Wendi’s Wanders

Big Apple, Small World

I am greatly pleased with the city of New York. Its harbour entrance, its piers, buildings and broad avenues are magnificent and beautiful. Truly, it is a wonderful city. As New York has made such progress in material civilization, I hope that it may also advance spiritually in the Kingdom . . . `Abdu’l-Baha, Bahai writings

I have arrived in New York to attend the 53rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which meets every year to `evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide’. I am here with the Baha’i International Community and the European Baha’i Business Forum, trying to share with governments, UN agencies and other non-governmental organisations, our perspective on gender equality: that it is a matter of justice that responsibilities — at home and at work — are shared between women and men; that it is necessary to change behaviours and practices that keep women unequal and therefore societies unable to reach their potential; that to change behaviours requires not only legislation and social restructuring but also a basic change in attitudes and understanding on the part of all people and their institutions. OK, not a small task but many, many individuals and organisations are in fact promoting these same ideas and the Baha’is work collaboratively with them to make these points to governments and officials.

Tonight there was an Ayyam-i-Ha party in the Bronx. This is the four-day (five in a leap year) of Baha’i holiday that sits within the Baha’i calendar of 19 months of 19 days (=361 +4 = 365) and is set aside for celebrations, charity, gift-giving and sharing that precedes the Baha’i month of fasting. The party was one of those events where, before you go, you think you won’t know anyone but it turns out that if you just talk long enough to enough people you will discover many connections. For example, the hostess was a good friend of my sister. One of her guests was a Chinese from Malaysia, now working the New York, who is an admirer of my husband’s work and also a good friend of a man in Canada whose book we at George Ronald are just publishing. His wife is a Lebanese who is the daughter of the man who translated my book `Understanding the Baha’i Faith’ into Arabic.

We had a great time at the party - where we ate both Italian and Korean `spaghetti’ - and continued to seek connections between us, connections that form the unity that is so important if we are to build a community that is peaceful, just and prosperous and where equality between women and men is a `given’.

Technorati Tags: Bahai, Baha’i, Commission on the Status of Women, Ayyam-i-Ha, Baha’i International Community, Understanding the Baha’i Faith

Trackback URI | Comments RSS