Rockets green glare bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that Kuwait was still there. Those green night vision pictures of the first Iraq War were on the news nightly. You may recall it as the Gulf War, Operation Desert Shield or Operation Desert Storm. Those lights were bombs and rockets and artillery. Those Patriot missiles were the work of the US government.
When I first saw the US government go to war with Iraq I saw the US government as us and I believed we were just and righteous. No one had mentioned that our dear Kuwaiti allies may have been slant drilling taking Iraqi oil without any sort of permission nor treaty. No one mentioned the advantage of buying oil from Kuwait rather than Iraq.
By the second time the US went to war with Iraq the pictures were of overpasses and stop lights being bombed. It felt way too close to home. I marched++ on the US capitol with a group called ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). The second Iraq War with the second President Bush did not seem so righteous and it did not feel like “we” were going to war.
My query for you today is can you be a Quaker and a Patriot? There are a lot of aspects to being a good citizen and I am only going to cover some of them.
Being a good Quaker includes things like living the SPICES: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship of the Earth. It is possible to accomplish those goals while speaking archaic language, wearing clothes of centuries past and living in enclaves, but is that the only way?
Early on Quakers protested government collection of tithes for the state church. During the Quietist period Quakers believed they were living out their values while being far more inwardly focused. But can you live out Quaker values as a part of the world?
In the US, fighting as a soldier is often held up as the best example of serving your country. It only takes a few minutes around town to see people going up to veterans and hear them saying thank you for your service.
How quickly we forget. During the pandemic, we declared many as essential workers. Medical workers and grocery store workers and garbage collectors were all said to be serving our country in key ways. But who thanks them for their service now? There are many ways of serving. Of course, there are specifically Quaker options like Quaker Voluntary Service, Friends Disaster Service, and the American Friends Service Committee.
Even if you are being more specific about serving the way that soldiers serve there are other ways that achieve similar goals. The foreign service also called the diplomatic corps works to find shared solutions with our friends and even enemies. Even after a war, we still need diplomacy to achieve real and lasting solutions. Diplomats fight misunderstandings and misinformation that can lead to war. Diplomacy asserts the will of the country and builds international relationships.
What is referred to as soft power can not only curry favor with adults who are our enemies, it can assure that children do not grow up to be our enemies in the first place. Feeding, clothing, and healing the world is good for the soul of our nation and our national reputation.
Economic development is also important. If the economies in other places in the world are strong and people in those countries are not striving to merely stay alive then those countries are less likely to be aggressive and the people there are less likely to be terrorists. Feeding people, providing medicine and medical care, and helping them to have jobs makes a huge difference. There are many ways to serve and they do not all involve international relations.
You can work to pursue the goals of our country and protect its people without becoming a soldier. You can hold onto your peace testimony and still promote the needs and safety of the United States.
None of this is to say that Quakers have always responded to the Peace Testimony in the same way. In the Civil War, some Quakers who were convinced of the justness of the cause became soldiers. Some Quakers during various later wars joined the military to keep their families from the loss of income brought on by the chief income earner going to jail. Quakers have also been known to go to war to protect their families from social stigmatization.
War is certainly not the only issue we are confronting today as a country. You have heard it said that you are only a Patriot if you are willing to remove immigrants from this country. You have heard it said that they are murderers and rapists and drug dealers and that their presence in the US is poisoning the blood of the country. And this is just what the President himself is saying. Hitler similarly described races mixing blood poisoning.
Is Trump right that immigration is only supported by “sick politicians”? Can you support immigration and love the country? I say to you there is that of God in all people. Treat the foreigner in your land as the native born and love your neighbor as yourself.
Our country has long been known as a nation of immigrants. The Emma Lazarus poem reminds us of a time when we were proud to bring in the tired, poor, and even people considered “refuse” by others.
Along with the natives here before, the US was built out of British, French, and Spanish colonies with a large number of Germans as well. The US has had one of the more open immigration policies in the world. National regulation of immigration did not even begin till 1876. According to the center for Immigration Studies, between 1900 and 1920 24 million immigrants came in what was known as the Great Wave.[i]
William Penn was known for providing a safe haven for religious refugees. We currently have a couple million migrant workers, many of them work on farms. In the past, many Chinese workers came to the US to work on the railroads. The American Dream is not just about making it big in the US, but frequently about moving to the US from elsewhere and starting out with nothing to build a new life.
