Death to Haifan Bahaism
2009-02-03 03:11:08 UTC
-------
Cambridge
England
7 January 1979
Dear Friends,
I have read your latest (November 1978) Newsletter with more than
usual interest and sympathy, and feel that I would like to add a few
words in its wake. I shall not try to expand on Tony’s account of our
seminar here in Cambridge, much as it is tempting to do so — from the
report in your Newsletter, he seems to have done a thorough job of
leading you through a very complicated set of issues raised there.
The
full report, as stated, is available, and dwells more thoroughly on
the major topics mentioned by Tony.
I was most interested by the discussion reported on pages 3-4 of your
summary. As Tony knows, this is a topic about which I personally feel
very strongly. In the simplest terms, I fear that the Baha’i faith as
it stands today is in very real danger of becoming irrelevant to the
problems faced by people in the world outside — if it has not already
become so. As the faith has become more and more organized, with, as
you so rightly point out, a growing obsession with figures, numbers,
and statistics for their own sake, and a tendency to evaluate the
significance of the faith as a religion in terms which have no
bearing
whatever on this (such as how many languages literature has been
‘translated’ into), we seem to have become more and more
introspective
and withdrawn, exclusive rather than all-embracing. As a result, most
Baha’is appear to be completely ignorant of the issues facing modern
man. And, what is worse, they don’t care — if you suggest that hey
read, say, Marouse [Ed. unclear word], most Baha’is react with a
disdainful, slightly superior shrug: ‘we have the writings, we don’t
need to waste our time on the book of false physicians’. As one
friend, for some time an NSA secretary (not in the U.K.) put it to
me:
‘nothing worth reading has ever been written in the twentieth
century’. In fact, it is not even a case of whether people are up on
Patti Smith or Malcolm Bradbury’s latest novel, they have yet to read
Marx or early Koestler! Instead, the community is locked into an
obsession with issues which were vital before or just after the first
World War and, what is worse, are a lot less forthright now about
issues such as war, poverty, race, and so forth that they were then.
To speak about race integration in the States in the 20’s was
genuinely progressive. Last year at a Youth Conference in the U.K.
(facing a major race problem and the threat of growing fascism — the
country’s fascist party is the fourth largest in the country), an NSA
member told the youth that we should have nothing to do with the
issue
of race, since it is political!
In recent years, I feel, the situation has become even more serious
(in this country at least). Whereas about ten or more years ago, the
Baha’i community tried (in however outdated a fashion) to be involved
with society around it, we now seem to think about and talk about and
be told about nothing but goals, organization, conferences, and other
purely internal matters — very few of them even of a spiritual or
genuinely religious nature. Your phrase ’shopping list’ goals sums up
very well indeed the utterly meaningless hole we seem to have dug
ourselves into. The Five Year Plan in this country has been a
mindless
race after numbers, constant reshuffles, juggling with statistics,
bombastic sermons which have passed beyond banality to the depths of
uninspiration. Success is judged in teh most material and sterile
terms, important long-term tasks of the community have been shelved
in
order to win insignificant short-term goals, and above all, everybody
knows that we will ‘win’ the Plan, whatever the real result. Beneath
the surface, fairly large numbers of people are withdrawing, even
larger numbers have become inactive, leaving things in the hands of
thick-skinned administrators whom we could as well hire from an
employment agency, the teaching work becomes more and more geared to
attracting the less spiritual, and the circle becomes a spiral.
