The first Quakers in South Africa were Nantucket whalers who were based in Cape Town in the 19th century. Richard Gush was an early Quaker settler in the Eastern Cape who lived his peace testimony remaining unarmed and making peace with his Xhosa neighbours.
Quakers in Britain opposed the Boer war and supported the work of Emily Hobhouse in her work with Boer women and children in concentration camps. After the war they helped collect family bibles that had been looted by British soldiers and taken back home as trophies, and returned them to the original owners when they could be traced.
Quakers supported liberal causes, education, and the general improvement in race relations in South Africa, and set up Quaker Service projects in Johannesburg, Natal and the Eastern and Western Cape. As apartheid became more entrenched they campaigned against detention without trial, removals, conscription, and supported conscientious objection and non-violence. Quakers in Botswana set up a refugee centre (Kagisong Centre) and initiated the rebuilding of an ANC house destroyed by the South African security forces. The Centre is now a conference centre and they have initiated the building of a women’s shelter.
Rural development is supported at Hlekweni near Bulawayo and in Zambia on the shores of Lake Kariba.
Quakers in Cape Town supported the work of Steve Biko through an organization, Friends of the Ciskei, and later supported a peaceworker resisting forced removals which eventually led to the formation of the Quaker Peace Centre. The late HW van der Merwe started the Centre for Intergroup Studies (now the Centre for Conflict Resolution) and was involved in setting up the first contacts between the South African government and the African National Congress that was banned and in exile.
A member from Johannesburg meeting initiated the building of a Quaker centre in Soweto with funds from the United States. Conflicts and the difficulties of the small Soweto meeting led to its eventual donation to the City Council...
Quakers in the region were fairly isolated from the large numbers of Quakers in the rest of Africa during apartheid. These contacts are being built slowly through the Friends World Committee for Consultation—-Africa Section, and through practical projects with the Quaker Peace Centre.
So few, so much to do, and so much done. Jeremy Routledge is the husband of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge; we have noted in this newsletter that she was the Quaker Deputy Minister of Defense in South Africa.
Weekend WarriorsThe people of 57 towns in Vermont voted on March 1 on whether “to investigate the impact of National Guard deployments on Vermont’s readiness for a natural disaster or other emergency,” and “ask Congress and the President to ‘take steps to withdraw American troops from Iraq’” The New York Times described it as “part of a new effort by antiwar activists to take the debate over the war down to a distinctly local level.” 49 towns passed the resolution, 4 defeated it and 4 tabled it.“The American Friends Service Committee, . . . along with other organizations, like Military Families Speak Out, helped organize petition drives to get the measure on town meeting ballots. . .” ‘This shows that the antiwar movement is different for this war than it probably has been for every war before,’ Mr Lems [AFSC staff member], ‘What these people are demanding is accountability, and they have this incredibly strong message – their sons, their daughters and their parents in some cases have had their lives torn apart by the war. It’s probably the most powerful message we have right now.’” The resolution caused “earnest and impassioned debate,” in the towns across the state.
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Adrien spoke of the history of Rwanda and Burundi, particularly of the Belgian colonial authorities’ preference for the Tutsi people over the Hutu. This created the ground for hostility and conflict which erupted into genocide. Adrien said the Quaker churches, containing both Hutu and Tutsi, led the way toward reconciliation, other churches feeling this was political and to be avoided. FPT's first team of four Friends went to South Africa, where they were trained in the easing of trauma. Friends in America have been very helpful in supporting the AVP program. Both programs are now running.
He described the experience of a Tutsi woman, whose husband and son had been killed by a Hutu neighbor during the carnage. She hated the family and avoided any contact. After attending an AVP session, she was overcome by her need to forgive and dissolve the corrosive hate within her. She returned to the Hutu family’s house, where the man was now dead, and met his wife. The wife wept and begged for her forgiveness and she told her she had come to give that. The wife then asked if she could forgive her husband, although he was dead. She said she did, and the two families are now united in forging bonds of peace.
The Friends Peace Teams Coordinating Committee will be meeting in the meetinghouse over the weekend of April 7-10 and staying overnight with local hosts. We will be able to meet and welcome them to share a potluck supper and experiences on Friday April 8 at 6.30 pm. because they are away from their homes and kitchens it would be helpful if Friends make a special effort to attend and bring larger dishes to be hospitable.