We have not always lived up to our ideals as a country. We have had a mixed response to immigrants. Penn worried about too many German immigrants not assimilating. The influx of Chinese laborers was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act. According to Wikipedia, he braceros program was “the largest foreign worker program in U.S. history,” but was characterized by unfair pay and bad working conditions. The later H2 visas bringing in foreign laborers has not met the demand for workers forcing many to come in illegally.
My ancestors from my Polish and Slovak side would have been seen as undesirables for being Eastern European and, worse, gypsies. Because of quotas based on countries of origin, during that time, they would have had a hard time getting in.
Also, during WWII, 120,000 people of Japanese descent including about 80,000 US citizens were detained in internment camps for 4 years just based on their ancestry. The American Friends Service Committee was one of the few groups that stood up for Japanese Americans.[ii] Herbert Nicholson, a Quaker missionary, “was one of the most high-profile non-Japanese advocates for their cause.” Today a detention center in Florida is being called an internment camp by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).[iii]
Jews were turned away during World War II, but after the war was over people looked back in horror. The US repented and had new programs for refugees and asylum seekers afterwards. Today, Trump has shut down claims of asylum that come through the southern border.
Exodus 12:49 calls us to apply the same law to foreigners as to native born. We are also warned repeatedly in the Bible not to mistreat foreigners—not to oppress the foreigner nor do them wrong nor withhold justice (Leviticus 19:9-10,33-34, Exodus 23:9, 22:1) and give them leftovers from the harvest (Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 24:19-22) so they have something to eat.
Supporting immigration justice and charity to foreigners is part of our religious heritage. Treating foreigners the same as native born is reinforced by the testimony of equality. Recognizing that of God in all people means not giving in to the demonization of immigrants. You can be a good citizen and defend immigrants and stand for immigration justice.
In the reading from the prophet Jeremiah, God proclaimed to the Israelites who were exiles in Babylon that they should settle down, have families and even seek the peace and prosperity of the city they were in. As people forced to relocate by the Babylonians they had every right to wish the Babylonian Empire ill will. But that was not what God commanded.
As Quakers we are a peculiar people. We live in society and yet apart. We too can seek the peace and prosperity of the country where we live without losing our identity.
Quakers have always had an uneasy relationship with politics. Do we hold office? Do we vote? Do we lobby for change? Early on in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island Quakers held elective office, but there was a concern that they would vote for war as a part of serving in those positions. The French and Indian War brought that to a head. There was also a concern that voting for officials that would go to war would make the voters complicit. According to Friends Journal, in 1762 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting published a minute that basically said “don’t hold office, don’t work for candidates, and don’t vote.” Other yearly meetings adopted followed suit and similar policies. British Friends at the time were not allowed to hold office, but did vote.[iv]
Friends have tended to favor advocacy over voting or holding elective office.[v]
Voting or getting elected are not the only options in the US. The first amendment reads like a list of other actions you can take besides voting or getting elected. You can speak out. You can join the press and highlight issues that are important to you. You can gather for demonstrations, protests, and rallies. You can petition the government as a group or write letters to Congress as an individual.
Friends Committee on National Legislation can offer you guidance on how to lobby. They also highlight issues that are important to Quakers. Check them out as a resource.
Maybe you are comfortable voting even though the government may do things you would not personally endorse. Perhaps as an elected official you would still follow the Testimonies and hold onto your integrity. If you truly believe in peace then do not support war even if elected.
Quakers do value individual discernment. Maybe this is a time when you stand apart. You may count yourself among great Quaker advocates of old who stood for abolition of slavery and stood up for women’s rights long before they were broadly accepted.
There are many things you can do that do not require you to choose between being a Quaker and a Patriot. Consider service, immigration, and politics. These things are open to interpretation.
When has being a good Quaker conflicted with you being a patriot?
When has being a good Quaker made you a better patriot?
[i] https://cis.org/Historical-Overview-Immigration-Policy#:~:text=In%201986%2C%20Congress%20passed%20the,later%20generations%20of%20illegal%20aliens
[iii] http://newsweek.com/debbie-wasserman-schultz-blasts-alligator-alcatraz-internment-camp-2098240
[iv] http://www.friendsjournal.org/quakers-stopped-voting/
[v] https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/89/Politics
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