Refuge, Relief, and Reconciliation

I was asked recently what defined Quaker responses to war. The assumption was that it would be conscientious objection, but actually Quakers are more proactive than that. Their responses, at least in the twentieth century, were overwhelmingly to tend the wounds of war. Only by looking at the history of male Quakers of military age does conscientious objection come to the fore.

I suspect that a feminist might comment that it is another example of His-story, which all too often comes to fill the pages of our his-story books, which predominantly chronicle his-stories to the exclusion of a broader and more inclusive vision of our past. A glance at the history section of any of our major booksellers, or the history section of our libraries, would tend to confirm the suspicion that the feminists have a point. 

Katherine Storr's book Excluded from the Record: Women, Refugees and Relief, 1914-29 (Perter Lang, 2010) was something of a welcome antidote to so much of the published history of the period I was researching. I needed to know so much more about the times in which Irene Pickard's archive was embedded, and the massive – yes I do mean massive – publishing bias in favour of male and militaristic histories of the period from a male and military perspective made hunting for those gems that would provide a more balanced picture something of a challenge. Especially any that included accounts of the Quaker experience!

This study reveals women's hitherto ignored lives as refugees and relief workers during the First World War and shortly after. The focus is on coping with and changing the devastating effects of war on civilians, rather than on the fighting of it. Wherever fighting took place, people fled from their homes or were trapped behind enemy lines. Most refugees were women and children. While some came to Britain, others remained in or near their country of origin. They were helped, sometimes under bombardment, by Quakers and suffragists.     (From the blurb about Katherine Storr's book)

It was women who spearheaded the Quaker response to war. Men were tied up with the social expectation that they should 'do their duty' and serve with the military; an imperative made so much more complex when conscription was imposed in 1916: the Flanders fields having eaten up the bodies of the willing leaving the war-machine short of fodder to feed to the machine guns. The imperative did not extend to women, who were thus free to see the war for what it was – the greatest of human tragedies which heaped suffering on suffering. Tending to that suffering was what they did. 

It became clear when mapping Quaker responses to war during my research that they fell under three headings: refuge, relief and reconciliation. Patterns that were to repeat themselves over and again through the twentieth century. 

Unlike the cornucopias of material available on the studies of the wars themselves, there is a dearth of works about relief work. Katherine Storr's work along with that of a paper written in Italian by Bruna Bianchi called Grande, Pericolosa Avventura: Anna Ruth Fry il 'relief work' e la riconciliazione internazionale (1914-26) [A Grand Dangerous Adventure: Anna Ruth Fry, relief work as international reconciliation (1914-26)] and Campbell Leggat's Friends in Deed stemming from outside the Quaker universe. The rest from within. 

Notable among the Quaker works are John Ormerod Greenwood's three volume Quaker Encounters; A Ruth Fry's A Quaker Adventure. The Story of the Friends' Relief Work in Europe during the War and After ; David McFadden & Claire Gorfinkel's Constructive Spirit; Quakers in Revolutionary Russia ; Joan Mary Fry's In Downcast Germany 1919-1933 [a very rear and almost unobtainable book that it is such a condemnation of the British role in inflicting starvation on the German population] ; Sheila Spielhofer's To Vienna with Love - Quaker Relief Work 1919-1922 ; William R Hughes's Indomitable Friend. The Life of Corder Catchpool, 1883-1952 ; Geoffrey Carnall's Gandhi's Interpreter. A Life of Horace Alexander ; A T Teglar Davies's Friends Ambulance Unit. The story of the F.A.U. in the second world war 1939-1945 ; Roger C Wilson's Quaker Relief; an account of the Relief Work of the Society of Friends 1940-1948 ; and C H Mike Yarrow's Quaker Experiences in International Conciliation.

Armed with these, and what other papers and references I could find, I was able to provide the context for why my subjects were in Geneva during the 1930s engaged on peace-work, and how they coped with the tidal wave of war which swept over them in 1940. 

What placed them there in the first instance, stemmed from another consequence of the outbreak of the First World War – the virtual collapse of support for peace movements. 

Carl Heath (1869- 1950) was appointed secretary of the National Peace Council in 1909, a body connecting the disparate anti-war organisations, ranging from trade unions through socialist societies and the suffragettes, to religious groups such as the Quakers. The declaration of war in August 1914 saw almost all but the Quakers desert the Council. Even the suffragettes mostly followed Emmeline Pankhurst in withdrawing and suspending their protests in support of the war. The desertion of the National Peace Council by so many organisations led in time to Heath throwing his lot in with the Quakers – the only remaining members – joining them in 1916. It was his suggestion for the need for 'Quaker Embassies" – as he call them – that led to Irene and Bertram being in Geneva as staff of one such, and their eventually encountering Carl Jung.  

