Not in our name — ‘the SWP at prayer’

In point of fact, we’re not ‘the SWP at prayer’, as it happens. But being a church community with a radical tradition and a fairly public profile on anti-war activism apparently attracts that sort of sarcastic epithet from more conservative Christians. Our journey over the last year and more has deepened our recognition of the need for action to be rooted in prayer and faith; and that evil must be resisted from an inner spirit of love and compassion, towards ourselves and towards those we may see as ‘the enemy’.

What follows are a few glimpses into the growth of that understanding through our actions since September 11, 2001.

Remember the protest in November 2001 against war in Afghanistan?

‘Dusk in Trafalgar Square. Floodlit buildings of the British Empire. Beneath Nelson’s column, the muezzin sounds the call to prayer, before iftar, the breaking of the fast from dawn to dusk during the holy month of Ramadan. The fast that is kept in solidarity with those who have no food. The vast crowd stands in silence.

100,000 people, two whole hours for them all to leave Hyde Park, where the peace march begins. Where the towering puppet figures were built, images of death and destruction, made of camouflage and webbing, with bayonets and machine guns for limbs, skeletal heads, collages of mayhem and chaos.

Near Speakers’ Corner, one small group from one small church in one city stacks plastic boxes to form an altar. The rainbow altar cloth later becomes their banner. Ten metres away people following a different path unroll prayer mats and begin their prayers. They carry out their rituals alongside each other.

‘Bush, Bush, we know you, Daddy was a killer too!’ Against this megaphoned chant, a woman’s strong voice begins to sing ‘All we are saying, is give peace a chance’. People along the route smile, nod. A thin line of mounted riot police stand redundant. What do we want? ‘Stop the war’. Park Lane, Piccadilly, Haymarket and into Trafalgar Square.

Voices calling for a new way bounce off the colonial stone. The grotesque puppet figures hover and leer over us. One woman speaks of the anguish of the women of Afghanistan. They have no answerphones, no mobile phones to broadcast to the world their messages of grief, loss, horror. To let us know their last words of love.

At the breaking of the fast, bottles of water and dates are passed through the crowd. Food is offered in return, which is immediately shared with others. It feels like a colony of heaven.

At 5 o’clock they sit on the coach and gradually, share their thoughts and feelings about the day. It has made a difference. They went to walk and be counted for themselves and for those who could not go. They went because they must, because it was all they could do. They went not because they knew the answers but to take steps with others in the search. To join in that shout down Whitehall, down to the Houses of Parliament that war is not the answer.

At the motorway services, a white driver and a Muslim woman exchange sharp words. He knows, he says, he lives in Bradford. Don’t play the race card with him. Anger flares. ‘But we are all just doing what we can’ says the woman with the strong, beautiful voice. We are just doing what we can. On the way home they discover that the world has been told that they amounted to only 15,000 people. Knowing the magnitude of this lie makes them see more clearly what is at stake’

In October/November 2001 All Hallows became involved in the Stop The War Coalition.

October 2002 Almost a year later the war machine has steadily geared up again, rolling towards Iraq. We gather again, in Leeds, our home city, with other Christians, for a witness for peace. But now we have found a different voice, a way to pray our protest, the Litany of Resistance by Jim Loney, a CPT reservist from Toronto. Our banner reads ‘Deliver us, O God. Guide our feet into the way of peace’. Now this leads us at every protest — Leeds, Bradford, Menwith Hill, London. From a workshop on active nonviolence springs Leeds Peaceniks, Christian and not. Over the months we are together on protests, dance for peace in the city centre, take direct action at missile bases and chained together to block the main Leeds—Bradford road. We stand, march, write for peace; we sing and pray for peace. Every Sunday, we sing ‘as-salaam aleikhum, alechem shalom, let peace begin with me’.

On 31 October 2002 we joined with other Christians in Leeds to pray for peace and to demonstrate against war on Iraq.

