We have all been shocked and moved by the current situation in Gaza. BLYM does not wish to make a public statement on this situation at the current time but simply to try to gain a better understanding . Here are some links that Friends have suggested:
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/10/statement23-10-07/.
“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever.”
– Declaration made to Charles II in 1660
What unites us as Quakers?
Spiritual insights, often called “testimonies”, tend to unite Quakers worldwide. They spring from deep experience and have been reaffirmed by successive generations of Quakers. These testimonies are to integrity, equality, simplicity, community, stewardship of the Earth, and peace. They arise from an inner conviction and challenge our normal ways of living. They exist in spiritually-led actions rather than in rigid written forms. They are not imposed in any way and they require us to search for ways in which we can live them out for ourselves. Our commitment to non-violence in thought, word and deed is based on the idea that all human beings have something of the divine with us. This idea can be described, in the words of founder George Fox (1624-1691), as “answering that of God in every one” and “seeking the inner light” in each person. (quno.org)
It might seem self-evident that if one believes this fundamental statement, one must be led to objecting to war and armed service on the grounds of conscience, as many Quakers, over the centuries have done. Indeed, the right to this objection is now enshrined in the national law of many countries, including all Member States of the Council of Europe – it is one of the principles to which a country must adhere in order to become a member. This was one of the achievements of a long struggle of the international peace movement after WWI, in which Quakers played an important role (e.g. at the ‘Bilthoven Meetings’ in 1919-21) and we must be alert to trends that threaten to undermine this hard-fought right.
Importantly we must always remember that there is a difference between upholding the right to conscientious objection and being a conscientious objector and indeed, although Quakers resisted the introduction of conscription in 1916 and many chose to register as conscientious objectors, a small but substantial number of young Quaker men did choose to join the armed forces, feeling this was the quickest way to end the war.
The Gent group of the Belgium & Luxembourg Yearly Meeting, along with several other interested Friends, are active in the Belgian peace movement and specifically, alongside EBCO, in support of Conscientious Objectors and the right to Conscientious Objection. EBCO, the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, was founded in 1979, with the support of the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) that is still one of the four Belgian member associations. It would, therefore, seem appropriate for BLYM to uphold this work.
Much more information on this can be found through the links below.
The call to BLYM
Minute 23/06-19 (Conscientious Objection to War) of Belgium and Luxembourg Yearly Meeting stated:
We have heard from the Ghent group about their work to raise awareness in Belgium about the right to hold a conscientious objection to war, in the context of our shared testimony to Peace. We thank the Ghent group for bearing witness in this way; they have done us all a service.
We ask the Ghent group, with the Elders, and the Clerk to work together to bring forward to our next Meeting for Business a statement of the Yearly Meeting’s position on Conscientious Objection, as a basis for future action.
Meeting for Business of 24 September 2023 agreed the following statement:
“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever.”
– Declaration made by Quakers to the English King Charles II in 1660
Freedom from the scourge of war will only be brought about through the faithfulness of individuals to their inmost convictions. As Quakers we accordingly uphold the right of every individual to object to war and armed service on the grounds of conscience. We think that deserters should also be considered as conscientious objectors, especially in armed conflicts between countries that don’t recognise the right of conscientious objection. We condemn the occasions when individuals are persecuted for their refusal to carry arms.
Our Gent Worship group has taken up this concern: as BLYM we declare our support for their endeavours to ensure respect for the right to Conscientious Objection. We ask them to associate with this work: we commit to supporting this work by encouraging individual Friends to support it financially or to work with them for the right to conscientious objection. We ask our Elders and Clerk(s), to consider sympathetically our endorsement as BLYM of statements and petitions in support of conscientious objection brought forward by our Gent Worship Group.
Links
https://www.quaker.org.uk/our-work/peace/conscientious-objection#heading-1
https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/42b141794.pdf
https://quno.org/areas-of-work/conscientious-objection-military-service
https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/wwi-newspaper-1916-final
https://www.ebco-beoc.org/aboutebco
More on Conscientious Objection
Since declaring its commitment to peace in 1660, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has opposed all wars. World War I was no different and many Quakers resisted the call to arms.