Ever since their almost accidental formation in the seventeenth century, Quakers have been a counter-culture because of their deriving their moral compass from inward revelation engendered by the practice of silent waiting, rather than from alignment with the prevailing zeitgeist – the ethos of an era. As a result they were for much of the time a people apart. A community that gave equal weight to the words of women as those of men – as seeing female revelation as just as valid and inspiring as male revelation. As being prepared to be led by women as men, if those women felt compelled to act under a concern; and many remarkable Quaker women were so compelled, providing much of the leadership in relief-work; addressing as much of the suffering caused by the unleashing of wars in the first half of the twentieth century as they could. Ruth and Joan Fry, Hilda Clerk, and Bertha Bracey are names that stand out as indomitable leaders of relief efforts.

Researching Irene archive and its context proved to be a study in counterpoint to the mainstream flow of history. Event making dominated by an almost exclusively male political and military patriarchy finding a reciprocal counter flow of outpouring of human compassion, often led by Quaker women. A story little told of providing refuge, of providing relief and of working to promote reconciliation, by a community set apart by a charismatic tradition that centred its ethics on inward revelation not on conformity to the prevailing ethos. What greater nonconformity than being pacifists and peacemakers in times of war; of tending to the wounds of war rather than adding to them. 

Wars are like fires

War is like a fire – if you do not put it out, it will burn itself out:  Sun Tzu, The Art of War 

The fact that Sun Tzu called his book of The Art of War speaks to how far wars are created by powerful elites for political gain, or as Carl von Clausewitz put it "War is a continuation of policy by other means". Means which inflict great suffering on populations, but little on the elites that command them into existence. Too often they are the play thing of bored autocrats or glory seeking politicians. They are too often attempts to alter the world to the likings of the powerful.  

But Sun Tzu's truth holds good: few wars end in a decisive victory that will 'put it out', but all too often end in a stalemate – the smouldering and smoking embers that all too easily can flare back up, but which have consumed and destroyed so much, mostly to no purpose. The exhausted combatants have then to be extricated by a protracted peace negotiation, during which the stalemate grinds on claiming lives.

Peace is often misunderstood as an absence of war, as if war was the normal default state and peace an aberration that fills in the gaps between. That is a hawk's vision of peace: a gap between wars to be tolerated whilst preparations are made for the next conflict, wherever it can be found. That is why we have a professional full time military – what other justification can there be for them? If there was never a next fire, there would be no need for a fire brigade?

The truth is peace is very much a constructed state that has to be built and maintained, just as wars have to be; but it takes a far greater amount of work and investment to maintain a war, far less to maintain peace. Besides, in peace societies and cultures flourish and become pluralistic, in wars they wither and become totalitarian – the single objective of survival and, ultimately, victory disciplining the society into a monoculture and justifying draconian controls. So much the better for leaders in war – they are massively elevated and empowered – so much the better for people in peace. Perhaps it is no wonder that leaders love to have war, or the fear of war, as a means of control and as the ultimate aggrandisement?

Investing in peace is very cost effective by comparison to the escalating cost of maintaining wars. That is because wars are indeed like fires. They need to be fed fuel, lots of fuel; and if defeat is to be avoided, the amount of fuel will increase up to a level that overwhelms and defeats the 'enemy'. (Isn't it interesting that we have a special word which legitimises lethal violence against those branded with the term?)

Much the same applies to the anticipation of war, which involves escalating expenditure on an armed peace. One might ask if armed peace is simply deferred war? That was certainly the logic that lead to the term 'cold war'. It also gives rise to what has been termed the Military-Industrial complex.

The peace theorist, Anatol Rapoport, suggests that there has been a decoupling of war making from the traditional goals of expressing and giving realisation to political power to that of a profession intent on perpetual preparation and organisation as a continual process. The military–industrial complex thus formed becomes a self perpetuating business with the military as consumers and the arms manufacturers as suppliers locked in what can be, at times, an economically cancerous cycle.

Reflecting on the post 1945 world economy, it is notable that for many years the two fastest growing and most successful economies were the two peace economies of the losers – Japan and Germany: they were not carrying the economic burden of high military expenditure.

The event horizon at the boundary between peace and war marks a complete shift in frames of reference. Many factors influence decisions in times of peace. There is much debate and disagreement about what should be invested in, what governments should or should not do, how much liberty might be enjoyed by people. All that stops the moment wars start. There is only one frame of reference for their duration – survival and, if possible, victory. 

