unity Archives - Bahai World

By Shahrzad Sabet

Shahrzad Sabet is Co-Director of the Center on Modernity in Transition (COMIT) and a Fellow at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. A political scientist, her research spans a variety of disciplines including philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and economics. Her current book project proposes a reimagined universalism that reconciles the oneness and the diversity of humankind. She has held positions at Princeton University, the University of Maryland, and Harvard University, where she received her PhD.

Humanity is gripped by a crisis of identity, as various peoples and groups struggle to define themselves, their place in the world, and how they should act. Without a vision of shared identity and common purpose, they fall into competing ideologies and power struggles. Seemingly countless permutations of “us” and “them” define group identities ever more narrowly and in contrast to one another. Over time, this splintering into divergent interest groups has weakened the cohesion of society itself.¹

—The Universal House of Justice

The “crisis of identity” described by the Universal House of Justice is one of the defining features of the present moment. Questions of identity and belonging have surged to prominence in recent years, finding expression in virtually every aspect of collective life. As the forces of our decidedly global age challenge the boundaries, both literal and figurative, that define group identities, the secure sense of belonging these identities have traditionally supplied is increasingly frustrated or lost, resulting in confusion, insecurity, conflict, and ever more forceful assertions of difference. Paradoxically, even as the need for a deeply felt sense of human oneness has grown more obvious, categories of “us” and “them” have multiplied and become more salient around the globe.

Confronted with humanity’s crisis of identity, some thinkers have proposed the reimagination of national identity. A newly enlightened and capaciously inclusive form of nationalism, they suggest, can provide a shared context of belonging within which various narrower identities and attachments can be reconciled.² But solutions rooted in national identity, or in other familiar concepts such as liberal democracy, are struggling to resolve the crisis.

From the perspective of the Bahá’í teachings, the solution to our crisis of identity lies in the genuine and deeply felt recognition of human oneness. Specifically, the Bahá’í writings suggest that only a collective identity³ rooted in the oneness of humankind can resolve our present crisis and fundamentally relieve the various long-standing tensions that surround it. The previously cited passage from Universal House of Justice goes on to elaborate this point:

“Rival conceptions about the primacy of a particular people are peddled to the exclusion of the truth that humanity is on a common journey in which all are protagonists. Consider how radically different such a fragmented conception of human identity is from the one that follows from a recognition of the oneness of humanity. In this perspective, the diversity that characterizes the human family, far from contradicting its oneness, endows it with richness. Unity, in its Bahá’í expression, contains the essential concept of diversity, distinguishing it from uniformity. It is through love for all people, and by subordinating lesser loyalties to the best interests of humankind, that the unity of the world can be realized and the infinite expressions of human diversity find their highest fulfilment.”⁴

The notions of identity and human oneness reflected in this passage, and indeed throughout the Bahá’í writings, present a radical departure from the way these concepts are frequently understood in contemporary thought and discourse. Many prominent conceptions of our shared humanity, and in particular, those that emerge from the predominant intellectual frameworks of the West, are widely deemed homogenizing. They are also critiqued for being too far removed from the texture of everyday life to hold any relevance for the communities and relationships to which people immediately belong. The Bahá’í teachings offer a different vision. Far from threatening or contradicting the essential diversity of humankind, the Bahá’í writings suggest that a universal human identity is uniquely equipped to ensure the fundamental security and flourishing of our particular (i.e., narrower) identities, communities, and affiliations. This article considers why and how the Bahá’í expression of human oneness resolves both the collective crisis of identity we currently face and the long-assumed tension between the oneness and the diversity of humankind.

Humanity’s Crisis of Identity: Two Underlying Tensions

It would be helpful to begin by more closely examining the crisis itself. Two long standing tensions, or apparent contradictions, underlie humanity’s crisis of identity and complicate its resolution.

The first tension pertains directly to the nature of traditional group identities⁵ themselves. As the philosopher Martha Nussbaum explains in reference to the two-faced Roman god of duality, collective identities are “Janus-faced”: they are characterized by two contrasting aspects in chronic tension.⁶ On the one hand, our traditional “bounded” identities—that is, identities that include some and exclude others—are deeply susceptible to instability, conflict, and destructiveness. Whether in the dividing lines of contemporary society or in the most catastrophic injustices of human history, collective identities can reveal an exceedingly ugly face. Observing the tensions that surround group identities, the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah declares them “horsemen of the apocalypses from apartheid to genocide.”⁷

On the other hand, the diversity embodied in our bounded social identities is vital. At the aggregate level, various forms of diversity are essential to the strength, stability, and flourishing of social systems.⁸ Shared identities, furthermore, bind us together in social and moral enterprises, providing a basis for community, collective action, and mutual support. At a more personal and subjective level, our particular experiences and perspectives constitute important parts of our self-concept as human beings: they legitimately yearn for recognition, inclusion, and expression.

This dual nature of collective identity is also suggested in the Bahá’í writings. Shoghi Effendi, for instance, distinguishes unbridled nationalism from a “sane and legitimate patriotism,”⁹ and the Universal House of Justice describes “a love of one’s country that cannot be manipulated” and that “enriches one’s life.”¹⁰ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes this duality more explicit. “[D]ifferences, He writes, “are of two kinds. One is the cause of annihilation and is like the antipathy existing among warring nations and conflicting tribes who seek each other’s destruction … The other kind, which is a token of diversity, is the essence of perfection …”¹¹

These two sides of our traditional bounded identities leave them in a state of chronic tension and instability which has, to date, stubbornly evaded resolution. Social identities are perpetually vulnerable to destructiveness and conflict. And yet, we cannot live without them.

