Baha'i Perspectives

nooshin June 14th, 2009

I’ve always thought that a good barometer of a person is how they treat those of a “lower” standing, those they don’t have to impress or feel are equal to them.  Ever notice how some people walk past the same security guard day after day, and don’t ever bother to learn his name, or even to acknowledge him?  Or the obsequious middle-manager, who does her best to impress her superiors with her charm and friendliness, but in private will make life hell for the assistant who reports to her?

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.

Kitáb-i-Aqdas

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.

Tags: freedom, justice, laws

• Baha'i Concepts , News & Current Affairs , Principles in Action
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nadim June 8th, 2009

In his book Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Times, one of the 20th century’s most respected historians, Arnold J. Toynbee, puts his in-depth knowledge of human history and his concerns for its future into focus. He suggests that to avoid self-destruction and move towards unification, humanity must make a radical break from deeply ingrained habits built up over many generations. In his quest to pinpoint these habits, Toynbee examines the would-be world states and would-be world religions that have appeared in human history, considers the impact they have had on our collective identity and then suggests the factors that, once realized, would bring us closer to the dream of a united world. In cross-referencing Toynbee’s findings with the Baha’i writings, we discover a striking harmony between lessons learnt from history and Baha’i guidelines on lasting peace.

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 clearly be discerned 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 >

Tags: intelligentsia, Toynbee

• General Interest , News & Current Affairs
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nava May 29th, 2009

This morning a close friend of mine forwarded me an article from BBC News about a little child raised by dogs. The caption piqued my curiousity and before I read the article my mind flooded with romantic images of a little Jane-esque[of Tarzan and] child who was tragically abandoned by am empoverished mother but, against all odds, managed to survive. My version of the story was still sad, of course. After all, all children should have the opportunity to grow up among human beings who love them and care for them. But there was something exciting about the raw instinctual aspect of it. A lesson on human resilience.

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!

Tags: childhood, education, motherhood, parents

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leila May 21st, 2009

This surely is a time for the gallantry of illumined souls. Very dear friends, we pray that you can be counted among this noble company.

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 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 might 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).

Tags: Iran, persecution

• Inspiration , News & Current Affairs
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nadim May 16th, 2009

In his book Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Times, one of the 20th century’s most respected historians, Arnold Toynbee, puts his in-depth knowledge of human history and his concerns for its future into focus. He suggests that to avoid self-destruction and move towards unification, humanity must make a radical break from deeply ingrained habits built up over many generations. In his quest to pinpoint these habits, Toynbee examines the would-be world states and would-be world religions that have appeared in human history, considers the impact they have had on our collective identity and then suggests the factors that, once realized, would bring us closer to the dream of a united world. In cross-referencing Toynbee’s findings with the Baha’i writings, we discover a striking harmony between lessons learnt from history and Baha’i guidelines on lasting peace.

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 pointless, 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…

Part II to follow.

Tags: history, technology, Toynbee

• Baha'i Concepts , General Interest , News & Current Affairs
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leila May 4th, 2009

In a certainly post-communist world, and with many capitalist assumptions crumbling that once held to be true– what might the economics of the future look like?

I asked this in my last post, and since then, I couldn’t help but notice a proliferation of angsty articles that asked: If not capitalism, then what?

There was Newsweek (“We are all Socialists now”), the Financial Times (“The Future of Capitalism”), and Time Magazine (“The End of Excess: Is this Crisis Good for America?”).

You may also note that I wrote my article an embarrassingly long time ago.  I could say that it’s because I’ve been busy (which is true), but it also has to do with the fact that I simply couldn’t find an answer to the question I posed.

Well, I still don’t know the answer.  But lucky for you all, I had a few “see the light” moments this week.

So I’ve talked about economics– most of us take as fact that economic activity is the central process of social existence.  And that knowledge– often labeled as “information”– is useful inasmuch as it’s an input for the production of goods and services.  This is reflective of a view of society that is rooted in materialism, one manifestation of which is the belief, held as truth, that economic development lies in economic growth, which is measured by GDP per capita.  Indeed, the idea of “economic development” has largely materialistic assumptions underlying the process: that growth and development is characterized by material well-being.

Material well-being is crucial, of course.  But is it really the end, or a means to an end?  What is the end we’re looking for?  Right now, it seems that economic activity and the creation of wealth is being placed at the center of everything.  But is the creation and distribution of wealth the end to which we should strive?

The Prosperity of Humankind, the 1995 document that I also quoted from in my last post, makes an interesting assertion:

The tasks entailed in the development of a global society call for levels of capacity far beyond anything the human race has so far been able to muster.  Reaching these levels will require an enormous expansion in access to knowledge, on the part of the individuals and social organizations alike.  Universal education will be an indispensable contributor to this process of capacity building, but the effort will succeed only as human affairs are so reorganized as to enable both individuals and groups in every sector of society to acquire knowledge and apply it to the shaping of human affairs.

In other words, rather than the creation and distribution of wealth as the center of development (development as the distribution of material wealth), what’s being posited is development as the endowment of the wealth of knowledge: not only the generation and acquisition of knowledge, but its application.  Given this, knowledge, rather than material wealth, then becomes the “currency” by which one needs to function, the wealth of a person, in a sense.  In this regard, ‘Abdu’l-Baha writes in His treatise to the peoples and rulers of Persia, The Secret of Divine Civilization:

…the happiness and greatness, the rank and station, the pleasure and peace, of an individual have never consisted in his personal wealth, but rather in his excellent character, his high resolve, the breadth of his learning, and his ability to solve difficult problems.