Worst of all, I fear, is that the Baha’is are gradually gaining a
reputation for hypocrisy and self-interestedness. To give one
example,
several years ago, when the troubles began in Northern Ireland, a few
Baha’is gave help for some time at a refugee centre, along with other
groups. Despite the fact that the Quakers, who ran the centre, had
asked for no publicity, the Baha’is were the only group to seek and
obtain newspaper publicity for their work with refugees. Since then,
the Baha’is as a group, in Northern Ireland have done nothing to help
anybody, have never even condemned the violence publicly, and have
held numerous conferences and teaching activities which even the
believers are beginning to avoid. To give just one other example: the
Public Relations Officer of the U.K. Baha’i Community recently told a
Mayor, in the course of a tree-planting (!) ceremony (which seems to
be the most radical activity we engage in) that ‘Baha’is the world
over were working hard in thousands of centres to help improve the
environment and the quality of life of all the inhabitants of the
earth. They were also involved in efforts to resist the spread of
deserts which themselves resulted from the wholesale destruction of
trees. At world level, through United Nations agencies, the Baha’i
International Community was constantly involved in this work of
improving the environment’. As any Baha’i should know, this is, quite
simply, dishonest and unethical — but this type of exaggeration and
distortion, coupled with the fact that we only ever become involved
in
any activity where there is a chance of publicity for ourselves,
will,
I feel, soon be regarded as the chief characteristic of the Baha’is,
if it is not already in many quarters.
To a large degree, this lack of involvement in live issues is linked
to the fact that many contemporary social issues (such as those
mentioned in your Newsletter, and others, such as unemployment,
prisoners of conscience, the union) have, or appear to have, a high
political content. Since Baha’is have failed to define what they mean
by politics in the context of ‘non-involvement in politics’, they are
now taking the easiest course, which is to avoid anything which may
be
remotely political — which means, in effect, just about any relevant
social or humanitarian issue today. By dealing with ’safe’ issues
(such as tree-planting) and ‘pie in the sky’ policies, we manage to
preserve intact our integrity on the principle of non-involvement in
politics, even if to do so we have to sacrifice other basic
principles
regarding war, racialism, sex inequality, tyranny, freedom of
conscience, economic adjustment, and so on. The non-involvement tag
is
our get-out pass from just about everything, and the more we use it
the more out of touch and irrelevant we become.
The simple fact is that, in a real sense, the Baha’i faith is one of
the most political movements around. After all, principles such as
the
ending of absolute national sovereignty, world government, universal
currency, universal language, sex equality, racial integration,
disarmament, world tribunal, anti-communism, retention of
constitutional monarchism, the abolition of non-Baha’i religious
legal
systems (such as the Islamic sharia), the retention of a class
system,
the abolition of tariffs, international police force, and so on are
among the hottest political issues around. Do we just dismember the
faith, trimming off any principle or concept that seems likely to
offend the political susceptibilities of someone or some government
somewhere, or do we accept that we have these principles and that we
intend to establish them, destroying, in the process, any other
system
or ideology which seeks to oppose them? We should also bear in mind
that the apparently non-political activity of just teaching the faith
is highly political. Quite apart from problems such as teaching race
unity, say, South Africa, it is obvious that they will be able to (in
theory, at least) to exert pressure on society as a whole,
particularly in a democracy. It is hardly enough to say that we are
‘non-political’ — after all, we do plan to bring into being a series
of Baha’i states and, in the end, a Baha’i world — no less extreme
than the aim of every Marxist. And, in the same way that nto everyone
jumps with joy at the thought of his country becoming Marxist, so we
can hardly expect that there will be universal rejoicing at the news
that the Baha’i faith is becoming a threat to the established
political system. We may say that the old order is destroying itself
and that we intend merely to step in when it collapses, not to
actively work for its destruction — but take another look at Marx’s
theory of the dialectic of history: capitalism destroys itself in
order to give way to communism. Instead of engaging in violent
revolution to speed up the process, we ‘teach the faith’.
Tragically, however, in order to pretend not to be concerned with
politics, we have more and more adopted a line of expediency in our
relationship with the outside world. This has reached such
proportions
that Baha’is cannot officially be involved with a totally non-aligned
organization such as Amnesty International because it might give rise
to a false impression. As a result, we are totally uninvolved with
one
of the major evils of this century — political and religious
oppression coupled with wrongful imprisonment, torture, and execution
on the most appalling scale — despite the numerous statements in the
writings about opposing injustice and tyranny. Baha’u'llah wrote
directly to rulers to reprimand them for their brutality and
repression, while we today pose for pictures with Pinochet and Amin
(thank God for your reference to the Pinochet photograph - I thought
I
was the only person who had noticed it). Yet, the moment anyone lifts
a finger to harm Baha’is, in however a minor way, there is a
universal
outcry and we appeal for aid to the UN and suchlike. The Iranian
regime has been massacring its people for decades, and thousands are
dying in the present troubles, but the only thing to excite protests
from the Baha’is has been the threat of violence to themselves. No
mention is made of the fact that Jews or Christians have been
threatened or attacked. The fact is that we seem to judge the justice
of a regime according to how well it treats the Baha’is. An injust
regime treating us well is tolerated or even extolled, while a
popular
regime which deprives us of certain freedoms (perhaps along with
other
religious groups) is regarded as evil. No one has asked, for example,
what the people of Iran, as a whole, want, but what would ensure the
safety of the Baha’is there; so if thousands of Shi’i Muslims are
killed, who cares? — they deserve it anyway for having persecuted the
Baha’is.