The tension that characterizes bounded identities is amplified by their relationship to forces and movements that are unbounded. Economic globalization in its various forms, the heightened ease of transborder communication, the growing universality of our moral intuitions, the expanding consciousness of human oneness and interdependence more broadly, not to mention the countless interdependencies that propagated a deadly virus across the globe, are all widely thought to threaten the security of our traditional identities and affiliations.¹² Put differently: the legitimate yearning for rootedness and belonging is challenged by the porousness, fluidity, and expanded consciousness of an increasingly global age. The insecurity induced by these “universalizing” forces thus results in a more acutely felt yearning for the sense of rootedness traditional identities provide, as well as in the related impulse to bolster the security of these identities by sharpening the boundaries that define them. In other words, as our shared consciousness of the physical, social, moral, and economic space we inhabit as human beings is stretched to include the entire planet, humanity’s collective ambivalence toward its bounded identities both intensifies and becomes increasingly expressed in a second, broader tension between the universal and the particular—between the pull of bounded identities and attachments, on the one hand, and that of universalist forces and aspirations, on the other. This stubborn tension has led the political philosopher Seyla Benhabib to conclude, “Our fate, as late-modern individuals, is to live caught in the permanent tug of war between the vision of the universal and the attachments to the particular.”¹³

At the heart of humanity’s crisis of identity, therefore, lies a key question: Can humanity’s fundamental oneness be reconciled with its essential diversity? And can such a reconciliation be achieved at the deepest levels of human identity and meaning? The answer proclaimed in the Bahá’í writings, as we have seen, is unequivocally affirmative: it is through the deeply felt recognition of human oneness that the diversity of humankind thrives and finds its highest fulfillment. Why might an identity rooted in the oneness of humankind be uniquely equipped to protect and promote its diversity?

Unique Features of an Identity Rooted in the Oneness of Humankind

To begin answering this question, I suggest that a collective identity genuinely rooted in the oneness of humankind is qualitatively different than every other social identity because of at least two distinguishing features. These unique features, in turn, enable a universal human identity to stabilize and empower¹⁴ our particular identities in ways that other overarching affiliations—nationality, for example—cannot.

The first feature that distinguishes an identity rooted in the oneness of humankind is rather obviously that it is non-exclusionary. Insofar as human beings and their communities are concerned, an identity genuinely rooted in our common humanity has no bounds of exclusion or parameters of otherness; it literally has no “other.”¹⁵ This stands in contrast to all traditional social identities which, by definition, have outsiders, and are thus inescapably bounded and exclusionary.

I hasten to note that a non-exclusionary human identity need not cast humanity in opposition to non-human life on the planet, nor must it entail a sharp separation of human beings from their physical environment, precluding, for instance, the notion that we share a type of oneness with our ecosystem(s).¹⁶ Indeed, a genuinely non-exclusionary human identity should lead to a deeper appreciation of our broader interdependence, rather than to a destructive anthropocentricism, which is often an expression of the very same attitudes and predispositions that animate the exclusion, oppression, and destruction of human life on the planet.¹⁷

The second distinguishing feature of a genuinely universal human identity pertains to the nature of the commonality on which it is based. Consider that, as scientific studies widely confirm, virtually all other group identities are ultimately socially constructed.¹⁸ This is not to say, of course, that these identities are not real, whether in their objective, material consequences, or in humanity’s subjective experience and valuation of them. It is to observe, rather, that the commonalities in which they are grounded are contingent (i.e., dependent) on a range of social constructs and impermanent socio-historical phenomena, for example, on fluid beliefs about social and biological reality, on the frequently contested details of history, on socially constructed parameters of membership, and tragically, on shared experiences of oppression and injustice.¹⁹ In this sense, then, the contingency of other collective identities is inescapable.

Strikingly, more than a hundred years ago, when the socially constructed nature of humanity’s dividing lines was far from obvious, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made these observations explicit. As he explained, “These boundaries and distinctions are human and artificial, not natural and original.”²⁰ And elsewhere: “Religions, races, and nations are all divisions of man’s making only …”²¹ Indeed, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá elaborated on the inherent contingency and impermanence of the various identities and affiliations that traditionally bind human beings together:

“In the contingent world there are many collective centers which are conducive to association and unity between the children of men. For example, patriotism is a collective center; nationalism is a collective center; identity of interests is a collective center; political alliance is a collective center; the union of ideals is a collective center, and the prosperity of the world of humanity is dependent upon the organization and promotion of the collective centers. Nevertheless, all the above institutions are, in reality, the matter and not the substance, accidental and not eternal—temporary and not everlasting. With the appearance of great revolutions and upheavals, all these collective centers are swept away.”²²

Drawing on the Bahá’í writings, this article posits that, in contrast to the necessarily contingent basis of all other identities, the basis of a universal human identity need not be socially constructed or contingent. Such an identity, rather, can be rooted in the non-contingent and ultimately investigable reality of human oneness.

This second unique and distinguishing feature of an identity authentically rooted in the oneness of humankind I will call its non-contingency. Specifically, by positing that the basis of a genuinely universal human identity is non-contingent, I take for granted first, that there is something distinctive and non-contingent that only and all human beings have in common;²³ and, second, that the expressions of this human commonality or “core”—expressions in the form, for example, of common yearnings, vulnerabilities, and experiences—are such that human beings, whatever their particular context, can come to recognize that a distinctive and non-contingent human commonality exists.²⁴^,²⁵

Not every possible basis of unbounded human affiliation will meet the criteria of genuine (or authentic) non-contingency. The article returns to this point in various ways below, especially when it considers what constitutes a genuinely non-contingent basis for collective identity from the Bahá’í perspective.

