I’m a regular on the 16th Street bus.  On brisk autumn days, I dash to catch the S2; heave my boots through the February snow to find the S4 whizz by; my sticky flip-flops drag me to the stop at Irving Street on a sweltering August afternoon.

I love the 16th Street bus.  It’s a microcosm of D.C., the Washington that most people don’t know — those who are fed images on the evening news of middle-aged white men in drab suits fillibustering on the floor of Congress, or business-casual wealthy foreign ministers dodging protesters past the IMF.

“I don’t know,” I replied nonchalantly to my mom.  “There are all types.”

That conversation echoed in my mind as I shifted uncomfortably on the blue plastic bench, unable to concentrate on my book.  So I lowered my glasses and gazed through the window, past the girl sharing my seat.  She was a typical of the young professionals that descend upon this city, brown hair tied messily in a bun and stitching purposefully at her needlepoint.  The sun cast a nostalgic glow as I peered past her, its rays descending yawningly and twinkling through the dense trees at Carter Barron Park, where multihued children scurried on its vast lawn.

My roommate calls that stretch of 16th Street “The Avenue of Obscure Religions,” and it’s true—from the Third Church of Christ, Scientist to the Buddhist Vihara Society to the Tifareth Israel Congregation (and the D.C. Bahá’í Center, which is my reason for frequenting that route), it’s a veritable buffet of spiritual offering.  It makes me think, sometimes, of the concept of progressive revelation:

Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.
Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 81.

My contemplation was interrupted when the bus halted to a stop on Alison Street, to let on a gaggle of Ethiopian women heading toward church.  Draped in gauzy white, their gleaming eyes reflected the warm radiance of dusk as they shuffled onto the bus.  It made me remember a warm Saturday evening in Tel Aviv, when I waltzed into a Ethiopian restaurant owned by Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia, gelato in hand, to pick up take-out injera for friends, only to be stopped by the “We Keep Kosher” sign.

When Moses appeared, the tribes of Israel were in a state of disunion as captives of the Pharaohs. Moses gathered them together, and the divine law established fellowship among them. They became as one people, united, consolidated, after which they were rescued from bondage. They passed into the promised land, advanced in all degrees, developed sciences and arts, progressed in material affairs, increased in divine or spiritual civilization until their nation rose to its zenith in the sovereignty of Solomon. It is evident, therefore, that religion is the cause of unity, fellowship and progress among mankind. The function of a shepherd is to gather the sheep together and not to scatter them.

Jumping up to offer my seat to a young woman and her child, I clung tightly to the pole as the bus weaved its way through the early evening traffic, grabbing my bag lest it swing and swipe the elderly Salvadoran gentleman stooped next to me.  His lowered head didn’t hide the creases in his weather-worn cheeks, nor the cross around his neck that he absentmindedly stroked.

Then Christ appeared. He united varying and divergent creeds and warring people of His time. He brought together Greeks and Romans, reconciled Egyptians and Assyrians, Chaldeans and Phoenicians. Christ established unity and agreement among people of these hostile and warring nations. Therefore, it is again evident that the purpose of religion is peace and concord.

A chocolate-skinned man with an overbite cradled his toddler daughter, seated toward the front.  She was curled in his lap, her head resting against his chest, a pink Dora the Explorer backpack engulfing her back.  The bus heaved forward, and his hands tangled past his daughter’s dangling sneakered soles to catch the set of auburn glass prayer beads that slipped out of his pocket.

Likewise, Muhammad appeared at a time when the peoples and tribes of Arabia were divergent and in a state of continual warfare. They killed each other, pillaged and took captive wives and children. Muhammad united these fierce tribes, established a foundation of fellowship among them so that they gave up warring against each other absolutely and established communities. The result was that the Arabian tribes freed themselves from the Persian yoke and Roman control, established an independent sovereignty which rose to a high degree of civilization, advanced in sciences and arts, extended the Saracen dominion as far west as Spain and Andalusia and became famous throughout the world. Therefore, it is proved once more that the religion of God is intended to be the cause of advancement and solidarity and not of enmity and dissolution. If it becomes the cause of hatred and strife, its absence is preferable. Its purpose is unity, and its foundations are one.