As you say in your Newsletter, the Shah’s ‘continued reign seems to
be
the only hope the Baha’is have of avoiding full-scale persecution’.
There was a time when this need not have been so. The fact is that
the
Baha’is of Iran have done nothing to help their fellow countryman
inside or outside of the country. They have been content to benefit
economically and in other ways from the present regime and have
gained
a real reputation as an inwar-looking community which would sacrifice
the country for its own ends. Baha’is actually hate the Muslims and
try to have as little as possible to do with them. And they seem
unable to understand the impression they create. Many years ago, when
some Baha’i villages in Adhirbayjan [Azerbaijan] were suffering from
a
boycott, a well-known and [illegible].
No one could understand when I pointed out that this would only
worsen
the situation in the long term. Not only this, but there is a serious
level of class distinction between the Baha’is in Ran, a fact which
has not escaped the rest of the population, especially the
intellectuals. I have lived in a reasonably wealthy Baha’i home in
Tihran while, in a room underneath, another Baha’i family with two
children lived on bread and yogurt with no furniture - and this is
not
abnormal. There are many Baha’i meetings in Iran at which a 400
dollar
suit would be more of a passport than Baha’i credentials. I don’t
wish
to be mistaken - some of the most wonderful Baha’is in the world (and
some of my dearest friends) live in Iran but the community is known
for its wealth, inequality, and exclusiveness.
In general, a deradicalization of the Baha’i faith has occurred over
recent years. Like many other originally radical religious movements,
the faith has moved from a position of active hostility to the
existing order (under the Babis) to non-violent condemnation of
abuses
in politics and religion, to a passive acceptance of the
establishment
and, of late, a positive attempt to become integrated with the
establishment. This latter development is typical of an originally
sectarian movement which becomes a denomination, and is generally a
consequence (as has taken place in Iran) of second and third
generation prosperity, the removal of charisma, and the growth of
organizational elements. Baha’is in many places now show considerable
eagerness to become respectable. Being a member of a quaint, exotic
religious movement is usually acceptable in the first generation, but
it can become an embarrassment to later believers who are successful
in society and derive benefits from it. We have now reached that
stage
in several places. To give one example: almost two years ago, the LSA
here suggested to the NSA that every LSA in this country should have
5
pounds (about 9 dollars) to the Venezuela earthquake disaster fund;
the suggestion was dismissed on the grounds that we were not
concerned
with such matters. Not long after, Assemblies and groups throughout
the country were asked to give their assistance to government bodies
organizing the Queen’s Jubilee Fund, collecting money for British
youth clubs and organizations. The reason? It was a ‘door to
proclamation’. A pamphlet was even produced and widely distributed by
one Assembly detailing the links of the Baha’i faith with the British
monarchy and our support for it. When our Assembly pointed out to the
NSA that this kind of activity could be construed in many quarters as
political, and that, in areas such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and
Wales (where there is strong anti-monarchical feeling), the faith
would be identified with political views of wide unpopularity, the
reply made by the secretary was simply that he could not understand
the point we were making. Nor could he understand our making a
distinction between loyalty to one’s government and active support
for
the establishment.
