From August 5 through 12, approximately 500 attendees participated in the World Plenary Meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). The gathering took place in person in the city of Vanderbijlpark, near Johannesburg, South Africa. About half of the participants joined the in-person event and half connected virtually, either as individuals or as part of 50 international hub gatherings.
The main theme of the gathering was promoting ubuntu, an African philosophical concept that means “I am because we are.” Two other themes were also considered: “care of creation” and “the healing of relationships in light of historic and ongoing injustice,” according to the epistle participants approved at the end of the gathering.
Friends from Southern Africa Yearly Meeting and the Africa Section of FWCC hosted the event, which included delegates from the four FWCC Sections who conduct FWCC business. At the World Plenary, which takes place once every several years, Friends from around the world are also invited to participate in worship and community. The last World Plenary took place in 2016 in Peru.
Some Friends, including those from Rwanda, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, could not attend in person because of visa restrictions, according to Tas Cooper, information manager for FWCC’s World Office. FWCC staff wrote supportive letters and called immigration officials but did not receive explanations of why the visas were denied, according to Rebecca Peirson, FWCC’s World Office operations and support manager.
Volunteer interpreters translated the proceedings from English into Spanish and Kiswahili so everyone could participate equitably.
Left: Volunteer translator. Right: A home group meeting.
Participants in the gathering met each morning in home groups of about a dozen people to share spiritual reflections based on a set of queries. Attendees also had opportunities for silent, unprogrammed worship as well as morning yoga. FWCC includes four geographic sections: Africa, Asia-West Pacific, Europe and Middle East, and the Americas. Each section hosted at least one plenary-wide worship session. Friends presented workshops on topics related to the themes of nurturing ubuntu, addressing historic injustice, and caring for creation.
During the opening ceremony, Duduzile Mtshazo, a Black Quaker from Southern Africa Yearly Meeting, spoke of her experience living under apartheid and discovering Friends. Mtshazo was raised in the hierarchical Anglican church. A friend invited her to Quaker meeting.
“I walked from the spiritual drought of a busy and hurried life into a sea of silence,” Mtshazo said.
During her early days as a Friend, she noticed that all the Quakers she saw were White. In other spaces she entered, there were signs dividing White and non-White people, but there were no such signs in Quaker gatherings. Under apartheid, Black people and White people could not drink from the same set of cups, Mtshazo noted. At a Quaker gathering, someone served tea but the cups were not segregated.
“There’s a crack in the wall; the Light had come in,” Mtshazo said.
At one meeting she attended during the early years of being a Quaker, she was impressed with the fact that the clerk and recording clerk were both women. She was also surprised and happy to see a Black woman speaking to the congregation.
The equality and community Mtshazo experienced among Quakers reminded her of the longstanding South African value of ubuntu.
Mtshazo explained that the traditional Zulu greeting in South Africa sawubona means one person acknowledges seeing the person they are greeting. Mtshazo noted that the greeting means “I don’t only see you, I see yours.” The greeter sees all those who raised and influenced the person they are greeting.
The keynote panel speakers included Bridget Moix, general secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL); César Garcia, general secretary of Mennonite World Conference; Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); and Esther Mombo, professor of theology at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya.
Moix explained that FCNL’s mission is linked to the ubuntu theme in that the organization seeks equity, justice, the opportunity for everyone to fulfill their potential, and a world free of war. Part of FCNL’s work is focused on uprooting White supremacy.
Moix recalled how shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Friends from Africa came to the United States and ministered to the staff of FCNL. The African Quakers drew on their lived experience of enduring political violence to support the FCNL staffers.
Moix said she wanted to talk with Friends from around the world about how U.S. policy impacts their communities.
Mombo called on contemporary Quakers to address modern slavery and debt bondage, noting that the U.S.-based United Society of Friends Women International supports Africans impacted by these issues. Slavery and colonialism lead to cultural erasure, according to Mombo. Reparations should include trusting the recipients of funds to spend the money as they see fit, she explained.
Jesus wants us to have abundant life and calls people to adhere to a spiritual path, according to Mombo.
“Spirituality is, to me, a disciplined obedience to the will of God,” Mombo said.
Ajlouny, a Palestinian American, told World Plenary participants that Israel’s military operation in Gaza clearly constitutes genocide. Ajlouny referred to a January International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that states South Africa’s allegation of genocide was plausible.
“We continue to speak truth to power and name things as they are,” Ajlouny said. AFSC has long provided humanitarian aid in the Israel–Palestine area and advocates for Palestinian rights.
In December 2023, the South African government filed a charge with the ICJ accusing Israel of violating international law that prohibits genocide. The following month, the ICJ directed Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The ICJ’s ruling in South Africa v. Israel states, in part, that Israel must abide by its obligations under the Genocide Convention. The Genocide Convention prohibits killing members of a group, or creating lethal conditions for the group, with the intention of physically destroying the group, completely or partially, according to the ruling.
As detailed in the ruling, Israel argued that South Africa had not proven that Israel’s actions were genocidal: “Israel submits that the appropriate legal framework for the conflict in Gaza is that of international humanitarian law and not the Genocide Convention.” Israel described the war against Palestinians in Gaza as an operation needed for self-defense.
The current war between Israel and Gaza began after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking approximately 250 hostage, the Associated Press reports. As of early September, the Israel Defense Forces have killed 40,861 Palestinians, according to the AP.
Garcia invited Quakers to work with other churches to support human rights in other conflict zones. Mennonites, Quakers, Church of the Brethren, and Moravians witness to peace as members of the World Council of Churches, Garcia noted. Garcia invited audience members to consider the impact of these congregations working together on regional issues. Key areas of collaboration include protecting conscientious objectors and advocating for human rights in countries where such support is urgently needed.
At the end of the World Plenary, Friends created a “tapestry document” intended to intertwine all three themes. The three themes of the gathering are inseparable, according to the document. Contemplating the themes leads us to understand that we need God’s healing, the document states.
Ubuntu means the “deeply held belief, morality and custom that every person is worthy of being recognized, respected and heard, and that we as human beings are all interdependent,” according to the tapestry document, which also states:
We are called to tap into the same deep power as did early Friends, to name our grief in the face of climate and ecological breakdown. To face that darkness, but to face it through the Light, with a deeper form of love. The spirit of Ubuntu, the power of community, can also drive us to dig deep into the pain and trauma of the world, to face up to climate crisis and the ongoing effects of historical injustice.
Given that it is primarily the lifestyles of the affluent that generate environmental destruction, it is mostly the responsibility of the rich to address ecological damage, according to the tapestry document. Friends express solidarity with people living in dire poverty who might be forced to harm the environment in order to survive, the document explains. The three themes of the gathering are inseparable. Contemplating the themes leads us to understand that we need God’s healing, according to the document.
Participants also produced an epistle addressed to Friends throughout the world.
The epistle describes the Holy Spirit working in us to create ubuntu, the sense that each of us exists because of the larger community. It encourages Quakers to draw on our historic and current faith to courageously advocate for change in the world.
The epistle describes the unity amid diversity that participants strove for at the World Plenary:
Ubuntu is a Zulu word that speaks to the power and ceaseless work of the Holy Spirit between us, enabling us to go beyond our individual selves and grasp that “I am because we are.”
. . . Despite our multitude of differences, we have celebrated that we share not only our Quaker founders—happy 400th birthday, George Fox!—but also deep Friendship, an openness to new Biblical interpretations, our structures and processes, our deep commitment to peace and justice, our love of the Earth, and our love of God.