Tag Archives: Quakerism

Police raid Quaker place of worship hosting campaign group’s welcome talk

Posted on by symonhill

On Thursday 27th March, at least 20 police officers broke down the door of a place of worship in central London and arrested young people who belong to a peaceful protest group.

New anti-protest laws have in recent years allowed the police to become ever more heavy-handed and anti-democratic in their approach to protest. Raids on people who are planning direct action – and not even doing it – have become more common.

Nonetheless, the police attack on Westminster Quaker Meeting House (pictured right) is particularly alarming for several reasons.

Firstly, the event was described by Youth Demand as a “welcome talk“ that was “publicly advertised”, to discuss protests against the genocide in Gaza. In other words, this event was open to anyone. That includes people with no experience of taking part in, or even talking about, civil disobedience or direct action. Anybody who went along out of interest may very likely be frightened of attending any political meeting again. This is police intimidation.

Secondly, it seems you can now be raided for having conversations about actions that you might take. Given that this was a welcome meeting, it is disingenuous for the police to imply that everyone there was in the middle of some sort of high-level planning of mass disruption. The police comment given to the media focused on what “Youth Demand have stated” their intentions to be. This is very different to everyone present being intent on taking part in such things. Given that the police raided other Youth Demand members’ homes in London and Exeter, it seems that they were attempting not only to arrest certain members of Youth Demand but also to intimidate all the others.

Thirdly, the police have raided a place of worship. Apologists for the police have been quick to jump on social media and point out that the people arrested were not Quakers (or at least, probably not Quakers). This is irrelevant. Quakers have a strong theology of not separating the “sacred” and the “secular”, so they do not believe their buildings to be more sacred than other places. This is also irrelevant, however. Religious groups expect their buildings to be places of safety and welcome; those who visit them should be able to expect this (speaking personally, Westminster Quaker Meeting House was a great place of welcome and community to me after I nervously moved to London 20 years ago). Westminster Quaker Meeting House is also the home of two Quaker wardens, who have now experienced the violation of their home by the police.

The police are clearly abandoning the sort of sensitivity and caution that might once have made them reluctant to break into a place of worship. A statement from Quakers in Britain described the incident as “an aggressive violation of our place of worship”.

Of course, this whole incident cannot be understood without the context of the genocide in Gaza, which is enabled by Keir Starmer’s government. Like the Tory government before them, they are happy to arm Israeli troops killing civilians in Gaza and Saudi troops killing civilians in Yemen – and many other vicious regimes around the world. The young people arrested in Westminster Quaker Meeting House were not planning violence. They were seeking to resist violence.

This police raid seems fairly clearly to be an attempt to deter people from taking part in Youth Demand’s upcoming protests. For this reason if for no other, let’s make sure we support them! Tessa, a member of Youth Demand speaking outside Bromley Police Station yesterday insisted that “this blatant act of intimidation by the Met Police” would not stop them.

Among other things, it is vital that religious groups condemn the police’s behaviour and their violation of free speech, freedom of assembly and religious liberty. This time it was a Quaker Meeting House. Next time it could be a church, mosque, temple or synagogue.

“Rogue trader” went to a Quaker school

Posted on by symonhill

Much has been written today about Kweku Adoboli, the “rogue trader” who lost £1.3bn of other people’s money. One fact that has received little attention is that he went to a Quaker school.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Adoboli attended Ackworth School in West Yorkshire. The Telegraph doesn’t mention that it’s a Quaker institution, but it does mention that it charges £19,635 per year (only slightly below the average annual income in the UK).

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Adoboli was not only a student at the school, but was “Head Boy” from 1997-98.

The UK’s “Quaker schools” are nearly all privately owned, fee-paying institutions and the vast majority of their students are not Quakers. They provoke bitter debate amongst British Quakers, many of whom object to the name of their religion being associated with anything as elitist and divisive as a private school.

I understand that some of them offer bursaries for students with Quaker parents, meaning that at least a few of their students are not from wealthy backgrounds. But this only adds an element of religious discrimination on top of the socio-economic discrimination inherent in their nature.

I respect the fact that some Quaker parents struggle with the ethical issues involved before deciding to send their children to Quaker schools. What I find alarming is how many Quakers are prepared to robustly defend Quaker private schools while otherwise being apparently committed to principles of equality which lie at the root of Quakerism.

I am not of course suggesting that Ackworth School should be held responsible for Adoboli’s dealings. Far more blame must attach to the financial industry and the politicians who won’t stand up to it. It is not really accurate to describe Adoboli as a “rogue trader”, when the whole investment banking sector is effectively a rogue trade.

Nonetheless, I hope this incident will trigger renewed debate about the realities of Quaker schools and give British Quakers a wake-up call about education.

I have been involved with Quakers, to varying degrees, for thirteen years. I now attend both a Baptist Church and a Quaker Meeting, as well as worshipping in other contexts. Quakerism is a significant part of the way I understand my Christian faith.

Since becoming involved in Quakers, I have been encouraged and inspired by the number of Quakers, and Quaker bodies, taking a radical stand on issues of peace and justice. And I have been enormously frustrated by the lack of radicalism that is apparent whenever it comes to questioning Quaker institutions themselves. For a movement founded on convictions about the free movement of the Holy Spirit, Quaker institutions can be unbelievably hard to change.