The sections that immediately follow, however, aim to show that when taken together, the two distinguishing features of a universal social identity posited above—that is, its non-exclusionary and potentially non-contingent basis—carry deep and far-reaching implications.

A Source of Fundamental Security

What implications follow from the non-exclusionary and non-contingent basis of a collective identity authentically rooted in the oneness of humankind? Consider first that these two features of a universal human identity can yield parameters of inclusion that are immovably all-inclusive—in other words, that are thoroughly stable and safe. In contrast, bounded and contingently grounded identities have parameters of membership that are inherently unstable. Because the boundaries of such identities are exclusionary (by definition, there are outsiders), and because they are contingent and fluid (they are socially constructed and therefore subject to reconstruction), their parameters of belonging are intrinsically susceptible to contestation, redefinition, exclusion, and othering. This threat of exclusion, of course, can come from without (i.e., othering of and by non-members). But significantly, it also comes from within. When parameters of inclusion are intrinsically bounded and contingent, the question of “who belongs?” can never be fully closed: today’s insiders can be cast as outsiders tomorrow. The instability of intergroup relations is thus augmented by the potential precariousness of in-group membership. The current discourse and political rhetoric surrounding many national identities helps illustrate this point. As the narrative of a national identity is recontested and retold, so too are its parameters of otherness redrawn: “Who counts as ‘real’ national and who doesn’t?” has become a strikingly unstable question in recent years, even in long-consolidated nations and democracies.

Thus, when parameters of inclusion are bounded and the basis of belonging contingent, the possibility of external threat is never fully eliminated and one’s claim to internal membership is never fully stable. Only a collective identity that is both genuinely non-exclusionary and non-contingently grounded—that is, an identity rooted in the genuine recognition of human oneness—can deliver a context of fundamental security: one belongs because one is human, full stop.²⁶

The distinctive characteristics of a universal human identity, therefore, reveal the possibility of a collective identity that is not only itself uniquely invulnerable to instability and destructiveness, but that is also uniquely equipped to relieve the insecurity and potential destructiveness of all other shared identities and affiliations. In other words, only a collective identity rooted in the oneness of humankind has the potential to deliver a stabilizing context of fundamental security to our particular—and otherwise unstable—group identities.

Empirical research in psychology suggests and substantiates this proposition in notable ways. Two threads of this research are briefly highlighted here. The first shows that a feeling of security (and conversely, the feeling or perception of threat) plays a critical role in constituting the context and nature of intergroup relations. Specifically, a substantial body of research finds that “felt security” relieves intergroup hostility, yielding a posture of empathy, care, and openness to out-groups,²⁷ while “felt threat” increases intergroup hostility and conflict.²⁸ Thus, a sense of security is conducive to more caring and empathic relations with those who hold different bounded identities.

A second thread of evidence powerfully complements the first by suggesting that identifying with the humanity of others is associated with markedly higher levels of felt security. For example, in her analysis of in-depth interviews with Nazi supporters, bystanders, and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, the political psychologist Kristen Monroe found that those who conceived of themselves first and foremost as part of all humankind²⁹ experienced distinctively higher levels of felt security.³⁰ Studies employing different methods offer consistent results. Brain imaging in neuropsychology, for example, reveals that the amygdala—a part of the brain that plays a central role in the experience of fear and aggression—becomes highly active when the average subject is shown faces from different races. But when subjects are first primed to think of people as individual human beings rather than as members of groups, the amygdala does not react.³¹

These two threads of empirical research thus suggest that identifying with the oneness of humankind is associated with a greater sense of security, and that a sense of security relieves intergroup hostility and yields a posture of empathy, care, altruism, and openness toward out-groups.

Taken together, these empirical findings begin to substantiate the implications drawn logically from the inclusiveness and non-contingency of a universal source of belonging. An identity based on the essential oneness of humankind detaches bounded identities from the threat of rejection, humiliation, and domination that has forever shadowed them, and from notions of superiority and inferiority that have stubbornly fueled these threats. In other words, by transforming the overarching frame in which difference is situated and perceived—by resituating our particular identities within parameters of inclusion that are thoroughly safe, immovable, and all-inclusive—a universal identity has the potential to fundamentally relieve the seemingly inherent instabilities of our particular attachments, and to resolve the chronic tension or duality that we observed at the outset. An all-encompassing identity can thus deliver the context of genuine and enduring security that has long eluded our bounded social identities.³²

Beyond Security: Liberating the Particular

The preceding section developed the case that an identity authentically rooted in the oneness of humankind provides a context of fundamental security, stabilizing the tensions that have long shadowed our bounded identities. The implications of a genuinely universal collective identity, however, go beyond just relieving particular identities of their destructive and destabilizing potential. What a context of deep, all-pervasive security delivers is not merely a stable equilibrium of peaceful coexistence, but rather, optimal conditions for the vibrancy and flourishing of particular identities, and of human diversity more broadly.

The idea here might be put this way: when the cost and encumbrance of insecurity and its associated protective measures are removed, on the one hand, and when an open and empathic posture toward difference becomes pervasive, on the other, then uninhibited, constructive, and creative expressions of the particular from all sides become much more probable and robust. In a context of fundamental security, goals of survival and collective self-protection can give way to more generative and constructive goals. In other words, through the felt security and certainty of belonging that an identity rooted in human oneness provides, other identities find not only protection—from their own instability and from the threat of other groups—but also liberation or release from the constraining weight that a context of latent threat has imposed on the expression of their potential. Thus, the deeply internalized consciousness of the oneness of humanity frees our bounded identities both from the threats of instability, hostility, and oppression that have stubbornly shadowed them, and from the countless safeguards and constraints that have been devised to keep these instabilities in check. Far from stifling the diversity of humankind, a reimagined universal human identity can furnish a powerful lubricant for the free expression of diversity on newly constituted terms.