It is a tragic situation when, as seems to be happening more and more
often, Baha’is show themselves to be proud of the fact that they have
gained some form of recognition from the old order. Something subtle
is wrong, I think, when, for example, such publicity is given to the
fact that Baha’is have been asked to join in an inter-faith service
in
Westminster Abbey. We now think it a wonderful thing when the very
churches which we used to described as defunct and despiritualized
patronize us in this way, adn do what we can to ingratiate ourselves
with clerics, bishops, and ‘respectable’ religious organizations. It
seems curious too that we appear to be increasingly favourable to
establishment, right-wing, and conservative religions and government
bodies; we have very little do to with groups which advocate social
change, such as Amnesty, race harmony bodies, sex discrimination
groups, anti-war movements, and so on, and more and more with bodies
advocating stability, order, law, and respectable social behaviour.
It
is not surprising that Pinochet and others show such favour towards
the Baha’is - we are the ideal religious fringe group for repressive
regimes: the offer of outward radicalism with absolute acceptance of
the status quo in return for toleration. In Marcusan [Ed. unclear
word] terms, we are an acceptable alternative to genuine radicalism
which may threaten to actually change society. And, as you so well
point out in your Newsletter and I have shown above, we are
politically naive.
Here again, we are faced with a vicious circle. The faith, as it
stands, is predominantly middle-class and conservative (in the West,
at least): students, radicals, the …[Ed. segment missing]… as
presented and the community as met unattractive and irrelevant to
their concerns (to the extent that anybody actually tries to teach
such socially unacceptable people), and so the only converts are won
among middle class quasi-liberals — and the circle repeats itself.
The faith seems to be going through a severe crisis — without being
aware of it. I have personally little doubt that, if a trenchant
radicalization of the community does not take place within the next
decade or sooner, it will stagnate and collapse inwards. Exaggerated
news items of mass teaching successes and ‘unprecedented’ campaigns
in
some areas should not make us lose sight of the fact that, in the
longer established communities, there is a growing disillusion,
retrogression, routinizatin, and apathy — highlighted by the
increasingly frenetic pronouncements that ‘things have never been
better’. The administration, particularly, the mobile, distant, and
woolly appointed side (which is rapidly acquiring many of the
characteristics of a clergy), seems to have lost all touch with the
mass of believers. At meetings and conferences in this country, it is
increasingly rare to find someone not an NSA member, Board Member,
Counsellor, or, recently, Assistant, to speak formally — and most of
the best-informed and stimulating people belong to none of these
bodies. As you write, ‘…now, more often than not, the body of the
believers are expected to only carry out policies, rather than help
form them.’
To find a solution to any problems I have outlined above is hardly an
easy task. But it is an urgent one — most of all because it is little
recognized and even less admitted. Clearly fresh Baha’i scholarship
in
all fields, with considerably greater freedom of expression than is
at
present permitted, is a priority, as we discussed at Cambridge. But
it
is not only scholarship, but any fresh thinking, whether scholarly or
not, which is being suppressed by those who are convinced that their
version of the Baha’i faith is the one and only true version and
anything else is heresy. If greater latitude in such matters is not
very soon permitted, I fear that the faith will lose at increasing
speed its most intelligent, sensitive, and creative believers — and
we
will be in the hands of civil servants and clergy. The Baha’is must
make the decision … [Ed. illegible] … develop naturally as a
universal
religion or to prematurely ossify as an establishment ‘church’. New
ideas are needed — and new actions. It is rubbish to say that, in
view
of our size and poverty we cannot do anything to help the sufferings
of mankind. Single individuals, poor, humble, and dedicated, have,
before this, become major forces for good among mankind. The Baha’i
community could become a great force for the betterment of the world
if, instead of planting trees and talking about the wonderful society
of centuries hence, we were to take positive action on the principles
for which we claim to stand, if we were to become known as a people
for whom expediency and compromise were anathema, if we were to
fight,
in however a small and restricted an arena, against injustice,
tyranny, oppression, corruption, exploitation, and other social evils
— without ever taking sides. Perhaps we would be persecuted in some
places, perhaps a few Baha’is would die, perhaps we would be
misunderstood by some people — but the faith has always been richer
for that. It has been well said that to sit on the fence is to take
sides — is it not time to we came off the fence and showed our true
commitment to the cause of good and humanity?
