Picketting at Thales

DLF Fasting Vigil

A Quaker Affinity Group of eight naturally formed, which now included an interstate and a regional Friend who had so much to offer.  We held zoom meetings every week during the countdown month, to prayerfully discern what our individual and collective contributions and nonviolent direct actions might be, immediately prior to and during, the 3-day expo.

In true Quaker fashion many were quiet and unseen. The more public ones included

• A decisive “Tank Action” on the first of the weapons “bump in”, with one Quaker arrested
• Two early morning Meetings for Worship outside the Convention Centre
• Meeting for Worship outside the front door of Thales, a French based weapons maintenance site in the suburb of Pinkenba, which led to the arrest of 2 Quakers
• Participation in a Climate Angels action
• Conducting two workshops on Christian and Quaker Spirituality and Nonviolent Direct Action principles and processes
• A 24-hour Vigil and Fast held adjacent to the busy South Brisbane railway station
• Distribution of a ‘Statement from the heart of a Conscientious Objector’
• Organising and partaking in a Singing Installation on the final day

These actions attracted the participation of a number of non-Quakers who resonated with our Peace Testimony and the way we conducted our peace business!

As Quakers we were in the unique position of being able to move between and engage with, almost everyone who held a stake in disrupting Land Forces: from those who found nonviolent direct action too challenging all the way to those who thought it possibly wasn’t enough.  Our understanding and history of nonviolent peace witnessing and civil disobedience rooted in the act of holy obedience, enabled us to balance that tension, stand alongside others and be there when the police moved in to roughly quell some protestors and make arrests.  The chief architects Wage Peace and Make West Papua Safe found our support and physical presence on the ground strategically invaluable as well as emotionally grounding, as we sought to hold the action space in the Light and bear peaceful witness and have conversations with attendant police, employees and fellow protestors.  Our strength too, lay in the combined and comprehensive skill set amongst the Quaker members of the group. We were thus able to fill the array of necessary roles to make the group run its course consistently, competently and confidently, take up where others left off, and provide a source of financial means to help cover campaign costs such as printing and laminating, large banner productions, art and craft materials and food supplies.  What funding and individual donations were remaining we gave to help cover the impending court costs of those arrested e.g. travel and non-pro-bono legal work.

QRM Peace & Social Justice group thanks wider Friends for their acts of support in the form of providing morning and afternoon teas, cooked meals and fruit during our 6 Day Festival of Resistance, monetary donations throughout, distributing the information handout within their circles of influence and holding us and the campaign in the Light for 8 months.

The Expo officially finished 3 June 2021, but the campaign is still being played out in many ways.  Chief amongst them being the court hearings of those who placed themselves wittingly or unwittingly in the path of arrest, during the final days of the campaign, and offering them as much information and support as possible to negotiate what can be a stressful, confusing and convoluted process. Also where possible, emotionally supporting those individuals who bore the brunt of or witnessed police violence, or were the subject of intimidating Watch-house processes.

I was fortunate enough to walk beside Margie Pestorious for most of the 8-month long campaign, as a support person, a companion. She is a seasoned nonviolent peace activist and one of the Peace Pilgrims that ventured onto Pine Gap and faced arrest.  It was an intense time of listening, learning, brainstorming, debriefing, scoping out weapons manufacturing sites together, late night meals and conversations, building trust, offering encouragement and ideas.  She became my mentor, pushed my boundaries and deepened my understanding and appreciation of nonviolent direct action. Margie was the crucial connecting bridge who brought all the activist groups, the generations, the different ideological positions, the cultural communities together in one bonding and single focus. Through that process we, as Quakers became more visible to, and acquainted with a whole range of individuals and groups that we otherwise wouldn’t have, but the reverse was also true.  It was said that the effectiveness of the campaign wouldn’t have happened to the degree that it did, if we as a Meeting and as individual Quakers had not heard the call, embraced the concern, followed the leadings. We give humble thanks!

The work goes on; it does not end here and it behoves us as Quakers to continue to discern for ourselves and as a Society where and how we will place ourselves in this work for Peace, for whom, and especially with whom.  I believe above all it must be with First Nations people and the younger generations.  We encourage Friends to become involved whether by prayer, background work or actual public witness, and to seek to draw from people the spiritual energy of the Beatitudes:  Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness ... Blessed are the peace-makers… for this is vitally needed in the world we face together. We do not do this work of ourselves, by ourselves, but through us, God can and does weave small miracles.