Century of Light Part 6

In conformity with this guidance from the pen of the Centre of the Covenant, Shoghi Effendi remained silent, leaving the question of his successor or successors in the hands of the Body alone authorized to determine the matter. Five months after it came into existence, the Universal House of Justice clarified the issue in a message dated 6 October 1963 to all National Spiritual a.s.semblies:

After prayerful and careful study of the Holy Texts ... and after prolonged consideration ... the Universal House of Justice finds that there is no way to appoint or to legislate to make it possible to appoint a second Guardian to succeed Shoghi Effendi.(106)

In embarking on a mission for which history supplied him with no precedent, Shoghi Effendi could look nowhere but to the Writings of the Founders of the Faith and the example of the Master for the guidance his work required. No body of advisors could help him determine the meaning of the Texts he was called on to interpret for a Baha'i community that had placed its whole trust in him. Although he read widely the published works of historians, economists and political thinkers, such research could do no more than supply raw materials that his inspired vision of the Cause must then organize. The confidence and courage required in mobilizing a heterogeneous community of believers to undertake tasks that were, by any objective criteria, far beyond their capacities, could be found only in the spiritual resources of his own heart. No dispa.s.sionate observer of the twentieth century, however sceptical about the claims of religion he or she may be, can fail to acknowledge that the integrity with which a young man in his early twenties accepted so awesome a responsibility-and the magnitude of the victory he won-are evidences of an immense spiritual power inherent in the Cause he championed.

To acknowledge all this is to recognize that the capacities with which the Covenant had endowed the Guardians.h.i.+p were not a form of magic. Their successful exercise entailed, as Ru?iyyih _Kh_anum has movingly described, a never-ending process of testing, evaluation, and refinement. One is awed by the precision with which Shoghi Effendi a.n.a.lyzed political and social processes in the early stages of their development, and the mastery with which his mind encompa.s.sed a kaleidoscope of events, both current and historical, relating their implications to the unfolding Will of Providence. That this work of the intellect was carried out on a level far above the one on which the human mind customarily operates did not make the effort any the less real or stressful. Rather, given the insight into human nature and human motivation that was an inseparable feature of the inst.i.tution Shoghi Effendi represented, the opposite was the case.(107)

In the perspective of the more than forty years since Shoghi Effendi's pa.s.sing, the long-term significance of his work in the evolution of the Administrative Order has begun to emerge with brilliant clarity. Had circ.u.mstances been different, the Master's Will and Testament had provided for the possibility that one or more successors might have followed in the inst.i.tution Shoghi Effendi embodied. We obviously cannot penetrate the mind of G.o.d. What is clear and undeniable, however, is that, through his interpretive authority, the structure of the Administrative Order, as well as the course that its future development will pursue, have been permanently fixed by Shoghi Effendi's fulfilment-in every least respect and to the fullest extent imaginable-of the mandate laid on him by the Master. Equally clear and undeniable is the fact that both structure and course represent the Will of G.o.d.

VIII

As Shoghi Effendi had prophetically warned, forces undermining inherited systems and convictions of every kind were continuing to advance in tandem with the integrating processes at work in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that the euphoria induced by the restoration of peace in both Europe and the Orient proved to be of the briefest duration. Hardly had hostilities ended than the ideological divisions between Marxism and liberal democracy burst out into attempts to secure dominance between the respective blocs of nations they inspired. The phenomenon of "Cold War", in which the struggle for advantage stopped just short of military conflict, emerged as the prevailing political paradigm of the next several decades.

The threat posed by a new crisis in the international order was heightened by breakthroughs in nuclear technology and the success of both blocs of nations in equipping themselves with an ever-growing array of weapons of ma.s.s destruction. The horrific images of Hiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki had awakened humanity to the appalling possibility that a series of relatively minor mishaps, as uncalculated as the process set in motion by the 1914 incident in Sarajevo, might this time lead to the annihilation of a considerable portion of the world's population and leave large areas of the globe uninhabitable. For Baha'is, the prospect could only bring vividly to mind the sombre warning uttered by Baha'u'llah decades earlier: "Strange and astonis.h.i.+ng things exist in the earth but they are hidden from the minds and the understanding of men. These things are capable of changing the whole atmosphere of the earth and their contamination would prove lethal."(108)

