Baha'i International Community Archives

By Maximillian Afnan

Maximillian Afnan is a political theorist and Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research examines the normative principles that underpin the operation of international institutions and the structure of the global order.

A central tenet of the Bahá’í perspective on history is that humanity has reached the point at which a lasting global peace is “not only possible but inevitable.”¹ Yet if peace is indeed inevitable, the path towards it has been neither straightforward nor uninterrupted. The twentieth century witnessed the establishment of unprecedented institutions of international cooperation, accompanied, at certain moments, by shifts in political culture and public consciousness that seemed to signify a new era in international relations. However, from a vantage point a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century, it is clear that the project of building a united and effective global order is far from complete, and indeed in some respects appears to be in reverse. As the Universal House of Justice observes:

For many decades following the second great war of the twentieth century, humanity moved, with fits and starts, toward the promise of a united world. The failure to complete the project of the unification of nations, however, left gaps in relations in which supranational problems could fester and threaten the security and well-being of peoples and states, leading to a recrudescence of prejudice, of divers expressions of factionalism, and of virulent nationalism that are the very negation of Bahá’u’lláh’s message of peace and oneness.²

Within this political and historical context, this article explores two questions. First, why did previous attempts to reach for lasting peace not succeed? Second, what conceptual and moral shifts stand between humanity and this long-cherished goal? If the obstacles to peace were merely technical or institutional, they might have been overcome long ago. The persistence of conflict and division suggests that a deeper transformation is required. What might be among the fundamental adjustments necessary for the establishment of a durable peace?

Reaching for Peace

In a message dated 18 January 2019, the Universal House of Justice comments on the progress towards world peace that has been made over the past century, and analyzes some of the causes of the regressive steps of recent years. In the letter, the House of Justice identifies three moments in which mankind seemed to be “reaching for real, lasting peace, albeit always falling short”: the two periods immediately following the First and Second World Wars, and the post-Cold War period.³ The first moment saw the establishment of the League of Nations after the First World War. This represented the earliest attempt at a global collective security mechanism in history, and was accompanied in the 1920s by treaties and statements from intergovernmental meetings that explicitly rejected war as an instrument of foreign policy—a novel development in international relations at the time.⁴ Tragically, of course, the League of Nations was hampered from birth by the non-participation of the United States, and by the harsh settlement imposed on the defeated powers from the First World War, sowing the seeds of resentment that would ignite a second global conflict two decades later.

The second attempt at peace initially appeared more promising. The United Nations and the series of accompanying economic institutions established in the wake of the Second World War were broader-based in their membership, and were accompanied by advances at the level of thought and political culture, with the creation and ratification of foundational agreements related to human rights and international law. What is interesting to note about this period is not only the list of institutions that were established, or the treaties signed, but the tenor of public discourse. During this period, following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a wide range of scientists, political figures, jurists, journalists, and authors advocated for a world state powerful enough to prevent nuclear destruction. Albert Einstein, for example, conducted an extended publicity tour advocating for global government, while his colleagues on the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists lobbied for integrated global control of nuclear weapons.⁵ Multiple resolutions introduced in the US Congress supported the creation of a world federation or transformation of the United Nations along world state lines, and major hearings on world government proposals were held by foreign affairs committees in both the US House and Senate in 1949 and 1950. Elsewhere, public support for a union of Atlantic democracies was expressed in 1949 by the foreign ministers of Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium, as well as by the Canadian Senate.⁶ In India, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru made a world federal government central to the 1942 Quit India Resolution, framing it as a remedy for Western imperialism.⁷ Several organizations were founded in this period to draft a “world constitution.”⁸ World federalism drew support not only from academic, scientific, economic, and political elites, but also from relatively broad cross-sections of the population (at least in surveyed countries). In June 1946, for example, a Gallup poll asked Americans: “Do you think the United Nations Organization should be strengthened to make it a world government with power to control the armed forces of all nations, including the United States?” The results showed 54% in favor and 24% opposed, with the remainder undecided.⁹

If nothing else, these examples illustrate that the terrain of public discourse is not fixed and that what appear to be immovable boundaries in public opinion, or hard constraints of political possibility, can, and indeed do, change dramatically over time. In the case of the mid-century postwar moment, however, this upsurge in discourse around world government receded as attempts to strengthen global government, notably in response to the threat of nuclear war, failed in an atmosphere of growing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. As a result, political, scholarly, and public attention drifted away from the idea and remained largely dormant until the end of the Cold War.

Full-page promotion in *The New York Times* (1918-12-25) by The League to Enforce Peace, promoting formation of a League of Nations.

The Third Moment

The third moment of reaching for peace stands much closer to our present historical juncture. During the 1990s there was a significant expansion in the range and strength of systems designed to foster international cooperation, exemplified by a series of conferences on thematic issues organized under the auspices of the UN, various developments in the area of international law including the adoption of the Rome statute leading to the creation of the International Criminal Court, and the formulation of the Millennium Development Goals. These political developments were matched by an upsurge in scholarly attention to the question of global governance (and the emergence of this term in common academic parlance).¹⁰

Alongside the political optimism of the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, a prominent feature of intellectual discourse at the time was the assumption that an expanded global order would consist largely in the progressive extension of the achievements of the modern West around the world. Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis was totemic of this assumption. Fukuyama argued that following the collapse of Soviet communism liberal democratic capitalism had emerged as the final form of human government, with no viable ideological competitors remaining.¹¹ Proposals for reforming political order in this period were thus often proposals for globalizing aspects of the economic and political model of the West.¹²

Yet against the optimism of many who assumed that liberal democracy would inexorably suffuse political systems worldwide, the first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen a series of cross-cutting trends that have undermined this narrative, and which seem to have eroded faith in the very idea of international governance. In some parts of the world, a “globalization backlash” has been expressed in phenomena such as member states withdrawing from international organizations and agreements, increasing trade protectionism, and more general protests against international institutions.¹³ These currents of dissatisfaction draw on a wide and sometimes contradictory range of sources—from populist nationalisms, to movements with anti-capitalist orientations, to postcolonial critiques centered on historical marginalization. Underlying many of these phenomena is a general concern that the structures and ideologies underpinning globalization serve only a small minority of the world’s population. Alongside these political developments, this period has also seen growing scholarly interest in marginalized traditions of thought, often with the goal of unmasking the “false universalism” of dominant liberal thought.¹⁴ Efforts to imagine an effective and legitimate global order have thus come to be constrained within the terms of an unpalatable dichotomy—between a “globalism” that embraces liberalism and free-market capitalism as its foundation and an “anti-globalism” that is suspicious of the very idea of a global order. Such suspicion reflects not only disillusionment with the prevailing model of globalization, but broader anxieties about cultural homogenization and the global concentration of power.

While social and intellectual trends have raised questions about the direction of globalization, the inherently cross-national challenges for which global institutions are designed have hardly disappeared. If anything, their intensity has grown. In the juxtaposition of these trends lies a key paradox. On the one hand, the forces propelling global integration are strengthening, and with them the necessity of global cooperation. On the other, consensus around the basis for a legitimate global order is eroding.

A Fundamental Prerequisite

Where, then, do we go from here? The vision of global integration built on liberal democratic capitalism has been criticized for its tendency to universalize particular political, cultural, and economic arrangements that themselves have not proven able to establish social harmony or justice, while a reactive skepticism of the entire project of building a unified world order offers no constructive path forward in the face of inherently transnational challenges. Neither pole offers a satisfactory response to the challenges humanity faces. The task, therefore, is twofold: to separate the notion of a unified global order from the simple extension of the methods and procedures of liberal democracy or market capitalism, and to move beyond solely critiquing a defective order by describing, with progressive clarity, what might take the place of the present “incomplete project” of the unification of nations.