I yanked the cord at Madison Street a little too late, and the driver screeched to a halt halfway past the block.  Tucking my book into my bag, I descended into the patch of weeds that separated the asphalt from the sidewalk, the evening dew dampening my leather sandals, acquired ages ago in Brazil and surviving a year’s worth of Friday afternoon paces around the Haram-i-Aqdas.  Stepping reverently toward the Bahá’í Center for the Ninth Day of Ridván celebration, my eyes lit up when little Skyy, multiple braids adorning her head, grabbed my hand and cautioned me not to step on the path of rose petals that welcomed us.

When Bahá’u’lláh appeared in Persia, violent strife and hatred separated the peoples and tribes of that country. They would not come together for any purpose except war; they would not partake of the same food, or drink of the same water; association and intercourse were impossible. Bahá’u’lláh founded the oneness of humanity among these people and bound their hearts together with such ties of love that they were completely united. He reestablished the prophetic foundations, reformed and renewed the principles laid down by the Messengers of God who had preceded Him. And now it is hoped that through His life and teachings the East and West shall become so united that no trace of enmity, strife and discord shall remain.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace.  Talk at Church of the Divine Paternity, 19 May 1912.  Central Park West, New York.

The drama of it all is not lost on me. The excitement, the rush of blood to the head, the endorphines. I get it. Sports are a big deal. For countless reasons. Some meritorious; others not so much.

Regardless of the pros and cons of local, national and international sporting events, how can any one of us feel comfortable living in a world where a company is willing to shell out 132 million dollars for a soccer player while entire pockets of the population in nearby regions die of malaria because they don’t have access to the 10 dollars needed to purchase a bed net.

Clearly our financial woes are not solely material. Our financial problems are deeply rooted in the decaying morality of a materialistic credo that gorges on frivolity, o.d.’s on self-centered pleasure pursuits and panics at the thought of having to prolong gratification for any considerable amount of time.

Does this mean we should send our money off right now to XY&Z agency so that it can buy mosquito nets for those who need them? Is that the solution? It might help, but it’s like plugging one leak in a dam so filled with holes it’s about 10 seconds away from bursting. I’m not discouraging charity. I’m just saying it’s not enough. A solely material solution to one ramification of a moral crisis is not going to rebuild the dam. Besides, with countless episodes of corrupt leaders whose sticky fingers dripping in greed just can’t seem to find their way out of the money jar, it’s not entirely implausible that your capital will help a self-indulgent hypocrite finance his or her latest vacation home.

The problems are complex. The symptoms are overwhelming. And as a first step we need to rightly diagnose the disease. If we keep insisting that impoverished nations, for instance, need nothing more than money thrown at them, or that populations dying of venerial diseases simply need more condoms, the overwhelming symptoms will not only never disappear, they will continue to amass until there really is no hope.

So then is the solution merely spiritual? Should we all organize 24-hour prayer campaigns and write pretty songs and lengthy blog posts to praise peace and talk about how we’re all one and the children are our future? Is that going to feed the starving children? Is that going to cure the diseased?

For an entire nation to be lifted out of poverty, you can’t just erase debt and then hope the nation doesn’t amass it again.  I don’t think there are easy answers or simple solutions to any of this. You can’t wave a wand and expect fundamental problems to just vanish.  But you can’t avoid problems simply because you don’t have the solutions. These age-old problems need new approaches. The people of the world need to be empowered.  The most oppressed from among us need to have a voice. Not just a venue in which to speak. But they need to actually be given tools to learn how to use their voices.

Part II will focus on what actually constitutes oppression, as well as some of the fledgling movements aimed at empowering all human beings.

It’s almost as if our behaviour is governed by the worry of what “other people will think”, and by compliance to social norms.  So, we do things differently when we think no one is watching.  How is it that a queue in a post-office is normally well-behaved and no one would dare to push in, but when we are in our cars we become so bad mannered and aggressive? My theory is that we feel protected by anonymity in our cars, but would have to look people in the eye in the post-office queue.

It was the recent scandal in British politics that has had me thinking a lot about personal accountability and responsibility.  Most of those implicated in the expenses-claim uproar did not contravene the rules per se, and seem to mostly justify their actions by saying that they where only doing what all the rest were too.  Here in South Africa, we have had a similar debate, about gifts given to those in government.  The public discussion was not about whether it was illegal for the minister to accept an expensive car as a gift, but whether it was ethical to do so.