Notably, the relationship between freedom and the recognition of human oneness is emphasized and elaborated in various ways throughout the Bahá’í writings. In one passage, for example, Bahá’u’lláh writes, “If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty.…”³³ In another tablet, Bahá’u’lláh explains more explicitly that “true liberty” will be achieved when identification with and love for the whole of humankind is realized in people’s consciousness.³⁴ It is noteworthy that, in that passage, Bahá’u’lláh also characterizes the achievement of such an identity as “the ornament of utmost tranquility,” further associating universal human identity with a sense of fundamental security and freedom.

What comes into focus, then, is a radical and somewhat counterintuitive vision of human oneness that directly addresses the tension between the universal and the particular. The Baha’i writings suggest that it is by liberating the particular through the universal—by releasing, in other words, the particular from the insecurities, instabilities, and oppressive relationships that have constrained it—that a fundamental and enduring resolution emerges.³⁵ Paradoxically, it is by leaning fully into a genuine and emotionally rich universalism that the particular thrives, flourishes, and fulfills its potential. Thus, and as the opening passage from the Universal House of Justice indicates, it is through the deeply felt recognition of our fundamental oneness that the infinite expressions of human diversity thrive and find their highest fulfillment.³⁶

Critiques of Universalism and the Distinctiveness of the Bahá’í View

The notions of identity and human oneness reflected in preceding sections present a significant departure from the way these concepts are frequently understood in contemporary thought and discourse, particularly in the contemporary discourses of the West. One of the most powerful and pervasive critiques of universalism—and of a collective identity rooted in the oneness of humankind, in particular—is that it poses a threat to diversity. Skeptics worry that, along a variety of dimensions (e.g., identity, language, culture, geography, institutions, etc.), the ideal of human oneness carries an inherent risk of uniformity. This homogeneity, they further worry, tends to project dominant cultures and identities, and is often propagated through (neo-)imperialistic processes.³⁷ The Bahá’í writings, as we have seen, envision a radically different possibility. The concept of oneness that emerges from these writings is not uniformity, but rather, a notion of unity that “contains the essential concept of diversity.” This conception of oneness is also strikingly embodied in the practice of the Bahá’í community. Across the globe, the Bahá’í principle of the oneness of humankind is actively expressed in worldwide community-building efforts that are explicitly “outward looking”³⁸: they are, by definition, open to the full diversity of human beings, including those with other or no religious beliefs.

Another prominent critique of universalism reflects the notion that ideas rooted in our common humanity are overly abstract and disconnected from the concrete texture of everyday experience. While universalist visions might be relevant to questions of directly global or transnational concern (e.g., global governance, “global” poverty, etc.), their relevance to the relationships, neighborhoods, and communities to which people immediately belong is unclear or remote. This is especially true, the argument goes, where collective identity is concerned. In contrast to the intimacy and warmth offered by our traditional group identities, a universal human identity entails a rational commitment to the cold and distant abstraction of human oneness. From this perspective, an identity rooted in the oneness of humankind is too far removed from the texture of everyday life and experience to deliver the color, warmth, meaning, and locality that our other identities provide. A variation on this critique is the now-popularized charge of elitism: if a global, universal, or “cosmopolitan” identity works for anyone, we are told (and can vividly imagine), it works for a small, out-of-touch tribe of frequent-flying elites.³⁹

The Bahá’í vision of oneness and identity also diverges markedly from this view. As the preceding sections have tried to show an identity genuinely rooted in the oneness of humankind transforms the overarching context in which all identities are expressed, reorienting identities and relationships at all levels of society. From the Bahá’í perspective, then, the domain of universalism does not lie exclusively beyond borders, nor is it some distant transnational space inaccessible to the masses. Its domain, rather, is everywhere: it is concrete, immediate, and ubiquitous, encompassing all the textured communities and identities human beings value, whether they hold international passports or not. In this view, the oneness of humankind finds expression as much in the particular, and as much within the bounds of local and national communities, as it does beyond them. Again, this conception of oneness is not only reflected in the writings of the Faith, but also, strikingly, in the practice and experience of the worldwide Bahá’í community across countless cultural settings. In the Bahá’í experience, a universal identity is both directly nourished by and expressed in a range of grassroots community-building efforts that are decidedly local in nature.⁴⁰

A directly related and overlapping feature of the Bahá’í conception of human oneness—and of an identity rooted in the oneness of humanity, in particular—is the radical, thoroughgoing, and unprecedented nature of the transformation it entails. Unlike some notable conceptions of universalism, the Bahá’í principle of the oneness of humankind does not simply call for the “universalization” of existing identities, norms, and institutions.⁴¹ It does not, for instance, entail the extension of existing national systems of governance and democracy to the entire globe; nor does it simply call for the expansion of existing schemes of domestic redistribution, or the replication of national collective identities in the global plane. Rather, the Bahá’í conception of the oneness of humanity represents a qualitatively distinct and transformative shift that permeates every level of society, fundamentally reorienting all identities and relationships, and transforming all structures of society. As the Universal House of Justice writes, “the principle of the oneness of humankind, as proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh, asks not merely for cooperation among people and nations. It calls for a complete reconceptualization of the relationships that sustain society.”⁴² Similarly, this principle “has widespread implications which affect and remold all dimensions of human activity.”⁴³

