Baha’i Perspectives

Archive for the tag 'conflict'

On a Quest for Justice

nadim March 14th, 2008

The refusal this week by the Ugandan government to hand over suspected war crimes perpetrators to the International Criminal Court has highlighted, once again, the frailty of international bodies in enforcing any meaningful authority over individual nations. Ironically, it was the same government who, prior to the commencement of peace negotiations with the Lord’s Resistance Army, requested that the Criminal Court indict these same suspects.

This has placed the Criminal Court in an awkward situation — does the Criminal Court abide by the latest wishes of the Ugandan government and drop the charges, or does it stick to principle and insist on bringing the suspects to trial?

On the most fundamental level, it is unfortunate that this problem should even exist for an institution whose field of operation is, in theory, international.

On the other side of the coin, some might assert that international bodies are controlled by strong nations and thus do not truly represent the best interests of all. This feeling, coupled with the almost obsessive nationalism that plays such a dominating role in human affairs, present formidable obstacles for those who genuinely wish to establish more effective systems of international justice. No one would argue that the world desperately needs these systems in place; the challenge is to break through the self-centeredness and suspicion that are so characteristic of international relations. As Abdu’l-Baha states in “The Secret of Divine Civilization”:

Endeavor, ceaseless endeavor, is required. Nothing short of an indomitable determination can possibly achieve it.

Fortunately, we are also seeing the early signs of a shift in human consciousness. As people travel from place-to-place, settle in foreign locations and encounter common global problems, what follows — almost unwittingly — is a growth in the feeling of world citizenship. This slow and painstaking process will with time, and following a great degree of turmoil, lead to a greater unity of thought in human affairs, and consequently more effective systems of global justice.

The League of Nations, followed by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and so on, are evolutionary steps in the right direction. Yet the need still remains for people and governments to think beyond the bounds of national sovereignty. In “The Unfoldment of World Civilization”, Shoghi Effendi describes a future world commonwealth…

…in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded.

For Baha’is, the question is not whether or not we will get there — we believe that humanity will ultimately be impelled in that direction — it is more a question of how. Do we keep on clinging to those short-sighted and obsolescent doctrines which have hindered our development to this point, and continue to suffer the consequences? Or do we accept the new realities of life and strive to foster the spirit of unity between different people and nations? The choice is ours.

Justice is, in this day, bewailing its plight, and Equity groaneth beneath the yoke of oppression.

(Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 92)