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Bristol Quakers’ Statement on OCCUPY BRISTOL

Faiths united in mosque vigil for victims of the Norway attack

A special service at a mosque in Easton.

David Mowat and Tony Weekes

A dead religious sect have left a stylish relic, Quakers Friars, as the back drop for a restaurant in a brand new retail complex. That this image risks sticking in the public eye if we don’t act to show both our liveliness and our questioning of consumerism is what prompted Friends from Central Meeting (built to replace Quakers’ Friars in the 1960s) to stage a public debate in Quaker Week. Attendance was boosted by the favourable publicity given after some Friends were turfed off the privatised pavement by Quakers’ Friars for unauthorised leafleting.

Cabot Circus, Bristol’s new £500M shopping centre, opened at the end of September 2009.  The retail businesses and restaurants are aimed at the affluent customer, (designer hand bags going for £2,000) but the centre also sees social responsibility as part of its task, promising training and employment opportunities to people living in the adjacent deprived areas of the city. It means, in the City Council’s words  “ … more Bristol jobs for Bristol people, and increased trade for Bristol businesses …”

Entitled ‘Cabot Circus; New found land or same old fare?’ the meeting had two speakers: James Bailey, the Centre manager and Tony Weekes, Ferguson Fellow at Woodbrooke Quaker Studies Centre.

James Bailey shared some of his own history: how his time as porter and later manager in the NHS had sharpened his understanding of people and their needs. He explained how Bristol ranked second in ‘the profitability stakes’ in the UK yet until now was only eleventh in ‘retail ranking’.  He stressed the developer’s awareness of the ecological, social and economic needs of our time, emphasising the un-heated but covered walk ways and recycled rain water. He seemed responsive to comments and criticism – around the lack of cycle racks for instance.

Tony Weekes offered criteria by which the audience might judge Cabot Circus as an example of urban renewal. In the words of Fritjof Capra: “… The great challenge of our time is to build sustainable communities – communities that are designed in such a way that their ways of life, businesses, economies, physical structures, and technologies do not interfere with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. … The ecosystems of the natural world are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. There is no waste in these ecological communities, one species’ waste being another species’ food. …. The energy driving these ecological cycles flows from the sun, and the diversity and cooperation [is] the source of the community’s resilience.Emphasising the dwindling inheritance of fossil fuel whilst sunlight is plentiful, Tony said “Our dependence on nature’s inherent ability to sustain life is something which is scarcely recognised; there are no substitutes for these services (clean water, air, soil etc)…Conviviality – literally, living together in harmony - requires us to value each other and to see our needs beyond ‘shopping’. We need places to meet and places for quiet and for recreation. In this context, ‘scale’ and the aesthetic are important”.

Listening to the two distinct speakers, it was hard to find to see Cabot Circus coming up to the Capra mark. On the one hand, in the centre manager’s optimistic assessment we have ‘business as usual’ with new technology as an add-on to minimise environmental damage. On the other hand we have a call to seriously limit human impact, which Cabot Circus is designed precisely to increase on the disproved assumption that greater material wealth makes us better able to tackle environmental problems.However the debate albeit modestly, showed a way ahead. Communication is now more open with the previously faceless –and powerful- retail developer. The audience were interested in how the rest of Bristol’s city centre, much of it also owned by the developers could go. Smaller more affordable retail units opening to local firms? A convivial continental atmosphere not dependant on buying?

Some of us carried on in the pub across the road. With Quakers having made an opening, perhaps there is a way to influence the developers, rather than simply demonise them? Over a pint, James Bailey mentioned the power Cabot Circus management have, for example, to insist on reduced waste and product packaging with their tenants.

Progress happens when lofty sentiments meet the nitty gritty. Tony’s comments helped our way towards this - and he’s available to do so for your Meeting (tony.weekes@gn.apc.org). Once, Quakers were involved in business and good at the detail. Can we be so again?

(Last update: January 14, 2012)