May 16th, 2008
Earth, Wind and Fire: The Road to Hell
O my Lord, remove the veil, scatter this dense cloud on the horizon, extinguish these fires, subdue this flood, in order to stanch the bloodshed as compassion to the widows and mercy to the orphans, that these hurricanes may cease, the thunderbolts be extinguished, the torrents quelled, the land become visible, the souls find composure and the breasts be dilated. And we will thank Thee for Thy abundant favour, O Thou dear! O Thou forgiver! `Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i prayer
This has not been a good year for the planet or the people on it. There has been just one disaster after another. Some problem with home loans in America which most of us knew nothing about has begun a downward spiral for the world’s economy. House prices in Britain, which had risen so sharply that most people were unable to buy houses, have now dropped but the same people who were unable to buy houses at the high price cannot buy them at the lower price because banks won’t lend them the money that last year they were giving away and which drove up housing costs in the first place.
Fuel prices have shot up alarmingly. The cost of fuel has pushed up the cost of food, which has to be driven or flown long distances to reach markets. To solve the problem of an unmet demand for fuel, land for food has been turned over to producing fuel from what we used to eat but now can’t because we are filling our cars with it. Rice crops have failed but the demand has increased because people who used to have no money to buy food now have the money and are, not surprisingly, using it to feed themselves. But this has driven the cost of rice up out of their reach, so before long they will be hungry again.
And if there is no farmland that can be used, we can just cut down a few million acres of tropical forest to plant more fuel crops. The carbon locked in the forest will just disappear into the air, won’t it?
Democracy has fared no better. Elections are no guarantee of a smooth transition of government. If you are already in power and you lose an election you can just hang on by beating up all the people who voted for the other guy.
Alternatively, if you can’t influence people to your point of view any other way, you can always terrorize them by blowing yourself up in a market and taking quite of few of them with you.
Here in Britain, just going to the bakery can be lethal if the people passing by decide it would be fun to stick a knife into you because, really, there is nothing else to do - life is soooo boring. Unless they want to watch a football match on a giant TV screen in the middle of a large city and the screen goes blank just before the kick off. Then they do have something to do - they can run around the host city and smash it up, fight with each other and throw bottles and bricks at the police and at victims already on the ground. For fun.
We who have warm, comfortable homes, electricity, water and TVs feel completely helpless as we watch earth, wind and fire completely overwhelming whole towns and villages, killing hundreds of thousands of people and leaving hundreds of thousands more with nothing. We don’t know how to respond appropriately. We send money to help the relief effort. Then we discover that the leaders of the people devastated by hurricanes and earthquakes don’t want our help - better to let people die than to feed them with foreign food or shelter them in tents provided by strangers! And they certainly don’t want us or our expertise.
These dramatic events are all over our TVs and news services. Thank goodness! It will be a really terrible day when such disasters are so commonplace, so acceptable that they cease to be news.
But there are disasters most of us never hear about. Such a one is beginning in Iran - again.
Yesterday, in Iran, six Baha’is in leadership roles were arrested in dawn raids. A seventh has been detained since March. Their crime? Being Baha’is. Compared to the massive loss of life in Burma and China, compared to the collapse of an entire economy in Zimbabwe, the arrest of a few Bahá’ís in Iran seems unremarkable, certainly not newsworthy.
But consider. An indicator that a famine is approaching is when settled agrarian people become nomadic. At that point there is no famine, nothing to see. Yet the famine is coming. If action is not taken, it will be devastating. An indicator that the persecution of the Bahá’ís is escalating towards devastation is when children are denied education, when senior Baha’is are detained. There may not be much to remark upon now but there will be - and soon - unless such persecution is stopped.
But do we have the will to stop it? One of the worst features of the disasters that have encompassed our world is that they have been compounded by our collective inability to act collectively. We are still divided by country, race, religion, skin colour, class and gender. We fail to deal with each other with justice and humanity. People die in hurricanes but many more die because leaders do not trust the aid workers who could assist those injured or lacking food and water. Earthquakes in poor areas kill thousands because badly constructed buildings fall down on top of them. Marginalized people, whether in New Orleans, Burma, China, Manchester or Iran, are permitted to suffer because the rest of us will not get our act together and work in unity to eliminate hatred, ignorance, poverty, petty-mindedness and prejudice. We can conquer racism, empower women to advance, live more gently, enable good governance to thrive, work with each other rather than against each other - but we don’t. We are concerned, we are frustrated, we send money, we pray - but we don’t unite and use our collective power to deal with these issues.
`All that is necessary’, Edmund Burke said, `for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’ The nothing that we do best is not working in unity.
The Baha’i Faith - that religion whose followers in Iran are locked up because of their beliefs - teaches that while it looks like we are on the road to hell, there is hope for humanity. The teachings of Bahá’u'lláh tell us how to live in justice in the 21st century. Using His teachings, applying the spiritual and social guidance He has provided, Baha’is are learning to work together, to eliminate prejudices, to combat hate, to fight poverty, to build communities of love where no one is marginalized and all individuals are important. Right now, the Baha’is are saying `Join us’. You can do so here.
