Our prep for witness page has a range of spiritual and practical resources to prepare for witness and hear the voices of those directly affected by the arms trade. (See categories on the right-hand side of the page).
We also have events to explore these points and prepare together.
As our witness at the DSEI arms fair approaches, we wanted to put some practical information together in one place.
In 2019, Maya produced this great little zine, to help remind us how to prepare for DSEI practically & spiritually: Things to bring to DSEI
Things to protest with:
Things to stay comfortable:
Things in your head and heart
There will be stewards around and an information point to help you know where to go. The Excel site is very large – this map of the Excel gives an indication of where we will be – near the Western Terrace for the vigil on Mon 8th and No faith in War on Tues 9th Sept.
Telegram: on the day (and in the build up) we will be staying in contact via Telegram – a messaging app similar to WhatsApp (but more secure). If you’re already confident with apps, search for Telegram and download (the logo is a paper plane), then get in touch for the links to join: hello@quaker-roots.org.uk .
Two years ago the following was available, we are looking to confirm these arrangements for 2025:
Food: Hot drinks will be available, please bring a reusable cup if you can. We hope that some vegan food will be available (for a donation if you can afford it). However, it’s worth bringing a packed lunch, or being ready to get something from one of the shops near the Western Terrace.
Toilets There will be at least 2 standard portaloos and 1 accessible mobiloo at the site, perhaps more if funds can be raised.
At the protest site there will be a welfare tent available for No Faith in War on Tues 9th Sept. You can go there for some quiet space to clear your head, or for a friendly chat. Members of the welfare team will also be looking out for people around the site and checking you’re OK. Ahead of the Walk of Witness on Mon 8th Sept, there will be space at Westminster Meeting House for quiet reflection, or to have a chat.
Legal observers will be on hand, as well as volunteer stewards. However we all need to take responsibility for ourselves. We recommend having a buddy or buddies – a person or two who you will mutually check-in with and look out for each other. If you’re travelling alone, join one of the preparation sessions, to meet others ahead of the event.
Bustcards will be available at the protest site and at Westminster Meeting House before the Walk of Witness – these have important information about who to call if you are arrested. It’s worth everyone having one, just in case. And you can read lots of information about knowing your rights on the Green & Black Cross website – we recommend starting with this guide to the key messages.
We understand that on 9th September, a coalition of groups under the banner ‘the Big One’ are calling for a mass blockade of DSEI. The faith groups involved in No Faith in War have agreed to continue with our plans, offering a grounded and worshipful presence and upholding people who are taking risks to disrupt DSEI.
It is important for Friends to be aware that there may be a tense atmosphere on the day, and a more active police presence. We encourage everyone to to remind yourself of key advice about your rights, and to take time to reflect on the level of risk that you want to take. To help with this reflection, we will be holding a Protest legal Workshop on Weds 3rd Sept .
Due to strikes it is likely that the tube and DLR will not be running during the week of our witness. please do check the Transport for London website for updates and alternative routes by national rail, London Overground, Elizabeth line or bus.
You can take the Elizabeth line (Crossrail) to Custom House, which is a 5/10 minute walk from Royal Victoria for the vigil and the Western gateway for No Faith in War. While the Elizabeth line is not affected by the strikes, be prepared for it to be busy. If you’re staying in East London, many buses stop at Custom House.
For Westminster Meeting House the nearest public transport stations are:
For our witness on Wednesday, we will now be meeting at Waterloo train station, where National Rail trains stop, and buses stop outside. Trains to Charing Cross and buses to Trafalgar square are a 15 minute walk across the river.
If you’re planning to leave any bank cards with your name on behind (to avoid being identified) an Oyster card can be helpful (alternatively you can put tape over your name on a contactless card).
Listed roughly from most expensive to least expensive:
Hotels for the Excel Centre: The Excel is a conference centre, and so there are various chain hotels nearby, which will offer a comfortable room and easy access to the site. Friends have previously used ‘Premier Inn Docklands’.
Hotels or hostels around London: Access to the Excel is via the Elizabeth Line so there may be cheaper options to stay near stops on the Elizabeth line or connecting public transport. Be aware that strikes mean the tube and DLR are unlikely to be running, check the Transport for London website for updates and alternative routes.
Air BnB (or similar ‘holiday lets’) in Newham: In previous years some Friends have stayed in holiday lets in residential areas in Newham (the borough Excel is in), a walk or bus journey away. Note that there are ethical implications in using residential properties as holiday lets.
Stay with local Friends or meetings: update, it is now very short notice, and unlikely that anything will come up last minute.
Camp at the protest site: some activists will be camping at the protest site, especially in the set-up week. You will need to bring your own tent and camping equipment. Be aware that this is camping in a public area, not a private campsite.
