorities arranged for people to be 'disappeared' and soldiers suppressed peaceful protest in the capital, San Salvador. An archbishop, Oscar Romero, was among the most persistent critics of the authorities. He challenged human rights violations, government corruption and US military and political aid to his country's repressive government. His stand infuriated the powers that be and gave hope to the people.[footnote 27]
Romero was aware that he had had to become vulnerable before the powers in order to take his stand, writing in a newspaper: 'I am bound, as a pastor, by divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that is all Salvadorians, even those who are going to kill me.'[footnote 28] Two weeks later, on 24 March 1980, Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating mass.[footnote 29]
The following is a portion of a prayer by Romero that sets his commitment in context. It is perhaps a fitting note on which to end the final article of this series reflecting on the meaning of peace:
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. …
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.[footnote 30]
David Gee, Quaker Peace & Social Witness
Questions for reflection and discussion
1. This article explores several ways to practise peace: creating, relating, refusing, conversing, insisting, resisting and accepting. Are there others?
2. In your view, which of the ways to practise peace described here are the most important within a faith commitment?
3. What can you most strongly agree with in the article and what do you disagree with?
[1] Shalom and salaam share the same Semitic root. The context for these articles is the Judaeo-Christian tradition and for the sake of brevity, the Hebrew version of the term is used. However, the meaning of peace as wholeness and well-being is no less significant within other traditions, including Islam. [Go back to text]
[2] Managing Director, HMG Paints, Manchester, at a Groundwork presentation on urban forestry, 1997. A sizable proportion of the business' profit is reinvested in community workforce initiatives and environmental projects. [Go back to text]
[3] Wink, Walter: The Powers That Be -Theology for a New Millennium (New York: Doubleday, 1998) [Go back to text]
[4] Shanks, Andrew: 'God and Modernity: A new and better way to do theology' (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 4 [Go back to text]
[5] 'New Profile', Israel: Campaign literature (hard copy). Visit http://www.newprofile.org/ [original emphasis] [Go back to text]
[6] 'Free Camilo', US: Campaign literature (web-based) - http://www.freecamilo.org/ [Go back to text]
[7] 'Shot at Dawn', UK: Campaign literature (web-based) - http://www.shotatdawn.org.uk/ [Go back to text]
[8] Newell, Martin et al: 'Remember the Innocent' press release, 7 June 2005 [Go back to text]
[9] Cited in 'Quaker Faith & Practice' (London: Britain Yearly Meeting, 1995), 19.32 [Go back to text]
[10] ibid. [Go back to text]
[11] Quaker organisations/initiatives established include: Quaker peace and service agencies and peace centres around the world; Quaker United Nations Offices; Friends Ambulance Unit; wartime Family Service Units; Turning the Tide training and nonviolent social change; Circles of Support and Accountability work with released sex offenders. International organisations that Quakers were closely involved in founding include: Oxfam; Amnesty; Fellowship of Reconciliation; Greenpeace; Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; International Voluntary Service; Alternatives to Violence Project; European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, plus more recent initiatives not mentioned here. British organisations that Quakers were closely involved in founding include: Child Poverty Action Group; Campaign Against Arms Trade; Help the Aged; Anti-Slavery Society; Trident Ploughshares UK; Action by Christians Against Torture; Cruse Bereavement Care; The Retreat; Peace Pledge Union; Conscience the peace tax campaign; National Peace Council; Mediation UK; Shelter; Housing Justice; about 30 Quaker-run accommodation schemes for older people; seven Quaker schools; Friends Therapeutic Community; Lifelines (correspondence with prisoners on death row); Alternatives to Violence Project (Britain). Not mentioned here are many local organisations established by Quakers in the UK and national organisations established by Quakers in other countries. In addition, the US Quaker organisation Friends General Conference lists a number of further organisations that Quakers were involved in setting up at http://www.fgcquaker.org/library/fosteringmeetings/0601.html - accessed 9 June 2005 [Go back to text]