In other words, far from merely reflecting a linear and incremental expansion of scope from the national to global sphere, the deeply felt recognition of humanity’s oneness represents a fundamentally different and qualitatively unprecedented step in the evolution of humankind. In reference to the revolutionary changes that led to the unification of nations, for example, Shoghi Effendi writes, “Great and far-reaching as have been those changes in the past, they cannot appear, when viewed in their proper perspective, except as subsidiary adjustments preluding that transformation of unparalleled majesty … which humanity is in this age bound to undergo.”⁴⁴ Elsewhere, he explains that the principle of the oneness of humankind implies “a change such that the world has not yet experienced,” “a new gospel, fundamentally different from … what the world has already conceived.”⁴⁵

The Risk of False Universalisms

Of course, any proponent of the oneness of humankind must heed a critical warning: humanity shares a long and continuing history of oppressive ideas about the “human.”⁴⁶ Indeed, theorists of various kinds legitimately worry that casting our humanity in essentialist terms (i.e., taking for granted that our humanness is constituted by certain universal features, as the premise of non-contingency suggests) risks elevating a particular conception of the human over others, potentially marginalizing non-dominant experiences and opening the door to false, oppressive, and exclusionary ideas.

Adequately addressing these important concerns lies beyond the limited frame of this article. Here, I acknowledge the significance of these concerns and briefly highlight two points that might be developed in relation to them. First, recognizing that a non-contingent basis for a universal human identity exists—a recognition, it should be noted, that countless human beings readily and intuitively evince—does not require an immediate commitment to any particular, fixed, or rigid conception of our shared humanity. Of course, on a biological level, the truth that human beings constitute a single species is a basic fact that few people today deny, and which can serve as a starting point for the recognition of our shared humanity. But to arrive at a fuller and deeper common understanding of human oneness—one that can sustain a richly-conceived collective identity—a process of genuinely open, inclusive, and dynamic inquiry is required. By explicitly positing that the content or definition of a universal human identity must (minimally) include the recognition of its basis as non-exclusionary and non-contingent, we guard against false accounts of the human that violate these parameters—accounts, in other words, that exclude some human beings, or that render their humanity contingent and therefore questionable.⁴⁷ This particular formulation of a collective human identity thus creates a safe and stable set of parameters within which genuine dialogue and inquiry into the content and expression of the human can take place.⁴⁸

A related point is suggested in the Bahá’í writings. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá proclaims, “[T]ruth or reality must be investigated; for reality is one, and by investigating it, all will find love and unity.”⁴⁹ In another talk, He explains:

“The first teaching [of Bahá’u’lláh] is that man should investigate reality, for reality is contrary to dogmatic interpretations and imitations of ancestral forms of belief to which all nations and peoples adhere so tenaciously … Reality is one; and when found, it will unify all mankind … Reality is the oneness or solidarity of mankind … The second teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the principle of the oneness of the world of humanity.”⁵⁰

Clearly, these passages assert the truth of the principle of the oneness of humankind. But by closely pairing that principle with the precept that human beings should actively investigate reality, the truth of human oneness is also rendered a testable hypothesis. Indeed, both the reality of human oneness, and ideas about the various forms and expressions it might take, are investigable propositions. The posture of free and independent investigation enjoined by the Bahá’í writings—that is, the principle that truth must be investigated free from the force of prevailing traditions, habits, and prejudices—both demands a critical interrogation of the (often oppressive) claims, structures, and relationships that bear the false imprint of universalism, and directly negates any assumption that universalism requires the imposition of a particular viewpoint or way of thought. In the Bahá’í view, a genuine recognition of the oneness of humankind can not only survive the free, open, and critical investigation of reality, but in fact, requires it. With the potential pitfalls of essentialism firmly in mind, but recognizing the transformative power that a genuine universalism could hold, the reality of human oneness might be regarded as a hypothesis that deserves the open, rigorous, and investigative posture that the Bahá’í teachings invite.⁵¹

A Spiritual Conception of Human Oneness and the Ongoing Learning of the Bahá’í Community

Drawing insights from the Bahá’í writings, and engaging prominent strands of contemporary thought and discourse, this article has developed the case that the solution to our collective crisis of identity lies in the genuine and deeply felt recognition of the oneness of humankind. But as the preceding section suggests, important questions remain: What might constitute the content—that is, the non-contingent basis—of a universal human collective identity? Can such an identity take shape and find expression across the vast spectrum of human diversity? And if so, how?

In this connection, the experience of the Bahá’í community and its grassroots community-building efforts present a potentially fruitful case for study. Bahá’í communities, the Universal House of Justice explains, define themselves “above all … by their commitment to the oneness of humanity.”⁵² Significantly, for the Bahá’í community, this recognition of human oneness is a fundamental and defining feature of identity. It is a meaningful and deeply internalized commitment, entailing thick, emotionally rich bonds of genuine solidarity and love.⁵³ Bahá’ís consciously strive to manifest a love that extends “without restriction to every human being”⁵⁴ and to achieve “a sense of identity as members of a single human race, an identity that shapes the purpose of their lives …”⁵⁵

As alluded to earlier, the radical vision of human oneness that motivates this identity also shapes the practice and experience of the Bahá’í community in important and potentially illuminating ways. First, the Bahá’í expression of unity contains the essential concept of diversity. Second and relatedly, the Bahá’í concept of oneness finds powerful expression in the local and the particular: it assumes a deep confluence between a universal human identity, on the one hand, and a deeply felt sense of local community and belonging, on the other. As such, the Bahá’í principle of the oneness of humankind is actively and systematically expressed in local community-building processes open to the full spectrum of human diversity⁵⁶ and extending to every corner of the planet. Around the globe, Bahá’ís—and all who wish to join them—are consciously learning how an identity rooted in the oneness of humankind can be cultivated and expressed across a range of breathtakingly diverse communities, identities, and experiences. In light of the two core concerns raised by critics of universalism—namely, that the ideal of human oneness stifles diversity and is detached from the texture and locality of everyday life—the evolving experience of the Bahá’í community presents fertile ground for learning. Additionally, the experience of the Bahá’í community addresses the further critique that universalist projects, in particular those pertaining to social identity, are utopian and unrealizable. The breadth, depth, and wide-reaching resonance of Bahá’í endeavors should at least prompt a reconsideration of this frequently assumed limit of collective human possibility.

