Interview with George Lakey the Friend Independent Quaker Journalism Since 1843
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the 6 July 2012 £1.70 DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY Interview with George Lakey the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 COntents VOL 170 NO 27 3 Thought for the Week: Happy New (financial) Year Faith in action George Penaluna ‘I dislike arrest and jail, personally. Been 4-5 News there, done that, as long ago as the civil 6 Welsh concerns rights movement in the ‘sixties. I dislike the loss of freedom, being put under the Christine Trevett custody of someone with a gun. Most of 7 Getting to no what I dislike are the reminders of that seizure of my body and my destiny: the Oliver Robertson tight pressure of cold metal handcuffs on 8-9 Letters my skin, the awkward angles my body takes getting into police vehicles (I’m not 10-12 Interview: George Lakey as limber as I once was), the temperature Peace, justice and conflict in the cells (always, it seems, too hot or Milan Rai too cold), the uncertainty about whether I’ll be able to stay with my comrades or be 13 Buddhist wisdom and the earth isolated, the awful clang of metal against Peter Jarman metal when the cell doors close. I’m lucky 14 Deepening the Life of the Spirit in that I’m rarely beaten and in those situations I have some protection from my Pete Duckworth white skin and my peaceful disposition.’ What does Quakerism mean to you? George Lakey, Quaker political activist Galileo West and nonviolent campaigner. 15 Found poem in three voices from: http://eqat.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/ Sylvia Edwards (See page 5 and interview on pages 10-12) 16 q-eye: A Round Tuit 17 Friends & Meetings Cover image: Poppies Photo: Trish Carn. See page 5. The Friend Subscriptions Advertising Editorial UK £76 per year by all payment Advertisement manager: Editor: types including annual direct debit; George Penaluna Ian Kirk-Smith monthly payment by direct debit £6.50; online only £48 per year. Articles, images, correspondence For details of other rates, Tel/fax: 01535 630230 should be emailed to contact Penny Dunn on [email protected] [email protected] 020 7663 1178 or [email protected] www.thefriend.org/advertise.asp or sent to the address below. the Friend 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Tel: 020 7663 1010 Fax: 020 7663 1182 www.thefriend.org Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith [email protected] • Sub-editor: Trish Carn [email protected] • Production editor: Elinor Smallman production@ thefriend.org • News reporter: Symon Hill [email protected] • Arts editor: Rowena Loverance [email protected] • Environment editor: Laurie Michaelis [email protected] • Subscriptions officer: Penny Dunn [email protected] Tel: 020 7663 1178 • Advertisement manager: George Penaluna, Ad department, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 [email protected] • Clerk of the trustees: Janet Scott • ISSN: 0016-1268 The Friend Publications Limited is a registered charity, number 211649 • Printed by Headley Bros Ltd, Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH 2 the Friend, 6 July 2012 Thought for the Week Happy New (financial) Year! n common with all charities, The Friend Publications each year. As a rule of thumb, to calculate the price of has a financial year end: a fixed day each year when a subscription, we take the total budgeted cost, deduct we tot up all the ‘ins’ and all the ‘outs’ and breathe a anticipated advertisement and voluntary income and Isigh of relief that the ‘ins’ nearly always exceed the ‘outs.’ divide what is left by the number of subscribers. The more subscribers, the less each one has to pay. For The Friend Publications (a small, independent charity whose main function is the publication of the ‘Ah,’ you’re thinking, ‘we’re being softened up to be Friend and the Friends Quarterly), our annual day of told the price is going up from 1 July.’ Well, no, actually. reckoning is 30 June. While we are confident that we Despite the cost of mailing the Friend having increased are on track again to break even this year (or even make by £2.50 per subscriber per year since April, our trustees a very small surplus), final figures won’t be known for have decided to hold subscription rates for the Friend another few months. and the Friends Quarterly at their current levels. Although we rent office accommodation in Friends We appreciate the wonderful support that has been House, The Friend Publications is independent of given, and continues to be given, by our readers. Britain Yearly Meeting and has its own body of Quaker Accepting the difficult economic times, we do not want trustees. We provide an independent voice for Friends to burden loyal subscribers with a price increase. What in Britain, and have done so for