In this talk the author discusses the place of Quakerism in modern society and its relevance to peace and conflict studies

Clements, Kevin P.

University of Queensland eSpace

Talk to open History Exhibition on 350 Years of Quakerism 
Commissariat, Brisbane 18/05/04 
 
Kevin P Clements 
 
• I would like to thank all of those who developed this excellent 
exhibition in Western Australia and  a special thanks to Kay 
Throssall and Susan Addisson who worked so hard to present it 
here in Brisbane.  This exhibition  is a powerful witness to all those 
Friends who have courageously  testified to their deepest beliefs 
over the years  both in Australia and in other parts of the world.  
The pioneers of peace and justice presented here  voiced their 
concerns and behaved  peaceably  often  in the face of quite 
overwhelming opposition.  They did not give up, however  and the 
world is a much more decent place because of their vocational 
commitments to peace, simplicity, truth and compassion. 
• The world is  confronted by much evil and bleakness at the present 
time. With the appalling revelations from Abu Ghraib the  West –
as exemplified by the United States , the United Kingdom and 
regrettably Australia--  has  lost claim to any sense of moral 
superiority or manifest destiny. Violence and brutality diminish all 
of us not only those who choose violence to advance their own  
interests. This exhibition is a salutary reminder that there are plenty 
of    non-violent more peaceful alternatives. The many examples 
presented here  are also  an exhortation to think more creatively 
about ways in which we might solve  some of the big problems 
confronting the world.  
• Quakers do not have  dogmatic or doctrinal beliefs. Rather we  
endeavour to let our lives speak for us. Of course we fall and fail 
but we  continue with the struggle of    living in  ways that are 
consistent with our faith or what Friends  call testimonies.  These 
are  our faltering attempts to put  faith into practice -- many of 
which are reflected on the walls of this exhibition.   
• Quakers’ understanding of  faith  is that true human fulfillment  
comes from the deliberate effort to live life  in a spirit of love, truth 
and peace ,  answering “that of God in everyone”. It is this belief 
that has given  rise to a profound sense of equality, justice, 
compassion and a deep desire to see the sacred in all life.  It is this  
basic commitment that has fuelled Quaker passion for justice in the 
areas of race, gender, and class over the years as well. 
• This quest for true human fulfillment   has motivated Quaker 
witness/(belief and action) for peace and justice for the past 350 
years.  It was this belief that moved me into peace and conflict 
studies. It was this belief that gave rise to the first School of Peace 
Studies in the UK at Bradford University—an initiative pioneered 
by Quakers- and it was this belief that moved people like John 
Woolman to oppose the slave trade in the 18th century [before it 
was fashionable to do so]. It inspired  Elizabeth Fry and others to  
promote prison reform in the 19th century and  endless Quakers 
throughout the centuries to conscientiously object to war, to 
struggle for justice and  in everything to respond to every human 
being with the deepest empathy and compassion.  
• It was this belief that  inspired James Backhouse   to identify with 
the colonized Aborigines in Australia when his peers were still 
sustaining the illusion that Australia was terra nullius. The moving 
spirit generates impulses that take  Friends out of their comfort 
zones  in order to identify with those who are marginalized, 
excluded, humiliated, oppressed and downtrodden. What Friends 
and others discover  in this process  is that in the engagement  with 
those who have no power, no status, no influence there is an 
encounter with   the incarnate spirit that lies at the heart of all 
existence.    
• Over 350 years –as you can see from the concerns reflected  in the 
posters some Quaker testimonies have changed.  We used to have 
testimonies about tithes, temperance, slavery,and forms of 
address…. Some of these have now been been superseded and are 
considered quaint . Calling  another person Thee and Thou is a 
useful reminder, however, of how to treat each person as though 
they were holy places deserving of the deepest religious respect. 
• Modern Quakers  while not forgetting these deep and concerned  
roots have new  testimonies on integrity in business; respect and 
care for the earth and environment, equality and opposition to 
torture and  capital punishment;not to mention  a radical adherence 
to simplicity, non-violence and non military  solutions to political 
problems. As this exhibition highlights, however, Friends have had 
a particular passion for Peace .  
• The Peace testimony derives from our insistence that  love  lies at 
the heart of all existence.  As Friends said in 1660 in a declaration 
to King Charles the II “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife 
and fighting with outward weapons for any end or under any 
pretence whatsoever”…. Because of this Quakers through the ages 
have struggled with what it means to  “live in the life and power 
which takes away the occasion of all wars”. Or as Margaret Fell 