By far the greatest tragedy resulting from this latest contest for world domination was the blight that it cast over the hopes with which formerly subject peoples had welcomed the opportunity they believed they had been given to build a new life of their own devising. The obstinate determination of some of the surviving colonial powers to suppress such hopes, though doomed to failure in the eyes of any objective observer, had left the urge for liberation in many countries with no recourse but to a.s.sume the character of revolutionary struggle. By 1960, such movements, which had already been a feature of the political landscape during the earlier decades of the century, were coming to represent the princ.i.p.al form of indigenous political activity in most subject nations.

Since the driving force of colonialism itself was economic exploitation, it was perhaps inevitable that most movements of liberation a.s.sumed a broadly socialistic ideological cast. Within only a few short years, these circ.u.mstances had created a fertile ground for exploitation by the world's superpowers. For the Soviet Union, the situation seemed to offer an opportunity to induce a s.h.i.+ft in the existing alignment of nations by gaining a preponderating influence in what was by now beginning to be called the "Third World". The response of the West-wherever development aid failed to retain the loyalties of recipient populations-was to resort to the encouragement and arming of a wide variety of authoritarian regimes.

As outside forces manipulated new governments, attention was increasingly diverted from an objective consideration of developmental needs to ideological and political struggles that bore little or no relation to social or economic reality. The results were uniformly devastating.

Economic bankruptcy, gross violations of human rights, the breakdown of civil administration and the rise of opportunistic elites who saw in the suffering of their countries only openings for self-enrichment-such was the heartbreaking fate that engulfed one after another of the new nations who, only short years before, had begun life with such great promise.

Inspiring these political, social and economic crises was the inexorable rise and consolidation of a disease of the human soul infinitely more destructive than any of its specific manifestations. Its triumph marked a new and ominous stage in the process of social and spiritual degeneration that Shoghi Effendi had identified. Fathered by nineteenth century European thought, acquiring enormous influence through the achievements of American capitalist culture, and endowed by Marxism with the counterfeit credibility peculiar to that system, materialism emerged full-blown in the second half of the twentieth century as a kind of universal religion claiming absolute authority in both the personal and social life of humankind. Its creed was simplicity itself. Reality-including human reality and the process by which it evolves-is essentially material in nature. The goal of human life is, or ought to be, the satisfaction of material needs and wants. Society exists to facilitate this quest, and the collective concern of humankind should be an ongoing refinement of the system, aimed at rendering it ever more efficient in carrying out its a.s.signed task.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, impulses to devise and promote any formal materialistic belief system disappeared. Nor would any useful purpose have been served by such efforts, as materialism was soon facing no significant challenge in most parts of the world. Religion, where not simply driven back into fanaticism and unthinking rejection of progress, became progressively reduced to a kind of personal preference, a predilection, a pursuit designed to satisfy spiritual and emotional needs of the individual. The sense of historical mission that had defined the major Faiths learned to content itself with providing religious endors.e.m.e.nt for campaigns of social change carried on by secular movements. The academic world, once the scene of great exploits of the mind and spirit, settled into the role of a kind of scholastic industry preoccupied with tending its machinery of dissertations, symposia, publication credits and grants.

Whether as world-view or simple appet.i.te, materialism's effect is to leach out of human motivation-and even interest-the spiritual impulses that distinguish the rational soul. "For self-love," 'Abdu'l-Baha has said, "is kneaded into the very clay of man, and it is not possible that, without any hope of a substantial reward, he should neglect his own present material good."(109) In the absence of conviction about the spiritual nature of reality and the fulfilment it alone offers, it is not surprising to find at the very heart of the current crisis of civilization a cult of individualism that increasingly admits of no restraint and that elevates acquisition and personal advancement to the status of major cultural values. The resulting atomization of society has marked a new stage in the process of disintegration about which the writings of Shoghi Effendi speak so urgently.

