Freedom: Part 2 :: Baha'i Perspectives

Freedom: Part 2

nooshin April 17th, 2008

chains Reading through news reports about a bomb blast in a mosque in Shiraz, Iran, I found an article from the Associate Press, quoting Fars Press Agency:

The explosion ripped through the mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers late Saturday as a cleric delivered his weekly speech against extremist Wahabi beliefs and the outlawed Baha’i faith, the semiofficial Fars news agency said.

In a similar vein, Reuters recently reported on death threats made to Noble Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. One of the things she is accused in one of the threats is “un-Islamic behaviour which coincides with Baha’i manners.”

On a less puzzling, and more optimistic note, the Manitou Messenger reports on a resolution passed by the student senate of St. Olaf College:

At last week’s student senate meeting, a resolution voicing support of Iranian Baha’i Students was passed. The resolution was a proclamation of support in protest against the Iranian government denying access to higher education for Baha’i students.

And finally, the lyrics to a song I heard for the first time last week, by Solomon Burke, called “None of Us Are Free”:

Well you better listen my sister’s and brothers,
’cause if you do you can hear
there are voices still calling across the years.
And they’re all crying across the ocean,
and they’re cryin across the land,
and they will till we all come to understand.

None of us are free.
None of us are free.
None of us are free, one of us are chained.
None of us are free.