Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

From “Quakers & Resistance” — Tom Fox Paid the Price

            Who killed the unarmed Quaker peaceworker Tom Fox in Iraq? And why?
            Few other than the ones who pulled the trigger know the truth, and one wonders how much even they understand. Speculation abounds, of course, with many of my more left-leaning friends imagining a CIA-sponsored conspiracy to silence these noisy pacifist dissenters. Yet from the reading and interviews I have done, the most likely guess seems much more mundanely sordid: it was probably all about money.
            The videos showing Tom and the others were issued by a previously unknown group, “The Swords of Righteousness Brigades.” This name is very likely a fake, a cover for a criminal gang, which simply kidnaped them for ransom. There was, as John and I learned while keeping our vigil, a sizable kidnaping industry in Iraq. Many Iraqis have been thus abducted for profit, as well as citizens of numerous other countries.
            James Loney felt the ransom was wanted to help finance the guerrilla insurgency. Many other observers feel that while the kidnapers are Muslims, and many have likely suffered from the invasion and occupation, these crimes appear to be only loosely connected to religious or political grievances. Rather, they are more a specimen of organized crime gangs mushrooming in a devastated and lawless society.
            From this “profit-seeking” perspective, taking CPT team members was not a particularly good “investment”: the group has pledged not to pay, and not to ask anyone else to. Moreover, none of the four had a personal fortune to plunder. But the gang likely figured that regardless of such brave declarations, given enough pressure, someone would eventually cave in and pay. (Harmeet Sooden, a fellow hostage with Tom, later told a New Zealand press conference that he suspected a ransom had been paid for him and the other survivors, despite vehement government denials.)
            But if the kidnapers were after money, why kill Tom? There are a number of hypotheses:

For Women’s History Month: Lucretia Mott’s Secret Recipe for “Good-Trouble” & Hell-Raising

Nantucket is a fascinating pilgrimage spot for Quakers; it’s best to visit off-season, when it’s easier to look past the opulence, and see how thick the small town is with stirring Quaker history. Among its numerous distinctive features, the one we want to home in on here was the fact that while the harbor was populated with Quaker ships, the town was populated by many Quaker women. And these women, even the most prosperous ones, were kept plenty busy; not just with children, but also with business.

I mean both Meeting business, and business business. Many Quaker men were away from the island for years on end (Lucretia’s father was gone for three years), sailing halfway around the world (or farther) on trips that were always dangerous, and not rarely fatal — and during which communication with home was rare or nonexistent.

Meantime, Quaker women, while still heavily encased in what we would now think of as stereotyped women’s roles, were more educated than many other females of their day; they also had official status in the Meetings; and they — well, let’s hear how Lucretia describes it:

A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott, considered at the time of her death in 1880 to be the “greatest American woman of the nineteenth century” by many of her contemporaries, was a Quaker abolitionist, women’s rights activist and social reformer. She was a key figure in an insurgent movement of Progressive Friends. Her messages and actions are very pertinent today – and laid much of the foundation for the current women’s movement.
Wednesday First Month (January) 3, 2018, will mark Lucretia’s 225th birthday.
What message would she have for us if she were here today?
HINT: She’d likely tell us we’re in deep trouble and should get up and get busy. (She’d say it nicely, but urgently).
In fact, her message might sound like this . . .

A Quaker Holiday Story: A “Carpet of Light” (Again) for (Another) Shadowed New Year

Out of the silence, as moved, Friends came to the table in ones or twos or family groups, and each lit another candle, which they placed on the table; they spoke if moved, then sat down again in the silence.

From the first time I experienced, the way that the whole room was progressively illuminated, seemed in fact to glow, as the number of flickering flames increased, was very moving to me.

In a way it was a visible, wordless, yet eloquent evocation of Quakerism at its best: a motley, seemingly haphazard collection of candles of witness, more diverse than we outwardly seem, mainly anonymous and individual, somehow joining together to become more than the sum of the parts.

This time, at the end of 2017, a year which for me has been very heavily shadowed, often deeply gloomy, and yes, dark, the full array became something of an encouraging signal for the year ahead.