another Quaker from this time (1614-1702) put it.  “We are a 
people that follow after those things which make for peace, love 
and unity,it is our desire that other’s feet may walk in the same and 
do deny and bear our testimony  against all strife and wars” 
• This is a particularly gloomy moment in world affairs. The war in 
Iraq is a powerful and negative example of what happens when the 
powerful use force, and violence  to achieve their political ends.  
• The political justifications for this most recent  war are without 
foundation. The original  justification for the war of abolishing 
weapons of mass destruction  has   proven to be absolutely false. 
The moral justification in terms of ending tyranny and creating 
conditions conducive to democracy has been lost  also as  United 
States jailers have employed the same brutal tactics as Hussein  
within exactly the same prisons.  Violence has generated more 
violence . As Gandhi said “ I object to violence… because when it 
appears to do good, the good is only temporary- the evil it does is 
permanent.” The world is yearning for  some simple alternative.  
Friends in Australia and all around the world have to figure out 
some way of  responding  to these evils in ways that  will do 
permanent  and lasting good.  
• This is not an easy question. How can we conduct political and 
social affairs in ways which do not result in  enmity, hostility, 
violence  and war?  We have to begin initially with a radical re-
orientation of  our personal lives – so that we understand intuitively 
the ways in which we are connected one to the other. We have to 
live simply so that we do not succumb to feelings of greed, envy 
and hostility at the  wealth and power of others.   
• But we also need to manifest these beliefs in political witness as 
well. Quakers have opposed all weapons of war and especially 
weapons of mass destruction for hundreds of years. We are 
absolutely opposed to all producers, providers and owners of such 
weapons without exception. They have no place in civilized 
relationship between peoples. This means we remain as committed 
to  the disarmament  of all states and peoples –not just those 
weapons of our enemies.  
• Quakers have  also been at the forefront of individual conscientious  
objection to war and   –along with the Mennonites, Church of the 
Brethren and the other historic peace churches-- have  maintained a 
vocational objection to war—creating a tension between  those 
who are willing to compromise on  the appropriateness or justice of 
war. 
• Quakers  have also been at the centre of emergency relief to all 
sides in war and  have worked to ban child soldiers  and focused on   
what it means to  forgive , reconcile and realize true human 
community.  
• Quakers have worked with regional, and global institutions at the 
EU and at the United Nations to ensure that  these institutions  too 
adhere to the highest principles and higher levels of moral 
consistency between means and ends.   
• In this age of terror. The Quaker message   shines forth as a  clear 
alternative to the oxymoronic war that is being waged against it.  
We will not defeat terror with terror, torture with torture, capital 
punishment with capital punishment.  The world demands more 
creative solutions than this…. We need to harness the  best 
intellects, the most creative imaginations,  and the best listening 
ears so that we understand the needs of others better than our own. 
So that we sow  hope instead of fear, so that we replace falsehood 
and political deceit with truth,  so that we  respond to  hatred with 
compassion, so that we can do justice, show mercy and begin to 
embody and demonstrate that inexhaustible power of love.  
• For 350 years Friends/Quakers have been testifying to these 
alternatives. They have  certainly sought to do no harm and  they 
have  in fact done much good—especially when  others have been 
wedded to violence. Quakers helped feed  hungry Germans at the 
end of the First World War when the victors were talking of 
revenge. They worked to establish basic sanitation systems  in 
Tsarist Russia, delivered medical supplies to all sides in  China 
during the Second World War and in  Vietnam during that Vietnam 
war . In  countless other places this small band of people has 
exerted  influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Friends 
have remained committed to those “small transforming circles” 
where goodness supplants hatred and evil.  In all of this work  over 
the past 350 years Quakers have  sought to replace revenge with 
something much more transformative.  
• This is one of those hinge moments in history when the world will 
either see the  power of love and non-violence or it will lapse even 
further into barbarism.  I am optimistic because I believe that 
human beings everywhere  when treated with radical love, respect 
and affirmation respond  in similar fashion.  
 
• It gives me great pleasure, therefore, to formally declare this 
history exhibition open.  


Talk to Open the History Exhibition on 350 Years of Quakerism Commissariat, Brisbane, 18/05/04

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:10443/Kevin_Clements2.pdf

Talk to Open the History Exhibition on 350 Years of Quakerism Commissariat, Brisbane, 18/05/04

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