WHEN A COMMUNITY STIRS ITSELF
In a world where power is increasingly determined by military strength, what sources of power are available to those working to strengthen human rights? One source is an awakened community conscience, drawing its power from an inner conviction that can resist immense pressure, as demonstrated by people such as Mahatma Gandhi and Alexei Navalny. All social advance, including human rights, depends on a growth in the sensitivity of the community conscience. And that growth starts in a pioneering individual. In two campaigns in which I have served, the pioneers were a retired judge and a retired medical doctor.
In Australia in 1997, a national inquiry published its report, detailing the impact of the cruel and misguided policies which through most of the 20th century removed Aboriginal children from their families and placed them in government and church institutions in an attempt to assimilate them into the majority Western culture.
This inquiry resulted from years of lobbying by Aboriginal leaders. It was chaired by a former judge of Australia’s highest court, Sir Ronald Wilson, known for his conservative views. After he heard the stories of 500 Aboriginal people, he was a different person. “This inquiry has changed me,” he said, “and if it can change me, it can change Australia.”
OBSERVING A “SORRY DAY”
The Australian Government was not impressed, and largely ignored his report. But Sir Ronald appealed to the Australian people, and a million joined him in 1998 in a “Sorry Day” which brought together the Aboriginal and wider community in expressions of apology in hundreds of events across the country.
250,000 walk in support across the Sydney Harbour Bridge
In response, the Aboriginal people launched a “Journey of Healing”, inviting the whole Australian community to work for healing in practical ways. Hundreds of thousands responded and developed community initiatives throughout the next ten years.
In 2007, national elections brought a change of government. The new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced that he would make the apology. His parliamentary opponents, humbled by electoral defeat, joined him in a unanimous apology for the removal policies. This enabled the Government to put $5 billion into a massive programme to improve Aboriginal health, education, housing and employment.
Why did a million Australians join the campaign? Many Australians feel guilty that they have thrived while the Aboriginal people - who have been there for 60,000 years – are in the gutter. The tragic outcomes of the removal policies moved people deeply, perhaps because every mother can understand the pain of having a child removed from her to an unknown place. When they were offered an opportunity to express their shame, they responded. And the nation took a step towards healing, justice, and reconciliation.
A DOCTOR TAKES A STEP
In the same year, on the other side of the world, a British medical doctor visited Jordan. Like most British, Monica Spooner knew little about Britain’s colonial history. In Jordan, she and her husband Roger stumbled across a display of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence – letters written early in the First World War by a senior British official to the Sharif of Mecca, promising that if the Arabs rose up and helped defeat their Turkish overlords, the Arab lands – including Palestine – would be granted independence from colonial rule. The Arabs rose up, and the Turks were defeated. But the British Government reneged on its promise.
Back home, Dr Spooner read the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British Government offered Jews a “homeland” in Palestine – despite their offer to the Arabs two years earlier. The Declaration assured the Palestinian Arabs that their “religious and civil rights” would not be undermined – but that commitment was ignored by the British government.
Monica was shocked. A thought struck her: “How will Britain mark the centenary of this declaration?” It would be a travesty, she felt, if this was commemorated by a triumphalist celebration of Britain’s role in the creation of Israel, ignoring the harm done to the Palestinians.
Compelled by this thought, she and Roger returned to the Middle East, visiting Israel and Palestine several times to learn more. They concluded that Britain could not help towards peace between Israel and Palestine unless it acknowledged the perfidious policies which created the conflict. They enlisted church leaders, and held a seminar in Edinburgh, calling their campaign the Balfour Project.
Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Minister, and the Declaration
Many joined them, and they were invited to speak widely across Britain, especially in universities. Retired diplomat Sir Vincent Fean, who had been Britain’s Consul-General in Jerusalem – in effect, Ambassador to Palestine – heard them at Oxford University and enlisted, opening the way to a new level of support among diplomats and politicians.
Then came the centenary in 2017. Daringly, Monica and her colleagues booked Westminster Central Hall, close to Parliament in London, for a commemoration which they titled “Britain’s Broken Promise: time for a new approach”. They had meagre funds and only four months to publicize the event. But they set to work. When the day came, 1,200 people flooded into the hall, and an array of political leaders from all the main parties spoke forthrightly, as did Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders.
“We did break our promise to the Palestinians in the Balfour Declaration,” said former British Foreign Minister Lord Owen. “We can recover from that broken promise, but only if there is a fresh approach.” This approach needed to include recognition of Palestinian statehood, he concluded. Speaker after speaker followed with similar messages.
THE COMMUNITY MOVES
The event drew much media attention in Britain and the Middle East. Nearly 100 MPs expressed their support, as did other distinguished British – former diplomats, academics, and many more. Before long, 10,000 people had registered with the Balfour Project, and the campaign continued with new verve, raising awareness in Britain about its legacy in the Middle East.
The Balfour Project’s film, Britain in Palestine 1917-1948, has been viewed more than two million times on YouTube. Since 7 October 2023, the Balfour Project website has been receiving 55,000 views a month. In the view of Wikipedia’s editors, the project’s “excellent and varied resources” have helped “to broaden and deepen the world’s understanding of the Declaration”.
British schools have been reluctant to teach about the Israel-Palestine conflict, fearing criticism if they attempt to deal with a polarized topic. However, the Balfour Project education team has been welcomed into schools and universities, demonstrating that the dispute can be taught and that there are students – and staff – who want to learn. The project has offered fellowships to graduates, enabling research into approaches for resolving the conflict.
In fact, the Balfour Project has become a rallying point for politicians, journalists, religious leaders and diplomats who are committed to developing policies which can bring peace with justice, security and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. Among them is a group of Israelis – former diplomats, academics and others – known as the Policy Working Group, who are working determinedly for the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign nation, regardless of the current Israeli Government’s hostility.
Progressive loss of Palestinian land since 1947
In a new book, Why didn’t I know? Britain’s legacy in Palestine, Monica Spooner tells the story of the Balfour Project – including the personal journey which made it possible. “I had always been painfully shy,” she writes. “I dreaded parties. On one occasion, feeling desperate among a lot of people, I experienced a thought as clear as an instruction: Shyness is your nature, but inferiority and self-concern are sin. You deal with the sin, and I will deal with your nature.”
Adds Dr Spooner: “What was the source and authority of this thought? I will never know for sure, but immediately I felt different and could talk about it. It has been a total and lasting liberation, without which I could never have played the part I have in the Balfour Project.’”
READY TO SPEAK OUT
Whatever the source, Monica’s readiness to heed her conscience, expel self-concern, and speak out found a response in thousands of British who recognise that their country’s shameful actions have created a situation of unending war. That spurs their determination that Palestinians gain rights equal to the Israelis including statehood.
What their impact will be amidst the power struggles in the region is yet to be seen. But their proposals are now being taken seriously in British Government circles. They will keep on, knowing that peace is only possible when nations recognise the wrongs they have committed, and work to heal the wounds these wrongs have caused. That approach brought France and Germany together in the 1950s after they had fought each other in three major wars in 75 years. And Europe has prospered through their unity.
Monica Spooner and the Balfour Project are working for a similar outcome between Israel and Palestine.