Where might such an alternative foundation be identified? Each of the three historical moments examined above saw genuine advances in the machinery of international cooperation, yet none succeeded in establishing enduring peace. The post-Cold War period, in particular, demonstrated that even substantial institutional development proves insufficient when underlying questions about the nature and purpose of global society remain unresolved. The resulting dichotomy between globalism and anti-globalism reflects, at a deeper level, an absence of shared conviction about the foundations of human society capable of commanding broad allegiance. What appears to be missing are not only better mechanisms of coordination, but rather a conception of global society itself, one that can ground institutional arrangements in globally shared principles.

In examining Bahá’í contributions to public discourse on the question of peace, one idea stands out as a central conviction regarding both what is defective in the existing global order and what is required for the elusive goal of global peace and stability to be realized: the principle of the oneness of humanity. The principle not only informs visions of a future world civilization whose contours can scarcely be imagined, but also stands at the heart of contributions to contemporary discourse about what is to be done here and now.

In a statement marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations, for example, the Bahá’í International Community draws attention to the “profound convictions for our collective behaviour” that flow from the truth that “the human family is one.”¹⁵ The statement observes that the challenge of embedding the principle of oneness in the design and operation of the global order is not merely one of creating or reforming institutions, important as this is. Rather, there exists a pressing need for what the statement terms a “settled consensus” around “a set of common values and principles” capable of underpinning collective decision-making on issues affecting humanity as a whole.¹⁶ The Promise of World Peace, a 1985 message of the Universal House of Justice to the peoples of the world, similarly expresses this conviction, identifying the primary question confronting humanity as “how the present world, with its entrenched pattern of conflict, can change to a world in which harmony and cooperation will prevail.” Its answer: “World order can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of the oneness of mankind….” Accepting the oneness of humanity, the message continues, represents “the first fundamental prerequisite for reorganization and administration of the world as one country, the home of humankind.”¹⁷

Yet what is meant by “oneness” in these contexts? And how does the principle of oneness take us beyond the familiar principles and institutions of the current discourse on global governance? Shoghi Effendi states:

The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve—is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cooperation among individual peoples and nations.¹⁸

In exploring the meaning of oneness, it is important to begin from the recognition that it would be premature to claim to comprehend anything but a fraction of its full import for the life of humanity. Clarity on what the principle of oneness entails for the next stage of social evolution will only emerge through sustained processes of learning and exploration. The full significance of the principle—including its implications for human consciousness and the very foundations of social existence—extends well beyond what any single line of inquiry can capture. The principle carries implications for many dimensions of social life, including questions of identity, the relations between diverse peoples and groups, the organization of economic life, and collective governance.¹⁹ Indeed, the promise of a global order grounded in oneness may extend beyond the achievement of more stable and just governance arrangements. As relationships among peoples are progressively reordered to reflect the reality of oneness, new horizons of possibility may emerge that cannot be anticipated at present. With all this in mind, and conscious of the constraints of inevitably limited vision, there is one particular idea this essay seeks to examine because of its relevance to current questions of political life and global order: what the concept of oneness tells us about the nature of society itself.

Conceptions of Society

Underlying most political and philosophical thought are conceptual models or metaphors which, though not literal descriptions of reality, generate distinctive conceptions of the body politic. One thinks of the market as a jungle in classical economics, the Confucian image of the extended family as a model for political relationships, or Plato’s image of the city-state as a ship requiring a wise captain. Such heuristic devices organize ideas and shape intuitions regarding the moral principles that ought to govern collective life, which in turn mold social norms and structures.

Of these various images, we can examine one in some depth as an example of how a guiding metaphor can shape the architecture of an entire tradition of political thought. The image of a social contract conceptualizes society as a collection of individuals who, despite divergent interests and beliefs, form a binding agreement to regulate social and political questions arising among them. This contract sets certain ground rules for ongoing coexistence and serves as a reference point in arbitrating disputes about what individuals owe to one another. From this deceptively simple starting point flow distinctive assumptions about persons, about what justice requires, and about the proper role of political institutions, assumptions that have also informed influential approaches to theorizing social and global order.

John Rawls’s influential theory of justice provides an instructive example of how this contractualist vision generates a framework of political principles. Rawls is a particularly helpful figure because he explicitly notes that conceptions of justice are “the outgrowth of different notions of society.”²⁰ Rawls begins with a fundamental organizing conception of society as a system of cooperation between autonomous and equal individuals. He then creates the device of an “original position,” a hypothetical scenario in which parties deliberate about the terms of the social contract—the basic terms of social cooperation between them—while deprived of knowledge about morally arbitrary characteristics about themselves, such as their race, class, gender, or natural talents.

The original position serves as the mechanism for working out what free and equal individuals would agree to under conditions that model fairness. Parties in the original position are characterized by “mutual disinterest”—they are concerned with advancing their own conception of the good, but are not motivated by benevolence toward or envy of others. This assumption is not incidental: it ensures that the principles chosen are ones that individuals can accept as fair regardless of their particular conceptions of human flourishing or moral doctrines, and it models the separateness of persons that Rawls takes to be a basic fact about human beings.²¹ From this architecture flows Rawls’s principles of justice. The first principle guarantees equal basic liberties for all citizens—freedoms such as political participation, expression, and conscience that rational agents would not risk losing regardless of their position in society. The second principle addresses social and economic inequalities, requiring that positions of advantage be open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity, and that any remaining inequalities work to the benefit of the least advantaged members of society.²² Each element follows from what mutually disinterested parties, ignorant of their own circumstances, would rationally choose: they would secure fundamental freedoms, ensure fair access to opportunities, and, since they might find themselves among the worst off, insist that inequalities improve the prospects of those worst-off in society.

Rawls’s theory represents one example of sophisticated and nuanced contractualist thinking, which in many ways is sensitive to the balance of unity and diversity in society. The purpose here is not to criticize it, but rather to demonstrate that any such framework relies on a particular image of human nature and social order. The characterization of agents in this framework as mutually disinterested, the specification of interests prior to and independent of social relationships, and the modeling of fair agreement as that which emerges from a process of individual rational choice all form, and reinforce the notion that an individual’s core interests are understood to be independently constituted, and that social cooperation is merely an arrangement among such agents to secure fair terms despite potentially divergent interests. Importantly, the effects of contractualist thinking, of which Rawls’s view is one illustrative example, have not been confined to the academy. In direct and indirect ways, this conceptual model, which emerged during the Enlightenment and remains influential in contemporary political thought, has become embedded in the political, economic, and social lives of whole societies. Consider Rawls’s principles of justice. His first principle, guaranteeing equal basic liberties, finds expression in the broader liberal commitment that individual freedom can only be constrained in order to prevent harm to others.²³ The assumption of mutual disinterest, which ensures that principles are acceptable regardless of one’s particular conception of the good, underwrites the notion that the state should remain neutral between different visions of the good life rather than promoting any substantive account of human flourishing. And the architecture of the original position, modeling society as separate individuals who must find terms of cooperation despite divergent interests, reflects the prevalent belief that governance structures and social institutions exist primarily to arbitrate between potentially divergent claims rather than to cultivate shared purposes. These and similar principles have over time become codified in constitutional documents, embedded in popular consciousness, and expressed in legal precedent.

The point is not that such principles lack merit. It is rather that they emerge from a particular conception of society and the person. When this contractualist framework is extended to theorize global order, the parties sometimes shift from individuals to states, such that global society is conceptualized as a system populated by free (i.e. autonomous) and equal (i.e. sovereign) nation-states.²⁴ But core elements of the underlying conception remain: separate agents with divergent interests seeking mutually acceptable terms of cooperation. Beyond explicitly nationalist or statist extensions of the contractualist conception of society, if building a just and effective global order consisted, as many assumed in the post-Cold War period, in extending the Western social and political model worldwide, it would involve globalizing something like the contractual conception of society, embedding its assumptions about persons and social cooperation in political cultures and institutions around the world.