To accept willingly the rupture of one after another strand of the moral fabric that guides and disciplines individual life in any social system, is a self-defeating approach to reality. If leaders of thought were to be candid in their a.s.sessment of the evidence readily available, it is here that one would find the root cause of such apparently unrelated problems as the pollution of the environment, economic dislocation, ethnic violence, spreading public apathy, the ma.s.sive increase in crime, and epidemics that ravage whole populations. However important the application of legal, sociological or technological expertise to such issues undoubtedly is, it would be unrealistic to imagine that efforts of this kind will produce any significant recovery without a fundamental change of moral consciousness and behaviour.

What the Baha'i world accomplished during those same years acquires an added brilliancy against the background of this darkened horizon. It is impossible to exaggerate the significance of the achievement that brought the Universal House of Justice into existence. For some six thousand years humanity has experimented with an almost unlimited variety of methods for collective decision-making. From the vantage point of the twentieth century, the political history of the world presents a constantly s.h.i.+fting scene in which there was no possibility that was not seized upon by human ingenuity. Systems based on principles as different as theocracy, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, republic, democracy and near anarchy have proliferated freely, along with innovations without end that have sought to combine various desirable features of these possibilities.

Although most of the options have lent themselves to abuses of one kind or another, the great majority have no doubt contributed in varying degrees to fulfilling hopes of those whose interests they purportedly served.

During this long evolutionary process, as ever larger and more diverse populations came under the control of one or another system of government, the temptation of universal empire repeatedly seized the imaginations of the Caesars and Napoleons directing such expansion. The resulting series of calamitous failures that have lent history so much of its ability to both fascinate and appal, would seem to provide persuasive evidence that the realization of the ambition lies beyond the reach of any human agency, no matter how great the resources available to it or how firm its confidence in the genius of its particular culture.

Yet, the unification of humankind under a system of governance that can release the full potentialities latent in human nature, and allow their expression in programmes for the benefit of all, is clearly the next stage in the evolution of civilization. The physical unification of the planet in our time and the awakening aspirations of the ma.s.s of its inhabitants have at last produced the conditions that permit achievement of the ideal, although in a manner far different from that imagined by imperial dreamers of the past. To this effort the governments of the world have contributed the founding of the United Nations Organization, with all its great blessings, all its regrettable shortcomings.

Somewhere ahead lie the further great changes that will eventually impel acceptance of the principle of world government itself. The United Nations does not possess such a mandate, nor is there anything in the current discourse of political leaders that seriously envisions so radical a restructuring of the administration of the affairs of the planet. That it will come about in due course Baha'u'llah has made unmistakably clear.

That yet greater suffering and disillusionment will be required to impel humanity to this great leap forward appears, alas, equally clear. Its establishment will require national governments and other centres of power to surrender to international determination, unconditionally and irreversibly, the full measure of overriding authority implicit in the word "government".

This is the context in which Baha'is must strive to appreciate the unique victory that the Cause won in 1963, and which has consolidated itself over the years since then. A full understanding of its meaning is beyond the reach of the present and perhaps of the next several generations of believers. To the extent that a Baha'i does grasp it, he or she will hold nothing back in a determination to serve its unfolding purpose.

The process leading to the election of the Universal House of Justice-made possible by the successful completion of the three initial stages of the Master's Divine Plan under the leaders.h.i.+p of Shoghi Effendi-very likely const.i.tuted history's first global democratic election. Each of the successive elections since then has been carried out by an ever broader and more diverse body of the community's chosen delegates, a development that has now reached the point that it incontestably represents the will of a cross-section of the entire human race. There is nothing in existence-nothing indeed envisioned by any group of people -that in any way resembles this achievement.

When one considers, further, the spiritual atmosphere that pervades Baha'i elections and the principled conduct called for in even their simplest operations, one is humbled by a much greater awareness. In the raising up of the supreme governing inst.i.tution of our Faith, one is witnessing a striving to the utmost of human capacity to win the good pleasure of G.o.d, a united and ardent determination that nothing whatever, in either cultural conditioning or the promptings of personal desire, should be allowed to stain the purity of this ultimate collective act. Nothing beyond this lies within human power. By its action, humanity has done literally everything of which it is capable, and G.o.d, in accepting this consecrated effort on the part of those who have embraced His Cause, endows the inst.i.tution thus brought into existence with those powers promised to it in the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Little wonder that 'Abdu'l-Baha foresaw in the process leading up to the culminating historical moment reached in 1963, the centenary of Baha'u'llah's declaration of His mission, the fulfilment of the vision of the prophet Daniel, "Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh unto the thousand, three hundred and five and thirty days." In the Master's words:

For according to this calculation a century will have elapsed from the dawn of the Sun of Truth, then will the teachings of G.o.d be firmly established upon the earth, and the Divine Light shall flood the world from the East even unto the West. Then, on this day, will the faithful rejoice!(110)

With the establishment of the Universal House of Justice, the second of the two successor inst.i.tutions named by 'Abdu'l-Baha as the guarantors of the integrity of the Cause had emerged. The vast body of the Guardian's writings and the pattern of administrative life he had created and which were imprinted indelibly in Baha'i consciousness, had endowed the Baha'i world with the means to ensure universal agreement about the intent of the Revelation of G.o.d. In the Universal House of Justice it now also possessed the ultimate authority conceived by Baha'u'llah for the exercise of the decision-making functions of the Administrative Order. As the Will and Testament explains, the two inst.i.tutions share jointly in the Divine promise of unfailing guidance:

The sacred and youthful branch, the guardian of the Cause of G.o.d as well as the Universal House of Justice, to be universally elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the Abha Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of His Holiness, the Exalted One (may my life be offered up for them both). Whatsoever they decide is of G.o.d.(111)

The relations.h.i.+p between these two centres of authority, Shoghi Effendi further explained, is a complementary one, in which some functions are shared in common and others specialized for one or other of the two inst.i.tutions. Nevertheless, he was at pains to emphasize:

It must be ... clearly understood by every believer that the inst.i.tution of Guardians.h.i.+p does not under any circ.u.mstances abrogate, or even in the slightest degree detract from, the powers granted to the Universal House of Justice by Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and repeatedly and solemnly confirmed by 'Abdu'l-Baha in His Will. It does not const.i.tute in any manner a contradiction to the Will and Writings of Baha'u'llah, nor does it nullify any of His revealed instructions.(112)

Realization of the uniqueness of what Baha'u'llah has brought into being opens the imagination to the contribution that the Cause can make to the unification of humankind and the building of a global society. The immediate responsibility of establis.h.i.+ng world government rests on the shoulders of the nation-states. What the Baha'i community is called on to do, at this stage in humanity's social and political evolution, is to contribute by every means in its power to the creation of conditions that will encourage and facilitate this enormously demanding undertaking. In the same way that Baha'u'llah a.s.sured the monarchs of His day that "It is not Our wish to lay hands on your kingdoms",(113) so the Baha'i community has no political agenda, abstains from all involvement in partisan activity, and accepts unreservedly the authority of civil government in public affairs. Whatever concern Baha'is may have about current conditions or about the needs of their own members is expressed through const.i.tutional channels.

The power that the Cause possesses to influence the course of history thus lies not only in the spiritual potency of its message but in the example it provides. "So powerful is the light of unity," Baha'u'llah a.s.serts, "that it can illuminate the whole earth."(114) The oneness of humankind embodied in the Faith represents, as Shoghi Effendi emphasized, "no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope". The organic unity of the body of believers-and the Administrative Order that makes it possible-are evidences of what Shoghi Effendi termed "the society-building power which their Faith possesses."(115) As the Cause expands and the capacities latent in its Administrative Order become ever more apparent, it will increasingly attract the attention of leaders of thought, inspiring progressive minds with confidence that their ideals are ultimately attainable. In Shoghi Effendi's words:

Leaders of religion, exponents of political theories, governors of human inst.i.tutions, who at present are witnessing with perplexity and dismay the bankruptcy of their ideas, and the disintegration of their handiwork, would do well to turn their gaze to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, and to meditate upon the World Order which, lying enshrined in His teachings, is slowly and imperceptibly rising amid the welter and chaos of present-day civilization.(116)

Such an examination will focus attention on the power that has made it possible for Baha'i unity to be achieved, consolidated and maintained.