Another essential characteristic of the Bahá’í principle of human oneness relates more directly to the basis of a universal human identity and the question of its non-contingency. From the Bahá’í perspective, what renders a universal collective identity truly stabilizing and non-contingent—in other words, what makes it uniquely invulnerable to the tensions, instabilities, and contradictions that characterize other sources of identity—is a spiritual understanding of the human oneness on which it is based. According to the Bahá’í writings, the fundamentally spiritual reality of human beings—the human soul—is not characterized by the contingent traits that define other, bounded social identities. As the Universal House of Justice explains, “An individual’s true self is to be found in the powers of the soul, which has the capacity to know God and to reflect His attributes. The soul has no gender, no ethnicity, no race. God sees no differences among human beings except in relation to the conscious effort of each individual to purify his or her soul and to express its full powers … This truth is directly related to another—that humanity is one family.”⁵⁷

Recall the core argument that, in contrast to all other forms of love and association, the non-exclusionary and non-contingent basis of an identity rooted in human oneness yields a collective identity that is uniquely stable and stabilizing. In more than one passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá affirms this idea directly, and explicitly ties the non-contingency of universal love and identity to a spiritual source. For example:

“… fraternity, love and kindness based upon family, nativity, race or an attitude of altruism are neither sufficient nor permanent since all of them are limited, restricted and liable to change and disruption. For in the family there is discord and alienation; among sons of the same fatherland strife and internecine warfare are witnessed; between those of a given race, hostility and hatred are frequent; and even among the altruists varying aspects of opinion and lack of unselfish devotion give little promise of permanent and indestructible unity among mankind … the foundation of real brotherhood, the cause of loving co-operation and reciprocity and the source of real kindness and unselfish devotion is none other than the breaths of the Holy Spirit. Without this influence and animus it is impossible. We may be able to realize some degrees of fraternity through other motives but these are limited associations and subject to change. When human brotherhood is founded upon the Holy Spirit, it is eternal, changeless, unlimited.”⁵⁸

Elsewhere, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá characterizes love for the whole of humanity as the one expression of love that is uniquely “perfect” (i.e., free from limits and instabilities) and again, ties this characteristic to the spiritual and the divine. He explains:

Love is limitless, boundless, infinite! Material things are limited, circumscribed, finite. You cannot adequately express infinite love by limited means.

The perfect love needs an unselfish instrument, absolutely freed from fetters of every kind. The love of family is limited; the tie of blood relationship is not the strongest bond. Frequently members of the same family disagree, and even hate each other.

Patriotic love is finite; the love of one’s country causing hatred of all others, is not perfect love!

Compatriots also are not free from quarrels amongst themselves.

The love of race is limited; there is some union here, but that is insufficient. Love must be free from boundaries!

To love our own race may mean hatred of all others, and even people of the same race often dislike each other.

Political love also is much bound up with hatred of one party for another; this love is very limited and uncertain.

The love of community of interest in service is likewise fluctuating; frequently competitions arise, which lead to jealousy, and at length hatred replaces love…

All these ties of love are imperfect. It is clear that limited material ties are insufficient to adequately express the universal love. The great unselfish love for humanity is bounded by none of these imperfect, semi-selfish bonds; this is the one perfect love, possible to all mankind, and can only be achieved by the power of the Divine Spirit. No worldly power can accomplish the universal love.⁵⁹

Spiritual forces and commitments are not only conducive to selfless association and universal love; for many human beings, they are also prime sources of meaning, purpose, and purposeful action. Casting a spiritual light on identity thus reveals a potent connection between the crisis of identity with which this article is concerned, and another pressing crisis confronting humanity, namely, our collective crisis of agency and meaning. Indeed, even as we collectively struggle to find a secure sense of identity and belonging, the yearning for a sense of meaningful agency—that is, the yearning to meaningfully shape our lives, to give purposeful expression to our potential, and to contribute constructively to the communities we inhabit—is also widely frustrated. The experience of the Bahá’í community and the conception of identity on which it is based suggest that the solution to these two crises ultimately converge. A spiritual conception of identity not only attaches an absolute sense of belonging to the condition of being human; it also provides a powerful source of purpose and agency, and a basis for meaningful, transformative action. In the Bahá’í experience, these two expressions of identity—being and doing—are deeply intertwined and often indistinguishable.

The aim of this brief section has not been to demonstrate or adequately develop these ideas. Rather, it has been to highlight how the efforts of the Bahá’í community across vastly different cultural settings might provide illuminating insights into the power and possibility of a universal collective identity and, in particular, into the potential of an explicitly spiritual conception of human oneness.

