On the Arrest of Young People at a Quaker Meeting House
Editor’s Note: These are Brian Eno’s words.
Last night, six young people were arrested by police during a peaceful gathering at a Quaker Meeting House in London. They had assembled to talk, reflect, and organise around two issues of overwhelming moral gravity: the climate emergency, and the continuing destruction in Gaza.
That the police chose to forcibly enter a Quaker space—a site known throughout history for its deep commitment to peace and nonviolence—is both alarming and telling. These young people were not disrupting the peace. They were enacting it.
We live in a time where the greatest threats to our future go unchallenged by those in power, while those who speak out are increasingly met with suspicion, hostility, and force. When the state begins to treat moral concern as criminal intent, we should all be paying close attention.
The people arrested last night were not extremists. They were citizens who care—young people who see the interconnected crises of climate collapse and human suffering and refuse to turn away. They gathered not in violent defiance, but in peaceful conscience.
I stand with them. I believe their voices are not only valid, but vital. If the institutions meant to protect us cannot bear to hear these voices, then it is not the protesters who are disrupting order—it is the silence of those who look away.
— Brian Eno
Editor’s note: For more on this, read here.
Quakers remind us that an idea we were all taught in school—that America was founded on religious freedom—is a myth. In Puritan New England, being a Quaker was a hanging offense. The Puritans, like so many Christians today, believed in religious freedom only for themselves. Worth remembering also that the best exemplar of the ideal that we CLAIM to hold—Roger Williams—was a dissenter who was expelled.
Now, as then, if the Christians who hold power hate your religious beliefs, it probably means you're doing something right.
So it's also in another "democracy" that people are suddenly detained for exercising long-held freedoms. What is behind this? What are those with power afraid of?