Some volunteered for the Friends Ambulance Unit or the Friends War Victims Relief Committee, providing relief from suffering at the front. Others assisted those at home and campaigned for peaceful resolutions.
Quakers believe that all life is precious. We have always tried “to live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars”.
We don’t assume that we can escape from the realities of a world in which violence appears so deeply rooted. We are, however, constantly challenged by the existence of weapons of mass destruction, the number and intensity of violent conflicts, the cycles of poverty, alienation and violence that destroy peace in many deprived communities, and apparently random acts of terrorism.
However hard it is, it is important that we remain true to our principles. We try to show that there is another way of conducting human affairs and resolving conflicts in a non-violent way. In many cases this will involve difficult choices. Our conscience may be troubled trying to work out what is right in areas like peace-keeping.
Throughout history, much has been achieved. The peace testimony involves thinking and speaking the unthinkable, believing this may lead to a real shift in attitudes. What is idealistic in one generation, becomes a cherished right in the next.
The peace testimony also means working for forgiveness and reconciliation and living in a sense of our shared humanity.
Active sponsor: Carla. Two BLYM members in support: Jude and Richard
Conscientious Objection in Turkey
Turkey is the only member country in the Council of Europe that has not recognised the right of conscientious objection to military service. The state uses many different sanctions to force conscientious objectors to do military service. These sanctions lead to objectors facing arrest warrants, a life-long cycle of prosecutions and imprisonment even a “civil death” which excludes them from social, cultural and economic life.
Conscientious Objectors are still criminalised as draft evaders and a continuous arrest warrant is issued. They often get detained in any ID controls by police/gendarmes due to this arrest warrant. After the first detainment, objectors are given an administrative fine. Every arrest entails a new Article 63 Military Criminal Code procedure, which can result in a sentence from 2 months to 3 years or a fine (which is actually more common). They are forced to live an underground life in order to avoid getting detained/arrested.
The European Court of Human Rights calls the situation conscientious objectors find themselves in “civil death” . (Ulke v. Turkey, application no. 39437/98).
Turkish Law prevents Conscientious Objectors working in either the public or private sector, as it is a crime to employ a draft evader. Secondly, objectors are forced to be unemployed or work illegally and uninsured. Finally, objectors do not have the right to go to the polls or to be elected in neither local nor general elections.
Deprivations while avoiding new detention
As every arrest entails another criminal case and possibly a prison sentence, objectors have to avoid social, economic, legal, cultural activities like:
People who have religious or conscientious objections against mandatory military service, are facing life-long repeating prison sentences and deprivation of their civil rights.
Conscripts refusing to join the army, but haven’t declared their conscientious objection are also criminalised and subjected to civil death.
The Conscientious Objection Association Turkey (VR-DER) is an affiliate of War Resisters International (WRI) in London 
https://wri-irg.org/en. It is also a member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO-EBOC) 
https://ebco-beoc.org/ in Brussels. EBCO’s second Vice President is a representative from Turkey. EBCO members in Belgium are the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA), Mouvement Chrétien Pour La Paix, Mouvement International de la Réconciliation/Internationale des Résistant–e-s á la Guerre, and Service Civil International. Both QCEA and Quakers United Nations Office (QUNO) Geneva hold status as Observateurs permanents / permanent observers.
“We, as the Conscientious Objection Association Turkey (VR-DER), aim to document the current situation on the right to conscientious objection in Turkey with the Conscientious Objection Bulletin. The bulletin will be published periodically during the year. The first issue of the bulletin was translated to English and it is now online. We hope that we will increase public awareness of the right to conscientious objection with the help of bulletins which will include applications to our Association, new declarations of conscientious objection and up-to-date information on the court cases of conscientious objectors.”
BLYM held another social evening on Friday 30th April 2021. The main part of the evening was Part 2 of the Belgium Quiz, this time including some tough questions on Luxembourg. Thanks go to Richard Condon’s work as Quizmaster and Janice Thompson for the Roadtrip song section and all who contributed to the evening.