With warmest wishes,
[Ed. signature]
Denis MacEoin
Cambridge
England
7 January 1979
Dear Friends,
I have read your latest (November 1978) Newsletter with more than
usual interest and sympathy, and feel that I would like to add a few
words in its wake. I shall not try to expand on Tony’s account of our
seminar here in Cambridge, much as it is tempting to do so — from the
report in your Newsletter, he seems to have done a thorough job of
leading you through a very complicated set of issues raised there.
The
full report, as stated, is available, and dwells more thoroughly on
the major topics mentioned by Tony.
I was most interested by the discussion reported on pages 3-4 of your
summary. As Tony knows, this is a topic about which I personally feel
very strongly. In the simplest terms, I fear that the Baha’i faith as
it stands today is in very real danger of becoming irrelevant to the
problems faced by people in the world outside — if it has not already
become so. As the faith has become more and more organized, with, as
you so rightly point out, a growing obsession with figures, numbers,
and statistics for their own sake, and a tendency to evaluate the
significance of the faith as a religion in terms which have no
bearing
whatever on this (such as how many languages literature has been
‘translated’ into), we seem to have become more and more
introspective
and withdrawn, exclusive rather than all-embracing. As a result, most
Baha’is appear to be completely ignorant of the issues facing modern
man. And, what is worse, they don’t care — if you suggest that hey
read, say, Marouse [Ed. unclear word], most Baha’is react with a
disdainful, slightly superior shrug: ‘we have the writings, we don’t
need to waste our time on the book of false physicians’. As one
friend, for some time an NSA secretary (not in the U.K.) put it to
me:
‘nothing worth reading has ever been written in the twentieth
century’. In fact, it is not even a case of whether people are up on
Patti Smith or Malcolm Bradbury’s latest novel, they have yet to read
Marx or early Koestler! Instead, the community is locked into an
obsession with issues which were vital before or just after the first
World War and, what is worse, are a lot less forthright now about
issues such as war, poverty, race, and so forth that they were then.
To speak about race integration in the States in the 20’s was
genuinely progressive. Last year at a Youth Conference in the U.K.
(facing a major race problem and the threat of growing fascism — the
country’s fascist party is the fourth largest in the country), an NSA
member told the youth that we should have nothing to do with the
issue
of race, since it is political!
In recent years, I feel, the situation has become even more serious
(in this country at least). Whereas about ten or more years ago, the
Baha’i community tried (in however outdated a fashion) to be involved
with society around it, we now seem to think about and talk about and
be told about nothing but goals, organization, conferences, and other
purely internal matters — very few of them even of a spiritual or
genuinely religious nature. Your phrase ’shopping list’ goals sums up
very well indeed the utterly meaningless hole we seem to have dug
ourselves into. The Five Year Plan in this country has been a
mindless
race after numbers, constant reshuffles, juggling with statistics,
bombastic sermons which have passed beyond banality to the depths of
uninspiration. Success is judged in teh most material and sterile
terms, important long-term tasks of the community have been shelved
in
order to win insignificant short-term goals, and above all, everybody
knows that we will ‘win’ the Plan, whatever the real result. Beneath
the surface, fairly large numbers of people are withdrawing, even
larger numbers have become inactive, leaving things in the hands of
thick-skinned administrators whom we could as well hire from an
employment agency, the teaching work becomes more and more geared to
attracting the less spiritual, and the circle becomes a spiral.
Worst of all, I fear, is that the Baha’is are gradually gaining a
reputation for hypocrisy and self-interestedness. To give one
example,
several years ago, when the troubles began in Northern Ireland, a few
Baha’is gave help for some time at a refugee centre, along with other
groups. Despite the fact that the Quakers, who ran the centre, had
asked for no publicity, the Baha’is were the only group to seek and
obtain newspaper publicity for their work with refugees. Since then,
the Baha’is as a group, in Northern Ireland have done nothing to help
anybody, have never even condemned the violence publicly, and have
held numerous conferences and teaching activities which even the
believers are beginning to avoid. To give just one other example: the
Public Relations Officer of the U.K. Baha’i Community recently told a
Mayor, in the course of a tree-planting (!) ceremony (which seems to
be the most radical activity we engage in) that ‘Baha’is the world
over were working hard in thousands of centres to help improve the
environment and the quality of life of all the inhabitants of the
earth. They were also involved in efforts to resist the spread of
deserts which themselves resulted from the wholesale destruction of
trees. At world level, through United Nations agencies, the Baha’i
International Community was constantly involved in this work of
improving the environment’. As any Baha’i should know, this is, quite
simply, dishonest and unethical — but this type of exaggeration and
distortion, coupled with the fact that we only ever become involved
in
any activity where there is a chance of publicity for ourselves,
will,
I feel, soon be regarded as the chief characteristic of the Baha’is,
if it is not already in many quarters.