"The light of men," Baha'u'llah says, "is Justice." Its purpose, He adds, "is the appearance of unity among men. The ocean of divine wisdom surgeth within this exalted word".(117) The designation "Houses of Justice" given to the inst.i.tutions that will govern the World Order He conceived, at local, national and international levels, reflects the centrality of this principle in the teachings of the Revelation and the life of the Cause. As the Baha'i community becomes an increasingly familiar partic.i.p.ant in the life of society, its experience will offer ever more encouraging evidence of this crucial law in healing the countless ills which, in the final a.n.a.lysis, are the consequences of the disunity afflicting the human family. "Know thou, of a truth," Baha'u'llah explains, "these great oppressions that have befallen the world are preparing it for the advent of the Most Great Justice."(118) Clearly, that culminating stage in the evolution of human society will take place in a world very different from the one we know today.

IX

The immediate effect of the winning of the Ten Year Crusade and the establishment of the Universal House of Justice was to give a powerful impetus to the advance of the Cause. This time the progress-which affected virtually every aspect of Baha'i life-took the form of long-range developments that are best appreciated when the entire period since 1963 is viewed as a whole. During these crucial thirty-seven years the work proceeded rapidly forward along two parallel tracks: the expansion and consolidation of the Baha'i community itself and, along with it, a dramatic rise in the influence the Faith came to exercise in the life of society. While the range of Baha'i activities greatly diversified, most such efforts tended to contribute directly to one or other of the two main developments.

A decision taken by the House of Justice at an early point in the period proved crucial to all aspects of both teaching and administrative development. Realization that there was no successor to Shoghi Effendi brought with it recognition that neither would the appointment of new Hands of the Cause be any longer possible. How essential the functions of this inst.i.tution are to the progress of the Faith had been demonstrated with unforgettable force during the anxious six years between 1957 and 1963. Accordingly, in pursuance of the mandate authorizing it to bring into existence new Baha'i inst.i.tutions,(119) as the needs of the Cause require, the House of Justice created, in June 1968, the Continental Boards of Counsellors. Empowered to extend into the future the functions of the Hands of the Cause for the protection and propagation of the Faith, the new inst.i.tution a.s.sumed responsibility for guiding the work of the already existing Auxiliary Boards and joined National a.s.semblies in shouldering responsibilities for the advancement of the Faith. The great victories celebrated at the end of the Nine Year Plan in 1973, splendid in themselves, reflected the extraordinary ease with which the new administrative agency had taken up its duties and the eagerness with which it had been welcomed by believers and a.s.semblies alike. The moment was marked by another major development of the Administrative Order, the creation of the International Teaching Centre, the Body that would carry into the future certain of the responsibilities performed by the group of "Hands of the Cause Residing in the Holy Land", and from this point on coordinate the work of the Boards of Counsellors around the world.

Envisioning the course that the growth of the Cause would follow, Shoghi Effendi had written of "the launching of worldwide enterprises destined to be embarked upon, in future epochs of that same [Formative] Age, by the Universal House of Justice, that will symbolize the unity and coordinate and unify the activities of ... National a.s.semblies."(120) These global undertakings began in 1964 with the Nine Year Plan, to be followed by a Five Year Plan (1974), a Seven Year Plan (1979), a Six Year Plan (1986), a Three Year Plan (1993), a Four Year Plan (1996), and a Twelve Month Plan that ended the century. The s.h.i.+fts in emphasis that distinguished these successive endeavours from one another provide a useful index to the growth that the Cause was experiencing in these decades and the new opportunities and challenges that this growth produced. Far more important than the differences amongst them, however, is the fact that the activities called for in each Plan were extensions of initiatives which had been set in motion by Shoghi Effendi, who in turn had seized up and elaborated strands woven by the Faith's Founders-the training of Spiritual a.s.semblies; the translation, production and distribution of literature; the encouragement of universal partic.i.p.ation by the friends; attention to the spiritual enrichment of Baha'i life; efforts toward the involvement of the Baha'i community in the life of society; the strengthening of Baha'i family life; and the education of children and youth. While these various processes will continue indefinitely to unfold new possibilities, the fact that each originated in the creative impulse of the Revelation itself lends to everything the Baha'i community does a unifying force that is both the secret and the guarantee of its ultimate success.