The participants also contributed their favourite Roadtrip songs which are available on the Spotify and YouTube playlists below.
We welcome ideas for the next Zoom Social Evening and can’t wait to hold a face to face social event when the easing of COVID restrictions allows.
Leave suggestions on the Contact Us page.
Les Quakers francophones se retrouvent souvent soit dans des groupes où la langue majoritairement utilisée est l’anglais, soit isolé(e)s. Ils/elles sont aussi géographiquement éparpillé(e)s sur plusieurs pays (et donc assemblées annuelles) — la France, la Suisse, le Canada, la Belgique, le Luxembourg, le Congo, etc.
Depuis l’arrivée de la pandémie, une poignée de Quakers francophones a fait l’expérience de rencontres en ligne (groupes de discussion, présentations historiques, cultes de partage) destinées aux Quakers dont la langue maternelle est le français. Pour le moment, ce sont essentiellement les membres des groupes Quakers de Toulouse et de Genève qui organisent ces activités. Cependant, pour que ces événements fleurissent, il faut informer et attirer des Quakers francophones d’autres régions.
Dans un premier temps, je me suis proposée pour évaluer l’intérêt pour des activités virtuelles en français parmi les Quakers en Belgique et Luxembourg. Si cela vous intéresse, pourriez-vous m’envoyer un mail en indiquant si vous aimeriez:
1) Être informé(e) des activités en ligne pour les Quakers francophones
2) Éventuellement organiser des activités en ligne en français pour les Quakers francophones
Pour information:
Les Quakers de Genève vont organisersur Zoom le mercredi, 17 mars 2021 entre 
18h30 et 20h, un culte de recueillement de 30 minutes suivi d’une discussion d’une heure en français et en anglais du “lexique Quaker” (les termes et les méthodes Quakers). Ouvert à tout le monde. Détails à suivre.
Les Quakers de Toulouse vont organiser, également sur Zoom, une discussion uniquement en français le dimanche, 4 avril 2021 de 9h30 à 10h20 sur “comment vivez-vous la spiritualité avec les autres”. Malheureusement, ceci est est limité à 12 personnes, de préférences des francophones qui ont découvert le Quakerisme récemment. Si cela vous intéresse, veuillez contacter Les Quakers de Toulouse pour réserver votre place et obtenir les codes d’accès.
Amitiés,
Janice
We held a Quiz Night titled “BLYM Belgian pub quiz (without the pub)” on Friday 5th March 2021. Richard hosted, asked the questions and then explained the answers, in English, Dutch and French. We thank Richard for making the night welcoming in three different languages and for bringing the proceedings to life. The quiz explored our knowledge of Belgium posing questions about cuisine, some culture, art and a little politics and history. We discovered some of the more entertaining aspects of this little country. Many of us enjoyed the evening after being locked down for so long.
Jan’s knowledge of his home country seems to be excellent and he was duly declared the winner. He is the one setting the pace for the next quiz.
Quiz nights are an opportunity to meet up socially, albeit on Zoom. It is hoped that we can run more social evenings, which will for the time being will be hosted on Zoom. We long to be able to meet up in person in the not too distant future.
We hope to hold another quiz night in the next few weeks. If you have any entertaining questions (preferably not too difficult) about Belgium that you’d be happy to donate to the social cause, then please forward them to any of the BLYM Oversight Group, namely Jeanette, Janice or John
Suggestions for other types of social evenings that we can arrange using Zoom will also be very welcome. Please contact one of the Oversight Group with your thoughts and ideas or leave a comment below.
The Belgium and Luxembourg Quakers Monthly Cause for March 2021will be Friends House Moscow. Working in Russia and its neighbouring countries, it is an initiative of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It’s mission is to foster Quaker spiritual values. Friends House Moscow provides training in alternatives to violence and conflict resolution, promotes alternatives to military service, protects the rights of underprivileged groups and individuals and supports seekers interested in Quaker Faith and Practice. Friends House Moscow also conducts outreach in the Russian language.