In a thesis discussing a variety of subjects relating to society and governance, called “The Secrets of Divine Civilisation”, `Abdu’l-Bahá gives a description of “justice and impartiality”:

This means to have no regard for one’s own personal benefits and selfish advantages, and to carry out the laws of God without the slightest concern for anything else.

So our daily actions, our personal choices, must be made with reference, not to social norms or selfish inclinations, but to the laws of God. This becomes easier when we change our perception and mindset about God’s injunctions: they are not there to restrict or hamper us, but to provide us with loving guidance and ultimate freedom. In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy Book of the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’u’lláh describes the laws and codifications of God as “sweet-smelling” and a “choice Wine”.

Say: From My laws the sweet-smelling savour of My garment can be smelled, and by their aid the standards of Victory will be planted upon the highest peaks. The Tongue of My power hath, from the heaven of My omnipotent glory, addressed to My creation these words: “Observe My commandments, for the love of My beauty.”…Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine with the fingers of might and power.

Having been given the guidance, and the personal autonomy to choose for ourselve, we become accountable for our actions and our choices, not to those that can see but to God, and not for material gains, but towards our own personal spiritual path to perfection.

In his book Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Times, one of the 20th century’s most respected historians, Arnold J. Toynbee

WHY the need to look back into history? What can dusty books by grey-haired historians possibly have to offer when FOX news et al are screening “blow-by-blow” coverage of U.S. President Obama’s trip to the Middle East? Well, you may be interested to know that the follow up to Part I of this series also discusses that trip, but not in the way you think it does. First, some context…

2. Culture and the Impact of the Intelligentsia

Imagine a situation where a handful of powerful nations came to an agreement — motivations aside — to forcefully impose a global system of governance on the rest. Would this be effective? Would everyone merely shrug their shoulders and accept it? Not according to the lessons of history, says Toynbee, before listing a host of examples that illustrate his point.

Instead, there should be some universally agreed principles that would form part of a lasting pact. This would in turn would require some degree of uniformity between states. Toynbee ponders the following questions:

Would world government be practicable if it were not underpinned by a certain amount of unity and uniformity in the peoples’ outlooks and ways of life? What is the minimum amount of homogeneity in this field that would be needed? Has this amount of homogeneity been achieved yet? And, if it has not, what is the prospect of its being achieved in the foreseeable future?

When the British ruled India they were faced with a host of dilemmas. How would they go about reconciling prevalent cultural practices with their own notions of moral rightness? Take the practices of female infanticide and of sati (the self-immolation of a widow by burning herself to death on her husband’s funeral pyre). Such practices were seen as abhorrent to the conquerors but sacred form the standpoint of much of the Indian public. At the risk of being forcibly ejected from the country, as had happened to the missionary-minded Portuguese in Japan and Abyssinia, the British government in India eventually banned these practices.

Was this the right thing to do? In hindsight, with such practices now frowned upon and altogether rare, one may confidently assert that it was. But how would one deal with a similar situation today? How would humanity reach a general consensus on the aspects of culture that are conducive to the richness of life and to human upliftment, versus those aspects — be they steeped in tradition or not — that are self-abasing products of the human imagination?

Toynbee credits the phenomenon of the “Westernizing intelligentsia” with breeding a certain level of homogeneity between previously disparate cultures and nations. Intelligentsia is a Russian term that denotes a strata of society engaged in the development and dissemination of culture within a nation (nothing to do with any Soviet-era spy networks!)

Thus the Westernizing intelligentsia, according to Toynbee, spread a way of thinking that sought to reconcile Western expectations with prevalent norms and traditions (often by first mastering the culture of the West). Traces of their influence can be found in Russia under Peter the Great, Mustafa Ataturk’s Turkey or the colonial wings of the intelligentsia established in India and elsewhere, under the British Empire. Continue Reading >

Like Washington, it was sticky this time last year in northern Israel.

I had awoken with a start to the chirp of my mobile phone at 2:00 a.m., the fluorescent light glaring “Nasim“.  My alarm had failed to go off, and I had sixty seconds to re-orient, get dressed, and splash some cold water onto my face

Bahji, aerial view at night.