31 October 2002 — quite a day. Soon afterwards I wrote:

Some of us were hesitant at so public a witness, so vocal a display of our perhaps tentative Christianity. But anyway — we stood around the banner ‘Leeds Christians Against War on Iraq’ and began the Litany of Resistance on Leeds City Art Gallery steps, with the song I will rock my heart till the walls come down. Strong voices around me gave me heart to sing out, to speak out the prayers. This was powerful stuff in its force and humility. From the politics of hypocrisy … from the avarice of imperialism … from the filth … profanity … madness … blasphemy of war: deliver us. Guide our feet into the way of peace. Oh, that it could be so. That it may be so. It may seem itself profane that this witness against the demonic waste of war and of preparation for war filled me with joy. But it did. Joy and tears. This opportunity with others to make a physical, public declaration made me feel profoundly joyful. Authentic, somehow.

People passed, some quickly, some more slowly, others sat and watched and listened. Some one shrieked, as she ran past, that we were communists. They will call us communists and subversives. Who knows what difference it made? Maybe something stirred. Maybe we were written off as just another breed of fanatics. But, for me, just to do it was what mattered. To take that step onto the street. To come out. From the violence of apathy … the despair of fatalism: deliver us.

At 5.00 pm we went with our banner to join the Stop the War demonstration outside YTV. Now I really was nervous, glad to see familiar faces again. Oddly surprised that it was dark, the brightest spots the police officers’ fluorescent jackets. Alongside the chants, we begin our songs and our litany again, facing the rush-hour traffic up and down Kirkstall Road, singing and praying before the impassive faces of the police. He came down to bring peace. He came down to bring love. Across the road, a police officer films us. ‘Why?’ ‘It’s called evidence-gathering’. Another photographer, said to be from a right-wing racist group, also gathers evidence. Let us resist and confront evil everywhere we find it: with the help of God’s grace. Drivers hoot their support; a man cycles repeatedly up and down our stretch of road, smiling, ringing his bell. A bus driver slows to a standstill opposite us, opens his door, switches on his light and gives us the thumbs up. Another driver yells at a young girl holding a placard ‘drop a bomb on the lot of them!’ From the cancer of hatred … from the idolatry of national security … from the addiction of control: deliver us.

A few demonstrators run into the road and are hauled back by police, who then ask us politely to move back onto the grass. For the men and women in battle: forgive us, for we know not what we do. All the time we sing Jesu tawa pano — Jesus, we are here.

After a while, a large group begins to move towards the pelican crossing up the road. I feel afraid. I remember other times, other places. On those fleeing in terror: have mercy. A van full of barking police dogs draws up onto the grass. The mounted officers re-group. I remember other times, other places, and I am afraid. So I stay back, stay with the banner. Later I learn that Ray, with others, has been arrested for obstructing the highway, by calmly, persistently making his protest in the hallowed tradition of simply sitting down in the road. Obedience to God comes before obedience to human authority: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.

Are we on the TV then? Ten seconds on Calendar. A few lines in Friday’s Independent. How many protesters? Three hundred, they say. Is that all? Yet around every one, a cloud of invisible others, all those who cannot be there or who choose to make their protest differently. So I am there for them too, those I know and those I don’t know. The other night, I heard Roy Bailey, veteran singer of songs in the historic tradition of radicalism and resistance, assure his audience: ‘You are in the majority, you know. I have the privilege to travel all over the world, and I can tell you, there are millions of you. It just needs to be mobilised.’

I am not at war. Not in my name. With the waging of war: we will not comply. With the legalisation of genocide: we will not comply.

And I realise, once more, that it is not enough to stand in a demonstration. I need to get to know the enemy — the evil structures that set us against each other. I need to learn about the Middle East conflict, pragmatic arguments as well as moral conviction. I need to know about globalisation and the economics of imperialism, and how they affect my sisters and brothers in Indonesia, Thailand, Africa, Latin America. I need to keep this always before me. I need to face all this and weep, for them and for my part in it all, in benefiting from their oppression. On their poverty and slavery rests my good life. And knowing all this, allow it to change me.

The singing goes on. In the road. In the police van. In the prison cell. The singing will never be done. La lutta continua. We shall not be silenced.

With God’s unending faithfulness

We will work to build the beloved community

And so the Litany becomes our focal point, that grounds us for every protest. Our knowledge of active non-violence, and our wish to know more and to live from it, grow.