* * *

“Humanity,” the Universal House of Justice observes, “is gripped by a crisis of identity…” The Bahá’í writings proclaim that the solution to this crisis lies in a radically reconceptualized vision of human identity and oneness. Specifically, they suggest that a collective identity authentically rooted in the oneness of humankind is uniquely equipped to resolve both the tensions that have destabilized our traditional group identities, and the widely assumed tension between humanity’s oneness and its diversity. Drawing on the Bahá’í writings, and engaging prominent strands of contemporary thought and discourse, this article has developed the case that only a universal human identity can ensure the fundamental security and flourishing of our particular identities, communities, and affiliations. In this view, an identity genuinely rooted in the oneness of humankind represents a qualitatively distinct and transformative shift that permeates all levels of society, that reorients all identities and relationships, and that fundamentally protects and liberates our bounded affiliations from their otherwise inherent instabilities and contradictions. Above all, this article has tried to show that as humanity’s crisis of identity persists and intensifies, the Bahá’í vision of human oneness, and its evolving expression in the community-building efforts of the worldwide Bahá’í community, are worthy of close attention.

By Roshan Danesh and Douglas White III

Biographical information about the authors can be found below the article.

Human progress involves understanding and building coherence in the relationship between the seen and unseen—between what is hidden from view and what is evident right before us.

Seen and unseen realities are integral to who we are as human beings. In the Bahá’í understanding, each of us is at once a spiritual and physical being. We “approach God” through our spiritual nature, and in our physical nature we “[live] for the world alone.”¹ Our purpose and challenge in life is to understand and strive to express the spiritual dimension of our beings in how we live our temporal and physical lives. Through this coherence, we can achieve greater degrees of well-being, happiness, and accomplishment for ourselves and those around us.

Similarly, in our collective life, we need to build social realities grounded in and reflective of spiritual principles. Addressing social challenges requires applying in practical ways certain values and forces that we understand as integral to human existence. When we do this, we will support healthy, prosperous, and enduring relationships and societies. In the Bahá’í understanding:

[t]here are spiritual principles, or what some call human values, by which solutions can be found for every social problem. Any well-intentioned group can in a general sense devise practical solutions to its problems, but good intentions and practical knowledge are usually not enough. The essential merit of spiritual principle is that it not only presents a perspective which harmonizes with that which is immanent in human nature, it also induces an attitude, a dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures. Leaders of governments and all in authority would be well served in their efforts to solve problems if they would first seek to identify the principles involved and then be guided by them.²

If human progress—as the Bahá’í teachings suggest—depends on understanding and building coherence between the invisible spiritual dimensions and the visible temporal dimensions of our reality, then it is fair to suggest that the opposite must also be true. When this relationship is not understood and reflected in our lives, when we do not see the connection between what is visible and what is invisible, human experience is marked by greater forms of hardship, lack of well-being, and patterns of social injustice. Inevitably, any effective program aimed at constructive social change must, in some way, involve making the invisible visible.

Reflecting this, for example, the Bahá’í writings speak about how addressing contemporary challenges faced by humanity requires a revitalized “consciousness” of the “oneness of humanity”³ and “world citizenship.”⁴ In becoming aware of the inextricable interconnection and interdependence of all human beings as part of one species—a reality that, in various ways, we have been veiled from seeing—constructive change can be driven. The depths of veiling of this consciousness are one of the roots of harm and conflict that justifies, for example, arbitrary and destructive distinctions between peoples along racial lines, or that paralyzes the ability to meet challenges, such as climate change, that require solutions grounded in the recognition of oneness.

This understanding—of how human progress requires making the unseen seen—provides insights into our efforts to address enduring social challenges and can help inform the ongoing development of practices and policies for change. This paper examines how these Bahá’í ideas about human progress and oneness might be applied to current discourses and efforts to address the harmful legacy of colonization of Indigenous peoples. A particular focus is on Canada, which is often viewed globally as a litmus test for progress and failure in redress and justice for Indigenous peoples. Such analysis reveals that the dynamics of the invisible being made visible at various levels has been an integral force in driving some change in Canada. Yet, at the same time, there remain fundamental realities of division and silos, as well as an enduring denial of the depths of social transformation required to address the legacy of racial inequality. From a Bahá’í perspective, if true reconciliation is to occur, current efforts and patterns must continue to be seen in a new light that can accelerate a focus on more fundamental and systemic change.

Seeing Injustice

In 2021, Canada had a moment of reckoning. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, a First Nation in British Columbia in western Canada, announced the identification of potentially more than 200 unmarked burials of Indigenous children the Canadian state had forced to attend the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The response to the announcement set off a form of national convulsion. Many non-Indigenous Canadians appeared shocked and stunned, unaware of the reality that their country’s history included children being removed from their families for “schooling,” only to die and never return. Some in the national media called it “shocking.”⁵ Political leaders called it “unimaginable.”⁶ Perhaps more than at any other moment in Canadian history, Indigenous peoples and their experiences and realities were at the foreground of Canadian public life, discourse, and debate. There was a growing chorus of calls for substantive action, change, and impromptu gatherings and memorials.

But something was puzzling in this reaction. Of course, we are appropriately horrified by acts that amount to genocide, such as those experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada.⁷ But how could it be that the predominant response of Canadian governments, institutions, and organizations, as well as the general public, was surprise that such a thing could ever have occurred?

The history of Indigenous peoples⁸ in Canada, and their enduring struggle for justice, has been thoroughly documented. The broad strokes are undeniable. At the core of European colonization was the “doctrine of discovery,” a precept from the Papacy that, if no Christians lived in a land, the lands were to be considered “discovered” and uninhabited. Simply put, the ugly root of this principle was that if there were no Christian inhabitants, then there were no human inhabitants.⁹ Consequently, such lands were terra nullius, or empty of human beings. In the lands that now make up Canada, this racist doctrine justified a process of European settlement—and ultimately the founding of Canada in 1867—that included subjugating and displacing the diverse Indigenous peoples by imposing massive systems of oppression upon them.