[12] Rotblat, Joseph et al: An End to UK Nuclear Weapons, published on the web at http://www.pugwash.org/uk/documents/end-to-uk-nuclear-weapons.pdf - accessed 9 June 2005, p. 35 [Go back to text]
[13] See, for example, the Ministry of Defence's own book on the history of the British thermonuclear programme - Arnold, Lorna: 'Britain and the H-Bomb' (Basingstoke: Palgrave [Ministry of Defence], 2001) [Go back to text]
[14] For example, see Fox, Robert: 'Trident: the done deal', in The New Statesman, 13 June 2005, published on the web at http://www.newstatesman.com/200506130008 - accessed 10 June 2005 [Go back to text]
[15] For example, in December 2003 a secret memorandum of understanding between the UK and US regarding arrangements for the UK's involvement in the US strategic 'missile defence' system was kept secret from Parliament but was obtained in the US. It contained nothing remotely prejudicial to UK national security. The Government has also refused, on grounds of national security, to state what options it is considering for the replacement of the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system, yet there appears to be no way in which enumerating policy options could jeopardise security. [Go back to text]
[16] For example, the UK is part of a secret agreement with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to cooperate in spying. Also, in June 2004, the Government invoked the Royal Prerogative to overturn a High Court Ruling that had found against it. The Court had ruled that the people of the Chagos Islands had the right to return to their homeland, having been forcibly evicted by the British Government in the 1960s to make way for a large US military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia. The islanders' return would have been inconvenient for the base or forced it to close, so the Government used the Royal Prerogative to overturn the High Court ruling. The base was used by the US most recently to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. [Go back to text]
[17] Newell, Martin et al: 'Remember the Innocent' press release, 7 June 2005 [Go back to text]
[18] Merton, Thomas: 'Peace: A Religious Responsibility', in 'On Peace' (Oxford: Mowbray Press, 1976), p. 39 [Go back to text]
[19] Williams, Rowan: 'The Kingdom is Theirs: Five Reflections on the Beatitudes' (London, Christian Socialist Movement, 2002), pp. 3-5 [Go back to text]
[20] ibid. p. 5 [Go back to text]
[21] Mark 13: 5-10; translation and emphasis added by Ched Myers (on handout sheet at Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival, Cheltenham 2004). [Go back to text]
[22] Author's notes from Myers, Ched: An address to a meeting at Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival, August 2004 [Go back to text]
[23] Steven, Helen: 'Nato action on Kosovo; a peace activists' response', in Northern Friends Peace Board: 'The Peace Papers' (2000-02), p. B2:iv [Go back to text]
[24] Cross, F L and Livingstone, E A (eds.): 'The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997 - third edition), p. 1336 [Go back to text]
[25] 'Prophet' is often assumed to mean one who reliably predicts; however, insofar as prophets do predict the future, arguably they do so primarily to impress upon the world a vital message for the here and now. [Go back to text]
[26] Williams, Rowan: 'Apostles and Prophets: Can We Speak for God?', CD audio presentation given at Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival, August 2004 [Go back to text]
[27] McLean, Jim: 'About Oscar Romero', published on The Romero Society web site at http://www.romerosociety.org/aboutus_oscar.htm - accessed 19 October 2004 [Go back to text]
[28] ibid. [Go back to text]
[29] United Nations Security Council: 'Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador' published on the www.derechos.org web site at http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html - accessed 19 October 2004 [Go back to text]
[30] There is some dispute about whether this prayer is Romero's; however, the President of the Oscar Romero Society has confirmed in a personal communication with the author that it is. [Go back to text]
Published by Quaker Peace & Social Witness
© QPSW, 2005
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Photograph at top of page: A couple rests after a demonstration to save the Pollok Estate from the M77 motorway, 1995. They are sitting on Car Henge, a sculpture of burnt-out cars embedded into the into the motorway foundations by activists. Photograph, David Gee. Other photographs used by permission.