The vortex of war sucks in resources and attention, just as raging fires draw in winds. A fact that the British relied on when setting fire to German cities or the Americans when they bombed Tokyo. The resultant firestorms creating infernos in which few could survive: those sheltering in cellars and basements being incinerated – even metal pots and pans melting. There is no discrimination in war as to who is killed and who survives: vulnerability alone determining fate. Anyone can be sucked into its vortex, regardless of their status. Wars kill babies, the elderly and the infirm as readily as they kill soldiers, especially as they are less able to escape from war's vorticities. The Americans even coined the term 'collateral damage' to help sanitise the truth that the innocent, the non-combatants, those unable to flee or to shelter, are routinely killed in war.

Economically, wars also suck in increasing amounts of resources, ultimately impoverishing the combatants and leaving them with debt burdens which may take generations to pay off. Britain's debt to the USA incurred prior and subsequent to the Lend-Lease – the agreement that allowed Britain unlimited credit for the duration of its war with Germany – only finally being paid off in 2006. Britain's part in the victory impoverished it for 60 years – a mere $3.75 billion at 2% interest ($40.5 billion plus interest at modern values). Some years Britain was so economically stretched that it could not even pay all the interest, let alone reduce the principle.

There is a sense in which wars could be regarded as a from of potlatch: countries investing in increasing stores of weapons until the stock piles are dissipated in a fest of violence. Acts which gains successful leaders considerable political kudos even whilst impoverishing their peoples. Exhortations as to the benefits of the sacrifices made to achieve victory being trumpeted by the very leaders who are usually the least at risk. 

War, famine, plague and death: the four horsemen of the apocalypse. No wonder they are so closely linked. War almost always bringing famine and plague in its wake; but unlike them, war is entirely man made – and one might add, man, not woman made. There is little history of armies of women facing each other off on battlefields, or their indulging in rape, pillage and wanton destruction: those are very much male prerogatives. 

War: commanded by the most privileged; fought by the least privileged; suffered by the most vulnerable. They are indeed the greatest of human failings.

Complete, definitive & long, or selective & short?

What to do? What to do? Masses of material: many documents, papers, articles, speeches, letters, booklets, notes, drafts, etc. Add an associated library of 115 Jungian related titles. In all the product of near seventy years. A pile of stuff that Irene Pickard described as her 'compost heap' (Inward Light, No 59, Spring 1960). How best to process and present this trove? How to put over its significance? Was there indeed any coherence in the collection? Was there a narrative that would bring it together? How to relate its creation to its historical context? How to trace the lines of development within? Who were the main actors? What were the consequences of their very evident interest that brought these items together and preserved them? How does exploring and writing about it fit into public discourse? What discourse? Within which communities?

Opening an archive is rather like discovering a cave system. An unguessed at network of chambers and passageways is explored, and slowly the system is charted. Perhaps cave paintings, or remains are discovered, and natural wonders revealed. A catalogue of what is there might be created, and a guide to how to access it written and detailed maps drawn. Maybe a history of its discovery and exploration is recorded. What was unknown becomes shared and public. It becomes accessible and known, and may even be valued and added to tourist itineraries. It becomes part of the public landscape.

There clearly was a central event of importance: the direct contact in the 1930s between a group of Geneva Quakers and the psychologist Carl Jung and his circle, just at a time when Jung was developing his theories about the fundamental importance to psychological health and wellbeing of what might be termed the 'spiritual' aspect of life. 

There are the antecedents to this event. Then there are the consequents. How much of each belongs in an account? Where to start and end the narrative? The choice of length and depth would very much dictate how much of each to include, as would considerations of who the likely audience might be and which discourses it might contribute to.

The question of purpose comes into all of this. What is my purpose in researching and reporting on the archive? The latter is easily answered: lacking a specific career goal, such as submitting a thesis, or building a reputation – I am post-career, retired, somewhat past such concerns – I have written about the archive and its creators because that is the only way I know of coming to understand what it contains. It has been my way of processing the contents and their relationship to the historical context. I have then felt compelled to share what I have discovered because, other than whatever contribution it might make to the historical record and the discourses around that, I think it will interest others who share my overlapping interests: philosophy, psychology, history, theology, peace-studies, ethics, Quakerism and the love of a good story. As I opened up the archive, that latter became obvious. 

The main protagonists had extraordinary lives. True, that was in part because they lived in what the apocryphal Chinese curse calls 'interesting times'; but most pertinently they proceeded through those times in countercultural ways. Their history is a history of exception not of conformity. Pacifists and peace-makers in a time of war and bellicose posturing; quietly and undogmatically religious in a time of avant-garde secularism and iconoclasm; deeply and self-critically questioning in a time of assertive certainties (patriotism, nationalism, imperialism, fascism, communism); open and receptive to new and emerging ideas and pluralities, whilst remaining connected and even embedded in their reluctantly evolving and somewhat traditionalist faith community. 