The purpose of the analysis above has simply been to make visible assumptions that often operate invisibly—to show that the contractual framework represents one possible starting point among others, not a neutral or inevitable foundation for political thought. This recognition opens space to ask what a conception of society informed by the principle of oneness might look like, and how it might differ from the models that currently predominate.

Oneness and Global Society

With this in mind, let us return to the idea of oneness. A conception of society, including global society, as a cooperative system characterized by an essential oneness would emphasize the extent and nature of interdependence between its constituent elements, in both an empirical and a normative sense. The empirical aspect observes that the well-being of individuals and societies is connected across borders, whether through economic systems, ecological processes, technological networks, or political structures.²⁵ Yet the conception is not merely descriptive. The normative component asserts that these empirical interdependencies possess constitutive rather than merely instrumental significance for human flourishing. This normative dimension transcends enlightened self-interest, which would calculate the long-term advantages of cooperation while maintaining that agents affect one another’s well-being only instrumentally, and approaches that widen the scope of moral obligation while leaving the underlying conception of agents and their interests unchanged. Constitutive interdependence makes a stronger claim and implies a transformed understanding of what constitutes interest and well-being themselves: one’s capacity to flourish is inherently limited when others suffer. This is not simply because their suffering might eventually affect one’s interests from the outside, but because flourishing itself is partly constituted by the character of one’s relationships and the health of shared structures. To put the point positively, participation in relationships of genuine reciprocity and shared endeavor may unlock, or even itself constitute, a dimension of flourishing that no degree of isolated prosperity can provide.

Each conception of society carries with it an implicit or explicit view of the person—what agents are like, what motivates them, and what constitutes their flourishing. A contractualist conception would generally assume agents whose interests can be specified independently. A conception informed by oneness, by contrast, is likely to assume that agents’ capacity for flourishing is inherently relational. Human flourishing, on this view, inherently involves the quality of relationships and systemic conditions, not merely the accumulation of goods, the satisfaction of preferences, or even access to resources and the protection of basic rights, important as these are. From this perspective, the quality of social structures partially determines individual possibilities, and societal dysfunction constrains human flourishing even for those who appear temporarily insulated.

Understanding oneness in this way—as a principle informing our conception of global society—carries significant implications. If the capacity to flourish cannot be isolated from the health of shared structures and relationships, neither can peace; and this reframes conventional thinking about what peace requires, in terms of both scope and sequence. Regarding scope, it helps to explain the claim in The Promise of World Peace that achieving peace requires removing obstacles often seen as unrelated to peace: “…the abolition of war is not simply a matter of signing treaties and protocols; it is a complex task requiring a new level of commitment to resolving issues not customarily associated with the pursuit of peace.”²⁶ If oneness informs our foundational conception of society, then obstacles to peace such as racism, wealth inequality, tribal nationalism, and religious sectarianism are not discrete problems to be addressed separately. They are incompatible with oneness and therefore with a society capable of genuine peace; conceptualizing social order through the lens of oneness illuminates why these diverse phenomena share a common root. Regarding sequence, oneness reveals the limitations of the assumption that unity is “a distant, almost unattainable ideal to be addressed only after a host of political conflicts have been somehow resolved”: oneness is not the fruit of solving other problems; it is the prerequisite for solving them.²⁷

A conception of society informed by oneness, like its contractual counterpart, would not be a mere abstraction, but would carry significant practical consequences. As the discussion of Rawls illustrated, conceptions of society inform the normative principles selected to regulate collective life, which in turn shape laws, policies, and institutions. Such a conception of global society would carry with it similarly distinctive implications, both empirical and normative.

The empirical dimension directs attention to the ways in which the major challenges defining contemporary global politics demonstrate this inherent interdependence. Climate change is one clear example: no amount of national wealth can insulate a society from atmospheric changes driven by global emissions. Similarly, pandemic preparedness, financial stability, and digital technologies create vulnerabilities that transcend national boundaries and cannot be addressed through isolated action. These are not marginal issues but increasingly define the parameters within which all other political and economic activity occurs. The principle of oneness also enables us to distinguish between narrow material accumulation and comprehensive flourishing. An individual or society might increase certain metrics—household wealth, GDP, territorial control—while experiencing degradation in the broader conditions that enable genuine well-being. Rising wealth inequality in many countries coinciding with deepening polarization and weakening social trust suggests that even apparent beneficiaries of economic inequality bear costs in other dimensions of life.²⁸

The normative dimension carries distinctive implications for what ought to be done about these interdependencies. Enlightened self-interest might recognize that assisting developing nations creates future markets or that environmental cooperation prevents future costs. But the idea of constitutive interdependence suggested by oneness makes a stronger and qualitatively different claim: one’s capacity to flourish cannot be separated from the flourishing of others within a system of social cooperation, because the quality of shared structures and relationships is not merely an external condition affecting well-being but partly constitutive of it. Appealing to oneness to justify and appraise laws or policies may imply, among other things, that the legitimacy of domestic policies be judged by reference to their global impacts and that self-interested bargaining in global politics represents not merely a moral failure but a fundamental misunderstanding of a nation’s own interests.²⁹ A central bank’s mandate, for instance, would be framed not purely in domestic terms but in terms of contributing to the stability and health of the international economic system, recognizing this as a condition of its own society’s prosperity.³⁰ Agricultural support policies would be designed to strengthen food systems both domestically and internationally—asking not only whether subsidies benefit domestic producers, but whether they contribute to food security worldwide and to the livelihoods of farming communities in other countries.³¹ Tax regimes would be oriented toward building the shared fiscal capacity to fund public goods in every country, rather than structured in ways that encourage nations to competitively undercut one another. In each case, a oneness-informed conception of international society does not merely add global well-being as an afterthought; it reframes the very question of what constitutes effective policymaking, directing attention not only to how outcomes are distributed but to the character of the relationships through which collective life is conducted.

Presentation of The Promise of World Peace to Dr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, by Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum (22 November 1985).

Oneness beyond Collectivism

The foregoing has sought to articulate, in necessarily preliminary terms, what a conception of global society informed by oneness might involve and some of its implications. Yet for all its apparent relevance to the challenges of global order, such a conception of global society has not yet permeated political discourse, let alone become embedded in social structures. This is not to say the ideal of oneness is completely absent—one can identify latent expressions of the underlying sentiment in foundational international documents such as the UN Charter. Similarly, in the more diffuse realm of public consciousness, it is common to hear in discourse, from informal everyday conversation to formal statements in global forums, recognition that in matters of public health “no one is safe until everyone is safe,” or that on climate change “the world will succeed or fail as one.” All this notwithstanding, there are many aspects of the existing global political order that do not yet reflect, or align with, the implications of human oneness. Why might this be? Why has a conception of the essential nature of social order informed by oneness not been more widely adopted?

Clearly, one significant part of the answer is a gap between moral principle and action, and a lack of willingness to “put aside short-term self-interest” on the part of individuals, governing institutions, and indeed whole societies.³² But it would appear that insufficient commitment to recognized ideals is not all that is at work here. Sustained action in pursuit of moral principles is difficult without clarity about the kind of world those principles are meant to create. There are conceptual obstacles, at least in some prevalent traditions of thought, to embracing the reality of oneness as an essential characteristic of global society. These conceptual obstacles may, by furnishing rationales for behavior inconsistent with the principle of oneness, in turn weaken the connection between the force of moral principle and political practice. When, for instance, the separateness and divergent interests of nations is treated as a basic fact of international life, policies that prioritize narrow national advantage over global well-being appear not as moral failures but as rational responses to how the world is structured.