Harrison drove us to Bahji that night — one part chilly and two parts humid — in a decades-old hand-me-down Benz whose rear window was jammed halfway.  It was the evening commemorating the passing of Bahá’u'lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, and over a thousand of us– staff, pilgrim, and visitors– shivered in the Haram-i-Aqdas. The warm glow of the lamps that dotted the precincts of surrounding the Shrine of Bahá’u'lláh, adjacent to the mansion in which He passed away (in which He resided in the last years of His life, still a prisoner), gleamed through the wet air.  I struggled to stay awake halfway through the program.  But as the nocturnal birds chirped at the cusp of dawn, Bahá’u'lláh’s words on the eve of His declaration in the Garden of Ridván came to mind:

Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with burning passion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep? (God Passes By, Chapter IX, page 153)

***

The stickiness of the evening loomed as I rushed home at half past eight. Though it had ceased raining an hour ago, the neighborhood park, my shortcut home from the metro, was devoid of the life that had occupied it only yesterday: the wet benches where I had lazily lounged last night, reading a book; the dripping basketball hoop that had swooshed against the backdrop of middle-aged chocolate-skinned men disputing a call; the dampened and chewed-up soccer field where Central American jugadores breathlessly raced. I quickened my pace, mindful that I had to crawl into bed early for a nap.

Shastri’s call awoke me at 2:00 a.m.  His ambiguously accented voice — the kind I grew accustomed to last year (if not unknowingly adopting myself) amongst fellow staff members from across the globe — let me know that he was on his way. The air was warm and humid, and I absentmindedly pulled my unruly hair into a braid as I stumbled out of bed to throw some cold water onto my face.

Kathleen and I crawled out of his car parked near the Best Buy in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., the streets nearly deserted, and I remarked, “The humidity– it’s as if we were in Bahji tonight.”

“Right, and we’ll circumambulate America’s Qiblih of choice,” Shastri joked, gesturing toward the yellow sign screaming “Best Buy!”

There were just seven of us at the Rassekhs’ home that evening, and the peculiarity of being so awake and alive at 3:00 a.m. hardly registered as the flickering candles reflected in the coffee table’s glass pane.  We arose reverently in their cozy living room to read the Tablet of Visitation (read on Holy Days associated with Bahá’u'lláh) and, like the nightingales in the Ridván Garden, I had the feeling of not wanting to sleep for a very long time.

We feasted on watermelon and pound cake and flatbread with hummus afterward, and washed it down with tea.  And we told stories, animated and forgetting that it was 4:00 a.m. and we had hardly slept.  Mrs. Rassekh recalled the candle-lined pathways of Bahji in the early, darkened hours of May 29, 1992– the centennial of Bahá’u'lláh’s passing– as one of the many guests invited from every country around the world (they were living in Mali then); Shastri, Kat, and I laughed as we recounted stories from our time working at the Bahá’í World Centre; and we all wistfully remembered the lamps that illuminated that evening in Bahji, and the inevitable rising of the sun on the drive back toward Haifa.

We certainly weren’t at the nerve-center of the Bahá’í world anymore (at the nerve-center of the so-called “free world,” maybe).  But as I arose to face eastward for the Tablet of Visitation, I remembered something that my friend had said earlier that evening that tempered my nostalgia, in a phone call prior to my nap.

We had been discussing plans for our Saturday afternoon children’s class in a mostly Salvadoran neighborhood.  Our class was composed of beaming children filled with the capacity for excellence, whose attention would drift as police sirens cackled by at intervals, who were unruffled by the drunken, muttering loiterers who occupied the urban playground where we lay our picnic blanket and discussed the light of unity being so powerful as to illuminate the whole earth.

As the conversation hovered to a close, it drifted to the topic of waking up in the middle of the night for this holy evening.  He recounted how, growing up, his family would go to the Bahá’í House of Worship in Chicago on that night.  His grandfather, among the last living Hands of the Cause and in the twilight of his years, never failed to remind him to say a special prayer on those evenings filled with spiritual potency.

And so we agreed to remember in our prayers those children that had come into our lives so fortuitously. The spirit of the teachings of this Manifestation, whose passing we were commemorating, were, sometimes gradually, touching their tender lives, and certainly infusing the world with a power, the source of which many are as yet unaware.

