ep and the gam

Elimination of Prejudice in the Great Announcement of Baha'u'llah

By John Taylor; 2009 June 24, Nur 18, 166 BE

In this and the next essay or two I want to look at the origins of the principle of elimination of prejudice in some representative Writings of Baha'u'llah. But first, some general background.

Abdu'l-Baha by His own admission was grilled many times during His stay in America on the question: "What is new about Baha'u'llah's message?" In the last month of His stay He devoted two entire talks to this. In both of these New York addresses, He listed the elimination of prejudice, along with about a dozen other Baha'i principles, as wholly unique to Baha'i, qua religion. He clearly did not intend to say that prejudice goes completely unmentioned in earlier scriptures, only that its removal had not been taken to be a central purpose. There are many so-called "dark sayings" throughout older scriptures that could be and were twisted into excuses for denigrating other beliefs.

While the devil quoting scripture is dangerous enough, the problem of religious prejudice in practice is even worse. Corrupt faith leaders tend to think that they are strengthening their own hand by fomenting hatred for out-groups. The Baha'i principle of eliminating prejudice addresses religious fundamentalism and fanaticism head on. Not only religious but all other forms and combinations of prejudice are condemned, be it national, racial, economic or cultural in origin.

We are reading Andre Brugiroux's account of his hitchhiking voyage around the world. He was audacious enough to cross two war zones, Southeast Asia at the height of the Vietnam war and the Middle East. His grassroots contacts with the people there expose the fact that while both wars -- like all wars -- were outcomes of prejudice, there was a world of difference between their severity. The denizens of Southeast Asia, weakened by language, culture and lack of education, were subject to manipulation by outside interests. Those in the Middle East were systematically indoctrinated by both religion and nationalist politics in the attitudes and language of bigotry. From Brugiroux's account one can easily see why the Middle East remains a hot spot even today, some forty years later, while Vietnam and its neighbours have largely recovered, in spite of the fact that the Vietnam War initially was "hotter" and deadlier.

As in earlier scriptures, Baha'u'llah gave attention to elimination of prejudice as a spiritual principle, especially in His early Writings, for example in the Seven Valleys and the Hidden Words. However it was not until His publicly announced mission that He articulated the broad social principle. The latter is what we are concerned with here.

The Proclamation of Baha'u'llah

For reasons that will become clear, I want to concentrate on a particular section of the first compilation of Baha'u'llah's Writings edited, published and widely distributed by the Universal House of Justice. This is called "The Proclamation of Baha'u'llah."

As we all know, the Universal House of Justice formed in 1963, just before the World Congress in London, the commemoration of the centenary of Baha'u'llah's declaration in the Garden of Ridvan, near Baghdad. Among the first tasks the new institution took upon itself was to oversee the compilation of the English translations by Shoghi Effendi of the Writings of Baha'u'llah. These translations had been made at various points in his life and were distributed throughout many of his published letters and books.

It was urgent to collate and organize what the Guardian regarded as the most salient pronouncements of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith in order, among other reasons, for the House to be certain of what Baha'u'llah had said about its role and purpose. This would enable it to make up a constitution for itself (this document was finally drawn up and adopted in the early 1970's).

Parenthetically, let me say here that I was recently thumbing through the UHJ's constitution and right at the end there was a clause that I had not noticed before. It makes one big difference between this and any other constitution that I have seen. It states that the UHJ's constitution can be amended at any time by  a unilateral decision on its part. As long as the Writings are not compromised, there will never be a need for another individual or institution to approve a change to the UHJ's constitution. Every national constitution I have heard of requires an elaborate process of approval from many levels of government in order to make a change. In the 1980's, in the so-called "Meech Lake Accords," the Prime Minister of Canada tried to amend its new constitution. This required elaborate and unanimous approval by all provincial parliamentarians. The slow process of amendment proved to be extremely tedious, contentious and expensive. Eventually, it failed to pass. No more elaborate procedure than a decision of the House of Justice is required to make major changes to the make-up of the Baha'i Faith.

In any case, as soon as it formed, the House set the goal of completing a partial compilation of the Guardian's translations five years later, in time for the commemoration in 1968 of the hundredth anniversary of Baha'u'llah's the Tablets to the Kings, most of which were originally sent out between 1867 and 1868. This compilation they called "The Proclamation of Baha'u'llah." The House of Justice announced its publication in these words,

"The Centenary campaign has been opened by the Universal House of Justice presenting to one hundred and forty heads of state a compilation of Baha'u'llah's Own proclamation." (Letter addressed to International Conferences, October, 1967)

Baha'is were called upon to distribute Proclamation more widely among not only prominent people, heads of state and leaders of thought, but ordinary people. Many years later much of this material, along with new official translations, was incorporated into the book now known as "The Summons of the Lord of Hosts."

The Proclamation does not follow the order of addressing leaders in the original Surih of Haykal. Instead it starts with a collective declaration to the Kings, continues through perorations to various secular kings and religious leaders, then democratic leaders and those in America, and ends with the section that I am concerned with here, the "Great Announcement to Mankind." This subsection is addressed not to a king or other leader but to the entire human race.

This is not a separate document but a combination of material from the Tablets to the Kings (that is, Summons of the Lord of Hosts), and also includes selections from later Tablets, such as the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Tablet to Maqsud. What unites everything in this subsection is the fact that, with a couple of exceptions, it was addressed to the human race as a whole, not to our leaders. It is therefore highly telling that it is here that Baha'u'llah outlines the principle of Elimination of Prejudice. Upon reflection, this perhaps should not be surprising. While leaders and officials may have a certain, limited power to censor hate literature and to outlaw some blatant pronouncements of prejudice, there is a limit to what legal sanctions can do without suppressing fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression.

In the next installment we will plunge into what Baha'u'llah specifically says in His Great Announcement to Mankind.

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
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