Refusal to fight with weapons is not surrender. We are not passive when threatened by the greedy, the cruel, the tyrant, the unjust. We will struggle to remove the causes of impasse and confrontation by every means of nonviolent resistance available.
Quaker faith & practice 24.10
Quaker Roots is a community of Friends building a creative, vibrant and radical Quaker response to the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair.
Quaker Roots’ new strategy aims to get Clarion, the organiser of DSEI, to stop running the arms fair. Clarion also organises many non-military events around the UK and across the world. One of these is a Baby Show, held at three locations in London & Birmingham each year.
We travelled to the NEC in Birmingham, and had a good a day holding positive conversations with attendees (and the gluten & free-from show which it turned out was happening at the same time!) Many thanks to all the knitters, the lovely items really helped engage people and create a positive atmosphere when talking about a difficult topic.
This was just the start of our Clarion campaign, keep in touch to see how you can take part:
Check out all our upcoming events to connect with others in our Roots community, learn more and spiritually prepare for witness. And see our written and video resources.
To stay up to date with all our news & events, sign up for email updates here.
Resisting DSEI in previous years:
Thank you to everyone who took part in or upheld our witness against DSEI last September.
- Read about our witness from Quakers in Britain.
- Read an article about our witness in the Morning Star.
- Watch a video report from Novara media about the opening day of the arms fair.
On Tuesday 3rd September 2019, hundreds of Quakers joined us to take action against the DSEI arms fair, one of the world’s largest trade shows for the defence industry. Find out what happened in our video here:
And a selection of photos from Quakers there on the day here:
