My Ruhi Thing

My Thing about the Ruhi Thing

By John Taylor; 2007 May 27

Strange that with such emphasis by the central institutions of the Faith on the series of study programs set up and organized by the Ruhi Institute, that it has so little promotion and advertising. By advertising I do not mean commercials on television, just some sort of easily accessible introduction, either a short promo or even an inspirational speaker, anything to gently encourage Baha'is and their friends to dip in their feet. I often mention this idea to those I meet who are involved in the Administration, and all agree that there is need. I thought of making something up myself, perhaps a slide presentation with photos and anecdotes of Ruhi participants. A classified advertisement appeared in the back of a recent Baha'i Canada asking for personal stories about Ruhi Study Circles. I replied to it by email, saying that I was thinking of making up a presentation on Ruhi and asking them to share any stories that are sent in to them. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of calling it Ruhi; evidently calling a spade a spade is a no-no. Here is the reply I got,

 Dear Friend,

 Thank you for your email message of 15 May 2007 regarding stories you are requesting to accompany a slide presentation you are preparing. We would encourage you to use some of the many excellent stories that now have been gathered regularly by the International Teaching Centre in the newsletter "Reflections on Growth", the newsletter from the Baha'i Council of Ontario "Letter of Learning", and the "Spotlight" section of Baha'i Canada.

 We would also like to make a point about terminology. Sharing "stories about Ruhi" is not quite accurate, and will sound alien to any person not familiar with Baha'i community life. The curriculum that is currently used in the world for the purposes of human resource development is created by the Ruhi Institute. But apart from that, it is more accurate simply to refer to study circles - just as we would not talk about Furutan children's classes or Badi junior youth groups. This is even more important if one considers that the purpose of the sequence of institute courses is to build up and integrate a spiritual community life, and can therefore not be isolated from other activities such as children's classes, junior youth groups, devotional meetings, and home visits.

 With loving Baha'i greetings, Blah, Blah, Blah...

 On the other hand, calling them study circles seems too vague to be useful. If I held a study circle on, say, the Kitab-i-Iqan, it would not be counted by the statistical officers now set up in every cluster. It must be a study circle organized by an approved tutor who uses the strict Ruhi-approved curriculum, or it does not count. So in my opinion calling it "study circles" to non-Baha'is borders on dishonesty. I have therefore reconsidered the idea of an inspirational talk. If there is difficulty even naming it, fuggedaboutit, I cannot even inspire myself, much less others. Do Christians have this problem with their Alpha Program? Are they not allowed to call it "Alpha"? Come to think of it, the Alpha program, run by a completely different religion, still qualifies as a "study circle." I wonder if my statistical officer will count them. Maybe we should abolish the word "fireside" too. It might seem strange to non-Baha'is, most of whom these days have never heard of FDR and his "fireside talks." Remember the advice of Confucius, one's first step always is to get the names right, otherwise you are in for a world of trouble.

 I discern grave problems with our teaching work, and our ambivalence about Ruhi is only part of it. I often attend Mrs. Javid's fireside (probably the largest regular event like that in Canada) on Wednesdays and whereas ten years ago there was a mix of ages among the contacts present, now I find that at fifty years old I am often the youngest person there. We are not only not reaching the younger audience; we are not coming anywhere close.

 Not that it is entirely our fault, mind you. The other night I was walking home and happened to overhear behind me a long stretch of conversation among a group of adolescent boys. Their whole concern was the length of their penises. They were speculating about how long the penis of an unnamed colleague was. "He said that the length of a person's penis does not matter, so that probably means that his penis is short." That was their sole concern. I thought after a few minutes they might veer off to some other topic, but no. It was clear that anybody among this group who tries to discuss something else or downplay the importance of penile length is ostracized and branded as lacking in virility because he is on the short end of the spectrum. Jaize, among women at least they can see the size of each others' breasts through their clothes and are not forced to speculate endlessly. In my younger days we had some pretty raunchy conversations with my peers, but never do I recall this sort of one-upmanship, or in fact any sort of comparisons at all.

 I felt like turning around and saying to them, "If you want to know how long his penis is, just look at how tall he is. Length of the penis tends to be proportional to the rest of the body, like the length of your arms or legs." But I did not do that; I am of average height and they were unusually tall. My saying that would just have proven their point, denials only prove how short a man's penis really is. Talk about viral advertising! Some companies find it in their interest to spread a solution to a non-existent problem, and suddenly the entire culture of youth is corrupted. Corrupted, that is, worse than it already was corrupted.

 What was I talking about? Oh yes, teaching. Here is what I think of Ruhi, or rather study circles, or whatever they are. From the point of view of an educated person living in the developed world, these institutes come as a slap in the face. If they were designed to slap us in the face, they could not do a better job. We are used to having everything new being specifically designed for us, and to hell with the rest of the world. Not that stuff designed for us does us much good, since it is always exploitative. We are used to viral attacks like the advertisements for penile lengtheners that you see everywhere. But Ruhi comes out of the Third World, and why not? The poor majority of the human race, the so-called "Third World" has been taking the lead in the teaching work of the Faith for several decades. Only there has there been anything like mass entry. It only makes sense, therefore, that the most successful and advanced sector should design the program. They are the only ones who know anything about teaching the masses, so we must humbly turn the other cheek and accept their lead.

 That being said, in my opinion grave mistakes are being made in how Ruhi is being adapted for world consumption. And not just nominal slips, like leaving open the question of what to call it.

 First of all, copyright is a major block. The Ruhi Institute wished to protect the integrity of what they were doing, so everything is protected by strict copyright. Ten years ago that would have been the only way to do it, but not now. Now, there are other choices.

 Whoever is responsible should carefully look into some new terms, like Wiki and the Creative Commons. Using these more flexible digital means of distribution, the sting would be taken out of the Ruhi slap to the face. The mistakes and slips in the Ruhi books are so embarrassingly frequent that a few years ago I started to list them and try to correct them here on the Badi' list. After they piled up by the hundreds I finally had to give up. I was utterly overwhelmed.

 Lately I read that a more bold and learned scholar of the Faith than myself, Susan Maneck, actually approached the Ruhi Institute with her corrections and was told that because they are being translated into hundreds of languages, no more changes are being made to the English text. It is all set in stone. If the whole deal were put on a Wiki in the first place, the mistakes could be ironed out rapidly, systematically and dynamically. As it is, everything is set in stone because of the translation problem.

 For heaven's sakes, we are doing everything the same way as if we were living in the 19th Century. Even study circles were not new in the 19th Century, but if they work, more power to them. The problem is in the distribution method, printed booklets. The Wikipedia should be the model. It deals in hundreds of languages; it is dynamically corrected and updated by anybody, while at the same time a select few have the final say about what stays. Best of all, Wiki is putting to work the untapped resources of amateur introverts everywhere, the very target audience of the Ruhi program, at least in this part of the world. Why is the Ruhi institute lagging behind on this stellar example?

 Next time I will talk some more about how Ruhi would have to be changed in order to make me into the enthusiastic promoter that I would love to be.