Kiwi Fighters, Barry Smith and an Appeal to Baquia
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Continuing with the highlights of a many-year-long backlog of reader response, some feedback involved error correction. I had read, for example, that the New Zealand armed forces had sold off their entire air force. Reader Steve corrected me on that. My apologies to the good air service personnel of New Zealand. You are still with us, defending freedom.
Hi John, "You wrote: "...Then I read what [New Zealanders] had done with their air force. They just up and sold the whole deal." I believe you're mistaken. The New Zealand Air Force still has a range of aircraft, as you can see if you go to the aircraft page on its website. You can even check on Wiki, which seems a little more up-to-date and comprehensive. :-) Perhaps your kiwi friend was thinking of the 2001 decision to sell the Air Force Skyhawks and a few other aircraft."
Last year I read about a Baha'i comedian giving a slideshow on his introduction to the Baha'i Faith. I wrote at the time the following enquiry:
"I came across on some small town newspaper's website the following article about a one man show by a fellow who discovered the Baha'i Faith. If any of my readers can give some more background on this, please share it with us all."
None of the Badi' List members had anything to say about that, but the blog community did. Steve Marshall, I now know, did reply, saying:
Here are a couple of sites to visit:
Barry Smith's blog entry: http://barrysmith.wordpress.com/
Barry Smith's story www.irrelativity.com/story.html
Given what Barry smith says about his experience with the "Montana cult" I'm guessing he hung out with the Baha'is Under the Provision of the Covenant (BUPC), led by Montana chiropractor Dr. Leland Jensen.
I just went on Barry Smith's blog and left the following enquiry:
Hi, I came across some of your publicity and have written a little about you on my blog, <badiblog.blogspot.com>. I wonder if you could answer some questions for me and my readers. Please feel free to give an introduction to yourself, maybe some of your publicity material. My readers are mostly in Ontario and I notice that you are coming to the fringe festival in Toronto this summer. My questions for you are: Are you a Baha'i? Where do you live, in Canada? How do you work such wonders with Powerpoint? I find it clumsy. Do you have the help of a visual artist? I am afraid that I do not even know what a fringe festival is, what is it?
Glancing at Barry Smith's latest entry to his blog I found out about the following site, which uses face recognition to link you to family members, and, as he demonstrates, even finds out your celebrity look-alikes and puts your photo onto a poster surrounded by the famous faces that look like you. Check it out:
http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face-recognition.php
Myself, I am a bit creeped out about voluntarily submitting to face recognition software. I wandered into a gambling emporium a year or so ago, just to see what it was like, so I know my face is already in the databases of the non-authorities and Mafiosi who deal with this software. But should I spread my face around even more, even if it means getting an idea of which stars resemble me? Probably not.
Another thing that, for some reason, has always creeped me out is watching about the Baha’i Faith on video. I do not know why I had this reaction; I guess I just felt that the Faith was too intimate and private to me to see it laid out in public like that. I would have a similar reaction watching a video of my genitalia bouncing around as I walk, I suppose. Any presentation on the Faith on television still makes me cringe in unutterable embarrassment, though if I sneak it up on myself I can sometimes endure it. But since my mention a few days ago of the 1983 20/20 television show on the persecutions of the Baha’is in Iran brought in two very positive reactions from Badi List readers, I will point you to this site, which seems more or less official, of videos about the Baha’i Faith. One includes a video of Doug Martin, whom I met once or twice in the flesh, many years ago.
The American NSAs website also has some high quality podcasts at:
http://www.bahai.us/podcast?page=1
Check out the second to the last of the featured podcasts, which includes an entire symphonic composition on the Writings. I am listening to it right now.
Another person who has commented several times is a woman who uses the moniker "Baquia," and runs the notorious website "Bahairants.com". She welcomed the Badi' blog onto Bahaisonline by saying something she evidently has to say to every Baha'i she meets: "I hope you realize that loyal and critical are not mutually exclusive." Hmm. It seems to me that a good argument could be made that they in fact are mutually exclusive, maybe not administratively but mostly from a mystical point of view. Recall what Baha'u'llah says at the start of the Tablet of the Seeker, that an idle word can chase out the spirit for good, how much more words meant to hurt.
