Newsletter

We do not have a digital copy of our newsletter available at present. You can pick up a paper copy at a local meeting. Click here to see a list of local meetings.
Spring edition is now available.
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From our Winter edition:
View cover image here -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/asisawit/3408261865/sizes/o/in/set-72157600...
 
Hello from the Editor

Welcome to the January/February (Winter) 2009 edition of the Manchester and Warrington Area Meeting Newsletter. This edition is divided into two: ‘Faith and Conflict’ and ‘Meetings and Minutes’. The reason for focusing on faith and conflict in this edition is to acknowledge our Peace Testimony with a particular gaze upon the Middle East. Within this section I have included a personal testimony from a Reform Jew living in Manchester and an insightful article by Daniel Barenboim.

Thanks to all for your contributions to this edition. If you would like to contribute to the Spring/Summer edition of the newsletter, or would like a PDF version of this newsletter, simply email me at:
sarahalldred@yahoo.co.uk.

Below is an extract from Quaker Faith and Practice that I often refer to and it feels particularly apt in the
current climate.

Peace and Friendship
Sarah Alldred
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Quaker Faith and Practice: 24.35
Adam Curle was the first professor in the School (later
Department) of Peace Studies, established in 1973 largely
through Quaker initiative, in the University of Bradford.
 
I have often been asked how we handle the fact that
peacemaking involves having a relationship, often a
close relationship, with people who are committed to
violent solutions to their problems. Do we tell them
we disapprove of what they are doing or urge them to
repent and desist? And if we don't, how do we square
this with our principles? For my part I reply that I
would never presume to criticise people caught up in
a situation I do not share with them for the way in
which they are responding to that situation. How
could I, for example, preach to the oppressed of Latin
America or Southern Africa? Nevertheless, I explain
that I do not believe in the use of violence as either
effective or moral; my job is to try to help people
who can see no alternative to violence to find a substitute…
I am as much concerned with the human condition in
general as with specific conflicts, which often represent
only the tip of a pyramid of violence and anguish...
I am concerned with all the pain and confusion
that impede our unfolding and fulfilment. Often, of course, circumstances force us to focus on extreme
examples of unpeacefulness. However, if we were to
limit our attention to these, we would be neglecting
the soil out of which they grow and would continue
to grow until the soil were purified. In this sense the
social worker, the teacher, the wise legislator, or the
good neighbour is just as much a peacemaker as the
woman or man unravelling some lethal international
imbroglio.
1981
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Friends of Quaker Congo
Martin Gilbraith
http://www.manchesterquakers.org.uk/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=67
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(I intend to add more extracts from our Newsletter soon. JMcG)