We invite Friends (members and attenders) to recommend a Monthly Cause in order to receive matching funds from the Meeting.
Matching funds will only be available for causes in which members or attenders are actively involved. These members should be taking part in the activities or projects of the Cause. Please send your recommendations to the BLYM Fundraiser.
The account details for Donations to Belgium and Luxemburg Yearly Meeting are:
A Donation to any Monthly Cause you can made to the same account. but please specify in the bank transfer comments section that the donation is for the “Monthly Cause”.
We encourage recommendations for April 2021 and beyond.
If you would like to donate to the Belgium and Luxembourg Yearly Meeting funds. you will find more information on our donations page .
These texts were written during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic – an unprecedented time of loss. Millions of people around the world lost loved ones, many have lost their livelihoods and most of us lost the freedom to live our lives as normal. But many of us also found more time to reflect on our lives, our priorities and what a better future might look like.
We all had to adapt to unprecedented circumstances and Friends have been no exception. We moved to virtual forms of gathering which brought unexpectedly positive experiences but also challenges of worshipping via technological tools.
All of these experiences have inspired this collection of writings and we hope that it will grow.
If you wish to share one or all of the texts with friends, please contact the Clerk of BLYM (quakerclerk@gmail.com) out of courtesy to those whose texts they are.
Should you feel moved to share your own experiences, please contact the Clerk likewise.
Letting Our Lives Speak: Linking Quaker Theology, Spirituality and Social Action
To Friends everywhere,
We, Belgium and Luxembourg Yearly Meeting, held our ‘residential’ yearly meeting over the weekend of 10-11 October 2020, online via Zoom, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Our theme was ‘Letting Our Lives Speak: Linking Quaker Theology, Spirituality and Social Action’.
Although Friends regretted that the current situation prevented us from meeting face to face and enjoying informal social interactions in person, gathering online enabled geographically distant Friends to join us, including representatives from yearly meetings in Britain, Switzerland, Ireland and the Netherlands. Some 45 members and attenders were present, from Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Germany, France, the UK and the USA.
No children attended this year’s online yearly meeting. Their joyful presence and participation were missed.
Our keynote speaker was Craig Barnett, member of Britain Yearly Meeting and author of The Guided Life. Craig reminded us to ‘Take heed…to the promptings of love and truth in [our] hearts’ (Advices and Queries 1). He used his own spiritual journey as an example of lived action from those promptings, reminding us that the teacher is within.
Testimonies are not externally imposed aspirations but rather are descriptions of where generations of Quakers have been led by the Spirit. There is no perfect Quaker. We each have our own unique purpose in the world and the Quaker Way leads us to discovering it. We bring our promptings to the Quaker community in our Meetings (Business, Threshing, Clearness, Experiment with Light, etc.) to help us discern what are true leadings.
A guided life is not necessarily a successful life. The life journey itself is more important than the goal, and along the way, weakness, failure and suffering can be powerful teachers. When faced with adversity, remain open and surrender. Vulnerability may open us to new leadings. For example, George Fox needed to feel despair himself so he could speak to the condition of others. Reflect on what you yourself have learned when led into areas of weakness.
Our second speaker was Anya Nanning Ramamurthy. Anya is a British Friend and climate justice activist who is engaged in the UK Student Climate Network. She has been inspired by historical Friends who acted on their beliefs. One in particular is the Quaker American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who encouraged ‘angelic troublemakers’ to use their bodies to ‘disrupt business as usual’. Quakers have upheld children and young people as leaders from our earliest days when children kept meetings going while adults were imprisoned.
Anya encourages Friends to recognise that we cannot work against climate breakdown without addressing inequalities and social injustices.
Friends from Belgium and Luxembourg Yearly Meeting shared testimonies on how they have been led by the Spirit to serve their communities in unexpected ways. In reaction to the mistreatment of Muslim students, Isfried Rodeyns was led to develop creative forms of inter-religious dialogue. Karen Lang’s life ‘master plan’ was disrupted by a series of chance encounters which led to unexpected opportunities for service in multiple areas including human rights education.