Ray Gaston was arrested for obstructing traffic during the demonstration. The case took an unusually long time to come to trial. Read the press reports that have appeared in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Ray Gaston’s article Time to Resist was published online by thewitness.org. Churches have been making statements about the prospect for war in Iraq, but Ray believes that the time has come for Christians to take a stronger stand — including civil disobedience. He compares the growing power of the US to the time of the Roman Empire.

November 2002: Waiting for the Bombs by Elizabeth Roberts is well worth reading — an excellent and moving article. For other reports from Iraq, see the Iraq Peace Team’s diaries page (from which Elizabeth Roberts’ article is taken).

15 February 2003

‘Millions march for peace: biggest political protest in British history spearheads day of dissent in more than 60 countries across the world’ (Independent 16.2.03)

How our hearts were lifted that day! ‘Are you listening, no war in our name!’ we sang. Surely, surely, surely …?

8 February 2003: We hold the Resist War Workshop.

19 March 2003: Leeds Christians Against the War disrupt court with prayer

20 March 2003

No, they are not listening. I watch the TV in disbelief and grief as war begins. Shock, that the unthinkable has happened. Awe, at the arrogance of what we now refer to as the Project for the New American Century. I phone Ray, in tears. I am in despair, he is raging. So women weep, while men rage? From this, the idea of ‘Resistance and Love’ is born — an invitation to a space in which to express with others our anger, grief, hopelessness, to support each other and to centre ourselves upon love and compassion. This attracts a wide range of people, including Hussein, an Iraqi Muslim. Members of his family have disappeared after detention in Iraq. He becomes our friend and we commit ourselves to helping him in his search for his own family and the thousands of others like them. Someone who came to the gathering said afterwards ‘‘I was very moved by people’s contributions and at the end had the feeling that hope was the tangible result — together, now, we are ‘hope’. I guess hope is what is created out of the chaos of our personal responses — ‘more than the sum of the parts.’ The power of a gathering like this evening, I can believe in — I believe it is a radical act that says ‘no’.

March 2003

With the start of war and the involvement of British troops, the atmosphere changes. At protests, there is hostility from passing onlookers. It feels almost risky to continue to wear an anti-war badge. We need to respond to the killing from our hearts, with silent mourning. A group of students, with some people from our church, organises a silent ‘funeral procession’, following a coffin, with a lone drummer. No banners, no placards, no chanting. We carry images of injured Iraqi civilians and cards with brief details of service people who have been killed. At the war memorial we tie our black armbands and flowers to the railings and a poem is read: ‘Arguments against bombing’.

Meanwhile, the issue of Ray’s court case hots up and the press and TV take an interest. Because he has refused a caution, he is taken to trial. He appears in court to hear his trial date. When asked to stand, he instead kneels and invites those present to pray for God’s mercy and love for the people of Iraq. With him, twelve of us who join him in prayer, singing ‘Kyrie Eleison’, are ejected from the court.

2 April 2003: Resistance and Love — a gathering of people against the war for support, reflection, prayer and meditation.

14 May 2003

At his trial we behave impeccably. The judge concludes that ‘the Reverend’s beliefs …. do not give him the right to break the law of the land’, and orders him to pay £200 costs, with a conditional discharge.

So the struggle continues. We are nearly at the end of our 10-week course on the spirituality and practice of active non-violence. We search for the truth of what is happening in Iraq, from ‘alternative’ sources — independent media and websites like electroniciraq and Voices in the Wilderness UK, personal accounts and stories. Jo Wilding, who lived in Iraq during the war, will speak to us in July about her experience then, and the current situation.

See also the website of the Baghdad blogger for insights into what life is like now in Baghdad.

‘It is time to close ourselves to the steel probes of the corporate generals and devisers. It is time to open ourselves to each other with respect. Time for the sea of humankind to rise and roll. Time to learn how we are part of one wave and each other.’
Marge Piercy

Julie Greenan
All Hallows Church, Leeds

30 April to 2 July 2003: From Violence to Wholeness — a ten-part process in the spirituality and practice of active non-violence. This will run again in 2004.

14 July 2003: Jo Wilding speaks at All Hallows about her experiences in Iraq during the war.

4 November 2003: Milan Rai leads a workshop on Making the Case against War.