Mentions of Baha'i

Three Mentions of Baha'i in the Press

By John Taylor; 29 March, 2006

I subscribe to "Google Alerts," keyword "Baha'i," which sends you an
email link to every newspaper article in the world mentioning the word
or combination of words that you request. Yesterday it sent three
mentions of Baha'i, and I cannot help commenting on them.
Unfortunately, many of these local papers do not identify where they
come from, and my knowledge of geography is often not strong enough to
help in guessing. For example the first mention comes from the
Chronicle Herald, a newspaper evidently based somewhere in Canada's
Maritime provinces. Here is the link:

<http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/492705.html>

Their correspondent is taking a tour of Israel, and the brief mention
of Baha'i comes when he or she enters Haifa,

"Sunday is Israel's first business day of the week and presents busy
traffic and open shops in downtown Haifa. This city is the home base
of the Baha'i faith, with its 5.5 million worldwide adherents to its
philosophy of peace and understanding. We stop at the magnificent
Baha'i Gardens, 18 tiers of symmetrical, immaculate trees, shrubs and
flowers on the slope of Mount Carmel, anchored by the domed Baha'i
Temple."

A positive comment, though of course there are nineteen terraces if
you include that whereon the Shrine of the Bab and other buildings
reside.

The second mention of Baha'i comes in an American paper called the
Bennington Banner in an editorial called, "Help Not Wanted." It
expresses misgivings about US support for regimes in Iraq and
Afghanistan, neither of which recognizes fundamental rights of
conscience and freedom of religion. The editorialist comments,

"About five years ago, the United States invaded Afghanistan. Since
then, President George W. Bush has often referred to the Afghan
government as an ally in his war of terror. Further, Bush refers to
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, as his friend. Some friend and
ally, we say. Afghanistan's legal branch recently sentenced an Afghan
man to death for converting from Islam to Christianity. Thankfully, a
court on Sunday dismissed the case against him. Try converting in this
country - whether from Judaism to Christianity, Christianity to Islam,
Islam to Baha'i, what have you - and the worst thing you'll get is a
few of your friends throwing you a party of some sort. Not in
Afghanistan, though. There, they hang you, at the very least, threaten
to do so." <http://www.benningtonbanner.com/editorials/ci_3643279>

Is it a coincidence that "Baha'i" is mentioned here? Could it be that
this writer is aware of the recent call of the Baha'i International
Community that the UN inscribe in its renewed charter and perhaps even
in the Declaration of Human Rights a new, universal "right to convert"
from one religion to another? I have no way of knowing that -- short
of calling the fellow up, and I hate the telephone. Still, I am
curious about his obscure comment about holding a "conversion party."
Does he mean the funeral that some families hold for those who convert
away from their religion? Or perhaps it is a more positive sort of
party. Maybe someday there will be big bucks in conversion parties, as
there is now for birthday parties and weddings. Who knows? In any
case, the BIC seems to be having a surprising amount of influence in
their declarations and statements.

The third and final mention comes in an article from somewhere in New
Jersey called "Talk sparks ire at interfaith event," by a reporter
with the email, <kremenm@northjersey.com>. This is the most startling
mention that I have seen for quite a while. I cannot keep from going
into it in detail. It discusses a minor kafuffle provoked by a Baha'i
speaker at a very large interfaith gathering of over three hundred
souls called the "Annual Interfaith Brotherhood-Sisterhood Brunch. The
reporter comments,

"But when 350 people from six different faiths gather in the same
hotel ballroom, there is bound to be some disagreement. And there was,
when a keynote speaker's address about the persecution of Baha'is in
Iran touched off anger among some Muslim attendees. Adherents of the
Baha'i religion, who number 5 million worldwide, claim that hundreds
in Iran have been killed or imprisoned or prevented from practicing
basic tenets since the 1970s. The monotheistic religion originated in
Persia in 1844 and is now Iran's biggest minority group. William L. H.
Roberts, a national Baha'i leader, spoke about "Freedom to Believe."
He condemned the Iranian government's "policy of slow, constant
strangulation, discrimination and persecution."

"Roberts called for those gathered to speak out against all religious
persecution, and used as another example an Afghan man who had been
facing possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity. A
court has dismissed the case, which set off an outcry in the United
States and other nations. An official in Afghanistan said the man,
Abdul Rahman, could soon walk free, perhaps as early as today. ...
Besides religious persecution, Roberts asked members to speak out
against genocide in Darfur. He spoke about freedom to worship as a
"basic human right," and used as another example of the abuse of this
right the persecution of a native religious group in Brazil."