Bahá’u'lláh found the world in a ’strange sleep’. But what a disturbance His coming has unloosed! The peoples of the earth had been separated, many parts of the human race socially and spiritually isolated. But the world of humanity today bears little resemblance to that which Bahá’u'lláh left a century ago. Unbeknownst to the great majority, His influence permeates all living beings. Indeed, no domain of life remains unaffected. In the burgeoning energy, the magnified perspectives, the heightened global consciousness; in the social and political turbulence, the fall of kingdoms, the emancipation of nations, the intermixture of cultures, the clamour for development; in the agitation over the extremes of wealth and poverty, the acute concern over the abuse of the environment, the leap of consciousness regarding the rights of women; in the growing tendency towards ecumenism, the increasing call for a new world order; in the astounding advances in the realms of science, technology, literature and the arts — in all this tumult, with its paradoxical manifestations of chaos and order, integration and disintegration, are the signs of His power as World Reformer, the proof of His claim as Divine Physician, the truth of His Word as the All-Knowing Counsellor.

Tribute by the Universal House of Justice to Bahá’u'lláh on the Centenary of His Passing, http://info.bahai.org/article-1-3-6-2.html

Then I read the article. Even the fainstest glimmering of a Disney Channel plot line was completely annihilated.  

A little girl in Russia raised by dogs…while her mother was there. The article is sparse in detail, but there is explicit reference to the fact that the girl was forced to live among the dogs inside the house, never to go outside. She, naturally, began to emulate the dogs’ behavior. She spoke no Russian, but instead mimicked the noises of the animals who were her [possibly sole] educators and jumped with fright anytime anyone approached the door, just as the dogs would do.

I cannot even begin to put into words the feelings of anger and almost rage that surged within me when I thought of the despicable actions of this “mother” who forced this kind of existence upon her own child. I immediately thought of one of  The Hidden Words of Baha’u'llah wherein He affirms that:

Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command I made thee to appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things. Thus, ere thou didst issue from thy mother’s womb, I destined for thee two founts of gleaming milk, eyes to watch over thee, and hearts to love thee…

God gave us parents, designed us in such a way, that at the very moment of our birth into this world we would be enveloped in love. Nurtured with love. Trained by love. Our parents have a responsibility not  just to provide for us materially, but to educate us and train us in such a way that we may develop a relationship with God.  Baha’u'llah says that the primary purpose of marriage is to bring forth children who will make mention of Him. We are here to know God and to love God. We are here to advance civilization. 

And yet there exist human beings in this world who cannot even be bothered to speak to their children? Much less to give them a chance to develop an intimate relationship with their Creator. How unimaginably horrible. The sheer cruelty of it. The level of disconnect that this woman must have from her own humanity…one can only wonder what her own upbringing was like. 

We know that if left to their own devices, without proper training and education, human beings can be given to cruelty more savage than that of the fiercest animal predator. ‘Abdu’l-Baha says “[w]ere there no educator, all souls would remain savage, and were it not for the teacher, the children would be ignorant creatures.” 

On the overall importance of education, He goes onto say the following:

It is for this reason that, in this New Cycle, education and training are recorded in the Book of God as obligatory and not voluntary. That is, it is enjoined upon the father and mother, as a duty, to strive with all effort to train the daughter and the son, to nurse them from the breast of knowledge and to rear them in the bosom of sciences and arts. Should they neglect this matter, they shall be held responsible and worthy of reproach in the presence of the stern Lord.

This is a sin unpardonable, for they have made that poor babe a wanderer in the Sahara of ignorance, unfortunate and tormented; to remain during a lifetime a captive of ignorance and pride, negligent and without discernment. Verily, if that babe depart from this world at the age of infancy, it is sweeter and better. In this sense, death is better than life; deprivation than salvation; non-existence lovelier than existence; the grave better than the palace; and the narrow, dingy tomb better than the spacious, regal home…

Therefore, the beloved of God and the maid-servants of the Merciful must train their children with life and heart and teach them in the school of virtue and perfection. They must not be lax in this matter; they must not be inefficient. Truly, if a babe did not live at all it were better than to let it grow ignorant, for that innocent babe, in later life, would become afflicted with innumerable defects, responsible to and questioned by God, reproached and rejected by the people. What a sin this would be and what an omission!

After the mother had explained to her 5-year-old son about the importance of preferring your “brother”, or thinking of others ahead of yourself, the 5-year-old brother chases his 8-year-old sister around the house repeatedly trying to force her to accept something which she doesn’t particularly want. When asked by his mother to explain his behaviour, he reminds her of what she had explained to him about preferring others ahead of himself…

Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself. Verily, such a man is reckoned, by virtue of the Will of God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise, with the people of Baha who dwell in the Crimson Ark.

