Letters - 06 October 2023
From Engaging with police to Peccata or peccatum
Engaging with police
The two DSEI-related letters in the Friend on 22 September present very different pictures of Quaker participation in the first week’s protests. Martin Schweiger’s account of the Walk of Witness is quietly positive, as apparently were communications with accompanying police. By contrast, Charlotte Allen’s letter about the Quaker contribution to Faiths Day is disturbing. We too were disappointed by the smallness of the Quaker gathering but missed her experience of the Meeting for Worship, since we were being arrested just as it was beginning.
It seems to us entirely inappropriate for an announcement of that wording – ‘Do not speak to the police, the police are not our friends’ – was not only out of place as not ministry but was contrary to our core Quaker belief that we should ‘walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone’.
We recognise those instructions from XR demonstrations in which we have participated but we are not guided by them. While taking care not to give sensitive information to the police, we always engage in a courteous and friendly way, recognising that their work may be difficult, and share with them our concerns for our world and all its inhabitants. When questioned, we think carefully before responding but do not ‘stonewall’ over everything. While we will not incriminate others, we regard what we did as just and right and will not hide it. We are ready to answer the consequences in court and beyond. Our purpose, after all, is to witness.
Diana and Nick Francis
Response to ‘Dear Diary’
Harvey Gillman published his poem ‘Dear Diary’ in the Friend of 22 September. It is his personal story of a man, and the bamboo in his garden, and a butterfly, and the joy and rage of being alive.
Do enjoy this poem! It is a story which can speak to all of us whose ‘anger at the news is not enough’. Reading the poem we can explore our own meanings of its later lines which begin ‘We do what we can do’.
Clive Sutton
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