O ye beloved of God! When the winds blow severely, rains fall fiercely, the lightning flashes, the thunder roars, the bolt descends and storms of trial become severe, grieve not; for after this storm, verily, the divine spring will arrive, the hills and fields will become verdant, the expanses of grain will joyfully wave, the earth will become covered with blossoms, the trees will be clothed with green garments and adorned with blossoms and fruits. Thus blessings become manifest in all countries. `Abdu’l-Baha
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Burma, China, earthquake, persecution of the Baha’is in Iran, human rights, rice shortage, fuel prices
You put the disturbing events in Iran in perspective with this post. As in the cases of China and Burma and the other situations you cite, it is important that the world be prepared to respond vigorously and unceasingly.
Plague, famine, pestilence and death — why do people keep wondering when the really bad stuff will start happening?
I am particularly worried about developments in Iran because the leadership since Ahmadinejad came to power is so much more radical — they seem impervious to outside influence are escalating on all fronts. Everyone nees to pray hard!
Excellent post, Wendi. You have neatly and eloquently highlighted the bind that the peoples of the world find themselves in. Whatever we do to try to make things better often makes things worse. The law of unintended consequences hits us with full force at every turn. And because everything is so tightly connected in this globalizing world, it only takes one ‘domino’ to fall, and everything else goes tumbling with it. I can highly recommend “The Upside of Down” by Thomas Homer-Dixon for those who want to understand the extraordinary peril the human race is in right now.
However, the keys to resolving the world’s problems are available for all to see in the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh. I say ‘keys’ - actually, I should say ‘key’ (singular). And that key? Unity!
How neatly you put the recent arrests of Bahá’ís in Iran in context! Not so long ago I was sitting in the prison cell in Akka where Bahá’u'lláh was confined for just over two years in the 19th century and reflecting on the frustration He must have felt, knowing that He was the One with the key to the salvation of humankind and he had been locked up by those He characterized as blinded by their own arrogance and self-interest.
Wendi:
I applaud your entry. I live in New Orleans, and I am a Baha’i. I was here in the aftermath of Katrina. I watched as an entire city came to a hault. After the flood waters abated - no electricity, no water, no sewer, no trash collection, no cell phone service, no mail. For months.
I watched this “civilization” collapse. I stood in the silence of what was once our busy street and city and strained to hear any activity at all. It was horrid. The familiar had become foreign, the vibrant activity of hundreds of thousands of people was suddenly silenced. The homes were empty. The cars were motionless.
But we stayed. We were offered opportunities to leave (I am a physician and among the most fortunate ones), but we stayed. We were convinced by some “good people” who really believed we could make a difference, who really wanted to save our world. Their tenacity was empowering, their hopefullness inspirational, their ferocious enthusiam to make things better was a wonderment. People went out and made their own street signs. People filled in pot holes with their own asphalt paid for with their own money. People provided goods and services for free. People sacrificed. The hospital where I work fed its entire workforce (more than 1000 people) three meals a day, free, for an ENTIRE YEAR. The hospital rented out the Mariott Hotel to house people who had lost their homes. I could go on.
My point is this - underneath the groups of people distracted by hundreds of television channels and religious affiliation to sports teams and video game players and the bitter and the angry and the disenfranchised and the immature - underneath all of these groups of people are another group of people who will arise and help make all of this better. They are so good. They are so ready.
But they - we - need inspiration. We need to believe. We need to really believe it makes a difference. That we can make a difference. And that it is urgent. This is what I got from your entry. Against the injustices in Iran or the cyclones and hurricanes, we need to be reminded that our contributions will count. That there is a grand plan. I think we can convince a few - maybe many - of the television watchers that they can make news, not just watch it.
I just wish, really wish it doesn’t take a disaster to awaken us. I considered myself a contributor to the betterment of the world. I considered myself faithful. But I really did need the strength of others to remind me to carry on when things looked so hopeless.
I needed faith, Faith. And it WAS faith - Faith - that changed this little world down here. So, I suppose, will it be Faith, magnified to unmeasurable limits, that really might - CAN - change our world. Each of us, standing up, and inspired by Faith, making our move urgently, happily, selflessly. I’ve seen in happen. I want to see more!
be
Wendi, I agree with other comments that this is an excellent post, thoughtful and rousing. and I am also really moved by the comment from B of New Orleans.
Yes, I feel helpless, but after reading this a little less so. Baha’i or not, we must come together. We are a world community.
B from New Orleans, thank you for your deeply moving comment. It really should give us hope for the capacity of human beings to act in extraordinarily self-sacrificing ways when the need is there.
Yes, we definitely need faith and vision. But it really shouldn’t need a disaster to evoke this wonderful spirit.
For those that haven’t acted yet they can still rise in support of a resolution before the House.
see http://bahai.us/house-resolution
On the above page the tell you to go to http://www.house.gov when you know your full zip code.
For supplemental info about the persecutions see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Bahais
Thanks everyone for your comments and insights. People have such amazing capacities for love, strength and unity. Those of you who know me, know that I have a lot of faith in ordinary people to do great things. But they need faith and knowledge and courage to make positive changes that will benefit the whole of humanity. Wendi
[...] Barney Leith has just written a quick update on the arrested Iranian Baha’is I mentioned in my previous post. Check it out, it’s full of goodies. Also new since my last post are these blog posts about the arrests: Where Being Baha’i is A Crime; As if Natural Disasters were not Enough!; and Earth, Wind and Fire: The Road to Hell. [...]