Far more than pacifism
Rosemary Hartill, a former BBC news correspondent, describes how Quaker peacebuilding appealed to her when she first came to Quakers
‘Imagine you’re waiting at a bus stop. A young woman and a toddler – still too young to walk steadily – are standing in the middle of your group of three. The boy is beginning to cry, and the mother has slapped him once without comment. She now says ‘shut up’ and starts to slap him again. What do you do?’ This was just one of the questions from a workshop of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). It was 1996 and I had signed up for the three-day session as a direct result of starting to attend a Quaker Meeting in Northumberland.
In those days, I had two approaches to conflict: fight or flight. I saw these two approaches reflected in many of the religious groups I reported on internationally for the BBC.
These faith groups had differences with governments, with oppressive groups and individuals – and of course within congregations. Some things were seen in black and white and condemned accordingly; but generally conflict was seen as a ‘bad thing’ and certainly not really Christian. It was often avoided.
But one Saturday morning at Newcastle Meeting House a shaft of light illuminated this nonsense. At the Saturday seminar on peacebuilding, a young respected Quaker peacebuilder said that conflict was not a bad thing, but normal. People would always have different views and different interests. When challenging injustice, for example, conflict was inevitable. The challenge was how to face and resolve conflict constructively.
To some, this may be patently obvious. But to me at that time it was pure light. Quakers, I began to realise, had rather more to offer than just pacifism. I wanted to handle conflict better, so I signed up for three AVP workshops.
At the time, all I knew about AVP was that it had begun in the early 1970s as a response by prisoners and others to a violent incident in a New York state prison; it was imbued with Quaker insights and approaches; it was now an independent organisation; and it was running workshops in prisons and communities in many different countries.
I loved the workshops. The clear structure. The variety of exercises, games, small group and plenary work. The opportunities to contribute. The fact that everyone was a volunteer. The riskiness. And the safety. The way we shared stories exploring what had increased or decreased conflict in our own lives. The humour. The feedback. The equality. The challenge.
This was not about international peacemaking somewhere else. It was about dealing with conflict where we are – at school, at work, in our families, in our neighbourhoods. It was about saying or doing something at that bus stop.
One of the surprises for me was how hard it was to keep some of the basic ground rules – refrain from put-downs of self or others; look for and affirm other people’s good points; when volunteering, volunteer myself only, not others.
Light after light kept switching on in my head. When complaining that someone I knew had failed to say a positive or encouraging thing to me in ten years, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t said a positive or encouraging thing to him either.
I began to realise how much more can be done working with others than alone and how good team working needs real preparation, honesty, openness and time.
Through role plays and scenarios, we explored different ways of handling personal conflicts people had raised – with astonishingly different results sometimes.
Every single comforting or discomforting thing I learned was helpful. In the end, it drew me into working in the criminal justice system and it changed my life.
The Quakers were to blame.
Rosemary Hartill is a member of Northumbria Area Quaker Meeting.
Alternatives to Violence Project Britain
Rosemary Hartill
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In this week's
online edition...
cover
Dear visitor
Judy Kirby, editor, the Friend The poetry of silence and the prose of action
Kevin Franz The spiritual path for me?
Ron Kentish What about Hitler?
Geoffrey Carnall Why I came to the Meeting house
Sibyl Ruth Why I love Meeting for Worship
Bob Johnson Recharging our Quaker batteries
Harriet Hart Loving the Spirit of the Age
Laurie Michaelis Give Jesus a promotion!
David Boulton Jesus and me
Paul Oestreicher Restorative justice
Marian Liebmann ‘Our Lives’: working in disadvantaged communities
Rowena Loverance Conciliation behind the scenes
Oliver Robertson Far more than pacifism
Rosemary Hartill On being a Quaker artist
Rowena Loverance
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eye@thefriend.org
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