(Editor’s note: This piece, under the title of “Schweitzer’s Legacy: A UK Perspective”, was originally written for the American edition of Walter Munz’s book “The heart of a Gazelle and the skin of a Hippopotamus”, which is to be published shortly in the USA.)
Albert Schweitzer’s legacy to mankind can be seen as having three aspects:
1. His example of a person who took stock of his life as a young man and made a decision to give up a promising academic career and take up a life of active service to Africa and to humanity.
2. The legacy of leaving his mark on two places, the hospital at Lambarene and the Schweitzer House at Gunsbach, both of which bear physical witness to his life’s work.
3. His written work and especially his ethical philosophy of Reverence for Life, which at the end of his life he himself regarded as the most important of these three.
It is to this third aspect of his legacy that we in the UK have directed our main focus in recent years.
Specifically, we have focused on the question of how this philosophy can engage with the most pressing problems of our present time. A century ago Schweitzer identified the dangers and pitfalls of the direction in which western civilization was moving and foresaw the life-threatening consequences if a change of course would not occur. He worked tirelessly to find something that would provide the energy and the will to turn the rudder in order to steer the ship along a safer course. The phrase “Reverence for Life” (Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben in German) came to Schweitzer as the key that would unlock that energy and release the rudder from its fixed position. As Schweitzer said: each generation must find that key afresh for itself. Our generation may have need of this more than any before.
This then is our main preoccupation in the British Schweitzer Committees:
Can the ethical philosophy of Reverence for Life help us to turn the course of this ship we are on toward a sustainable direction? Will it be possible to accomplish this before it is too late?
But what was Schweitzer’s relationship with Great Britain?
Apart from his reading of UK authors, Albert Schweitzer’s first known connection with the Isles across the Channel from Europe, was in 1899 when, at the age of 24, he declined the offer of a scholarship in favor of another more needy student, to do part of his licentiate studies in England. When his friend and future wife, Hélène Bresslau, spent a few summer months in England in 1905, rubbing shoulders with missionaries who had returned from the Congo, she was shocked by talk of the conditions there. She wrote to Schweitzer at length about it and the young couple’s correspondence shows that a strong connection with England was established. By 1907 Schweitzer’s radical new theological ideas were vehemently discussed in Oxford and Cambridge and are reported to have cast a shadow over that year’s Church Congress.
However, it was in 1922, after their first period in Africa, that Albert Schweitzer visited England for the first time and gave talks in London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Birmingham and played the organ to enthusiastic audiences. When he left again for Lambarene in 1924, he was accompanied by Noel Gillespie, a young Englishman from Oxford, as his only companion because his wife was not well enough to join them.
In the Autumn of 1925 the Dr. Schweitzer’s Hospital Fund in the UK produced its first “British Bulletin” announcing a council of 20 members among which were five bishops, a dean, and five other clergymen; - a strong statement of interest and support at that time from the Church of England.
In 1927, Mrs. C. E. B. (Lilian) Russell from Scotland joined Schweitzer in Lambarene and helped mainly with the construction projects and work in the orchards. When Schweitzer returned to Europe in April of that year, he was able to leave her in charge of those teams of workers. She later became one of the translators of Schweitzer’s books into English.
During 1928 Schweitzer again toured England giving talks and concerts, leaving behind a strong circle of friends and supporters. In 1934 and 1935, the famous Hibbert and Gifford lectures took place in Manchester and Edinburgh accompanied by numerous organ recitals and the recording of Bach’s organ music by Columbia in their longest recording session to date.
Schweitzer spent the whole of World War II (1939-1945) in Lambarene. The British authorities helped Hélène to join him there in 1941, and the British press helped to celebrate his 75th birthday, referring to him as “a saint of our century.” However, it was in that era that the first attacks on the philosophy of Reverence for Life also made their appearance on the bookshelves. Shortly after Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, the respected journalist James Cameron was sent to dig up what dirt he could find about the “saintly” man. Although Cameron liked him, the papers were determined to have their pound of flesh and called the hospital a “slum’” and a “vehicle for his ego.”
