Baha’i Perspectives

nooshin January 12th, 2009

Since I wrote my last post, (in which I highlighted some passages from “The Promise of World Peace“)  thousands more lives have been lost through war and conflict, both old and new.  It may seem as if we are on a never-ending cycle of hate and destruction, with no capacity for peace.  I feel it is important, however, not to lose hope, or sight of the fact that humans are spiritual beings, created noble. 

I draw much strength and optimism from the Baha’i Writings, which give clear guidance on the disease, as well as the remedy, which afflicts humanity.  “The Promise of World Peace”, written by the Universal House of Justice in October 1985, provides an excellent overview on this topic. In this post, as in the last, I would like to share passages which explain the Baha’i perspective on our planet’s future. 

There are some issues which the House of Justice highlights as having immediate relevance to establishing world peace:

Racism, one of the most baneful and persistent evils, is a major barrier to peace. Its practice perpetrates too outrageous a violation of the dignity of human beings to be countenanced under any pretext.

The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. … The solution calls for the combined application of spiritual, moral and practical approaches.

Unbridled nationalism, as distinguished from a sane and legitimate patriotism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to the love of humanity as a whole…. The advantage of the part in a world society is best served by promoting the advantage of the whole.

Religious strife, throughout history, has been the cause of innumerable wars and conflicts, a major blight to progress, and is increasingly abhorrent to the people of all faiths and no faith.

The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. … Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavour will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge.

The cause of universal education, … deserves the utmost support that the governments of the world can lend it. For ignorance is indisputably the principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples and the perpetuation of prejudice.

A fundamental lack of communication between peoples seriously undermines efforts towards world peace. Adopting an international auxiliary language would go far to resolving this problem and necessitates the most urgent attention.

So, what are the practical mechanisms which will move us towards global peace?  Firstly, “world order can be founded only on an unshakeable consciousness of the oneness of mankind, a spiritual truth which all the human sciences confirm”. The House of Justice points out that the acceptance of this truth is a prerequisite if we are to reorganize the world to achieve universal peace.  Shoghi Effendi is quoted, explaining that the principle of the oneness of mankind, far ”from aiming at the subversion of the existing foundations of society, it seeks to broaden its basis, to remold its institutions in a manner consonant with the needs of an ever-changing world. … It does not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of language and tradition, of thought and habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that has animated the human race. It insists upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other. Its watchword is unity in diversity“.

One of the major issues which needs to be addressed is that of collective security, and “the inevitable curtailment of unfettered national sovereignty as an indispensable preliminary to the formation of the future Commonwealth of all the nations of the world… Some form of a world super-state must needs be evolved, in whose favour all the nations of the world will have

• willingly ceded every claim to make war,
• certain rights to impose taxation and
• all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within their respective dominions.

Such a state will have to include within its orbit an International Executive adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose members shall be elected by the people in their respective countries and whose election shall be confirmed by their respective governments; and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgement will have a binding effect even in such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration”.

A world community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of capital and labour definitely recognized; in which the clamour of religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single code of international law—the product of the considered judgement of the world’s federated representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated units; and finally a world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age.

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