Baha’u'llah : Tablets of Baha’u'llah revealed after the Kitab-i-Aqdas

Drawing a parallel to this story, in today’s commercial world where personal gain seems to be driving force behind most individuals or organisations, one should be wary of being taken advantage of or over-exploited, whilst at the same time not disregarding the need to consciously heed the aforementioned quotation.

I feel that over-cautious cynicism and the expectation of “good” always being returned prevents us from wholeheartedly preferring our fellow man ahead of ourselves.  What are ways in which we can overcome these hindrances? 

Starting at the apex of the organisational pyramid, those in prominent positions — leaders of organisations or rulers of countries — could go a long way in dispelling cynicism if a sincere effort is made in upholding altruistic principles:

Concerning the prerequisites of the learned, He saith: “Whoso among the learned guardeth his self, defendeth his faith, opposeth his desires, and obeyeth his Lord’s command, it is incumbent upon the generality of the people to pattern themselves after him….”

Baha’u'llah : The Summons of the Lord of Hosts

At the level of the individual, the expectation of personal gain dims our potential to be genuinely sacrificial:

… a religious individual must disregard his personal desires and seek in whatever way he can wholeheartedly to serve the public interest; and it is impossible for a human being to turn aside from his own selfish advantages and sacrifice his own good for the good of the community except through true religious faith.  For self-love is kneaded into the very clay of man, and it is not possible that, without any hope of a substantial reward, he should neglect his own present material

Abdu’l-Baha : The Secret of Divine Civilization

This Revelation…so suddenly and impetuously thrust upon me, came as a thunderbolt which, for a time, seemed to have benumbed my faculties. I was blinded by its dazzling splendor and overwhelmed by its crushing force. Excitement, joy, awe, and wonder stirred the depths of my soul. Predominant among these emotions was a sense of gladness and strength which seemed to have transfigured me. How feeble and impotent, how dejected and timid, I had felt previously! Then I could neither write nor walk, so tremulous were my hands and feet. Now, however, the knowledge of His Revelation had galvanized my being. I felt possessed of such courage and power that were the world, all its peoples and its potentates, to rise against me, I would, alone and undaunted, withstand their onslaught. The universe seemed but a handful of dust in my grasp. I seemed to be the voice of Gabriel personified, calling unto all mankind: ‘Awake, for, lo! the morning Light has broken. Arise, for His Cause is made manifest. The portal of His grace is open wide; enter therein, O peoples of the world! For He Who is your promised One is come!’

May 23, 1844, signalizes the commencement of the most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the Bahá’í Era, an age which marks the opening of the most glorious epoch in the greatest cycle which the spiritual history of mankind has yet witnessed. 

Read more about this turning point in human history.

Video at: http://www.vimeo.com/4604825

On May 14, 2008, six of the seven members of the ad-hoc governing body of the Bahá’ís of Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin Prison. Last week marked the one-year anniversary of their arrests (the seventh had been arrested on March 5, 2008). Since then, they have been held without access to their legal counsel, Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi.

They have been charged on the baseless accusations of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and, most recently, “spreading corruption on earth.”

They are men and women, mothers and fathers, some of whom have a history of persecution in their families. Among them are: a developmental psychologist, an agricultural engineer, an educator and school principal, a social worker, an optometrist, an industrialist, and a factory owner.

In a letter written on September 9, 2007 to Bahá’í students deprived of access to higher education in Iran, the Universal House of Justice wrote:

Service to others is the way. Let it be your watchword, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá being your exemplar. Like Him, you can find practical ways of serving your fellow citizens. Strive to work hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, with your fellow citizens in your efforts to promote the common good.

As we keep them in our thoughts and prayers, and as we work, in whatever way we can, to speak out against this injustice, let us remember the poignant words of the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís in Iran, in a letter written on November 26, 2003:

Your long night will end, and you will have the joy of witnessing with your own eyes the mighty structures your sacrifices have raised.

(For those in the U.S., find out how you can write to your representatives and senators regarding co-sponsoring House Res. 175 and Senate Res. 71: http://iran.bahai.us).