We understand that travel and accommodation can be expensive – Quakers have a long tradition of supporting Friends who are witnessing to our testimonies. If you need financial support, please approach your local and/or area meeting in the first instance. If you cannot raise sufficient funds from your meeting(s), get in touch with the Quaker Roots team who may be able to direct you towards other grants: hello@quaker-roots.org.uk
As we ground ourselves spiritually for our witness, it’s important to remember that will we be witnessing alongside people of all faiths and none, and are asked to uphold one another in a diversity of non-violent tactics.
On the day, we will have bustcards available, and legal observers will be on hand, as well as volunteer stewards. However we all need to take responsibility for ourselves. We recommend having a buddy or buddies – a person or two who you will mutually check-in with and look out for each other.
Finally, a reminder that we are a volunteer-led community, and your help will make all the difference in ensuring our witness is safe, spiritually grounded, and creative.
We understand that on 9th September, a coalition of groups under the banner ‘the Big One’ are calling for a mass blockade of DSEI. The faith groups involved in No Faith in War have agreed to continue with our plans, offering a grounded and worshipful presence and upholding people who are taking risks to disrupt DSEI.
It is important for Friends to be aware that there may be a tense atmosphere on the day, and a more active police presence. We encourage everyone to to remind yourself of key advice about your rights, and to take time to reflect on the level of risk that you want to take.
We do not anticipate ‘the Big One’ to affect our Walk of Witness or the Peace Vigil organised by QPSW and Pax Christi, both on Mon 8th, nor our ‘Stop DSEI’ hand-in on Weds 10th. But it is still worth reminding yourself of your rights and looking out for yourself and others, if you plan to join one of these actions.
We are a volunteer-led community, and your help will make all the difference in ensuring our witness is safe, spiritually grounded, and creative.
Quaker Roots are particularly organising volunteers for the Walk of Witness on Mon 8th Sept, the No Faith in War day on Tues 9th Sept and the ‘Stop DSEI’ hand-in on Weds 10th Sept. Use this form to let us know what roles you are interested in, and we will be in touch with more information and details of an online volunteer briefing on Tues 2nd Sept (you can still volunteer if you can’t make that briefing date).
If you would like to help out on other days, get in touch with Stop the Arms Fair who are helping coordinate actions.
Use this form to let us know what roles you are interested in, and we will be in touch with more information and a briefing session.
Offer to help as a pastoral Friend
While Quaker Roots are planning low-risk actions this year, we uphold those using a diversity of non-violent tactics, including those who may be at risk of arrest. It is so important that we support arrestees, which includes meeting people at the police station when they’re released. Read more about what Police Station Support involves.
This would be an especially useful role for London-based Friends (you don’t need to have been at the protest to help with this role, or be specially trained). Call outs for police station support during the DSEI arms fair protests will happen in a messaging group – offer help via our form and we will put you in touch with those coordinating.
Offer to help with Police Station Support
Stop the Arms Fair (STAF) have coordinated Legal Observers this year. The priority at the moment is volunteers for Police Station Support, but if you are a trained LO and would like to observe, let us know via the form.
As we prepare to witness against the DSEI arms fair this September, there are opportunities to get creative – whether you are able to join us in London, or will be witnessing from where you are.
Friends can participate by creating :
Create a banner with messages of peace, and/or highlighting why we oppose the arms trade. Keep it short and simple, use words or images. Banners can be any size or shape (unlike in previous years where we asked for a specific size of mini banner). Just make sure it’s something that you (and/or whoever you are travelling with) can carry yourselves.
These will be particularly used on the walk of witness, where we aim to bring the arms fair into the Light, as we walk together to the headquarters of arms companies involved in the trade of violence and death. A simple family-friendly craft – follow the video below for instructions:
This is a simple heart design, suitable for beginners. The heart has two flaps that open, and a message of peace can be written on the inside. These can be given to members of the public on the Walk of Witness (we will also have leaflets) or arms dealers as they queue to enter the arms fair on the No Faith in War day.
There is also an opportunity to lead some singing – we have some well-loved songs that have been shared at previous actions, and just need someone confident to get us started – if you are interested please email hello@quaker-roots.org.uk
If you are not confident to lead the singing, have a listen to some of the songs, and get ready to join in. As the wonderful Margaret who has led us in the past says: when we all sing together, it doesn’t matter if each individual isn’t perfect, the combination of our voices will make a beautiful sound.
Friends who cannot join in-person in September can post their creations, so that your message of peace will be at DSEI, while you witness from wherever you are. Creations can be sent to QPSW at Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ marked for the attention of Lyndsay Burtonshaw .
Those who are travelling down might like to do a creative activity together with your Meeting, and bring what you have made along. This could make a nice activity for a children’s meeting too.
There will also be an opportunity for crafting at Westminster Meeting House ahead of the Walk of Witness, and (weather permitting) at the West Gate of the Excel centre on the No Faith in War day.
