Responses to war, A Commentary by Peter Leyland

                                                “Responses to war”, A Commentary 

For this blog I have returned  to my theme of two years ago when part of the world seemed to spiral out of control so violently that it was impossible to see how sworn enemies could ever be reconciled. My subject now again is war and is an account of how I have tried to come to terms with its horror, such as that precipitated by the massacre of Israelis by their Palestinian neighbours on October 7th 2023, and the Israeli response.

 

Not far from where I live is a meeting place for The Religious Society of Friends, better known as Quakers. The Meeting House and its surrounding rooms contain an extensive library, and it was there a few weeks ago, that I entered The Meeting House and visited the library before the meeting began. I looked at the section on Quaker practice only to see a book with the title, Responses to war, some contemporary Quaker reflections, (pictured), which I picked up. Sitting down, I read through the first entry, a powerful poem about the ongoing destruction of Gaza by the Israel Defence Force in their response to the murderous attack by Hamas upon the Israeli people.

 

Meetings of The Religious Society of Friends are held in silence but within that is ‘ministry’, where a member, or an attender, stands up amongst the seated gathering to speak about something that has come into their mind during the silence. And so, after my visit to the library, I joined the meeting and following a short time in the silence, I stood and spoke briefly about the poem, "The ruins of Gaza", which I had been reading, and its series of images detailing the horrors of the war.

 

The meeting continued with more  ministry from members and attenders. After it had finished I returned to my home and read through the whole book during which I made notes. The rest of this blog is a commentary on what I read, to be published in 'Meeting Points', the newsletter of the Milton Keynes Quakers.

 

“I picked up this book recently in our Quaker Library. I opened it at the first entry, a poem entitled 'The ruins of Gaza' by Pamela Coren, and I stood transfixed as I read about a war which echoed the destruction of Guernica in 1937. ‘Reason’, the writer said, was so far ‘buried in rubble’ that the ‘words’ used by statesmen to describe the war were ‘fat with sweet decay’ and ‘buzz in the mouths’. Words like ‘terror, security, defence, mission, war aims, reasonable force…’, and so on, stuck in my mind as I read the poem to its end.

 

I sat in the Meeting and after some time I 'ministered' or spoke about war and its consequences. Later, at home, I read right through the book and found within it other Quaker writers bearing witness with stories of genocide and oppression, which sat together as a testimony to the horror of all present conflicts. In Ukraine, for example, past atrocities were referred to, and of how children were said to have been deported away from their families, just as happened in WWII. Yet even here writers found patches of hope. While the bombing continued in Ukraine, two friends, now grandfathers, were shown to have discovered that in past wars long ago, they had been enemies. 

 

One writer said that ‘a world without war was an idea whose time has come’ and she shared the thoughts of a Friend that sometimes we could only bear witness, ‘like those assembled at the foot of the cross’. At 74, she says, she had never been tested further than in an anti-Vietnam war demonstration some years ago. I was at that same demonstration, full of hope and confidence that an end to the Vietnam war was possible.

And it did end. In 2023 I travelled to Vietnam for my nephew's wedding to Linh who works here in the UK as a doctor for the NHS. I visited The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City and, looking at photographs, I recollected what had happened in the past - for example, the indiscriminate use of napalm and agent orange in civilian areas. In Vietnam I met Linh's family, her parents and her brother who, despite their country's war-torn past, now filled the world around them with kindness

 

The book never loses sight of its central theme of war’s destructive nature, yet solutions to conflict are offered. In another poem a man born in Palestine is described after years of false imprisonment watching the film Schindler’s List and learning to understand ‘the other’; in an essay, 'Israeli Voices for Peace', a list of suggestions is drawn up on what Friends can do: one is to support morally and financially the Israeli/Palestinian peace group which is non-violently seeking to transform Israeli society from within. Through my membership of ESREA I know of a fellow adult educator who has assisted with this work.

 

There is more, much more. One writer describes the experience of a soldier who in a moment of fear accidentally kills one of his comrades. He is then seriously wounded himself and wakes up in a hospital bed alongside an ‘enemy’ soldier whose wounds are life threatening. In their suffering these adversaries are shown to have found ‘a kind of love’ as they recover, and this powerful feeling is related by the writer to George Fox’s “God in everyone” from Quaker Faith and Practice 19.32.

 

Finally, in the book is a quotation from the Quaker, Adam Curle, former Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University. He says that as Quakers we must not think we can achieve things beyond human limitations. He counsels patience, ‘keeping our lamps trimmed in the night and waiting, critically poised for when the time is right.’”

 

                                                                                  

                                                                                                     by Peter Leyland 16/09/2025

References

"Blindness in Gaza" by Peter Leyland in AuthorsElectric, December 2nd 2023

Responses to war some contemporary Quaker reflections (2025)  Northern Friends Peace Board

Quaker faith and practice, 5th Edition (2013)

ESREA - European Society for Research into the Education of Adults

George Fox 1624-1691 was the founder of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)