The conceptual concern regarding oneness, while not always articulated explicitly, can be presented as follows: conceptions of society that emphasize unity, including those which draw on organic metaphors (such as the use of the human body analogy in the Bahá’í writings), have historically been deployed in service of worldviews emphasizing hierarchy, homogeneity, or the priority of the collective over the individual. Karl Popper expresses the general intuition in contrasting the “closed” and “open” society: “the open society rests on a strong commitment to individualism—to individual rights but also to individual responsibilities—and on a rejection of the “organic theory” that prioritizes the collective (the tribe, the nation, etc.) over the individual.”³³

Clearly, this is not what the principle of oneness from a Bahá’í perspective asserts. When the Bahá’í writings make reference to the human body as a model for social relationships, this is not an understanding of the body as simply an agglomeration of interchangeable cells, whose individual character is unimportant, but rather a complex web of interdependent systems, which requires the complementary operation of differentiated components.³⁴ Extending the metaphor to social organization, diversity in political cultures and institutional arrangements enables experimentation with different governance approaches, creating opportunities for learning about distinctive knowledge and practices suited to varied contexts. Further, collectivism, in problematic forms, treats society as a unified agent possessing a single system of desire, a collective entity whose judgments and purposes override or subsume individual perspectives. A oneness-inspired conception of society need not make any such claim. It would make quite a different point: that pursuing self- or national interest in ways that systematically undermine global structures or the flourishing of other segments of society represents a misunderstanding of the conditions for one’s own flourishing.

Unreflective identification of ideals of interdependence or social unity with crude collectivism, then, may help to explain why a conceptualization of global society that emphasizes its essential oneness has not been the object of greater attention. Attempts to examine the potential of conceptual models other than those dominant within the liberal tradition have perhaps been hampered by the persistence of false dichotomies. The tendency to present social organization as a binary choice between collectivism and individualism, or between liberalism and authoritarianism, may be one conceptual obstacle that needs to be overcome.

Crisis and Possibility

The foregoing analysis of twentieth-century attempts to establish peace suggests that moments of crisis often precipitate a reexamination of inadequate frameworks. Conceptions of society exert a profound influence on the intuitions, norms, and structures that shape collective life. Yet fundamental shifts in how society is understood are rarely the product of conceptual argument alone. Liberal models of social organization, for example, emerged through an interplay between philosophical reflection and the social and political action of particular groups and movements. As they form, such conceptions become embedded not only in formal structures but in popular consciousness, social norms, and everyday relationships. It follows that the process of developing a new underlying basis for global order will necessarily involve the efforts of communities and peoples in diverse settings to explore what oneness means for patterns of social organization—efforts that will, over time, generate insights and demonstrate possibilities capable of informing broader discourse and institutional change. In this sense, every segment of the world’s population has agency in the process of redefining the conceptual foundations of global society.

While the immediate prospects for peace are uncertain, the historical record also demonstrates how dramatic shifts in the landscape of political possibility can and do occur. It is not possible to predict how the integrative and disintegrative forces shaping humanity’s trajectory towards peace will unfold in the near future. Yet if enduring peace requires not only institutional arrangements but a conception of global society capable of grounding them, the work of clarifying what oneness implies for our collective life may be indispensable to the peace humanity seeks.

The author is grateful to Vafa Ghazavi, Shahrzad Sabet, and Stephen Agahi-Murphy for their input.

By The Bahá'í World

The equality of women and men is a spiritual reality asserted by Bahá’u’lláh and a pillar of Bahá’í belief, as evidenced by many statements in the Bahá’í writings. This spiritual reality, Bahá’ís believe, must be manifested today in its fullness in social reality.

Equality is an indispensable element for the progress of humanity, a principle which requires that women and men move forward together in dynamic partnership. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has stated that “As long as women are prevented from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable to achieve the greatness which might be theirs.”¹ Reiterating the principle in a statement to the United Nations in 2015, the Bahá’í International Community described the equality of women and men as “a facet of human reality” and asserted, “That which makes human beings human—their inherent dignity and nobility—is neither male nor female. The search for meaning, for purpose, for community; the capacity to love, to create, to persevere, has no gender,” concluding that “Such an assertion has profound implications for the organization of every aspect of human society.”²

The Bahá’í community has, as a matter of faith, pursued the application of this principle over the entire span of the Faith’s history, basing its actions on Bahá’u’lláh’s statement “Praised be God, the Pen of the Most High hath lifted distinctions from between His servants and handmaidens, and, through His consummate favours and all-encompassing mercy, hath conferred upon all a station and rank of the same plane”³—an assertion that was reinforced and elaborated upon in many statements and writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, such as the following: “… in the sight of Bahá, women are accounted the same as men, and God hath created all humankind in His own image, and after His own likeness. That is, men and women alike are the revealers of His names and attributes, and from the spiritual viewpoint there is no difference between them.”⁴ In their efforts to realize this vision, Bahá’í individuals, institutions, and communities around the world have striven to understand more deeply its implications and have engaged in discourses and actions to promote gender equality ranging from grassroots initiatives to contributions at international fora.⁵

Since the Bahá’í writings emphasize both the importance of women as equal partners in the advancement of civilization and the key role of mothers as the first educators of the next generation, it was natural that the earliest endeavors in Persia focused on encouraging families to provide for the education of their girl children and on establishing schools for girls. Throughout the past century and a half, the geographical scope and range of activities related to gender equality have both broadened, and over the past 25 years, in particular, the training and community-building endeavors in which Bahá’ís in all parts of the globe are engaged have given further momentum to, and provided additional settings for, the practical expression of this principle.

DEVELOPING WOMEN’S CAPACITIES AT THE GRASSROOTS

The Bahá’í community recognizes that, while tremendous efforts in the areas of policy have been made at the international level by organizations such as the United Nations, the advancement of women cannot be brought about or sustained merely through legislation or policy directives that give women additional power within existing, unbalanced structures and systems. And even if attempts to change those social structures are made, such changes will not be sufficient to create conditions that allow women and girls to develop fully; unhealthy values may continue to be held by men and women, as well as boys and girls, sustaining exploitative behaviors.⁶ To effect the profound changes needed, educational processes that help to develop spiritual as well as intellectual capacities, that uphold the oneness of humanity, and that promote the equality of women and men play a pivotal role in establishing patterns of relationships that meet the needs of this age.⁷

Women play a key role in community banking in Mongolia.

At the most basic level, the home is the nurturing ground of values such as truth or dishonesty, justice or injustice, kindness or violence. And from the home, behaviors rooted in these values radiate through society. For example, when boys are allowed to dominate their sisters within the family, what deters them from doing the same at their school or place of work—or even in national or international arenas? If, instead, sons and daughters are raised so that both participate in household duties and both participate in decision-making, these are the habits they will take out into the world as they grow to adulthood.⁸ Efforts to nurture values that promote gender equality at the roots of community life are clearly key to change.

The purpose of the institute process which the Bahá’í community has been developing since 1996 (see “A New Institution of Learning,” in this volume) is to develop capacities in participants—women and men, boys and girls—to contribute to the spiritual and material advancement of their societies. The first quotation in the first book of the curriculum invites them to reflect on a statement of Bahá’u’lláh regarding their role as individuals: “The betterment of the world can be accomplished through pure and goodly deeds, through commendable and seemly conduct.”⁹ The materials train participants to engage in behavior and facilitate activities that contribute directly to the advancement of the communities in which they live. Beyond the basic activities, participants acquire knowledge, skills and insights that equip them to participate in the discourses prevalent in their society and to engage in social action endeavors. Women have been at the heart of all these efforts. What is especially remarkable is that, in the aggregate, despite the vast inequalities between women and men in most societies, globally, women comprise half of those who have completed the first sequence of courses of the training institute—and in all except the first book, women outnumber men. This is also more dramatically the case in the higher sequence of courses where the ratio of women to men is around 60 percent. These remarkable statistics reflect the emphasis that the worldwide Bahá’í community places on the equality of women and men and the essential part that women play in social transformation.