The generation and application of knowledge, then, becomes the center of humanity’s collective existence. What is necessary for this is capacity-building: that all participation of all, that all become the protagonists of their own development.  For example, the present state of the world is such that much of humanity are “users of products of science and technology created elsewhere.” But sometimes, these products of science and technology may, at best, not be applicable to the needs of a community or society, or at its worst, be detrimental to its environment, lead to the loss of livelihoods, of land, and so on.  But if individuals in a community were raised up with the capacity to examine and address challenges in their communities and societies, and apply the knowledge with which they’ve been endowed, then we’d shift away from a top-down model that, in many respects, has become quite problematic.

So what has started as a conversation on capitalism, communism, and a future models of economic has (rather unintentionally) turned into one that flips the way we look at economic activity– asking us, what if it isn’t the be-all, end-all?  If we’re seeking a world in which all have a part to play (as the present state of affairs is not reflective of that, where the materially wealthy holding a seemingly insurmountable advantage over the materially poor), then certainly the paradigm that exists today must undergo a change.

I’m not as confused as I was the night I was sipping borscht in the candlelight, but the fact that I’ve struggled to eke out this post means that we’ve still got a long way to go.  Thoughts are most welcome.

Tags: development, economics, financial crisis

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nadim April 2nd, 2009

Ever have one of those days where the media bombards your senses with one single theme? Where just about everything you see or hear is related to the same issue? For me, this day was Friday the 20th of March (yes, months after the U.S. presidential elections and weeks before the G20 economic summit).

I settled down in my train seat, free newspaper in hand, all geared up for the early morning commute to work. Being free of charge, it’s quite a challenge finding anything of substance amongst the pages of tabloid gossip, cheap flight promotions and stories of cats in trees. This particular morning though, I found two stories of the compare-and-contrast variety, both to do with alcohol. The first was a Japanese study which concluded that moderate social drinking reduces the risk of heart disease, as opposed to drinking in isolation which has less effect. All well and good, but this naturally leads to the question: does this study have more to do with alcohol or with social interaction? Replace alcohol with, say, grapes or broccoli, and the findings will no doubt be the same…plus you wouldn’t have to deal with all the harmful side effects. Not sure that the idea of social broccoli eating will take off anytime soon though. Seedless grapes might have a chance though .

So much for that. The next article highlighted the consequences of the growing binge drinking culture across Britain.

An ambulance for drunks will run all year in London to cope with the growing scourge of binge drinking.

Today London Ambulance Service announced its “booze bus” will operate every week to relieve pressure on other crews of medics and to save thousands of pounds…

Since starting four years ago, the service has only operated during periods of high demand such as weekends in December, New Year’s Eve, and the 2006 World Cup. But now a paramedic crew will trawl the West End each week in the Central London Alternative Response Vehicle, treating drunken revellers.

Among the more obvious repercussions of binge culture, to add to the growing list of medical crises related in some way to alcohol, is the dramatic rise in demand for liver transplants. Problem is, there is also a major shortage of liver donors. What’s more, the liver guardians (frequently a family member of the deceased donor) have the final say in who receives the organ – and quite often they will decide against donating the liver to an alcohol abuser, lest the person ends up going back to the bottle post-operation. One can’t help but feel sympathy for all parties concerned: the patient who requires urgent medical care, the doctors who are trying to help him, and the donor who feels priority ought to be given to someone who hasn’t “brought it upon themselves” and will genuinely treasure the second chance.

When people ask me why I’m a non-drinker, the usual question goes something like this: “Is it because of your religion?” My answer is a hesitant yes. Yes because my religion forbids me to drink. Hesitant because by giving a one-word answer, the practical and philosophical reasons get lost. The topic often changes immediately, and I’m surreptitiously cast into the pile of inhibited fellows whose “religion forces them to do it”, when actually this is far from the truth. I follow the law because firstly, it makes practical sense, and secondly because I believe in the Personage who brought the teaching, and believe he knows what is best, not only for us but for general society too.

Sitting in on a Ruhi class one day, in the presence of a group of people investigating the teachings of the Baha’i Faith, the topic of alcohol prohibition arose. Surely, pointed out one participant, the fact that there are millions of people out there who drink responsibly should be considered and that they should be afforded ther dues. Another participant responded that the line between drinking responsibly and overstepping the mark was very fine indeed, thereby we always ran the risk of irreperably harming our own physical/spiritual selves and the lives of those around us.

This conversation went back and forth for a while, but ultimately it came down to one question, one that all the participants were engaged in by attending the class: Was Baha’u'llah really who He claimed to be? Was he really the Divine Educator for this day and age? If the answer is affirmative, and each individual is free to decide that for themselves, then one has absolutely no grounds to argue against the laws He has revealed. For how can we, the puny and unintelligent beings that we are, argue against the perfect wisdom of the Divine? How can we with our limited comprehension argue against that which is limitless?

Regardless of what one ends up believing, if the truth really is enshrined within Baha’u'llah’s laws and teachings, then what is certain is that the wisdom behind them would become ever more apparent as time goes by. In other words, society is in a state of constant flux, and conditions would evolve in a way that only reinforces the rationale behind these laws.

The UK government has poured millions of pounds into failed drink reduction policies, and they certainly aren’t the only government battling the epidemic. The latest proposal by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, is to raise the minimum price of alcohol in an effort to prevent young people from being able to afford it. In the comments section below the article, paulaxed from East Yorkshire is not impressed: “Its a cultural / attitude thing and playing with prices will not change it.”

Point taken, but to the cultural/attitude thing I would hasten to add the moral/spiritual thing. Because until we teach a deeper appreciation of our true selves, the reasons behind our existence and the heights to which we must strive, such scourges won’t be disappearing any time soon.

22. O SON OF SPIRIT!
Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.

(Baha’u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

Tags: alcohol

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