The reporter spoke afterwards to an organizer of the brunch to get a
reaction, and she "did not think Roberts meant to be divisive.
`Because he is a Baha'i, and because he's involved in the national
Baha'i community, he's connected to the issues that resonate with his
people,' she said. She added that differences in opinion between
groups are a natural occurrence of the growth of the
Brotherhood-Sisterhood coalition." The more or less official Muslim
response was given by the next speaker.

"Darul Islah Imam Saeed Qureshi, who spoke after Roberts, apologized
for the persecution of Baha'is in Iran, but also asked those gathered
not to judge all Muslims by the actions of a few. `Today we are
together with Muslims who you see and experience as peaceful humans.
There are others that call themselves terrorists.' If you judge all
Muslims by the actions of the terrorists, he said, `there will never
be peace.'"

I note that he is implying that the Mullocrats of Iran are
"terrorists," which may be a bit harsh. Everybody knows that a
legitimate government cannot be terrorist, only those who oppose them,
or fall for whatever reason into their bad books. Iranian Jews and
Baha'is are spies and terrorists; the Mullahs are not using terror,
only discipline and self-defense against the subversion of people who
arrogantly dare to hold on to alternative belief systems. The reaction
to the Baha'i speaker among the rank and file of Muslims present was
less balanced and muted. The reporter reports:

"Several Muslims said after the speech that they were offended by what
they saw as Roberts' singling out of Islam as a persecuting religion.
`I felt that he's bashing Islam indirectly,' said Mehdi Eliefifi,
president of the New Jersey Outreach Group, which works to bring
different faiths together. `It feeds into the stereotype, putting
examples of bad behavior of individuals and governments as being the
main theme of Islam,' he said."

The stereotype this guy is speaking of is real and harmful. Still, the
term "Oriental tyranny" has been the operative descriptor of Islamic
lands for centuries. This stereotype but also historical fact. No
historian would dispute how notoriously corrupt and tyrannical most,
if not all, nominally Islamic governments have been throughout the
Middle East over the past thousand years and more. It is a stereotype,
like the oppression and degradation of women. However, the fact that
it has been true for so long is no reason to assume that it need
continue, or that there are inherent reasons for it beyond ignorance.
That indeed would be a prejudice born of a stereotype. Having high
expectations for an Islamic regime, then, is the reverse of
prejudicial, just as would be having high expectations for a girl in
achieving as much as a boy in life.

At heart is the question, yes Muslims are being singled out, but are
they being picked out unfairly? They would be if the government of
Iran were composed of many faiths, and all were dipping their hands in
Baha'i blood equally. But the fact remains that this ugly persecution
is all done by Mullahs in the name of Islam. Indeed, much more
explicitly so in Revolutionary Iran than in any nominally Muslim
regime over the past millennium. The Iranian government very pointedly
calls itself the "Islamic Republic." So their actions are an explicit
blot to all Muslims, everywhere. You cannot get around that fact. Get
over it, my Muslim brothers and sisters.

It would be hard to criticize what this Baha'i said on that day
without being there personally. The Master Himself on several
occasions stepped over an invisible line and offended the precious
sensibilities of religious bigots in His audiences. Still, I think he
might have assuaged the Muslims present a bit more had he laid
emphasis on the fact that Baha'is revere Muhammad and His faith,
Islam, as much as any Muslim. There is no reason to think that Baha'is
would ever "bash" Muslims. God forbid! No Baha'i could bash Islam
since we believe in it ourselves. We consider Muslims closer to our
hearts than any other world faith; unlike other faiths, we read the
Qu'ran and revere all that it teaches.

Consider this. If there are five million Baha'is in the world, and say
four million of them come from non-Muslim backgrounds, then you could
say that Baha'u'llah has in effect "converted" over four million souls
to a deep conviction in the divinity of Muhammad and Islam. How many
Muslims, no matter how prominent and devout, can say that they have
converted four million people? Not very many, I can tell you that.
Baha'u'llah has done more to blazon the glory of Islam than any
Muslim. He has brought no dishonor to this Faith, unlike those
hate-filled Iranian fops resplendent in their reactionary beards and
flowing robes bullying every helpless minority that comes under their
thumb.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com