Issue 05-03-2010
Featured story
A very human right
Let me tell you the story of a young man who grew up in Switzerland. In Switzerland, all male citizens are, at the age of nineteen or twenty, called up for about three months’ military training. Thereafter they keep their rifle and their uniform at home and at intervals until...
Top stories
JRCT sells Vedanta shares due to alleged human rights abuses
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) has sold almost £2million worth of shares in the Indian-based mining company Vedanta due to the company’s alleged abuse of human rights and the environment. JRCT, a Quaker institution, had been in discussions with Vedanta about their concerns for nine months before making...
Are we cool?
I recently came across a book that contains, in passing, a thought-provoking charge against Quakerism. It is Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences by the psychologist Abraham Maslow: universally remembered for his theory of human motivation, the pyramidical ‘Hierarchy of Human Needs’, with ‘self-actualisation’, or integration of the whole personality, at the...
Hunger strikes at Yarl’s Wood
Demands are growing for an urgent inquiry into conditions at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire. A hunger strike by women detainees has drawn attention to allegations of mistreatment. At least twenty women are thought to be refusing food at present. The Labour MP John McDonnell has...
Testimonies to equality and peace?
In the 1930s, Ben Greene (cousin of Graham) was a Friend and Peace Pledge Union signatory: and Treasurer to the pro-Nazi British People’s Party, for which he was later interned. Nor was he the only signatory to the PPU associated with Nazi groups. The racist policies and use...
Truth as a crescent moon
I took part in a master class the other day. Me and about a thousand others. In a packed auditorium, we practised the sound of one hand clapping. We pointed our right hand at the stage and concentrated on being fully present in the exact point and moment. We clenched...
All articles
Calls for better alcohol labelling
Quaker activists have backed calls for compulsory health warnings on alcohol. They have warned the government not to rely solely on voluntary agreements with the alcohol industry. The government recently found that only fifteen per cent of alcoholic drinks provide enough information about unit measurements and health risks, despite...
Topping Out ceremony for Salisbury Quakers
Salisbury Quakers celebrated the building work to their new Meeting house carried out so far with a traditional Topping Out ceremony on Saturday, 27 February. Quakers bought the beautiful but derelict Grade II listed building known as Kennet Lodge in 2003. Since then they have raised over £500,000, without Lottery funding, for its...
Swansea group challenges Tesco labelling
A group of 100 Swansea residents and shoppers are seeking to prosecute the supermarket chain Tesco over their sale of goods produced in Israeli settlements on Palestine’s West Bank. The campaigners have signed a letter to the Swansea Trading Standards Office, urging them to begin prosecution proceedings. They were...
The Fear Factory
The Fear Factory, a new film, premiered at The Empire cinema in Leicester Square, London, on Monday, 1 March. Produced by Spirit Level Films, this excellent production gives a balanced insight into the problems that abound in our judicial system and, in particular, the scandalous issue of the current high...
West Yorkshire Quakers speak out for equality
Quakers in West Yorkshire have spoken out against the growing gap between rich and poor. They joined with a range of other church groups to call on politicians to tackle economic inequality as a greater priority than economic growth. Along with other members of the West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council ...
Hunger strikers and truth
With the launch of Early Day motion 919 in support of Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers this struggle for truth and justice has reached parliament. In a backlash, Meg Hillier, junior minister in the Home Office, wrote to every MP claiming the media were ‘misreporting’. Hunger strikers ‘were buying food from...
Becoming Friends
I have just been looking through a copy of Becoming Friends. There is a lot of interesting material in the publication and I can see a great deal of time, energy and thought has gone into this. However, I am finding it very difficult to get my head round the...
Letters - 05 March 2010
The night is full of stars
‘The Night is Full of Stars’ by Friedrich Schmitz-Hertzberg. Sessions of York, Ebor Press Division. ISBN: 978 1 85072 397 4 Price: £9.99 plus £2.50 UK postage & packing. There is something vaguely familiar, and slightly unsettling, about the face on the cover of this book. The eyes, looking at something just behind your left ear,...
Eyewitness - 05 March 2010
Will this catch on? There’s no end to the clever ways charities have of persuading us all to give more help to developing countries. You can give a goat, support a village, send your computer. But how about giving your lavatory? Seriously – Eye thinks this is a great idea...