Rain and family programs and problems prevented a big Meeting turnout at the CROP WALK in March. Miserable rain went on until minutes before it started but stayed clear for the walk. Four adults and six children took part, Amy, Steve, Sebastian, Emma, Audrey, and Samuel Whitworth, Ken Southwood, Denise and Jocelyn Wikinson, and Neil Redfield. Denise, in a posture of forced humility, bowing due to a pulled muscle that morning, had to turn back. Here is her message about our results:
Hi, Ken - Final (?) CROP Walk stats - FMSA brought in $930 (including $200 in online donations) and had 9.333 walkers (I'm the .333 since I only walked 1/3 of the way!). So that averages about $100 per walker. Not bad!
Carol Balliet spoke for Peace and Social Concerns, reporting that the committee had decided to donate $50 to Friends House, Moscow. This is from the committee’s budget line. it is considering ways of providing local counseling on conscientious objection. Carol will attend a weekend workshop at Pendle Hill in April on this subject.
For Meetinghouse Development, Ken Southwood told Meeting that progress was being made on signing a contract after approval of this by the Meeting Corporation. Minor changes are being considered, including using a taut cable railing on the east porch. Answering concerns that children might climb and fall, an ex-teacher said that children did not find thin cable inviting to climb. Asked if there were objections to the use of #2 cedar, a more knotty timber, for the interior, none were raised. In fact, one preferred it. We hope to sign a contract within a week.
PersonalMarian Carter has been awarded the Luupi Prize for work she performed twenty years ago when she was consultant for a team doing research on” transfunctional disabilities among persons whose mitrionic nerves were coagrytic.” Her work involved advising the team on how to attach a part, originally designed as a mouthpiece, to people’s ears in such a way that sound4 wave-formation could be reversed. “Without Ms. Carter’s brilliant innovation, involving her knowledge of children’s understanding of the link between their ears, this work could not have been completed and our funding would have been cut,” says the citation. Marian will attend the annual meeting of the Darft Foundation for Otritic Research in Washington, Ontario, this month, to receive the award, a mounted gold-plated otriometer.Amy Whitworth has been awarded a scholarship at Marquette University to complete studies for a doctorate there, in philosophy. She has a year’s leave from SAC and will leave the family in Steve’s care for next academic year. She will be back frequently to check up on him. Amy and Steve had an experience familiar to many parents at SCYM. Arriving, their children went off to their programs and Steve and Amy hardly saw any more of them. Asked on Saturday, how her children were doing, Amy said, “What children? I don’t have any children!” When, later that day, Audrey was seen hugging her Mom and whispering in her ear, we remarked that her family had returned to her., Well, she said, only because Audrey was begging to sleep somewhere else that night. Pauline Turner is suffering from shingles, a painful and lingering ailment. Please hold her in the light. Jim Turner’s ashes were buried on a morning last month as he had wished. His family gathered with Pauline in a moving silence among the trees Jim loved. Janet and Ken Southwood were there and everyone gathered with Pauline for a family breakfast before they left for home. Edith Speert likes to cut parts out of this newsletter and send them to her family, asking what they think. She says it’s a good way of keeping in touch with where they are. Vivian Rule’s father, Burt, died during March. A memorial meeting was held on March 19, attended by his family, friends, and members of the Meeting. Burt was a convinced atheist and a professor of American Literature. He once spoke at a Meeting Forum about the poetry of Walt Whitman. He was a proponent of Darwin and Freud and carried this through to having an affinity for the great apes, supporting the Gorilla Foundation. Among the causes which stirred him were civil liberties and human rights. He was a man of sensitivity and a poet. One of his poems is included below; he was most at home near the beach on the Gulf Coast. He was also a man of strong opinions and determination. Attenders spoke movingly of his life and what it meant for them, and one speaker told of her experience of that sensitivity and determination in Vivian. Vivian’s mother, Mary Rule, was present, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, and unable to recognize everyone or take part.
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The air was filled with wings One evening by the sea, They
seemed like flakes of sun That flickered down to me.
Against a darkening sky The wings were yellow-gold, They
clung to tossing reeds, The wind was sharp and cold.
They soon were covered by
The fast-descending night.
At dawn the bending reeds
Were barren in the light.
The fragile wings had flown
Above the white-capped sea
Towards their winter home
On distant bush or tree.
The creatures that I saw
That cool October day
Were driven by the force
That wheels the Milky Way.
Oh wondrous wanderer
I thank whatever force
That brought your gold to me
While on your windblown course.
