Baha’i Perspectives

leila April 19th, 2008

Modernization, Westernization, Development, Globalization. Whatever you call it, it evokes the fiery, if not ubiquitous, debate that has raged in recent years. Is modernization an evil, or a panacea? Does modernization necessarily equal Westernization? Can modernization and cultural preservation go hand-in-hand?

A recent article published in the New York Times tells the story of Luang Prabang, a Laotian town whose idyll has been shattered in the past decade. Since its selection as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1995, camera-toting tourists have flocked to town, with its daily procession of Buddhist monks and its centuries-old architecture. With the tourist boom, pizza parlors, bars, and even day spas have sprouted alongside the quaint narrow streets and traditional structures. Jobs and wealth have emerged as a result: those same monks, donned in their bright orange robes, abandon their monastic lives to cash in on the tourism industry.

Despite the economic upturn, many ask: is it worth it?

Laurent A. Rampon, the director of Luang Prabang’s cultural preservation office, sees it this way:

The paradox is that Unesco gives out the Heritage Site label partly to reduce poverty, but reducing poverty is reducing heritage. If you want to preserve heritage, you must keep poverty.

Though the development-versus-culture debate has been seen as a twenty-first century phenomenon, I’ll let you in on a little-known fact: it’s actually raged for centuries.

Back in nineteenth-century Persia, modernization was the issue of the moment. Many Persians yearned for the kinds of prosperity and advancement that Europe and neighbouring Russia enjoyed, not only because of their pride, but for their own self-preservation. With the humiliating defeat of the Persian army at the hands of the Russian forces during the Russo-Persian wars, it became clear that Persia needed to modernize in order to survive.

Yet, for all those pro-modernizers that passionately appealed to the Persian people and rulers to advance the cause of modernization, there were those who clung to fears of Westernization. Would Persia lose its culture at the hands of modernization? The clergy likewise feared a loss of power and influence, with the development of judicial and educational institutions that threatened their sway over the populace.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed this question in 1875 in His scintillating treatise, The Secret of Divine Civilization. In it, He outlines the necessity of modernization and its requisite components: democratic governance, a just rule of law, scientific and technological advancements, human rights, universal education, and economic development.

But He similarly rejects the notion of modernization as synonymous with Westernization. It is possible, He asserts, to glean those aspects of modern society that will contribute to the advancement of a nation’s people without losing those unique aspects of one’s culture. He states:

Those who maintain that these modern concepts apply only to other countries and are irrelevant in Iran, that they do not satisfy her requirements or suit her way of life, disregard the fact that other nations were once as we are now…. Would the extension of education, the development of useful arts and sciences, the promotion of industry and technology, be harmful things? For such endeavor lifts the individual within the mass and raises him out of the depths of ignorance to the highest reaches of knowledge and human excellence. Would the setting up of just legislation, in accord with the Divine laws which guarantee the happiness of society and protect the rights of all mankind and are an impregnable proof against assault — would such laws, insuring the integrity of the members of society and their equality before the law, inhibit their prosperity and success?

(Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 13-14)

So when Rampon claimed, in the article, that cultural heritage can only be preserved by maintaining poverty, it first made me angry, but then it made me think. Those opponents of globalization loathe so-called development because of its perceived destruction of culture, while its advocates maintain that it’s the price to be paid for increased global wealth, at any expense.

But what of a middle ground? In part two, I’ll explore the idea of a middle ground, and the Baha’i model of modernity.

Tags: culture, modernization, poverty

• Arts & Culture , Baha'i Concepts , Society
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