By Howard Grace
Howard Grace
I was born and brought up two miles from Greenham Common. My first childhood memory is of watching planes towing gliders. I now know these were probably carrying soldiers to land behind enemy lines on D-Day. It was also from here that Dwight Eisenhower made his famous “The eyes of the world are upon you” speech.
I joined the recent memorial occasion for D-Day at Greenham. During the silence, I pondered the immense sacrifice of the thousands who had fought and died on the Normandy beaches. “Was that necessary to stop Hitler?” I asked myself. “And what about present wars, particularly in Ukraine.”
As a Quaker, I wonder how it can be right to be even prepared to kill others? Yet how can it be right to expose our country, and other friendly countries, to the risk of being subjugated by oppressive ideologies? My wife is Dutch and was born during the war. Her country was overrun by the Nazi regime of Hitler, and her family was given twenty-four hours to leave their home because the occupying soldiers needed it. That sort of experience leaves its mark and a motivation to try to control your own future destiny, if necessary by force.
The debate around this seems to me to be muddied by a problem – the difficulty of distinguishing between true non-violence and appeasement. Mohandas Gandhi, a devoted exponent of non- violence, believed personal motivation was paramount. He wrote, “Non-violence is not merely a negative state of harmlessness but a positive state of love. It is not a cover for cowardice but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. Exercise of non-violence requires far more bravery than that of swordsmanship. But swordsmanship is any day superior to passive and helpless submission.”
Once fighting starts, huge sacrifices are forced on vast numbers of people. But, in the silence, I wondered about the sacrifices needed now to build a world in which, among other things, wars are far less likely. These sacrifices are far smaller, relatively, but equally important.
We all have distinctive parts we can play. Many of us are engaged with worthwhile initiatives, IofC and otherwise, depending on the sort of people we are and where our convictions lie. It’s good to weigh the relative cost of our present actions, or lack of them. Personally, I want to focus whatever time is ahead of me on fostering the spirit of our shared humanity.
One of our Palestinian friends, several of whose family have been killed in the present horrors in Gaza, says that a primary problem in his part of the world is that Israelis and Palestinians are both trapped in their own narratives. I’m sure that this entrapment is true for so many situations, whether with international strife, religious affiliations, husband/wife clashes or anything else. As well as the importance of living into each other’s narratives, this also points towards a need to seek a universal vision and greater purpose which everyone can buy into.
A new inclusive narrative would recognise the limitations of our allegiances and beliefs. We would accept that we have been nurtured in different cultures, and that we have come to identify with the beliefs and norms of that culture. If we could acknowledge this phenomenon within ourselves we would more likely be able to walk in the shoes of, and to stop demonizing, ‘the other’.
Appreciating our shared humanity would not answer all our problems. There would still be many conflicts of interests and disputes to solve, from personal through to international. But, such a spirit would offer a sounder basis on which to build.
As I pondered the sacrifices made on D-Day, my conviction to foster a spirit of trust was deepened. I am determined to make this a priority, and daily commitment. This is a challenge facing all of us who have conviction that our shared humanity overrides all other group allegiances.
“Are you a peace lover, or a peace maker?”
-Nico Smith. (South Africa)
After studying physics at university in the 1960s Howard Grace worked in a voluntary capacity for 14 years, mostly overseas, with IofC.