Fair Labor AssociationThe FLA represents a coalition of companies, universities and NGOs. These companies have committed to rigorous workplace standards wherever their factories are situated. There are currently 12 leading brand-name companies participating in the FLA. These are adidas-Salomon, Eddie Bauer, GEAR for Sports, Gildan Activewear, Liz Claiborne, New Era Cap, Nordstrom, Nike, Patagonia, Puma, Reebok, Phillips-Van Heusen and Zephyr Graf-X.The FLA conducts independent external monitoring of their facilities, and publishes its WORKPLACE CODE OF CONDUCT in 21 languages. The following is an abbreviated version:
1.There shall not be any use of any form of forced labor. The association publicizes information about industry practices, challenges to compliance, and the company’s efforts to improve conditions and protect workers rights. This provides consumers with the tools they need to assess company compliance efforts, providing an incentive to companies to improve workplace conditions. Colleges and universities can join to ensure that products bearing their name are produced under fair conditions. The FLA is part of an effort to bring organized public pressure to bear on transnational companies to provide fair working conditions around the world regardless of the failure of local governments to enforce them. The greatest problem in the workers’ “race to the bottom” is China, where wages are lowest and, by the greatest of ironies, trade unions are illegal.
Editor’s note: these principles do not cover workers’ anxieties about closing of their workplace with little notice and inadequate compensation. This is the event that produced the founding of Fuerza Unida here in San Antonio and is the current crisis facing garment workers in El Salvador whose jobs have been transferred to China. In the first two months of this year, authorities have said, 18 plants in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic closed; some 10,000 jobs were lost.
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In more than testaments of praise help our lives resound and move to live
thy love in this torn world to be thy people once again.
To candle joy within our lives despite the voices full of Fear, be yet
our heart within us grieving still.
The polls are closed, the bitter speeches done, and
weeping rises to a higher plane, and shadows of a living love cascade in
anthems falling once again.
Within the structure of this broken hill, a breathing wakes, deeper
than a Flame. oh heal thy people once again, oh Spirit of
the Living God.
Now that's kinda plain an' simple don't ya think?
Y'all have a good Day.
Y'hear?
Posted on the wall at Cross Trails Church in Fairlie, Texas.
Yet to be cut in stone outside the Texas Supreme Court.
It has a Moscow staff of two, yet it organizes about seven programs a year across a great range of different problems, such as caring for orphans and handicapped children, supplying donated computers, networking, AVP, advising conscientious objectors, training in lobbying, and so on. There is no proselytization.
The small Friends Meeting in Moscow can meet but has no legal standing until it has registered as a religion for 15 years while striving to avoid paying bribes. It has 7 years to go. FHM is registered as an NGO and the two help each other. Support, financial and personal, comes from unprogramed meetings in Europe, Japan, and the USA. Julie’s devotion to the work was very apparent.
Using simple, profound, truths the participants were often surprised by their own creativity in addressing conflicts that had previously seemed intractable. For example, one of the practices demonstrated was Six Point Problem Solving, which outlined steps to resolve conflict. Among the potentially transformational concepts within Six Point Problem Solving was the notion of restating a problem in a way that respects the common need of all involved.
The Alternatives to Violence Project is a Quaker-based nondenominational program that offers basic and advanced workshops as well as facilitator training in over 40 countries around the world. It was born of prisoners’ desire to learn how to act nonviolently, and continues to be offered in prisons around the country, as well as in community settings. Individuals interested in learning more about AVP may visit http://www.avpusa.org/ or contact Val Liveoak at 210-532-8762.
Mennonite Duane Beachy found obtaining CO status easy because of membership in a Peace Church. Mennonites, Quakers and the Church of the Brethren are known as Peace Churches. Jehovah’s Witnesses are also recognized, though their objection is not to war per se. (Duane said, “I asked a Jehovah’s Witness CO friend what he had done before his CO service and he said that he’d made detonators for bombs.”)
Randy Carroll-Bradd, a Methodist, had trouble during the Viet Nam war, (his board was proud to send more than their expected quota) and after many appeals he ended up with a high draft lottery number. At his induction only 200 out of 2000 showed up, 20 claiming exemptions, including “monkey wrenching” (interference by civil disobedience or faking injuries or illnesses.) By the date for induction, he was overage. He said that young people should if possible align themselves with a Peace Church.
Maricela Alarcon said that a Selective Service registrant can write “I am a CO” on his registration form. and keep a copy on file. He should document his objections, writing essays regarding his principles and influences on his beliefs, getting letters from people substantiating his stand. He should file copies of documents with local and national programs. All items can be notarized or date-verified by folding the actual paper as its own envelope and mailing it to oneself, thus receiving a postmarked document. Women may later be subject to the draft. Further information at http://www.afsc.org/, www.nibsco.org, and http://www.ccco.org/.