Women in Lundu, Sarawak, participate in a study circle.

Professor Hoda Mahmoudi, Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland

The percentage of women engaged in the educational processes of the institute reveals the central role they have played in promoting it in their own communities and in its dissemination to other parts of the world. Many of those who complete institute courses continue on to serve as tutors, teachers of children’s classes, and animators in the junior youth spiritual empowerment program. One example illustrating the level of female empowerment that has been achieved originates in the Central African Republic: In 2014, while only 20 percent of primary teachers in the national educational system were women, the percentage of primary teachers in community schools raised up through the training institute was 55 percent—rising to 60 percent in rural areas. Around the world, the level of women’s participation as animators and coordinators in the junior youth program is comparable. Such a level of engagement is a strong indicator of the effectiveness of the training institute in the enfranchisement of women and girls.

Specific attention is given to identifying, training, and accompanying women in their efforts, including practical actions related to program delivery. These include the decentralization of training seminars to allow women to participate close to home and the provision of childcare to mothers. Furthermore, the training institute materials themselves, as well as those developed for the junior youth spiritual empowerment program and other Bahá’í-inspired education programs, such as the Preparation for Social Action and community schools programs, all promote the principle of gender equality, whether explicitly or implicitly. For example, of the nine texts developed for the junior youth program by 2017, seven mention the equality of women, the advancement of women, or the education of girls, while more than half of the units in the Preparation for Social Action program make explicit reference to the theme.

In study circles around the world, as shown in London, United Kingdom, the sharing of insights by every participant is encouraged and valued.

Assisting women to develop capacities through collaborative study, action, and reflection helps change culture by breaking down prejudices of sex and gender. Experience with community schools in Africa and Asia has shown that those starting with female teachers are more sustainable over the first few years than those starting with men. Women have been better able to persevere through this unstable period with little remuneration, while pressure on men to provide for their families makes it difficult for them to sacrifice to that level. Beyond the obvious benefits of sustainable educational opportunities, village councils are now beginning to appoint women teachers to serve on community development and administrative committees—positions that were previously filled only by men.

Clearly, when women and men and boys and girls all become advocates for gender equality, everyone benefits. Sometimes the steps towards such change are dramatic, and sometimes they are incremental. For example, the holding of gatherings to join with others in prayer may seem like a simple activity, but in a village in India, these gatherings have provided rare community acceptance for women to leave their houses. As a result, the “long-standing system requiring women to seclude and isolate themselves is starting to give way” as participants realize that long-established customs are less important than educating children, consulting with each other to solve problems together—and allowing women to participate in community activities.¹⁰

An experimental agricultural plot at the University Center for Rural Well-Being in Jamundi-Robles, Colombia

The proliferation of such efforts worldwide is helping to advance the creation of social environments and structures capable of meeting the needs of this age. Challenges such as social inequities, climate change, and global health emergencies, to mention a few, show in starker and starker relief the inadequacy of current outmoded customs and systems to deal with them. Advancing the role of women will undoubtedly serve to better equip humanity to address the ordeals it faces. As the Bahá’í International Community stated in 2021:

Against the backdrop of a world undergoing profound change, there is a growing recognition of the indispensable role that women in leadership play. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, nations in which women contributed more prominently to the leadership of society were seen to have generated a degree of stability across a variety of short-term indicators, including public health and economic security. At the community level, women continue to play an indispensable role—and often lead—in caring for the sick, educating the young, tending to the needy, and sustaining the social and economic fabric more broadly. Never has it been more clear how much humanity benefits when women’s leadership is embraced and promoted at every level of society, whether in the family or the village, the community or local government, the corporation or the nation.¹¹

With regard to the issue of climate change, while it is true that women are greatly impacted by its negative effects on the natural environments from which they earn their living in many parts of the world, they are also equipped to respond to it. Experience is proving that participation in the institute courses has provided women with skills to deal with this issue at the grassroots level. For example, when a major cyclone hit Dili, in Timor-Leste, and cut off external assistance, participants in the training institute courses used the skills and networks they had formed through their collaborative study to assist more than 7,000 people across 13 villages and neighborhoods with access to food and other essentials. And in Okcheay, Cambodia, a tree-planting project that had been devised by youth participants protected roads in the area from soil erosion when severe flooding occurred several years later.

Eight members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Belize cast their votes in the election of the Universal House of Justice.

Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations; Mary Power, former Director of the BIC Office for the Advancement of Women; and Representative Saphira Rameshfa

While difficult to live through, unstable periods provide humanity with opportunities to examine our collective values. Women, the Bahá’í writings assert, must have their rightful place as equals to men in every sphere of human endeavor, contributing at every level of decision making and bringing their capacities to bear on the fortunes of their communities, societies, and all of humankind.

DEVELOPING CAPACITIES AND ADMINISTRATIVE MEMBERSHIP

At the global level, experience has shown that increased emphasis on the education of women and girls results in a corresponding rise in the level of their participation in public life and community affairs.¹² Likewise, the Bahá’í community has witnessed, as a result of its efforts to develop the capacities of participants through its worldwide training institute process, a substantial increase in the membership of women on institutions within the Bahá’í community and their shouldering of administrative responsibilities.

The administrative order of the Bahá’í world community is composed of both elected and appointed arms. As of 20 April 2021, some 42 percent of those elected to serve on the 174 National Spiritual Assemblies around the world were women, rising from about 30 percent in 1994–95. The ratio of women serving as office-bearers rose to 35 percent, compared to 19 percent in 1983, and some 53 percent of those serving as the principal executive officer (titled “National Secretary”) were women. Membership of women on Regional Bahá’í Councils was about 46 percent. When considered in the global context of women’s representation in governing institutions, such a high percentage of membership is impressive. These figures are worldwide results, including numerous societies where equality may not yet be accepted even in principle. It indicates a growing embrace of the spiritual principle of gender equality by the men and women who elect their institutions through secret ballot as well as confidence in women’s administrative capacities.

On the appointed institutions, the percentage of women members is even higher—an indication of the attention given to identifying women of capacity and enlisting them to serve. As of April 2020, of the nine members comprising the International Teaching Centre, 56 percent were women, rising from 29 percent in 1973, when it was established. Of the 90 members of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 47 percent were women (up from 19 percent in 1968 when the Continental Boards were created, and 52 percent of the 1,059 members of the Auxiliary Boards around the world were women.¹³

The education of girls is central to all Bahá’í initiatives, as shown in Mongolia.

While there are variations among the continents in the percentage of women members, particularly on the elected institutions, the steady move towards more gender-balanced membership indicates an increased understanding of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement “Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be.”¹⁴

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT: PARTICIPATION IN DISCOURSES AT THE UNITED NATIONS

At the international level, the Bahá’í International Community (BIC) has advocated for the equality of women and men since the inception of the United Nations, making its first statement on gender equality in 1947. Shortly after it became an accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) in 1970, it began to advocate for the girl child. In 1974, as an NGO member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the BIC made a statement to the twenty-fifth Session of the Commission that recommended greater emphasis on the importance of educating girls. With regard to this topic, the Bahá’í International Community was ahead of its time. Over the decades, as the UN gave greater attention to the issue of the girl child and many other international organizations focused on it as a strategy for development, the BIC has continued to advocate for girls’ education and has made numerous official statements about it. The BIC has also collaborated with other NGOs and entities such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and continues to serve on UNICEF’s NGO Working Group on Girls. The BIC was also one of the earliest proponents at the United Nations of the idea that men and boys play an important role in promoting gender equality, particularly that their full development depends upon the advancement of women, since a society based on gender equality serves the interests of both women and men.¹⁵

In its statements and in discourses at the United Nations, the BIC has addressed topics as diverse as gender and leadership, violence against women and girls, the climate crisis as a catalyst for nurturing a more gender-balanced culture, the role of women as well as men in establishing a flourishing world civilization, transforming the structures of society, and religion and gender equality.

