The first event around #YM2018 is the #SalterLecture. This year given by Diana Jeater on the top of ‘Bearing witness or bearing whiteness? Britain, Africa and Quakers’
It is hosted by the @QuakerSocialist Society which is not politically affiliated. It is named for Ada and Alfred Salter.
Diana takes to the stage, we’ll paraphrase her lecture from here: “...the promotional materials for this lecture said I am an expert in Africa. That is a tall order... Africa is very big and very diverse...”
“When I talk to from ‘the white world’ they say they’ve been on holiday to Africa or that they support a project in ‘Africa’. I find people I meet in Africa don’t refer to Africa...”
“You’d think we’d notice that over half of all Quakers are from Kenya. Quakers in Britain often don’t.”
“Our relationship (as British Quakers) tends to be about what we do for Africa. The story is of poor people in need of help. This benefits the development industry...”
“Generally Quaker work isn’t the aid industry, we work directly with grass roots groups. @TTTideUK is one example.”
“...but this relationship is still with us as the donors. So we shouldn’t have been surprised when we asked Friends from Africa to give the Swarthmore lecture they spoke of donor exceptions...”
“...we should have been surprised we didn’t ask these friends to speak about their spiritual life!”
“[Minute from FWCC is read] it is a beautiful minute and it causes discomfort. We just follow this discomfort as a true leading...”
“We have become aware of our whiteness, and we have perhaps become a bit shamed. Like Adam and Eve becoming self aware we want to avoid this, we tell a story about how we miss perceive each other but this misses the point...”
“...we are born into a world made by that historical injustice. It remains. Just because we are good and mean we’ll doesn’t mean we are excused from the injustices...”
“...the relationship isn’t equal...”
Diana shares a story of a student studying Rhodesia and their work didn’t put in why ‘nice’ people were horrible to Africans.
“Advices and queries 11, be honest with yourself. What unpalatable truths are you evading?”
“The second half of A&Q11 is more encouraging! In worship together we can find the assurance of gods love and the strength to go on with renewed courage...”
“Holidays on the continent of Africa are the problem. Poor people are the attraction. Our rich see their poor and our poor don’t go there. When I released this I didn’t want to go and be part of that”
“There is now development tourism... I tired that. I started to work on a doctorate on women in Zimbabwe. I was going to go help women by writing a document on them....”
“I was heartened when I hung out with the development workers at their parties... a lot of parties... that they wanted to talk and listen to rural women but then I realised it was to get them to buy into their existing agenda and make it palatable! It felt like imperialism...”
“I changed my research to look at sexuality and shifted from aid. I got a PhD and suddenly I was a world expert because I had a doctorate from university of Oxford. My friends in Zimbabwe, with their doctorates from Zimbabwe, were not invited conferences and not experts...”
“...ultimately it’s because they aren’t white. In fact all the great experts and historians on Zimbabwe are white!
I ask my students to wonder what if all the history of Britain was written by Zimbabwe’s...”
I ask my students to wonder what if all the history of Britain was written by Zimbabwe’s...”
“I was ‘picked up’ by a man in Zimbabwe. Being in a relationship with an African man was challenging as I struggled with being called racist. But then I understood it was because I had privileges I hadn’t acknowledged...”
“... I decided the only thing I could become an expert in was white people working on Africa! I found that it went all the way back to the very beginning... i published my book and I thought it would have an impact.”
“...I went to work at woodbrooke, for break from academia for something more spiritual.”
“We don’t see the bigger picture.”
“We as Quakers in Britain are demanding, bureaucratic inflexible, cautious and remote”
“There is a problem logic of ‘teaching a man to fish instead of giving a man a fish’. Teach a man to fish in the neoliberal era and they will died trying to cross the Mediterranean... give a man a fish and he can trade it. In fact.....”
“...in fact Africans have been giving people a fish for years. We think citizens income is a great idea but di we know that various African countries have done it successfully for years. We don’t learn from Africans.”
“...city planners in the US are ignoring the lessons from African planners. We listen to women on women’s issues but not African on the issues they can speak to...”
“As Quakers we are happy to take from Buddhism (or a western portrayal of it) but not take from African spirituality? Why not? Is it because we don’t trust them...”
“Africa spirituality has a greater openness to spirits at work in peoples lives.”
“I heard ‘We don’t want to build the kingdom of god we want to build a kin-dom of god, mutual dependence’ I don’t think I would have heard that from a British Quaker...”
“Why don’t we learn from African Quakers? Is it because of the systems? The potential embarrassment...? What would make us feel more comfortable? Equality? Equality of wealth would help... it would require the small matter of global revolution?!”
“But wait what is equality? Do we want equality of income? Does equality of education mean whose language would we learn? Are we again presupposing our western ideas, what is wealth? Do we want wealth of kinship?”
“I find that the more we challenge power the more power we have. I was sitting with a Friend after meeting for worship moaning about politicians with cars and flat screens and I released I had those things! We are in the scope of the world incredibly wealthy!”
“Being nice and doing good doesn’t help. It reinforces power structures.
Most Quakers are African and they don’t worship in silence, we think we are good at silence but in our global conversation with Africa perhaps we talk too much!”
Most Quakers are African and they don’t worship in silence, we think we are good at silence but in our global conversation with Africa perhaps we talk too much!”
“Our ministry can be our whiteness, our ministry can be our silence!”
“We must think of Africans as donors because they are spiritually rich.”
“Our ministry is to be silent. (To allow African voices.)That is what love requires of us.”
Diana is now fielding questions. Her responses are as follows: Q ”how can silence amplify voices? Doesn’t it allow others to dominate?” A “you can’t bring down the masters house with the masters tools... we don’t know what silence will do because we never stay silent for long...”
“...my experience is that I helped African women most when I got out of the way. Others experience may be different..”
Q “why wasn’t this a discussion with a Zimbabwean here with you? If you could bring someone, who?” A “when I was first asked to speak I said no. But as a white person I can talk about struggling with this as a white person, but you are right...”
“...I tried to bring in my friends when I spoke but yes. Does woodbrooke go to teach in Africa when African friends should be teaching us worship sharing! I would want Vanonia here, a great spiritual teacher.”
Q “We don’t have to go to Africa to meet Africans. I know a family but I struggle with the imbalance of wealth in that relationship, I am asked for money. How can I handle that.” A “Yes you don’t have to go to Africa. We our context...”
“... the ‘owning power and privilege toolkit’ launching this weekend can help. But with regard to money, I give it away. I get in trouble for giving all my money away but why not! I am so rich. I have a friend who I give money to and we have trust.”
Q “In general we can learn from each other. But in specifics, we are in a position to give guidance on lgbtq issues. I know friends in the African context friends struggling with those issues. It is an exchange.” A “my experience is that there is a joy in giving but often...”
“...in the learning going the other way there don’t recongition. We don’t know what fair exchange looks like. We don’t know what we aren’t seeing. With the issue of sexuality, where my doctorate went...”
“...we’ve struggled through and ended up ahead of our culture actually. But in the African context we have imposed our sexuality. We brought in the idea of homosexuality. We need to find a way work with African historians to unpack their history to reclaim that...”
Diana spoke about her academic work listed here: liverpool.ac.uk/history/staff/…
Announcement says that Ada Salter has a biography at: bookshop.quaker.org.uk/Ada-Salter_978…
So ends the Salter lecture 2018.
Announcement says that Ada Salter has a biography at: bookshop.quaker.org.uk/Ada-Salter_978…
So ends the Salter lecture 2018.