To a large degree, this lack of involvement in live issues is linked
to the fact that many contemporary social issues (such as those
mentioned in your Newsletter, and others, such as unemployment,
prisoners of conscience, the union) have, or appear to have, a high
political content. Since Baha’is have failed to define what they mean
by politics in the context of ‘non-involvement in politics’, they are
now taking the easiest course, which is to avoid anything which may
be
remotely political — which means, in effect, just about any relevant
social or humanitarian issue today. By dealing with ’safe’ issues
(such as tree-planting) and ‘pie in the sky’ policies, we manage to
preserve intact our integrity on the principle of non-involvement in
politics, even if to do so we have to sacrifice other basic
principles
regarding war, racialism, sex inequality, tyranny, freedom of
conscience, economic adjustment, and so on. The non-involvement tag
is
our get-out pass from just about everything, and the more we use it
the more out of touch and irrelevant we become.
The simple fact is that, in a real sense, the Baha’i faith is one of
the most political movements around. After all, principles such as
the
ending of absolute national sovereignty, world government, universal
currency, universal language, sex equality, racial integration,
disarmament, world tribunal, anti-communism, retention of
constitutional monarchism, the abolition of non-Baha’i religious
legal
systems (such as the Islamic sharia), the retention of a class
system,
the abolition of tariffs, international police force, and so on are
among the hottest political issues around. Do we just dismember the
faith, trimming off any principle or concept that seems likely to
offend the political susceptibilities of someone or some government
somewhere, or do we accept that we have these principles and that we
intend to establish them, destroying, in the process, any other
system
or ideology which seeks to oppose them? We should also bear in mind
that the apparently non-political activity of just teaching the faith
is highly political. Quite apart from problems such as teaching race
unity, say, South Africa, it is obvious that they will be able to (in
theory, at least) to exert pressure on society as a whole,
particularly in a democracy. It is hardly enough to say that we are
‘non-political’ — after all, we do plan to bring into being a series
of Baha’i states and, in the end, a Baha’i world — no less extreme
than the aim of every Marxist. And, in the same way that nto everyone
jumps with joy at the thought of his country becoming Marxist, so we
can hardly expect that there will be universal rejoicing at the news
that the Baha’i faith is becoming a threat to the established
political system. We may say that the old order is destroying itself
and that we intend merely to step in when it collapses, not to
actively work for its destruction — but take another look at Marx’s
theory of the dialectic of history: capitalism destroys itself in
order to give way to communism. Instead of engaging in violent
revolution to speed up the process, we ‘teach the faith’.
Tragically, however, in order to pretend not to be concerned with
politics, we have more and more adopted a line of expediency in our
relationship with the outside world. This has reached such
proportions
that Baha’is cannot officially be involved with a totally non-aligned
organization such as Amnesty International because it might give rise
to a false impression. As a result, we are totally uninvolved with
one
of the major evils of this century — political and religious
oppression coupled with wrongful imprisonment, torture, and execution
on the most appalling scale — despite the numerous statements in the
writings about opposing injustice and tyranny. Baha’u'llah wrote
directly to rulers to reprimand them for their brutality and
repression, while we today pose for pictures with Pinochet and Amin
(thank God for your reference to the Pinochet photograph - I thought
I
was the only person who had noticed it). Yet, the moment anyone lifts
a finger to harm Baha’is, in however a minor way, there is a
universal
outcry and we appeal for aid to the UN and suchlike. The Iranian
regime has been massacring its people for decades, and thousands are
dying in the present troubles, but the only thing to excite protests
from the Baha’is has been the threat of violence to themselves. No
mention is made of the fact that Jews or Christians have been
threatened or attacked. The fact is that we seem to judge the justice
of a regime according to how well it treats the Baha’is. An injust
regime treating us well is tolerated or even extolled, while a
popular
regime which deprives us of certain freedoms (perhaps along with
other
religious groups) is regarded as evil. No one has asked, for example,
what the people of Iran, as a whole, want, but what would ensure the
safety of the Baha’is there; so if thousands of Shi’i Muslims are
killed, who cares? — they deserve it anyway for having persecuted the
Baha’is.