In his book Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Times, one of the 20th century’s most respected historians, Arnold J. Toynbee

The phrase New World Order has appeared in the press once again. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quoted saying it this time, and not for the first time either, having said it before he became PM. He joins a list of world leaders who, unhappy with the present situation, have used this phrase to describe the vision of a more balanced and equitable future; a place where we’ll have finally figured out all the economic, environmental, moral, political, you-name-it messes that afflict the human race. In the past this list included Woodrow Wilson, Rajiv Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush and Tony Blair. Current leaders include Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili, Abdullah Gül of Turkey and, entirely ironic considering Iran’s unabated persecution of the Baha’i community, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This list, along with the list of leaders who have used related phrases like the “end of history” or the “era of globalization” (think Bill Clinton), or all those who have appealed in vain for greater political unity and justice in international trade, are sufficient evidence to indicate that a major shake up is needed. All signs indicate that while present-day global bodies, like the UN and WTO, promote these aims in principle, they are neither capable in their present format nor do they possess the unqualified support of member nations to bring about long-lasting change. 

Toynbee begins by taking a step back from this scene to look at what brought us here. He studies the characteristics of the so-called would-be world states, who through a process of conquest and victory, extended far beyond their original boundaries with the aim of bringing the world under one rule. He acknowledges their successes and examines reasons why they ultimately failed, in so doing gleaning numerous insights (of which I will only touch on four). If, as the saying goes, one should “look to the future through the lens of the past”, then this seems like the perfect place to start. 

1. Technology and world-mindedness

The rapid emergence of new technology over the past century has annihilated the distances that once divided tribes and nations. But technology, as pointed out by Toynbee and affirmed in the Baha’i writings, is a morally neutral force which can be used, at will, for good or evil.

In the atomic age, with nuclear warheads dotted all over the planet, the consequences of how we choose to make use of technology have been magnified beyond all compare. In other words, trying to mimic the approach of would-be world states of the past, that of using  force to bring about unity, has the potential to end in catastrophe. This outcome cannot be risked, for obvious reasons.

Toynbee optimistically asserts that throughout history, whenever man has been forced to choose between survival or destruction, the move has eventually been towards the former. However, the obstacles to surmount this time lie not only in making “correct technology decisions”, but more importantly in overcoming habits of division that have characterized 99% percent of the span of human history.

99% percent, really?

In brief, yes. The world split into separate parts over 900,000 years ago, and the earliest of the would-be world states, the empire of Egypt, was established under 5000 years ago. Thus, relatively speaking, the movement towards unity has occured in the blink-of-an-eye (nevermind the major acceleration over the past 150 years). It is clear, then, that humanity has an entire history of antagonistic feeling to overcome before embracing a new culture of world mindedness, which may partly explain why international diplomacy has been such a painful struggle for everyone concerned — we’re just not used to the realities of life in a global village. This disconnect between our (often noble) attempts at establishing international peace and our final decisions are encapsulated in this gem of a paragraph from the Baha’i International Community:  

Twice in this century humanity has attempted to bring about a new international order. Each attempt sought to address the emergent recognition of global interdependence, while nevertheless preserving intact a system which put the sovereignty of the state above all else.

BIC : 1995 Oct Turning Point For All Nations

The process, of transferring the loyalty one feels towards one’s tribe or nation to that of mankind as a whole, is according to Baha’is the single most vital condition to nurture for the sake of universal peace and prosperity. 

The chief Personages in history, according to Toynbee, who have striven to promote sentiments of universal goodwill have been the founders of the world religions and their closest followers. Interesting, then, that relatively few of the adherents of these religions have succeeded in breaking the shackles of tribal, national, or indeed religious loyalty, in exchange for a love of the entire human family. It’s almost as if a saturation point would be reached, beyond which societal unity could no longer be sustained.  

The reasons for this, according to the Baha’i Faith, have nothing to do with any failure on the part of Buddha, Christ, Muhammad or founders of the other religions. Rather, the problem lay in (a) human capacity at the time the message was delivered and (b) the existing conditions of society. It would have been futile, for example, to promote feelings of world unity at a time when the world was supposedly flat and didn’t extend beyond the point of the horizon!

In this age, Baha’u'llah renews the timeless message of universal love and extends it to encompass the entire globe:

Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind…

Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.

Part II to follow.