Culture Articles
Salter Lecture 2021: Quaker Values in South Africa’s Struggle, by Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge
The Quaker Socialist Society’s (QSS)Salter lecture, as most Friends will know, is named after social reformers Ada and Alfred. This year’s lecturer, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, former deputy minister of state in South Africa, began by speaking of their ‘amazing lives’. The pair were not thought to have had...
Jews Don’t Count, by David Baddiel
Many Quakers feel uncomfortable when approaching the issue of anti-Semitism. This year there have been firm statements from Friends House condemning the activities of the Israeli government, but nothing specifically about the increasingly violent incidents of anti-Semitism in this country. It is almost as if some Quakers feel that Jews...
We gather
Then, we gathered each week round a broken branch of cherry, or three camellias: one bruised by gusts; one infurled like the fist of an infant, another opening to perfection. Now we gather round the light of this screen: its quilt work of faces stitched by the unseen. We gather...
Hello, Stranger, by Will Buckingham
I was only a few pages into Hello, Stranger when I realised I wished to commend this book to fellow Quakers. Its subjects, which include the experience of being a stranger and the welcome we offer others, challenged me to consider what our current concern with inclusion requires.
Rebelling for Life, by Sue Hampton
This is a short book: a collection of poetry, short stories and other prose dating from 2019 and 2020. Sue starts with a heart-rending wail at the climate crisis. The first poem, written in a police cell after arrest during the London arms fair, takes us through: her physical sensations; the Meeting...
What White People Can Do Next: From allyship to coalition, by Emma Dabiri
After Derek Chauvin’s sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, Floyd’s sister, Bridgett, said: ‘The sentence… shows that matters of police brutality are finally being taken seriously. However, we have a long way to go… before black and brown people finally feel like they are being treated fairly...
Censorship Overruled: An alternative history of 1918, by John Ellison
John Ellison’s short book opens at the beginning of 1918, when there was much discontent over food shortages and prices in Britain. There were many calls for peace, stimulated by Russia’s socialist revolution in 1917. It concentrates on the following eleven months, January to November, with Britain centre-stage.
Undercover Trophy Hunter: Britain’s top 20 hunters revealed, by Eduardo Goncalves
Portsmouth Friend Eduardo Goncalves’ fourth book on trophy hunting explores this – shockingly thriving – British community. Eduardo was once an investigative journalist and he uses this skill to take us into the world and mind of those who enjoy recreational killing. For a year he went undercover posing as someone seeking...
Psalm for a digital age
I sent you a message. You stopped answering a time ago. On my knees I begged to know what name you had become. Your silent laughter filled the multiverse. I consulted the address book and called again all the names I found there. I shouted, whispered, coaxed, wheedled, texted even....
Lampedusa, October 2013
This poem is based on words spoken by divers from the Italian military and emergency services I the image I cannot shake from my mind is of those bodies packed in the wreck their eyes, and their arms held high as if calling, calling for my help we could not...