On this last theme, while acknowledging that religion has often been seen as a negative force, the Bahá’í International Community has urged the open examination of religion as “a basis for social and political mobilization” and has advocated for a discourse centered around three themes: the role of religious leaders in supporting gender equality, the role of men and boys in demonstrating “new understandings of masculinity,” and religious interpretations that discriminate against women and thus serve as an impediment to peace.¹⁶

While it has always related its contributions to UN discussions on gender equality to spiritual principle, by 2008, the BIC began to draw as well on the rich experience of the Bahá’í community to contribute to the advancement of civilization. The film Glimpses into the Spirit of Gender Equality, produced on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing conference, combines footage from the United Nations, tracing the BIC’s efforts to advocate for the education of girls and for gender equality, with stories from the grass- roots.¹⁷ It showcases the experiences and initiatives of individuals, families, community members, and village leaders in Colombia, India, Malaysia, the United States, and Zambia, to illustrate how even small steps can contribute to change in a culture. The film offers insights gleaned from efforts made over the past 25 years to apply Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings regarding equality in different communities and settings. It conveys how the lessons being learned at the grassroots reinforce efforts being made in international fora for the advancement of women, providing a view of what has been learned thus far about building a civilization that values and nurtures both material and spiritual qualities in all its members.

CONCLUSION

In the long process of building a global civilization, sustained and coordinated action to establish gender equality is vital. While the Bahá’í community can take stock of its progress in this regard and the insights it has gleaned over almost 200 years in a growing variety of settings, the work is far from done. Efforts to nurture strong, vibrant communities in which women and men strive in dynamic partnership to build an equitable society must be extended and deepened.18 In this work, the community derives its vision and its impetus from statements such as the following, made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1912, during His travels in North America: “… until woman and man recognize and realize equality, social and political progress here or anywhere will not be possible. For the world of humanity consists of two parts or members: one is woman; the other is man. Until these two members are equal in strength, the oneness of humanity cannot be established, and the happiness and felicity of mankind will not be a reality.”¹⁸

By Bani Dugal

“Now our Local Spiritual Assembly¹ will meet and lead the reconstruction process for the community to follow. We know that we should not depend on aid donors, but that we should take charge of our own development. For the reconstruction process, we will use the same tools and instruments that we used for the expansion and consolidation of our community.”– a resident of Namasmetene village, Tanna island, Vanuatu

In 2014 the Universal House of Justice² highlighted the island of Tanna, in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, as an example of that pattern of collective life, spiritual, dynamic, transformative, that Bahá’ís and their like-minded collaborators everywhere are working to bring about. Groups for young adolescents were flourishing, urged on by the support of village chiefs who see how the participants are spiritually empowered. Youth were learning to dispel the languor of passivity within themselves and residents of all ages were being galvanized into constructive action³ A full third of the island’s 30,000 inhabitants were engaged in an expanding conversation about the significance of a local House of Worship⁴ to be established in their midst.

Less than a year later, Tanna was decimated by the strongest cyclone⁵ ever recorded, by wind speed, in the South Pacific. Ninety percent of all structures were damaged or destroyed. Communications were completely cut off.

Looking at the constructive responses to this devastation gives us a deeper understanding of the significance of the patterns of action to which Bahá’í communities everywhere have committed themselves through their community-building efforts.

In numerous parts of the world, as growing numbers contribute to processes of social transformation, they come to view themselves as protagonists in the ongoing advancement of society. And when natural disasters have struck some of these communities, they have applied what they have learned to response and recovery efforts. In the process, they have shown qualities of resilience, selflessness, resourcefulness, and creativity.

The Bahá’í International Community United Nations Office,⁶ in addition to its engagement with various global fora, provides assistance and advice to national Bahá’í communities in the aftermath of major natural disasters. In recent years, it has strengthened a global process of learning among national communities in light of growing experience in this area. The Bahá’í International Community seeks to facilitate exploration of the means by which Bahá’í communities’ response to natural disasters can become more coherent with the framework for action guiding other major areas of Bahá’í endeavor. It strives to expand understanding of how communities can reflect and draw strength from key principles, among these: that a prospering society must achieve a dynamic coherence between the material and spiritual requirements of life,⁷ that social change is not a project that one group of people carries out on behalf of another⁸ that every member of the human family has not only the right to benefit from a materially and spiritually prosperous civilization but also an obligation to contribute towards its construction,⁹ that the scope and complexity of social action must be commensurate with the human resources available in a village or neighborhood to carry it forward,¹⁰ that access to knowledge is the right of every human being, and participation in its generation, application and diffusion a responsibility that all must shoulder in the great enterprise of building a prosperous world civilization,¹¹ and that every contribution Bahá’ís make to the life of their society is aimed at fostering unity.¹²

Efforts along these lines are still in early stages in many areas. Yet sufficient experience has been generated that a few initial observations, drawn from the work of the Office, can now be offered for consideration and further exploration.

AN EVER-ADVANCING CIVILIZATION, A SYSTEM OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

For Bahá’ís, humanitarian efforts are grounded in a particular view of the future—namely, that spiritually and materially prospering global civilization called for by Bahá’u’lláh,¹³ which infuses their endeavors with meaning and purpose. In this context, disaster response emerges as one field of endeavor, among many others, in which wider principles, methods, and approaches are to be applied and refined.

The contributions that Bahá’í communities are able to offer in various arenas stem foremost from their growing ability to advance the expansion and consolidation of the Faith itself. Involvement in the life of society will flourish as the capacity of the community to promote its own growth and to maintain its vitality is gradually raised, wrote the Universal House of Justice. ¹⁴ This growth, it noted, is intimately connected with the maturation of the training institute,¹⁵ a worldwide system of spiritual and moral education, open to those of every background, that seeks to help populations take charge of their own spiritual, social, and economic development.¹⁶ Structured in stages to meet the developmental needs of differing ages, this system tends to the moral education of children, facilitates the spiritual empowerment of young adolescents, and allows increasing numbers of youth and adults to explore the application of spiritual teachings to daily life and to the challenges facing society.

The organizing principle of this process is the development of capabilities for meaningful service to society. Assisted to undertake increasingly complex acts of service, participants gradually gain the vision, confidence, and skills necessary to begin offering activities to others with less experience than themselves. In this way, a sizable portion of those who enter the process as participants can go on to shoulder increasing responsibility for its perpetuation and expansion. Serving in voluntary roles such as teachers of classes or facilitators of study groups, they become contributors and resources. And as their capacity grows, a percentage begin to coordinate the efforts of others, at levels ranging from the neighborhood to the nation.

Understanding of the nature of this educational process is evolving through growing personal experience with its initiatives and the continued progress of clusters of communities.¹⁷ .Appreciation is increasing, for example, that the acts of service it fosters are not merely activities to be multiplied but fundamental aspects of Bahá’í community life intended for all.¹⁸ How, then, do these community-building efforts relate to more traditional conceptions of disaster response and recovery, a field which is often highly focused on technical elements of service provision and delivery?