To top it all there were the elements of a good yarn: romance, thwarted love, danger, adventure, and the quest of a woman to find her place in a fast changing and disorientating world; and of an otherwise obscure man who became a founding member of the United Nations secretariat and who was instrumental in helping to shape the post Second World War order.

If I were chasing reputation or career, then a short, punchy account would do the job; but there would only be opportunity for one bite of this particular cherry. A definitive account would be unlikely ever to be written if a short, punchy account was chosen; however, a definitive account would take time and would be difficult to find a publisher for. What was in the archive deserved better than a hit and grab raid, as did the lives of the protagonists, so in the end its been the long haul: a definitive account.

Am I fullfilling Godwin's law?

 Jung, the Quakers and Hitler – why the Hitler? He certainly was not there when I started. 

It began with my being invited to look at an archive left to an elderly Friend (yes, the capital is intended, she was a Quaker, born and bred, and an active Member – yes that capital too – of the Society of Friends – yep, and those) who was deeply concerned that her mother's archive might be lost or destroyed when she died. That was exactly what had happened to her mother's friend's archive when she died: it was mistakenly sold along with the household furniture. She had been the first Jungian analyst in Washington D.C., a founder of the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology, and for many years the editor of Inward Light. Among her papers would have been many fascinating letters exchanged between her, the Jungs (yes, both Carl and Emma) and her own analyst for many years – Tina Keller-Jenny. Posterity lost out there: they're gone – the letters and all – no doubt consigned to some rubbish dump or incinerator.

Needless to say, Irene Pickard's surviving daughter was concerned that the same fate should not happen to her mothers archive. She had inherited them from her sister – herself a psychiatrist – who had inherited them from their mother. They had both understood that the archive was worth preserving, that its contents were certainly unique and irreplaceable, and might well be of value to future researchers. Some of it had already been used as a resource for one post-graduate submission for a higher degree, and another academic had written a paper about their father – Bertram Pickard. His papers, and some of his wife's, had been preserved. They had been gifted to the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. 

And that was where Hitler got in.

It is simply not possible to write about what was in Irene's archive without him. He had dominated their lives for far too many years because Bertram was actively involved in peace work for most of his life, spending a large part of it in the shadow of the rise of Hitler – an experience that almost cost all of his family their lives –and then in the aftermath of the Third Reich, helping to repair the damage. 

I was asked a simple question when I was invited to look at Irene's Jungian archive. Was the archive of value? As it contained heaps of Jungian related material, including correspondence with him, and was a record of how a group of Quakers struggled with and absorbed his ideas, coming in time to disseminate them on both sides of the Atlantic. There was no doubt in my mind it was of value. It contained a remarkable story waiting to be told, especially as it was interwoven with the story of the Pickard's peace work as a background.

I was allowed to have privileged access to the papers before a home was found for them among the Quaker archives at the University of Essex.  

Godwin's law? The longer the discussion, the more likely a Nazi comparison becomes, and with long enough discussions, it is a certainty. So in discussing my researches, it was utterly and completely unavoidable that I would fulfil the law. 

I understand that in some groups this would automatically signal the end of a discussion. Well, that's me stymied then, given what I am writing about.

Peace: A Three Piece Suite

Peace: A Three Piece Suite

The first peace, the deepest, the root from which it grows; the silence that calms and heals; the point of is-ness when there is no I, no me, no not me, no knowing, no not-knowing, no you, no not-you, no us, no not us – just pure being and the ground-of-being – the rest point of being in the moment – at one with the in-breath, the drawing-in of all that there is and all we are part of – open and accepting to whatever comes. At one with the out-breath, circulating fully and giving out all that we are. Being without attachment or aversion as the Buddhists say. Knowing that the attachments and aversions are what distorts and blinds.


The second being at peace with those around you. Being at peace with the small things of life; a peace that begets patience and concern; a ministry of presence for others, wholeheartedly witnessing their being, no matter how small the transaction, no matter how small the moment. Others are not simply instruments to our well-being - they are not background music to our songs - it is together that we are the choir of life. We are each and all witness to each other; we are each and all ministers one to another. It is of the small things of life that the world is woven.


The third piece is that world peace; that of governments and societies; that of renouncing violence as a means, as a political weapon, of not letting war be, as Clausewitz remarked, “… a continuation of politics by other means”. It is not the continuation of politics - it is the failure of politics, in fact, the greatest of all its failures.

Having recently visited a country that has been at peace for two-hundred years, that has not killed or harmed even so much as one person in its name, I cannot but feel shame to come from a country that has not even managed a decade in those two hundred years when it has not killed and maimed, has not wrought violence and havoc, has not devastated lives in its name.




This is the three piece suite of peace - and one on which we could all sit comfortably if we choose.

[Published in the Friend of 24 February 2017]