Note to Threefold Masters

A Note to the Threefold Masters

By John Taylor; 2006 April 19

Showing on PBS and TVO around now is a one hour documentary about the
Armenian genocide, and I encourage you not to miss it. For me it was
especially interesting because I am wading through the section of
"Guns, Germs and Steel" that deals with the so-called Fertile
Crescent, a large tract of land extending from the Mediterranean coast
to Baghdad. It pretty much covers the middle of the area around which
Baha'u'llah was exiled. Around 12,000 years ago this place was unique
in the world, the world's largest Mediterranean climate and, more
uniquely, it happened also to grow as native species almost all of the
tiny handful of plants and animals that are easily domesticated and
bear the most productive harvests. There is no doubt that if somebody
had put a fence around the Fertile Crescent to keep people out, the
human race today would be dominated by hunter gatherers, with the
partial exception of China.

Today the climate of this crescent is dry, no longer as fertile, and
its plants and animals have been exported everywhere that you find
human beings, so it is no longer that unique breadbasket of the human
race. Indeed, spiritually it is the heart of darkness, for living in
the middle of the Crescent were the Armenians, a Christian people
surrounded by Muslims. With tragic irony, the forced death marches of
this first modern genocide (as the film demonstrates, the very word
"genocide" was coined in order to describe this event in WWI and those
of WWII) tore a scar right along the crescent, ending in its southern
extremity.

Even more telling about the spiritual atrophy of this region, the
first holocaust denier was not a neo-Nazi but the modernizing Ataturk,
who reached as far West as Hollywood to squelch a film that was being
made in 1935 about the genocide. Today's Turkey is on the surface a
democracy and not as dominated by Muslim clergy --the "spiritual"
leaders who stood up on their pulpits and declared, "Kill these
infidel dogs of Armenians and make some profit for yourselves by
robbing them of the possessions they leave behind." As the film points
out, the government of today still officially denies their genocide,
teaches denial in its schools and persecutes anyone who dares say
otherwise.

The film-makers concentrate on this persistent lying complicity of the
government, but they do not dare touch that of the Sunni clergy. They
are such deniers that the question of their culpability does not come
up even in muckraking films like this one. "Who, us? Apologize? For
what? A few million Armenians? For promoting hatred? Why, every
religion in the region was doing that! True, but most fulminating
preachers only kill a few dozen people, not millions as then. As far
as quantity, the blood on their hands is oceans compared to the mere
lakes of Baha'i blood on the hands of the Shi'ih clergy of Iran. And
never so much as a peep of an apology from either branch of Islam,
unlike the Pope who in spite of similar culpability for persecutions
over many centuries at least knows the meaning of the first sentence
of every chapter of the Qu'ran, "God is merciful, forgiving," and
knows how to recognize the truth and say, "I am sorry."

Another important point that the film misses is that Adolph Hitler
studied the techniques of the Armenian genocide very assiduously and
with great respect and admiration. His death camps were consciously
designed as improvements upon Turkish methodology. For example, he
learned that it is worth the effort to keep your crime an open secret,
because no matter how hate-ridden the populace there will always be a
minority who are bothered by annoying moral qualms.

Lest there be any doubt about how well Hitler learned his lesson from
the Turkish persecutors of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha, recall what
happened in the final days of the war. As defeat closed around, Hitler
became just like a wife beater who is "disappointed" with his bullied
victim; he decided that he would take the German people down with him.
So from his bunker he ordered Albert Speer to destroy the industrial
infrastructure and transport the entire populace of Western Germany to
the East, where the Russians would deal with them as they deserved.
Speer courageously refused the order, knowing well that even without
the Russians, to forcibly transport a people in winter with no proper
preparation is to initiate a death march. It is exactly what the Turks
did to the Armenians. I am not saying Hitler sat in his bunker and
leafed through Turkish history books to find out how to kill the
German people simply by transporting them in boxcars. There was no
need for that, the lesson had been well learned back when was a
prisoner for sedition and he was researching Mein Kampf. As the
spiritual saying goes, "When the student is ready, the master will
appear." The master of evil was the Sultan, and his successors. And
the spiritual master of the master, he would be, well, the official
teachers of the Book that says,

"And unto God leads straight the Way, but there are ways that turn
aside: if God had willed, He could have guided all of you." (Q16:9,
Yusuf Ali)

I would submit to you, threefold masters, that if you want to take the
straight way to what God wills, it starts with two words, "I am
sorry." No, three words, "I am very sorry." No, four words, "I am
very, very sorry." No, five words, "I am very, very, very sorry." No,
well, maybe a million words, and more. A million words would hardly
bring back the lives and wealth of your Armenian victims, or the
suffering of Baha'u'llah, but it would be a start in the direction
that you must take sooner or later, easier or harder, anyway. Until
that happens the fertile crescent and the crescent of Islam will
remain an arid, spiritual desert, a sign of your own lies and denial,
a blatant self-mockery of the fertile heritage that your region and
religion gave, so long ago, to the rest of the human race, and then
denied to yourselves.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com