As you say in your Newsletter, the Shah’s ‘continued reign seems to
be
the only hope the Baha’is have of avoiding full-scale persecution’.
There was a time when this need not have been so. The fact is that
the
Baha’is of Iran have done nothing to help their fellow countryman
inside or outside of the country. They have been content to benefit
economically and in other ways from the present regime and have
gained
a real reputation as an inwar-looking community which would sacrifice
the country for its own ends. Baha’is actually hate the Muslims and
try to have as little as possible to do with them. And they seem
unable to understand the impression they create. Many years ago, when
some Baha’i villages in Adhirbayjan [Azerbaijan] were suffering from
a
boycott, a well-known and [illegible].
No one could understand when I pointed out that this would only
worsen
the situation in the long term. Not only this, but there is a serious
level of class distinction between the Baha’is in Ran, a fact which
has not escaped the rest of the population, especially the
intellectuals. I have lived in a reasonably wealthy Baha’i home in
Tihran while, in a room underneath, another Baha’i family with two
children lived on bread and yogurt with no furniture - and this is
not
abnormal. There are many Baha’i meetings in Iran at which a 400
dollar
suit would be more of a passport than Baha’i credentials. I don’t
wish
to be mistaken - some of the most wonderful Baha’is in the world (and
some of my dearest friends) live in Iran but the community is known
for its wealth, inequality, and exclusiveness.
In general, a deradicalization of the Baha’i faith has occurred over
recent years. Like many other originally radical religious movements,
the faith has moved from a position of active hostility to the
existing order (under the Babis) to non-violent condemnation of
abuses
in politics and religion, to a passive acceptance of the
establishment
and, of late, a positive attempt to become integrated with the
establishment. This latter development is typical of an originally
sectarian movement which becomes a denomination, and is generally a
consequence (as has taken place in Iran) of second and third
generation prosperity, the removal of charisma, and the growth of
organizational elements. Baha’is in many places now show considerable
eagerness to become respectable. Being a member of a quaint, exotic
religious movement is usually acceptable in the first generation, but
it can become an embarrassment to later believers who are successful
in society and derive benefits from it. We have now reached that
stage
in several places. To give one example: almost two years ago, the LSA
here suggested to the NSA that every LSA in this country should have
5
pounds (about 9 dollars) to the Venezuela earthquake disaster fund;
the suggestion was dismissed on the grounds that we were not
concerned
with such matters. Not long after, Assemblies and groups throughout
the country were asked to give their assistance to government bodies
organizing the Queen’s Jubilee Fund, collecting money for British
youth clubs and organizations. The reason? It was a ‘door to
proclamation’. A pamphlet was even produced and widely distributed by
one Assembly detailing the links of the Baha’i faith with the British
monarchy and our support for it. When our Assembly pointed out to the
NSA that this kind of activity could be construed in many quarters as
political, and that, in areas such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and
Wales (where there is strong anti-monarchical feeling), the faith
would be identified with political views of wide unpopularity, the
reply made by the secretary was simply that he could not understand
the point we were making. Nor could he understand our making a
distinction between loyalty to one’s government and active support
for
the establishment.
