Northern Friends Peace Board
Northern Friends & the Balkans
Throughout the north Friends were active in many ways for peace in the Balkans during the spring and early summer. These ranged from silent vigils, to joining protest demonstrations and the many coalitions which set themselves to campaign against the bombing, to opening Meeting Houses for quiet reflection and to welcoming refugees from the region arriving in Britain. At the Board meeting in June it was acknowledged that some Friends had simply felt a sense of powerlessness and grief at what was unfolding.
At the outset of the Nato's bombing, the Board wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to reconsider his policy, and from then on was involved in media work, in supporting and networking amongst Friends and maintaining special web-pages. In early April we were able to take up the opportunity of a visit to the UK of two volunteers from the Balkan Peace Team, then recently evacuated from their placement in Belgrade. The two spoke at a well-attended public meeting in Bolton, highlighting the damage to the careful peace-building efforts which they and others had been involved in.
We also devoted two of our Peace Is Growing days to the theme of Peace in the Balkans. These took place in June and July, after the bombing had finished. At both, Friends identified the need to address the darkness in our own society that the bombing seemed to be an expression of. A number of other pointers for future work by Friends were also identified. These have been incorporated into the thinking of a small NFPB working group which is in the process of preparing resources for Friends which will seek to address the need to enhance our capacity as Friends for effective engagement on peace concerns before, during and after times of war.
The Hague Appeal for Peace conference took place in May, with 10,000 participants attending from all over the world, including amongst them several Nobel Peace laureates. NFPB was represented by its Co-ordinator. Other Friends from throughout Britain, including several other NFPB members, were also there in a variety of other capacities.
The conference, whilst a major event in itself, was the product of a great deal of collaboration over the preceding two years, and was seen by the organisers as a place from which a range of peace initiatives can grow. On the formal level there were half a dozen international campaigns which used the conference as a place to launch themselves. There was also the 50 point Hague Agenda for Peace which was produced in advance of the conference, has been presented to all governments and is now an official UN document (an abridged version of this is available from the NFPB office). And there are a number of initiatives that came about as a result of the conference, such as a new international Network for Disarmament and Globalisation.
Whilst Kosovo was constantly in the background of this conference, it was helpful to be reminded so graphically of its context, and of the continuing problems of ethnic conflict, of globalisation, of militarism and of environmental insecurity in many other parts of the world. Whilst this was on the one hand physically and mentally exhausting, it was also inspiring to be amongst so many people committed to change. There was a place for quiet prayer and reflection in the conference centre, and a small section of the programme on interfaith dimensions of building a culture of peace.
A challenge for Friends is to be aware of the complexity of needs and issues, and to identify those which we can usefully take on, in the knowledge that it's never going to be easy, but that there will always be others working on different parts of the jigsaw. Jody Williams Nobel Peace prize winner for her landmines campaigning work, said at the closing session that she believed we were all leaders; weighty discussions were not enough and that we will only bring about change by taking action now. The less active (for whatever reason) amongst us can at least support the more active, in small or large ways; and we can all do something. At the same plenary Kofi Annan urged "Don't despair, don't be discouraged and above all, don't give up."
(Philip Austin’s report of this is available - please send a large SAE to the NFPB office if you would like a copy)
Prior to the European Elections in June, NFPB produced and distributed a briefing on the EU's moves to take on military and security matters. With the appointment since then of the current NATO Secretary General to the position of the first EU Foreign Affairs person, it seems that peace and security are likely to continue to be seen as matters primarily of military relevance.
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA), meanwhile, is developing proposals for a European Peace Agency. This would be a means of enabling the EU to act on security matters with the benefit of the insights and skills of the wide range of NGOs with non-military peace-building programmes. Draft proposals were welcomed at the consultation of European Quaker Peace committees in April, and by NFPB when it met in June. We look forward with interest to see how they progress.
At the European Quaker Peace Consultation plans were also made for a group of Friends to act as a co-ordinating core for a Quaker witness at the next Eurosatory arms fair in Paris (date uncertain). European-wide engagement in such action is logistically challenging but is felt to have been worthwhile on the previous two occasions. Contact Philip Austin at the NFPB office if you are interested in being involved. (Contact the NFPB office if you would like a copy of the Election briefing, or see it on our website).
The revised and updated Pacific Women speak out for Independence and Denuclearisation is not recommended for bedtime reading. A small but powerful book. A collection of interviews told without the dramatisation we are used to from the media. The horrors of the facts speak for themselves. Destruction of lives, culture, land. Human rights abuses, rape, torture and if that is not enough the finality of nuclear pollution. They say history repeats itself and so it does. For the last seven years I've listened to the same stories told in the same way, matter-of-factly with no exaggerations, from different women in a different place and now former Yugoslavia has the nuclear pollution from the use of depleted uranium in Kosov@. The women in this book have been telling their stories for many years and the same things are still happening. WE HAVE TO LISTEN. WE HAVE TO LEARN FROM IT, but first of all YOU have to read it.
Christine Deane, Eccles PM
Available from Abolition 2000 UK, 88 Islington High St., London N1 8EG,price £4 plus £1 p&p.
Kendal & Sedbergh MM have heard a concern about the take-over of Asda supermarkets by Walmart, the US giant retailer. Walmart sells handguns 'over the counter' in its stores in the US, and this had led people there to boycott some of their 2,500 outlets. "My concern", writes Joan Goddard, of Brigflatts Meeting "is that by shopping at Asda people are supporting the parent US company, which makes lethal weapons easily available to the general US public."