Val Liveoak said that 48% of this year’s income taxes will be spent on weapons systems and past wars, not counting the current wars (not part of the Budget). Ways to resist include keeping one’s income too low for tax, or, illegally, not filing or paying income tax, or withholding a symbolic amount. Most resisters inform the IRS and their Representatives of this intentional action.
Illegal resistance can be punished by penalties and interest, and potentially by prison terms, although few COs have been imprisoned. The government prefers seizing property. When resisters publicize these seizures they often get a good press. There is no local support group here, but information is available at www.nwtrrc.org and at http://www.warresisters.org/.
Carolyn Schneider spoke on the Religious Freedom/Peace Tax Fund bill, proposed for many years but never passed. This would create a fund where COs could direct their taxes to nonmilitary use. It might simply re-distribute the funds, but in the long run it might force Congress to find other ways to security. More information is available at http://www.peacetaxfund.org/.
Further discussion centered on countering military recruiting at High Schools, responding to efforts to require Selective Service registration on college financial aid and driver’s license forms, and how parents may prevent High Schools providing information about their children to military recruiters. Several people felt that some form of draft would be needed in light of the current wars.
From our correspondent, Val Liveoak.
Note: During the Vietnam war some young Friends took objection further, refusing to identify themselves as Friends because they felt this gave them privileged treatment from the boards.
In Canada, residents banded together to help American soldiers who arrive there, supplying money, food and rooms in their homes.”
The process of application for CO status is slow and some soldiers have deserted rather than go to Iraq before their application was heard. Others fake sickness. “‘I’ll tell you what,’ Sergeant Ogden said, ‘they’re coming up with what they consider some creative ways to do it now.’”
Some other soldiers are disgusted at this. But some thought more deeply about their ambivalence, though they felt awkward dealing with their emotions.
Singing these words a capella in a clear, quiet voice, Niyonu Spann opened the keynote address on Saturday morning at SCYM. She and her co-keynoter, Gail Thomas, spoke of their personal experiences with racism. Niyonu engaged the audience in interative exercises to help understand our difficulties in communicating about racism.
This year's theme and program were the responsibility of our Cielo Grande Quarterly Meeting. The planning committee was pleased with the commitment to future action expressed by Friends who attended the panel presentations, workshops, and discussions with the keynote speakers. A full report on the Yearly Meeting will appear in next month's newsletter.
This is an inspired statement, yet, if acted on, would it in fact place many at greater risk? Its meaning depends very much on what is meant by peace. Even the absence of war and oppression is preferable to its continuance. In Darfur, should we wait until inner spiritual peace is achieved in the hearts of the janjaweed, the rebels, the Sudanese government, and the governments of Africa and the rest of the world before the slaughter can be stopped? For peace in the family, the P.E.A.C.E. Initiative’s concern, peace in the heart is surely necessary.
A gigantic likeness of the Quaker Oats man was placed on the white cliffs of Dover in England, requiring an act of Parliament to have it removed.
In 1990, when the Quaker Oats Company used Popeye the Sailor Man in oatmeal ads, the Society of Friends objected, insisting that Popeye’s reliance on physical violence is incompatible with the religion’s pacifist principles. The Quaker Oats Company quickly apologized and ended the campaign.
Earlham students clearly need non-piolence training. Or, if this is acceptable Quaker behavior, Nominating Committee should take it into account when nominating clerks of sensitive committees, like the Meetinghouse Development Committee.
April 1, Friday... San Antonio Peace Concert (see SFNV above) April 3 Sunday.... Potluck lunch. No forum April 8, Friday... Potluck supper with Friends Peace Teams board 6.30 pm April 10 Sunday... Forum: Beyond War in the Global Economy. Ginger and Jim Kenney. April 17 Sunday... Business meeting. April 21 Thursday. Midweek meeting at the Drennons, 7 pm. April 24 Sunday... Forum--Worship sharing on Advice and Query.
Each Thursday, at 4-5 pm, a silent peace vigil is held at the NE corner of Main Plaza (Commerce and Dwyer or Commerce and Soledad, which is the same thing) near the San Fernando cathedral.
Clerk: Bill Wilkinson, email: bdwilkinson@earthlink.net
Newsletter Editor: Ken Southwood, email: jksouthwood@grandecom.net
Website: http://lonestar.texas.net?~colby/quakersa.htm
Donations may be made to Friends Meeting of San Antonio, P.O. Box 6127, San Antonio TX 78209.
Meeting telephone to leave a message: (210) 945-8456.
Friends Meeting of San Antonio,
7052 N. Vandiver,
PO Box 6127
San Antonio TX 78209