As we prepare to witness against the DSEI arms fair, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) have shared an online action calling on one of the event partners to drop DSEI:
It is not only the government officials and arms company executives who increase their wealth through DSEI, the web of corporations profiting from this monstrous event reaches much wider. DSEI’s official hotel booking partner is EventBeds™ owned by Leeds-based NuBreed Hotels.
Take action now and demand EventBeds™ and NuBreed Hotels cut ties with DSEI using the email-sending tool on the CAAT website.
And we can now confirm that our strategic action on Wednesday 10th Septmber, will be an adventure to hand-in our own demand that DSEI no longer be hosted in the UK – read more and pledge to join us in witness.
Many thanks to Joanna Frew, Outreach Coordinator at Rethinking Security, for speaking to us at our recent event Resisting the Arms Trade, Rethinking Security.
Rethinking Security is a network of organisations, academics and activists working together for security based on justice, cooperation and sustainability. Quakers are part of this network.
Jo helped us consider how we can create a security system that is grounded in the well-being of people and planet, and rooted in solidarity, justice and appreciation of our inter-dependence. You can view the slides below:
An epistle from the Quaker Roots retreat, March 2024
Recently a small group gathered at Huddersfield Local Meeting, for a weekend retreat, recognising our need to rediscover the spiritual roots of our peace testimony.
For a few days we tried to realise “the Republic of Heaven” here on earth, as best we could, with each person offering their gifts and energies, giving and receiving in friendship and community, “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”, as Karl Marx so aptly put it. Grounded in a foundation of deep stillness and silence, we moved and meditated together, walked and worshipped, reflected and shared, spoke and sang, cooked and ate and talked together, embodying the peace we so long to see in our world.
At the start of the retreat we began by returning to the early roots of our Quaker Peace Testimony, grounding ourselves with the words of Margaret Fell, that reminded us that:
We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love and unity; it is our desire that others’ feet may walk in the same.
As a Quaker Roots community, we heard this reminder as a query. Are we clear enough in our knowledge of those things that make for peace, love and unity? Are we courageous enough in our following? We continue to sit with this query and are excited by the challenge to keep deepening our knowledge and growing our courage to follow.
One theme that emerged strongly throughout the retreat was the importance of community in our being able to follow after those things that make for peace, love and unity, especially community with those suffering first hand as a result of war, violent conflict and oppression. During one Meeting for Worship we heard this reading from the theologians Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, from their book ‘Saving Paradise’:
Sustaining communities must be at the forefront of our work, and we must accept that we have power and responsibility to foster life in them. To be both powerful and responsible requires us to be committed to the sometimes difficult, sometimes joyful relationships of human communities. They are the only way we come to perceive and act upon the world for a greater good that both includes and transcends our individual existence. People with strong commitments to strong communities make them happen. They create the institutional structures that enable communities to endure the comings and goings of individual lives, failures in leadership, and the difficulties that are inevitable in life. Communities of ethical grace sustain relationships that require us to share responsibly, act generously towards one another, and resist oppressive and dominating forces that separate human beings from each other and deny our powers of love and friendship. They value the distinctive gifts of individuals for the good of the whole and require us to be open and vulnerable to the many complex dimensions of life that support the survival and thriving of life on earth, in all its diversity.
We recognise that there is much for us to learn here and much important work for us to do as we seek to move forward, but one clear lesson we have taken away from the retreat is the importance of regular, spacious gatherings, ideally in person, where we can slow down, centre down, and share in much deeper, more intimate ways, discerning ways forward together. We look forward to more retreats in the future, and also to exploring other ways of gathering together that grow faithfulness to our peace testimony.
Recognising the extremism of the arms trade in it’s ruthless and relentless drive for profit, we were also reminded of the importance of our own creative extremism for peace, love and unity, reading the following from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’, where he writes:
Though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ Was not Amos an extremist for justice: ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream’… So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or the extension of justice? … Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
We know that we have been called to be a community of creative extremists for peace, love and unity, and, in the face of so much violence and bloodshed globally, we feel deeply that we must continue in our peace testimony and work faithfully to find new and creative ways to do this in the years ahead, at DSEI and elsewhere.
We closed the retreat with a reading from Rex Ambler on the Peace Testimony, where he writes:
To testify truly we must be clear that peace is a process that begins with each of us giving attention to the leadings of our own hearts, and continues with a struggle with the deepest sources of violence in illusion and desire. This is as true in politics as it is in personal life. It is important then that we do not give the impression, even to ourselves, that peace can be attained by simply abstaining from certain violent actions. We testify, not to a moral principle that has to be adhered to in each and every situation, but to a process that can lead us into a different way of seeing the world and a different way of living in it. Our testimony should therefore take the form of exhibiting that process in our own lives and actions… It is a witness to what has happened, is happening, and can happen as people open themselves to the truth that is in them.