We have considered how the Spirit can lead us either to social action close to home, to ‘bloom where [we] are planted’ and ‘find [our] own Calcutta’, as St Francis de Sales and Mother Teresa were quoted in testimony — or how we may be led to venture wider into the world.
Margaret Fell wrote that the Light ‘will rip you up, and lay you open’. We need to remain open, to seek discernment of our promptings and follow our leadings. The journeys on which we are led are their own rewards.
Acceptance of our limits and being gentle with ourselves can help us to find authenticity in our lives and avoid ‘Quaker guilt’ at not doing enough. We can see ourselves as ‘well-oiled cogs’ in a bigger machine. We do not move, spiritually or physically, in isolation, but rather in concert with others. Our own movements affect and propel and perhaps inspire the movements of others. As a community of faith and searching we are all connected.
Corona times have provided us with challenges and unexpected opportunities. The crisis woke us up to our collective vulnerability and connected us with people of other times and places. Like George Fox at the precipice of darkness, accepting our own feelings of confusion, disorientation, fear, anxiety and the heartbreak of separation from loved ones allows us to persevere and serve others. The Quaker Way is an active, adaptable path, guided by the still, small voice, through fear to gratitude. Together with our neighbours we are slowly building the beloved community
This pandemic and lockdown have been terrible, we all know that, even if we haven’t
lost anyone as a result. It’s also been a welcome step back from the usual rush of life
and that has something to teach many of us, though we may not realise it. But, if we
stand back from the human emotions for a moment, there is more to consider; what
an amazing example it is of connectedness.
For much of the time we feel so remote from other people, especially those
geographically far away. Corona time has given us a different experience. Earlier
pandemics have taken a long time to travel round the globe: back in the European
Middle Age, it took the Bubonic Plague, often called the Black Death, more than 25
years to arrive in Europe from its origins in China; the so-called ‘Spanish’ flu towards
the end of the First World War travelled much more rapidly, but the corona virus
seems to have spread around the world in a matter of weeks. How amazing it is to
think that sometime last autumn a bat in central China passed on this virus to
another animal, perhaps a pangolin and then transmission took place to its first
human victim. Since then the virus has been passed on to more than 7 million
people; a real success story for this newcomer to life on earth. How connected we all
are; how close to each other we are – person to person, we are all in the web of life.
That is not the only aspect of connectedness that the pandemic has thrown up. We
humans, in various degrees of isolation, have felt the need to reach out to each other
at a rate that is rarely seen. I’m not sure if there are any statistics on this, but I can
say in my own case, that the number of text messages, emails, phone calls, Skype
conversations has certainly at least doubled over the last three months. Quakers
among other groups have taken to cyberspace in unprecedented numbers and many
now attend Meetings for Worship on several continents on a weekly basis. Once
again, how very connected we are and largely without damage to the environment.
Travelling is not always necessary and, of course, has never been available to many
who are not able to pay the still heavy cost of frequent international travel. There are
positive outcomes for the environment as well as for our connectedness as a human
community.
So, what about our small Quaker community in Belgium and Luxembourg, whose
official title has almost as many letters as we have members? We, in Brussels, have
always regretted the sense of remoteness from the Meeting in Luxembourg and now
from the growing Meeting in Ghent – forgive the English spelling, but a Flemish
Friend recently pointed out to me that in an English text, Gent might be
misunderstood. Of course, Luxembourg and Ghent are as far from Brussels as
Brussels is from the other two cities, but capital-city dwellers are always resistant to
travel out to smaller places while regretting the fact that they do not come to ‘us’;
we’re in the Heart of Europe after all! Brussels Quakers are certainly guilty of that; I
am no exception and for this I apologise. Even further afield than the territory of our
YM, we have members and former attenders elsewhere – in York in the UK, near
Seattle in the USA to mention just two, and these can now also be familiar faces on
a weekly basis. The new connectedness is a gift to us as we can now build
community all year long, not just see each other, perhaps, once a year at the
residential Yearly Meeting and whisper to another Friend, ‘I know her face, but can
you remind me of her name?’
Phil Gaskell
9 June 2020
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