Locating EP

Locating the Elimination of Prejudice

By John Taylor; 2009 June 04, Azamat 18, 166 BE

From a physical viewpoint, farming, converting sunlight into food, is the fundamental profession. Without farming, civilization would die out, along with all but a tiny number of hardscrabble survivors. As soon as agriculture was born, two basic needs immediately became apparent, growth and protection. Farmers needed to grow food but just as importantly, they had to protect crops from all manner of threats. Natural attacks are challenging to defend against, but nothing can compare with human predation. An invading army with a scorched earth policy leaves no farmers or arable land behind. Only a powerful entity can protect farms, which are spread throughout the countryside and are therefore highly vulnerable to looters and marauders.

The most important protective role of farming was therefore delegated to the largest political federation practicable at the time. Throughout history this protective body grew in size from the village, to city-states and then to nations. Now it is painfully evident that the nation state is inadequate to protect the ecosystem of an entire planet. The protective responsibility of sheltering agriculture is about to be passed on to the ultimate level, that of a world federation. Once dire and immediate external threats, such as war and chaos, are eliminated by a planetary political confederation, subtler dangers undermining unity will emerge into full view. In a similar way, a farmer, once the threat of imminent invasion by looting invaders is removed, can turn his full attention to the many, ever changing threats that nature constantly pits against his crop.

But we should not forget that protection is not just a physical law. Materiality, in fact, is a mere reflection of an underlying, unseen spiritual reality. The principle of protection reflects how God rules the universe. God creates and nurtures, but also furnishes the means of protection for each creature. As humanity grew to maturity, the task of protecting our means of survival gradually passed over from our natural environment to our willed, conscious control, as Jesus' parable of the Watchtower (a high tower for a watchman to protect a farmer's field from looters) and Baha'u'llah's principle of Covenant both demonstrate. The Qu'ran also warns against using the tyrant's divide and conquer technique on the great spiritual farm, divine scripture.

"We will surely punish the schismatics, who have broken up their scriptures into separate parts. By the Lord, We will question them all about their actions." (Q15:90)

Just as farming and all types of agriculture depend upon an underlying foundation of a healthy, diverse ecosystem, so, the Qur'an assures us, divine scripture must be understood holistically. We must apply its wisdom in an organic, unified manner if religion is ever to protect, rather than undermine, human survival. This holistic integrity begins in the soul and spreads through broadening circles of unity, just like the historic growth of political unity did throughout history. Comenius expresses this with great verve in his masterwork, the Panorthosia,

"This means that every man should be a self-contained individual, an undivided whole, and every family and household should constitute one body, and similarly for every city, kingdom, and people. And finally the whole human race, with the whole complex of its affairs and all the choirs of angels, should be one unit under the ONE GOD, who is truly ONE, and ever shall be ONE to all eternity. And to HIM ALONE shall be the praise and the glory for ever and ever, Amen!"(Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 6, para 13, p. 102)

As Comenius points out, the only known way to counteract pride and false, self-serving ideas is to purify mind and heart thoroughly by immersing them in truth, by friendship with the One True God. Such spiritual means as purity, oneness and integrity help eliminate prejudices before they can catch hold. Just as a farmer depends upon the largest political agglomeration possible to protect against the worst danger, so the individual must appeal to the ultimate, the most powerful spiritual Being, God Himself, to do the lion's share of protection.

The Baha'i principle we are now studying, the elimination of prejudice, is the application of this spiritual principle of protection to the intellectual and social realms of human endeavour. Prejudice is a virus that uses satanic power, ego and pride, to divide and conquer. It has always been our greatest threat to security, since without widespread prejudice against out-groups it would be all but impossible for leaders to persuade large numbers of young men to march off to war, especially for dubious or frivolous reasons.

In his talks and tablets, when Abdu'l-Baha went through a representative selection of the Baha'i principles He would usually list that of eliminating prejudice and fanaticism in fifth place. By coincidence, Comenius places his chapter on this topic in the Panorthosia in the sixth of twenty-six chapters. He calls the chapter: "concerning the evils which are powerful barriers to the UNIVERSAL Reform of our Affairs, and how to remove them: and first and foremost the task of ridding our minds of stupidity, careless prejudice, and obstinacy." Next time we will examine what he says there in more detail.

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