The first two decades of the process were one of the most enriching periods that the Baha'i community has experienced. Within a remarkably short period of time, the number of Local Spiritual a.s.semblies multiplied and the ethnic and cultural diversity of the members.h.i.+p became an ever more distinctive feature of Baha'i life. Although the breakdown of society was creating problems for Baha'i administrative inst.i.tutions, a related effect was to generate a greatly increased interest in the message of the Cause. At the outset, the community was introduced to the challenge of "teaching the ma.s.ses". By 1967, it was being called on "to launch, on a global scale and to every stratum of human society, an enduring and intensive proclamation of the healing message that the Promised One has come...."(121)

As believers from urban centres set out on sustained campaigns to reach the ma.s.s of the world's peoples living in villages and rural areas, they encountered a receptivity to Baha'u'llah's message far beyond anything they had imagined possible. While the response usually took forms very different from the ones with which the teachers had been familiar, the new declarants were eagerly welcomed. Tens of thousands of new Baha'is poured into the Cause throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, often representing the greater part of whole rural villages. The 1960s and 1970s were heady days for a Baha'i community most of whose growth outside of Iran had been slow and measured. To the friends in the Pacific went the great distinction of attracting into the Cause the first Head of State, His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II of Samoa, a distinction for which only future events will provide an adequate frame.

At the heart of the development, as has been the case in the life of the Cause from the outset, was the commitment made by the individual believer.

Already, during the ministry of Shoghi Effendi, far-sighted persons had taken the initiative to reach indigenous populations in such countries as Uganda, Bolivia and Indonesia. During the Nine Year Plan, ever larger numbers of such teachers were drawn into the work, particularly in India, several countries in Africa, and most regions of Latin America, as well as in islands of the Pacific, Alaska and among the native peoples of Canada and the rural black population of the southern United States. Pioneering brought vital support to the work, encouraging the emergence of groups of teachers among the indigenous believers themselves.

Even so, it soon became apparent that individual initiative alone, however inspired and energetic, could not respond adequately to the opportunities opening up. The result was to launch Baha'i communities on a wide range of collective teaching and proclamation projects recalling the heroic days of the dawn-breakers. Teams of ardent teachers found that it was now possible to introduce the message of the Faith not merely to a succession of inquirers, but to entire groups and even whole communities. The tens of thousands became hundreds of thousands. The Faith's growth meant that members of Spiritual a.s.semblies, whose experience had been limited to confirming the understanding of the Faith of individual applicants raised in cultures of doubt or religious fanaticism, had to adjust to expressions of belief on the part of whole groups of people to whom religious awareness and response were normal features of daily life.

No segment of the community made a more energetic or significant contribution to this dramatic process of growth than did Baha'i youth. In their exploits during these crucial decades-as, indeed, throughout the entire history of the past one hundred and fifty years-one is reminded again and again that the great majority of the band of heroes who launched the Cause on its course in the middle years of the nineteenth century were all of them young people. The Bab Himself declared His mission when He was twenty-five years old, and Anis, who attained the imperishable glory of dying with his Lord, was only a youth. Quddus responded to the Revelation at the age of twenty-two. Zaynab, whose age was never recorded, was a very young woman. _Sh_ay_kh_ 'Ali, so greatly cherished by both Quddus and Mulla ?usayn, was martyred at the age of twenty, while Mu?ammad-i-Baqir-Naq_sh_ laid down his life when he was only fourteen.

?ahirih was in her twenties when she embraced the Bab's Cause.

Following in the path that these extraordinary figures had opened, thousands of young Baha'is arose in subsequent years to proclaim the message of the Faith throughout all five continents and the scattered islands of the globe. As an international youth culture began to emerge in society during the late nineteen sixties and seventies, believers with talent in music, drama and the arts demonstrated something of what Shoghi Effendi had meant when he pointed out: "That day will the Cause spread like wildfire when its spirit and teachings are presented on the stage or in art and literature...."(122) The spirit of zeal and enthusiasm characteristic of youth has also provided an ongoing challenge to the general body of the community to explore ever more audaciously the revolutionary social implications of Baha'u'llah's teachings.