COMMUNITY-BUILDING CAPACITIES IN TIMES OF DISASTER

While the initiatives described above are not focused on disaster response or recovery, experience has demonstrated that the abilities these community-building efforts strengthen, as well as the patterns of thought and behavior they foster, can have a significant impact in times of natural disaster. Consider, for example, the experience of the Bahá’ís in Vanuatu as they worked to recover from the devastation of Cyclone Pam in 2015.¹⁹ One community member wrote:

The qualities we have gained over the years and the capacities we have developed while serving the Cause [have] truly helped us in dealing with the aftermath of the cyclone. For example, being able to read the reality of a situation, collecting statistics, planning, consulting, reflecting, being systematic, report writing, all these have been instrumental in the effectiveness of the relief operation for the first two weeks after the cyclone.

Some of the ways that Bahá’í community building efforts have assisted local populations in responding effectively to natural disasters include the following.

SYSTEMS OF COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATION

The capacity to organize large numbers in coordinated action has clear implications for response efforts. As community-building activities grow to the point where hundreds of inhabitants are supporting the participation of thousands of their fellow residents, systems emerge to manage the growing complexity. In some cases, Area Teaching Committees²⁰ and their channels of support, Auxiliary Board members²¹ and their assistants, and schemes of coordination associated with the training institute have found that the capabilities they have developed have enabled them to facilitate communication and organize efforts in crisis conditions.

Operating at the level of the cluster but connected both to the region or nation, and to the neighborhood or village, such institutions and agencies have, for example, gathered information about local needs and conditions. They have facilitated the movement of relief supplies and their input has helped tailor national efforts to the needs of local populations. In the process, they have influenced Bahá’ís’ view of themselves and their role in responding to the adversity at hand. Such dynamics were evident following the powerful earthquake that Haiti experienced in 2010. One report explains:

From their experience with their respective communities through the expansion and consolidation work, the Cluster agencies²² were most familiar with the needs and nuances of their neighbors, and therefore would be in the best position to determine how the available relief aid should be distributed. … Upon receipt of the supplies, each Cluster determined the method and process to be used for their distribution in the neighborhoods within their Cluster. … The devolution of the relief response to the Cluster level proved to be empowering to the Bahá’í community. It was noted early on that the Bahá’ís, who themselves were victims of the disaster, were transformed into protagonists when presented with the challenge and opportunity of service, arising to action upon being given the opportunity and responsibility to deliver aid to their neighbors.

Organizational skills such as the ability to maintain basic statistics, to plan based on resources, and to operate in a mode of learning—characterized by regular reflection on efforts undertaken, results seen, and adjustments needed—similarly allow response efforts to expand as needed in scale and scope. The ability to gather accurate data and formulate actionable plans around it can be pivotal in disaster conditions. When eastern regions of India faced a powerful cyclone in 1999, the Bahá’í community did not have access to updated statistics, nor was it able to effectively utilize the data it did have. Response efforts were therefore coordinated primarily by individual Bahá’ís according to whatever information was personally available to them. When the same region faced severe flooding in 2011, however:

Relief and counseling were systematically provided through [cluster agencies]. Because updated data was available, there was a steady flow of information sharing, and intensive visits were made to the homes of those affected. No one was left alone. … There was a growing realization, both among the Bahá’ís as well as among friends from the wider society, that they were witnessing a strong, united, and supportive religious community.

The ability to mobilize resources at the grassroots is, itself, a capacity of great value, and one that is well appreciated in humanitarian circles. People are the central agents of their lives and are the first and last responders to any crisis, wrote the Secretary General of the United Nations, asserting that efforts to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience must necessarily begin at the local level.²³ Generating broad-based movement within a population has been shown to be as much a matter of relationships, volition, and collective agency, as it is of funding, supplies, and logistics. In this regard, it is only natural that efforts to build unity of thought, vision, and action around the elements of the current series of global plans defined by the Universal House of Justice have assisted communities to draw more effectively on internal resources in times of need. In the flooding mentioned above:

… it was quite clear that the real strength lay in the Local Spiritual Assemblies. Their level of activity did not appear to be as great as compared to many NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and the resources that were available to the Local Assemblies were also limited. But they discovered that the real manpower was in the field, in the grassroots resources, which the Local Assemblies had. Although many outside relief agencies came in with food and other resources, they had no way to distribute these quickly. On the other hand, even the poorest of Bahá’í Assemblies was able to mobilize efforts rapidly. One Local Assembly, in utmost poverty and with humility, arranged for food and distributed it to more than 600 people. They contributed ideas, gave guidance and participated in the relief work.

DRAWING ON THE POWER OF CONSENSUS AND UNITY

Fostering cooperation and a sense of shared endeavor across a diverse populace is another capacity that is intimately related to both Bahá’í community-building endeavors and disaster response initiatives. As effort is made to welcome increasing numbers into thoughtful discussion on the direction of their collective development, decision-making processes become more participatory. Perspectives of young and old, women and men, from diverse backgrounds are sought and considered—an approach that, in turn, attracts the participation of others. Throughout this process, Bahá’ís are learning how to help participants employ elements of the principle of consultation.²⁴ Among these: that the deliberative process must take as its goal the search for truth and exploration of relevant realities, rather than the promotion of personal interests and agendas; that the participation of each individual is to be characterized by qualities such as prayerfulness, humility, detachment, and patience; that while the shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions,²⁵ the first condition is absolute love and harmony amongst the members;²⁶ that once a view has been contributed, it belongs to the group as a whole, to use or set aside as best serves the issue at hand; and that once a decision has been reached, all members are to lend their full support to its implementation and fair-minded assessment.

As such dynamics take root in a community, the population becomes better able to make collective decisions about the allocation of limited resources. Moreover, it seeks to do so in ways that are unifying, supported by all, and reflective of true consensus, rather than simply the contested outcome of a majority of voices. This becomes invaluable when supplies are scarce and contact with the external world tenuous. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, many local Bahá’í communities provided relief equally to all or experimented with matching assistance to household size. But one community, in consultation with both the local population and a national-level Bahá’í task force, provided supplies first and most extensively to families whose needs were seen to be most urgent. Those involved understood that basing support on subjective judgments of hardship had the potential to create certain challenges, and tensions did arise at times. But the community was able to draw on consultative capacities to constructively resolve these differences. In this regard, one organizer noted that the distribution:

… was accomplished without fights and shouting, or appropriation by authorities at different levels, but with calm and understanding. Emerging jealousies were resolved with dialogue.

As a community gains capacity to both draw on the talents of all its members and to meet their needs, its ability to act according to the principle of the oneness of humankind is strengthened. Striving to serve others without distinction, its members learn how to discern the often-subtle dynamics that contradict the imperatives of unity. Bahá’í agencies in one coastal town in the Philippines, for example, noticed that while relief supplies generally reached population centers such as their own, a small offshore island was largely overlooked. When Typhoon Haiyan struck in 2013, the Bahá’í community used its limited resources to help meet the needs of the residents of that island, most of whom were not Bahá’ís.

FACILITATING COLLECTIVE INQUIRY AND ACTION

The current series of global plans articulated by the House of Justice seeks to involve growing numbers in an informed exploration of the nature of human well-being and the means by which it can be advanced. This process is animated by the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh but welcomes everyone of like mind. The House of Justice has written:

[E]very human being and every group of individuals, irrespective of whether they are counted among His followers, can take inspiration from His teachings, benefiting from whatever gems of wisdom and knowledge will aid them in addressing the challenges they face. … Numerous groups and organizations, animated by the spirit of world solidarity that is an indirect manifestation of Bahá’u’lláh’s conception of the principle of the oneness of humankind, will contribute to the civilization destined to emerge out of the welter and chaos of present-day society.²⁷

Bahá’í communities around the world are discovering that working with those from the wider community in a spirit of collaboration and common enterprise allows far more to be achieved than would be by working alone. These habits of thought and qualities of spirit also prove fruitful in the realm of disaster response.