Looking over Baquia's "Baha'i rants" site I wonder about her relationship to the Baha'i Faith. I am reminded of a long term but very unhappy marriage. You can say that the parties are loyal and love each other, but their arguments and verbal abuse belie the fact. They regularly wake up the neighborhood with their rants and insults. Even if they are loyal to one another, a relationship racked by arguments, criticism and hard words degrades into abuse, and that destroys the happiness of all concerned, especially the children.
I am reminded of how the Master, a religious leader, openly declared that when a religion promotes hate, it is better not to have such a religion. Ditto for relationships gone sour. And marriage; and faith. When there is an atmosphere of harsh criticism to one's Faith, your own faith may hold, your loyalty may seem strong for now, but at best it will remain sterile. Even if it does bear fruit the offspring must be scarred for life by the habit of using words as weapons.
As Baha'u'llah says, courtesy is the king of virtues, and if we cannot speak with common civility to our nearest and dearest, what kind of abusers are we? Myself, I have been always very conscious of how I speak to strangers. When I speak nicely to someone I have an interest in being nice to I think: "Am I being more lovey-dovey with this stranger than I am with my wife and children?" If so, I brand myself with hypocrisy. I take pause, and make a special effort to use more courtesy with them than with any mere passing acquaintance I happen to like.
The same courtesy mandate applies for our fellow believers. They are like family, or they should be. And by family, I do not mean dysfunctional family. Are the institutions an exception? No, Abdu'l-Baha said that bad as it is to impugn an individual, it is far worse to blacken an institution, which stands for many people. Think about it, Baquia.
Baquia intervened directly when I indulged in some bitter sarcasm. I wrote:
"Here is a shocker, especially for anybody who has even heard of the Middle East: the BIC calls for "the United Nations to affirm unequivocally an individual's right to change his or her religion under international law." Yeah, right. Let us say the UN does adopt this resolution and it transpires that it was the Baha'is who suggested it. The next thing that will happen is that a Baha'i from anywhere in the world will be able to fly to just about anywhere in the Middle East and as soon as they get off the plane they will be immediately hoisted onto the shoulders of a grateful population and carried about to cheers and general acclaim. We will be feted and dined and there will be tears of affection in every eye, a feast of wit, reason and soul all around. I can hardly wait to see it happen."
Now I come from a very dysfunctional family and sarcasm and bitter words are no stranger to me, as you can see in the above. But note, my sarcasm here is not directed at the Baha'i International Community, it is directed squarely at the hatred-ridden place we call the "Holy Land." But Baquia in her response, directed her habitual sardonic attitude over to her favorite target, the Baha'i institutions, in this case the BIC.
"Sometimes I really wonder what the people over at the BIC are smoking. Do they realize that one more UN resolution or 'unequivocal' right is not the answer when countries in the ME and elsewhere right now do not even enforce the declaration of human rights? What makes them think that by adding one more they will somehow miraculously enforce it? And have these people absolutely no idea that the ME is populated by a lot of Muslims? You know, the religion which considers apostasy a sin punishable by death? Helloooo? Why don't they just suggest that "the United Nations to affirm unequivocally an individual's right to" wear nothing but his or her thong "under international law."? That has about the same chance under Islamic culture and law as the abolition of apostasy. I shudder to imagine how much of the precious funds of the Faith are wasted on this bunch of ignorant fools to put out such drivel."
Now we have to assume that the BIC does nothing without the express knowledge and consent of the UHJ. Insofar as that is true, they are divinely guided when they call for an explicit declaration of the right to change your religion. Far from being drivel, this is a serious, momentous declaration that you or I, as Baha'is, may have to give our lives for at any time. Remember, the House itself is in the center of that cauldron of hatred, and it doubtless took a lot of personal courage for every member of that body to make that decision.
Ignorance?
Faith is not ignorance. Faith is conscious knowledge followed by action. They have acted on our behalf and we, new denizens of an era that the Guardian called the Age of Responsibility, must stand by this stand of conscience. The right to convert is a right every bit as sacred as the right of free speech that we so often abuse and thus prove our own unworthiness of being free. We must rise up to a loyalty that wipes out criticism with pure soul power. Forgive me, God, but I lashed out with sarcasm at the hate mongers when I should have born it with the exemplary longanimity of the martyrs.
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