As their contribution to Millennium events, Kendal Friends are have organised an essay competition for sixth-formers and college students in the area, on the theme of "a bright, peaceful future for the next Millennium". With a first prize of £200 for the winner (half going to the writer's school/college) and the former MEP of the area (Tony Cunningham) as the final judge, the results will be announced in the new year.
Churches around the world should consider spending the first decade of the next century working to overcome the world's "generalised culture of violence," and acknowledge that their own theological traditions have helped shape the world's current attitudes, said World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser.
In a report to the WCC's Central Committee he said "the commitment to overcome violence and build a culture of peace may indeed be the prophetic witness which the churches have to render at a time when the struggles for power and resources, identity or sheer survival" result in conflict between various groups, including communities of faith.
When the WCC held its assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, last December, a proposal suggested that the international church organisation proclaim the years 2001-2010 "An Ecumenical Decade to Overcome Violence."
Dealing with the issue of violence may require new times of moral and ethical reflection, Raiser said. "We are still deeply conditioned by thinking in the categories of the cold war, based on the clear identification of an enemy and the confrontation of absolute good and evil," he said. Today's violence, he added, "cannot be overcome by imposing superior power and enforcing obedience and submission, since violence is itself an expression of the war logic of power."
In noting that the churches themselves may have contributed to the climate of violence, Raiser said the WCC's previous Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women brought the churches some "painful insights" about their own attitudes towards women. If there is serious reflection on violence in the world, Raiser said, churches would be obliged to "enter into a self-critical assessment of those theological, ecclesiological or cultural traditions which tend to justify violence in the name of defending order and enforcing obedience."
"It is my hope and prayer," Raiser concluded, "that as an ecumenical community we will be able, through this decade, to render a faithful witness to the One who is our peace and who has broken down the dividing wall of hostility."
Dr Raiser stressed that the Decade to Overcome Violence would start with initiatives that have already taken place in member churches and "reinforce and assist them.
In the concern for world violence, Dr Raiser said, "We as Christians have to be humble and listen to the wisdom of eastern religions, especially Buddhism which has had much to say on peace and non-violence."
Half a dozen NFPB members joined with the Friends' Walk of Witness between Cumbria and Canterbury in July. We joined them in Holmfirth, standing together as a silent vigil and leafleting passers-by in the town centre. Bus loads of people came and went, many taking photographs - but mostly of Sid's Cafe which we were standing next to. There was a generally favourable response from passers-by to the vigil and leaflets handed out. Other NFPB members joined the walkers for different legs of their journey, witnessing to the preciousness of all life.
At the time of writing, NFPB member Ellen Moxley with fellow activists Ulla Rder and Angie Zelter are in the middle (we expect) of their trial for the action they took in June to disarm the Maytime, a research vessel and part of the Trident nuclear system. The three have been in prison on remand since then. The trial has already broken significant new ground in several ways, with international law being taken as admissible evidence for the first time in a Scottish court case of this sort. The officials under examination have been reluctant to disclose any more information than they absolutely have to, leading one of the three activists' legal representatives to exclaim ‘I’m not performing cross-examination this morning, but dentistry!!’ We await with interest the jury's verdict.
Meanwhile, in Preston the trial has begun of three Swedish activists, the Bread not Bombs ploughshares group. They were first tried in May, for their action to disarm HMS Vengeance whilst it was still in Barrow in Furness. The jury at that trial was unable to reach a clear verdict and the judge thus declared a hung jury. Friends have been amongst the many supporters present at both hearings.
Viewpoint When dignity isn't appropriate
I wasn't planning to go to the CAAT demonstrations at the DSEI arms fair in September - it's a long way from the north east, I don't have much spare 'annual leave' left at work, and I knew that I would not be prepared to be arrested. But then I heard from Narciso, an East Timorese exile currently living on Tyneside. He had just seen his hometown being burnt down on Portuguese TV, and had lost all contact with his family still there. I thought that perhaps just being another person at the demonstration would be the only meaningful solidarity I could offer Narciso at the moment.
So I went to join the CAAT demonstration at the Docklands site of the DSEI arms fair, where the navy was showing off its latest killing machines. I joined the small crowd on the dockside, across the water from a row of naval ships and the conference centre, where the buying and selling was going on.
Later we went round to the front of the conference centre, in an attempt to bring the demonstration closer to the 'action'. But there were very few obvious arms traders, the ships on the quayside were well barricaded off, and the police heavily outnumbered the demonstrators.
The day felt worthwhile as a vigil/protest, but hardly effective against the arms fair itself: too few people, too far away from the exhibitors and buyers, and no obvious way to challenge what was going on. We tried to call across to the occasional man (yes, all men) in military uniform, shouting out at them 'get yourself a proper job - stop selling arms' (most of us have been on the receiving end of the first half of that slogan - and some of the traders looked bemused when they realised it was their turn to hear it!). But soon the police tried to move us on, and to 'pen' us into an enclosure on the far side of the road. They said they had a duty to 'maintain the dignity of the event'. Dignity?!!!
This is a low-key account of a slightly flat and not very empowering or effective demonstration. I'm sorry to repeat myself, but more people would have made all the difference. If we want to challenge those who want to divorce the morality of oppression from the selling of the tools of oppression, we cannot leave it to a handful of Ploughshares activists or elderly and faithful peace protesters.
And in case you thought the recent publicity about arms sales to Indonesia might have reigned in these arms fairs - there are two more before the middle of November. Enough said. Contact CAAT on 0171 281 0297!
Andrew Gray, Northumbria MM
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The Peace Board, NFPB, Victoria Hall, Knowsley Street, Bolton BL1 2AS Tel: 01204 382330 Email: nfpb@gn.apc.org
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