Bahá’ís in the eastern region of the Caribbean island of Dominica, for example, though numerically quite modest, facilitated a series of public discussions that delved into social and spiritual aspects of community health after Hurricane Maria in 2017.²⁸ Participants in one such discussion identified a sense of normalcy and stability as a central need for community members, particularly among the younger generations. The local school was functioning, but instead of the uniforms customary for the area, students were wearing whatever clothes were available, which many felt contributed to a general sense of disorder in the community. School uniforms were therefore identified as a priority, but one that would not likely be addressed by external relief agencies. Further discussion, however, revealed that what was truly needed was not uniforms, but rather fabric: many local residents knew how to sew, and those consulting together wanted the community as a whole to have ownership in the process of re-establishing the school. As clarity on these points emerged, a government official who had been observing the proceedings stood up and announced that the Dominican government was seeking means to inject capital into villages affected by the storm, in an effort to reestablish local economies. If fabric could be secured, he declared, he would find funding to pay community members to sew the uniforms.

ENGAGING THE INSTITUTIONS OF SOCIETY

The description above raises the issue of engaging the institutions of society. As community-building efforts multiply in an area and begin to exert an influence on the direction of community life, it is not uncommon for governmental agencies to reach out to the endeavors underway, providing a local population with its first experience of collaborating with governmental authorities from a position of confidence and mutual partnership, rather than need or apprehension. But benefits can flow in the other direction as well, even in the fraught atmosphere of a natural disaster. As one Bahá’í in Vanuatu wrote:

After the cyclone, I decided, after consulting with a member of the National Spiritual Assembly, to offer my volunteer services at the Provincial Government Headquarters’ Disaster Management Office. We had to organize the Disaster Management Office to respond effectively to the needs of the people by distributing the relief that was being donated by aid organizations. The Office had to collect statistics to be able to effectively distribute the relief supplies. We used the tools and instruments I had learned about while serving as a [training institute] coordinator. We divided Tanna into sectors and collected statistics according to infants, children, junior youth, and adults. We also introduced the Bahá’í principles of consultation, action, and reflection … Many aid organizations approach us when they encounter an obstacle. We suggest to them to work with the chiefs and consult with the people at the grassroots. We also suggested that the Office begin its operation every morning with prayers.

TENDING TO SPIRITUAL NEEDS, DRAWING ON SPIRITUAL POWERS

Around the world, Bahá’ís and their like-minded collaborators are working to strengthen the devotional character of their communities.²⁹ Reaching out to neighbors of all backgrounds, they seek to create, in the intimate setting of the home, spaces for shared worship, exploration of the deeper meaning of life, and purposeful discussion of issues of common concern. Such explicitly spiritual objectives might seem tangential to traditional humanitarian concerns. Yet in times of natural disaster, people the world over grapple with existential questions at the most fundamental levels. And communities where people worship together in a variety of settings, make a habit of visiting one another in their homes, and regularly engage in conversations of significance are better equipped to remain hopeful, to see meaning, and to persevere and recover when disasters occur. Communities in which social ties are strong and spiritual roots run deep are more resilient in the face of disaster.

Devotional gatherings are often simple and informal. Yet in some cases, spaces for shared worship have become a central element in more traditional service delivery and provision. During the flooding in India:

The relief committee along with the cluster development facilitator³⁰ visited homes of individuals and prayed with them. During these devotionals, they would see what help was required. In some instances, where homes were completely destroyed and they needed a roof over their heads, the relief committee was able to arrange for them to take temporary refuge in those few homes that had not been washed away. At a prayer meeting held at the local Bahá’í Centre … relief was provided in the form of financial assistance to the friends. Although they also needed help, most of the Bahá’ís declined the money because they wished to save the funds of the Faith.

Tending to the devotional character of a community can also help local populations assess collective well-being according to a much fuller range of factors. In particular, it builds capacity to address spiritual and emotional maladies, as well as more obvious physical ones. In Dominica, after Hurricane Maria, it was seen that:

One of their concern[s] is that [a certain city] was the hub for fishing … but now it seems like the fishermen are very depressed and not motivated to go out fishing. We had some discussion how they as a community [can] help these men and what are some simple steps that they can take. It came to the conclusion that they have the equipment, but they just lost motivation. … [The community] agreed that they will look at the names of the fishermen and next time we meet we can all go in small group of 3 or 4 and meet with them and find out what makes them happy and how to bring back their spirit of joy in fishing.

Experience has shown that concern for the quality of devotional life, both individual and collective, helps members of disaster-stricken communities revive within themselves and others a spirit of joy and optimism about the future. It reinforces the will not only to survive, but to live in the highest sense of the term. When Cyclone Pam struck Vanuatu, for example, Bahá’ís were just days from Naw-Rúz,³¹ the Bahá’í new year festival, and in the midst of a period of daily fasting. Many lost virtually all their material goods. Yet in locality after locality, Bahá’ís celebrated the new year with the wider community around them. As one individual recounts:

After the cyclone our Local Spiritual Assembly made a plan to celebrate Naw-Rúz. The chiefs and all the people of the village were invited to celebrate it with us. Many believers fasted during the cyclone, and the people at our Naw-Rúz celebration commented that next year they are going to join the Bahá’ís in fasting … We are confident that whatever we have lost to the cyclone we will regain through the blessings of Bahá’u’lláh. During the celebrations we shared with the people that soon we will restart the spiritual educational process in the village—the children’s classes, the junior youth groups, and the study circles.

THE PATH AHEAD

The Universal House of Justice has written that, as individual believers continue to labor at the level of the cluster, they will find themselves drawn further and further into the life of societyand that once human resources in a cluster are in sufficient abundance, and the pattern of growth firmly established, the community’s engagement with society can, and indeed must, increase.³² As this process advances, Bahá’í communities are challenged to extend the process of systematic learning in which they are engaged to encompass a widening range of human endeavors.³³

Disaster response is one such area, and exploration of its requirements must continue for years to come. How is knowledge about resilient communities to be created and by whom? What are recovery and progress understood to mean and entail? In what ways will relationships, assumptions, and arrangements common to contemporary discourse and practice need to shift? And how does the Person of Bahá’u’lláh, as well as the efforts of those working to put His teachings into practice, relate to the realities of traditional disaster response?

Insight into such questions will be gained incrementally, as capacity to sustain both transformative action and profound learning expands in more and more localities. Such a process will be driven in part by those who are working to apply the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh to the construction of communities whose ways will give hope to the world.³⁴ At the same time, the wider society is also recognizing the indispensability of principles enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh. For example, in 2016 the Secretary General of the United Nations convened the first World Humanitarian Summit, and in his report to that gathering he identified unified visionas a prerequisite for transformational change:

In a globalized world, this vision needs to be inclusive and universal and to bring people, communities and countries together, while recognizing and transcending cultural, religious or political differences. It needs to be grounded in mutual benefit, where all stand to gain. At a time when many are expressing doubt in the ability of the international community to live up to the promises of the Charter of the United Nations … we need, more than ever, to reaffirm the values that connect us. Our vision for change must therefore be grounded in the value that unites us: our common humanity.³⁵

Such clear affirmations of the oneness of humankind, the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve,³⁶ suggest the potential for progress in humanitarian efforts and other fields. And as Bahá’ís and their friends work to realize this potential in more villages, neighborhoods, cities, and towns, they will be contributing their share to the emergence of a united and prospering world that might truly deserve to be called the kingdom of God on earth.³⁷

“As we were approaching [the] village, we saw three Bahá’í youth … walking in the opposite direction under strong sun. We asked where they were going, and they said they were going to a nearby village to conduct their children’s classes and junior youth groups. Later, in the village, we saw that their houses were destroyed and still unbuilt.” – member of a team assessing damage from Cyclone Pam, Isla village, Tanna island, Vanuatu