When Schweitzer started to speak out about the dangers of atmospheric atomic tests, some British papers took up the cause and in 1955 he was awarded the Order of Merit by the Queen as well as honorary Doctorates bestowed at Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities. Personalities like the philosopher Bertrand Russell, the musician Vaughan Williams, and the painter Augustus John queued up to see him in the restaurant of his friend, Emil Mettler, in Petty France near the City of Westminster. When Schweitzer died in 1965, a service of remembrance was held in St. Paul’s Cathedral and headlines like “A Life Devoted to Humanity,” “Saint of Lambarene,” and phrases like “… the almost unattainable ideal of the complete man, perhaps more than anyone in this modern age” appeared in the British press.
Dr. Schweitzer’s Hospital Fund, consolidated by trust deed in 1959, continued after to Schweitzer’s death to administer his Sterling Account, which had accumulated during his lifetime. Under the chairmanship of Sir Clement Chesterman, it purchased the land on which a new hospital was built in Lambarene in 1981.
Sir Clement’s successor, Dr. James Witchalls, became chairman in 1979 and was later elected President of the International Association (AISL), a post he held for 12 years.
At that time, the AISL held its annual meetings in a different European country each year in conjunction with three-to-four-day seminars at which Schweitzer’s legacy was discussed. In 1983 the meeting took place at Cambridge University with 130 delegates from 21 countries at the invitation of the British Schweitzer Committee. This event was organized by Dr. Witchalls and Vreni Mark, who also acted as Dr. Witchalls’ secretary and interpreter until she began to help Ali Silver with administrative work at the Schweitzer House in Gunsbach during the summer months. When Ali died in 1987, Vreni took over the management of the Maison Schweitzer until she was succeeded by Madame Sonja Poteau in 1989.
During the 1980s, much of the available energy in England was being devoted to affairs in Europe and activities of the British Schweitzer Committee were reduced to a minimum. When the BBC, caught up in the media's frenzy of toppling heroes and idols off their pedestals, showed a series of films in 1994 with that aim, Schweitzer was one of the first victims. He was then, perhaps as a direct result, dropped from the school curriculum as a person to be studied by children, and awareness of him virtually disappeared from public consciousness. Not so the core of his philosophy, however, which, as he had hoped, made its own way in the world and inspired much of the thinking in the early days of the environmental movement in the UK. The concept of Reverence for Life, as well as the phrase itself, now appears again and again in such reputable journals as “Resurgence” and is integrated into the ethos of many branches of the movement.
When I succeeded Dr. Witchalls as chairman of the British Schweitzer Committee in 1995, it became clear, that the objectives in the Trust Deed were defined too narrowly to allow us to not only support hospitals that were “managed in the spirit of Dr. Schweitzer,” but also to promote the philosophy. We therefore created a new charity: “Friends of Albert Schweitzer (UK).” which now calls itself “Reverence for Life UK” and operates in conjunction with the original “Dr. Schweitzer’s Hospital Fund”.
In recent years we have had two annual events at which we discuss such topics as “Reverence for Life in the Workplace,” “The Earth Charter: Will it work?,” “Ethics and the Media,” “The Film: An Inconvenient Truth,” and other timely topics. We have converted some derelict land into a “Reverence for Life School Garden” at a primary school where one of our members teaches and where Reverence for Life has been adopted as the school’s motto. Members have given talks to children and students ranging in age from 4-5 years to 16-18 year old, and to societies as diverse as Woman’s Institutes, Village Hall Gatherings and the Anglo-German Society in a Methodist Hall. Meanwhile, the Hospital Fund continues to provide financial support to the Albert Schweitzer Hospitals in Lambarene and in Haiti, as well as to a Leper Community at Anandwan in Central India and the Maison Schweitzer in Gunsbach, France.
Since 2002 we have an extensive, fully informative website with a Forum/Chat-room where subjects ranging from “Vivisection” to “The Place of Ethics in the Concept of Civilization” are under discussion. A newsletter appears twice a year and can be seen on the website, and “Bulletins” have been published in 1998 and 2003. The Friends of Albert Schweitzer (UK) has some 45 members at the time of writing and welcomes applications for membership from anyone interested in taking part, or just in being informed of our activities.
Percy Mark, 21 January 2009
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