almost 170 years. The we hope is that by launching a drive to recruit more Friend is one of the longest running continuously subscribers, our costs will be spread across a larger published magazines in the world. constituency. Our finances are pretty simple: about sixty-three per As our subscribers and readers are our best cent of our income is from subscribers, thirty per cent ambassadors, will you, Friends, help us increase our from advertisements and seven per cent from grants, readership and introduce a friend to the Friend? Later donations, legacies and income on our small reserves. this year we will be launching an ‘Introduce a Friend’ As you can see, without you, our steadfast subscribers promotion, with postcards in the magazine for you to and advertisers, there simply wouldn’t be a ‘Friend’ each share with Friends and attenders. With your help, the week. Our costs are correspondingly simple: about sixty Friend can have a happy new financial year in 2012- per cent goes to rent, administration and staffing and 2013 and postpone any price increases for as long as forty per cent on paper, printing and postage. possible! Being a charity, we are a non-profit organisation. Just George Penaluna like an Area Meeting, we simply have to cover our costs The advertisement manager for and, hopefully, have a little left over to carry forward the Friend and the Friends Quarterly. the Friend, 6 July 2012 3 News Quaker addresses Methodists explain. I have asked one country while nearly all their people to pay their work takes place elsewhere. taxes when due, where He was keen to point to due and in the right campaign successes: George amount.’ Osborne has closed a VAT loophole One of the first concerning online purchases people to carry out routed via the Channel Islands. detailed research The USA now requires oil and gas into tax havens, he companies to present accounts on founded the Tax a ‘country-by-country’ basis, which Justice Network with makes it much harder to cover up John Christensen in tax avoidance. The UK government 2003. have ended their subsidy for the The Methodist Isle of Man, which had helped it to audience in Plymouth function as a tax haven. heard that tax havens ‘This work is the fulfilment have cost developing of my Christian vocation,’ said Photo: Anna Drew. countries about Richard Murphy. He added: ‘You ‘How did A QUAKER £100bn per year – simply can’t take the message of chartered accountant become a almost exactly the same as the total Christian concern for the poor dangerous man?’ asked Richard world aid budget. Turning to the out of the Bible and have anything Murphy, co-founder of the Tax UK, Richard Murphy presented tax meaningful left. It is, I think, what Justice Network on Monday. He justice as an alternative to austerity. Christian faith is all about.’ was giving the Beckly Lecture, ‘There is now a choice to be He insisted that public awareness part of the annual Methodist made,’ he said. ‘We can stop tax of tax justice had ‘led directly to Conference. cheats cheating or cut pensions. We the creation of the UK Uncut and Richard Murphy – who considers can cut corporation tax for large Occupy movements’. He welcomed himself as ‘a Quaker with some companies or cut the NHS. We can both movements, saying they had Anglican leanings’ – was described sack staff who could crack down on brought ‘enormous’ pressure to as ‘dangerous’ in a report by Her tax avoidance at HMRC or deny our bear on UK companies. Majesty’s Revenue and Customs children a proper education.’ In the autumn, Richard Murphy (HMRC). The head of the Cayman Offshore accounting was once drew controversy after sharply Islands Monetary Authority called part of Richard Murphy’s work. criticising St Paul’s Cathedral for him ‘the leader of the international He told the conference: ‘I stand their response to the Occupy camp tax Taliban’. before you as a sinner and ask on their doorstep. He defended He told the conference he would your forgiveness.’ He described his position on Monday, insisting ‘confess’ what he had done to be offshore accountancy as ‘quite that Jesus ‘would have been outside treated as ‘an enemy of the state’. literally a world of fiction’, in which on the steps with the Occupy He said: ‘This, thankfully, is easy to companies are supposedly based in movement’. Christians need to be open to change THE NEW PREsidENT and the vice-president of the change. The vice-president, Michael King, insisted Methodist Conference have said that Christians need that Christianity is about following Jesus rather than to be more open to change and to welcome people as obeying a book of rules. they are. They were speaking at the annual gathering He said: ‘The person whose lifestyle, or sexuality, or of Britain’s Methodists, held in Plymouth from 28 June abilities, or impairments seem very different – how is to 5 July.