Those of us who gathered left inspired to keep on keeping on as we journey together in this never-ending process of peace, and we look forward to taking our next steps to deepen and grow this small but beautiful community of creative extremists, as we witness together for peace, love and unity in our often brutally violent world.
If you feel inspired to get more involved in our community, please do get in contact with us. We would love to hear from you!
In peace, love and unity,
Quaker Roots
On 11th January 2024, we were privileged to hear directly from Mohammad Tamimi* and Sahar Vardi, peace activists in Palestine and Israel, and Prof Anna Stavrianakis (UK) on the role of the global and UK arms trade in the Israel/Palestine conflict.
A video of the event is now available to view below. Many thanks to QPSW for help with editing.
*Name changed and identity protection filter applied to keep Mohammad safe. Apologies that this means his voice sounds a little strange.
Human Cost of War Jan 2024 from Quaker Roots on Vimeo.
Mohammad Tamimi is part of a local organisation that works to provide critical humanitarian assistance for marginalised Palestinian communities living in areas of the West Bank that are under full Israeli military and civil control (Area C).
Sahar Vardi works for peace & justice and has been imprisoned 3 times as a conscientious objector for refusing to enlist into the Israeli Defence Forces.
Anna Stavrianakis‘ main research interests are the international arms trade, UK arms export policy, international arms transfer control, and militarism and security in North-South perspective.
We are sorry that one of our original speakers Shahd Safi (a journalist and teacher in Gaza) was not able to join us – it was simply too much for her in the current situation. We hold Shahd in the Light and offered some silence during the event in honour of the space that she would have filled.
Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for all that you’ve done since we’ve been at DSEI. Whether you joined the witness in person, or upheld us from afar, it has been wonderful to be with you in shining a light on the darkness of the arms trade, and building peace together as a community.
We will take time to reflect on our witness, and what we are called to do for peace, in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, here are a few follow-up points:
Post DSEI Debriefs – online on Tues 26th Sept – details below. We’re sorry that due to rail strikes the in-person debrief has been postponed.
Please share your thoughts – see requests for your feedback below.
For those in London the Art the Arms Fair exhibition continues at Gallery 46 in Whitechapel until Sunday. There are also some final protest events happening today (Weds 13th Sept).
Peace Pilgrimage Podcast – you can listen to all the episodes at your leisure.
Media Coverage – Quakers got a mention in the Guardian’s coverage of the arms fair, as well as several independent and faith outlets. There was also an excellent letter written by Quakers to their local paper the Crediton Courier. Why not write about your experiences to local media?
While we take great heart from witnessing together, if you find yourself tired, glum or raging after the exertion and emotions of the last few days, these are perfectly reasonable responses. Remember to nourish and comfort yourselves, and check-in with those you travelled or buddied with.
Rest well and let’s look forward to a world of love, peace and justice, where no one is illegal – and a world free of arms fairs!
In peace,
The Quaker Roots organising team
We will hold two debrief sessions, one online and one in-person. These will be an opportunity to;
Online Debrief – Tues 26th September 7pm
Register to receive the Zoom details (if you are not already on our mailing list).
POSTPONED: In-person Debrief
Dear Friends, we’ve heard there is a rail strike taking place this Saturday which means that none of the core group or QPSW staff would be able to get to London. In the light of this we have reluctantly taken the decision to postpone the planned Debrief at Friends House London due this Saturday 30th.
We hope you understand and we apologise for any inconvenience this might cause.
Before taking a decision on re-booking Friends House, we have a couple of questions for you…
At Quaker Roots we would love to hear your reflections on our witness – thank you to those who have sent reflections already already – hello@quaker-roots.org.uk
QPSW would like also your thoughts on how Quakers in Britain supported us – FaithInAction@quaker.org.uk with any thoughts on the following questions:
Our Friends at NetPol would like to hear about people’s experiences interacting with the police – NetpolAsmin@protonmail.com
Our friends at Art the Arms Fair and Demilitarise Education are continuing their exhibition We Ain’t dED Yet at Gallery 46, 46 Ashfield Street, Whitechapel, London, E1 2AJ 12-6pm each day until Sunday (17th Sept). This was recommended by a Friend on the way home from the vigil!
If you’re reading this on Wednesday there are also several events still happening today – see the Stop the Arms Fair website for more information.
Thank you for upholding those of us undertaking a peace pilgrimage from Oxford to DSEI. Our experiences were captured in a podcast, alongside interviews with people we encountered on the way. Discussions on the themes of peace include personal experiences of living in conflict zones, the links between peace and climate, offering sanctuary for refugees, and the work of organisations such as the PPU and Rethinking Security. You can listen to all the episodes at your leisure.