It is a tragic situation when, as seems to be happening more and more
often, Baha’is show themselves to be proud of the fact that they have
gained some form of recognition from the old order. Something subtle
is wrong, I think, when, for example, such publicity is given to the
fact that Baha’is have been asked to join in an inter-faith service
in
Westminster Abbey. We now think it a wonderful thing when the very
churches which we used to described as defunct and despiritualized
patronize us in this way, adn do what we can to ingratiate ourselves
with clerics, bishops, and ‘respectable’ religious organizations. It
seems curious too that we appear to be increasingly favourable to
establishment, right-wing, and conservative religions and government
bodies; we have very little do to with groups which advocate social
change, such as Amnesty, race harmony bodies, sex discrimination
groups, anti-war movements, and so on, and more and more with bodies
advocating stability, order, law, and respectable social behaviour.
It
is not surprising that Pinochet and others show such favour towards
the Baha’is - we are the ideal religious fringe group for repressive
regimes: the offer of outward radicalism with absolute acceptance of
the status quo in return for toleration. In Marcusan [Ed. unclear
word] terms, we are an acceptable alternative to genuine radicalism
which may threaten to actually change society. And, as you so well
point out in your Newsletter and I have shown above, we are
politically naive.
Here again, we are faced with a vicious circle. The faith, as it
stands, is predominantly middle-class and conservative (in the West,
at least): students, radicals, the …[Ed. segment missing]… as
presented and the community as met unattractive and irrelevant to
their concerns (to the extent that anybody actually tries to teach
such socially unacceptable people), and so the only converts are won
among middle class quasi-liberals — and the circle repeats itself.
The faith seems to be going through a severe crisis — without being
aware of it. I have personally little doubt that, if a trenchant
radicalization of the community does not take place within the next
decade or sooner, it will stagnate and collapse inwards. Exaggerated
news items of mass teaching successes and ‘unprecedented’ campaigns
in
some areas should not make us lose sight of the fact that, in the
longer established communities, there is a growing disillusion,
retrogression, routinizatin, and apathy — highlighted by the
increasingly frenetic pronouncements that ‘things have never been
better’. The administration, particularly, the mobile, distant, and
woolly appointed side (which is rapidly acquiring many of the
characteristics of a clergy), seems to have lost all touch with the
mass of believers. At meetings and conferences in this country, it is
increasingly rare to find someone not an NSA member, Board Member,
Counsellor, or, recently, Assistant, to speak formally — and most of
the best-informed and stimulating people belong to none of these
bodies. As you write, ‘…now, more often than not, the body of the
believers are expected to only carry out policies, rather than help
form them.’
To find a solution to any problems I have outlined above is hardly an
easy task. But it is an urgent one — most of all because it is little
recognized and even less admitted. Clearly fresh Baha’i scholarship
in
all fields, with considerably greater freedom of expression than is
at
present permitted, is a priority, as we discussed at Cambridge. But
it
is not only scholarship, but any fresh thinking, whether scholarly or
not, which is being suppressed by those who are convinced that their
version of the Baha’i faith is the one and only true version and
anything else is heresy. If greater latitude in such matters is not
very soon permitted, I fear that the faith will lose at increasing
speed its most intelligent, sensitive, and creative believers — and
we
will be in the hands of civil servants and clergy. The Baha’is must
make the decision … [Ed. illegible] … develop naturally as a
universal
religion or to prematurely ossify as an establishment ‘church’. New
ideas are needed — and new actions. It is rubbish to say that, in
view
of our size and poverty we cannot do anything to help the sufferings
of mankind. Single individuals, poor, humble, and dedicated, have,
before this, become major forces for good among mankind. The Baha’i
community could become a great force for the betterment of the world
if, instead of planting trees and talking about the wonderful society
of centuries hence, we were to take positive action on the principles
for which we claim to stand, if we were to become known as a people
for whom expediency and compromise were anathema, if we were to
fight,
in however a small and restricted an arena, against injustice,
tyranny, oppression, corruption, exploitation, and other social evils
— without ever taking sides. Perhaps we would be persecuted in some
places, perhaps a few Baha’is would die, perhaps we would be
misunderstood by some people — but the faith has always been richer
for that. It has been well said that to sit on the fence is to take
sides — is it not time to we came off the fence and showed our true
commitment to the cause of good and humanity?
With warmest wishes,
[Ed. signature]
Denis MacEoin