Two policy programs became the foundation of Canada. The first policy was assimilation, which aimed to destroy Indigenous knowledge, culture, spirituality, family, governance, and social systems. Sir John A. McDonald, Canada’s first prime minister, stated that there was “nothing in [Indigenous peoples’] way of life that was worth preserving” and explained the goal of the government as being “to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominions as speedily as they are fit to change.”¹⁰ Residential schools were one tool of this policy of assimilation. Their object, as explained by Hector-Louis Langevin, one of the founders of Canada and an early government leader, was as follows: “in order to educate the (‘Indian’) children properly we must separate them from their families. Some people may say that this is hard but if we want to civilize them we must do that…if you leave them in the family they may know how to read and write, but they will remain savages, whereas by separating them in the way proposed, they acquire the habits and tastes…of civilized people.”¹¹

The second policy program was denial and dispossession. Reflecting the “doctrine of discovery,” any claim by Indigenous peoples that they had sovereignty, ownership, or a relationship with lands and resources that made up Canada was rejected, ignored, and even outlawed. This was foundational to Canada’s economic and political creation, in addressing both the interests of different European powers—most notably the English and French—and the demands of increasing numbers of European settlers. First Nations peoples were, in various ways, forcibly removed from their lands and segregated in a system of small reserves. Even in areas where historic treaties were signed with the British Crown, both before and after Confederation, promises regarding land have been continually and systematically violated.

One of the central vehicles for implementing these assimilation and denial policies is the racist and colonial Indian Act, which passed soon after Canada was formed in the nineteenth century. The Indian Act formalized and entrenched the reserve system, authorized the removal of Indigenous children and their placement in residential schools, denied basic human rights including voting, freedom of movement, and the right to legal counsel, outlawed Indigenous forms of government, and imposed a foreign system of administrative governance through Indian Act band councils overseen and controlled by the federal government.

While some elements of the Indian Act have been amended over time, as of 2022, the Indian Act remains the primary legislation governing the lives of First Nations people in Canada.

The counterpoint to this history of colonialism has been the enduring effort led by Indigenous peoples, at times with the support of allies from many backgrounds, to address these injustices, secure recognition of Indigenous sovereignty, and establish proper relations between governments and Indigenous peoples. From Canada’s earliest days, visions of this proper relationship have been advanced in various ways. For example, in some First Nations cultures, wampum—made of white and purple seashells and beads—is woven into belts to symbolize peoples, relations, alliances, and events. The Two Row Wampum Belt of the Haudenosaunee expressed a vision of peaceful co-existence between Europeans and Indigenous peoples where “it is agreed that we will travel together, side by each, on the river of life…linked by peace, friendship, forever. We will not try to steer each other’s vessels.” As Ellen Gabriel explains:

Ka’swenh:tha or the Two Row Wampum Treaty is a significant agreement in history of the relationship between European monarchs and Indigenous peoples. Ka’swenh:tha is more than visionary. As a principled treaty it is grounded in an Indigenous intellect providing an insight and a vigilant awareness of the inevitability of the evolution of society. Ka’swenh:tha is an instrument of reconciliation for contemporary times if openness, honesty, respect, and genuine concern for present and future generations is a foundational priority.¹²

Another example is the vision of co-existence with the British that is shared by several interior First Nations in British Columbia, including the Secwepemc, Okanagan, and Nlaka’pamux. In 1910, they wrote to Prime Minister Laurier to raise the alarm about the intensifying oppression, poverty, and hardship facing their peoples. As part of their letter, they shared how their earlier leaders had envisioned proper relations:

Some of our Chiefs said, “These people wish to be partners with us in our country. We must, therefore, be the same as brothers to them and live as one family. We will share equally in everything – half and half – in land, water and timber, and so on. What is ours will be theirs and what is theirs will be ours. We will help each other to be great and good.” ¹³

Efforts by Indigenous peoples to advance these visions of peaceful co-existence have included political actions and organization and the completion of treaties and agreements that they hoped would serve as the foundation for the manifestation of this vision. Alongside this, there has been extensive use of the courts and all forms of social movements and social action.

At the same time, Indigenous peoples have worked to maintain and pass on their culture, knowledge, and social systems to future generations, although they have often had to do this work in the shadows. Jody Wilson-Raybould, the first Indigenous person to serve as Canada’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General, shared an example of this resilience in her own family:

My grandmother, whose English name was Ethel Pearson and whose Kwakwaka’wakw name was Pugladee, had to struggle for change in the shadows, out of sight and invisible, to ensure our culture and our ways survived. To keep our traditions of the Big House alive—our governance system—she and others had to hide their gatherings and the work they were doing from agents of the federal government, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who had direction to stop those gatherings and that work. Our people had a system of lookouts that would let them know when the officials were close, so they could switch from the work they were doing to singing church hymns.¹⁴

There has also been extensive study and analysis of Canada’s legacy of colonialism, its enduring impacts on Indigenous peoples and society at large, and the necessary solutions to overcome these realities. For example, in 1996, it was estimated that in the previous three decades, almost 900 reports were written on the conditions of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous policy in Canada. Since then, the pace of study has only grown. All of these studies include recommendations and solutions for moving forward.

Similarly, the residential school system was the subject of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission¹⁵ that completed its work in 2015 and heard evidence from more than 6,500 individuals. The Commission’s work included producing a volume titled Missing Children and Unmarked Burials.¹⁶ which confirmed 3,200 deaths of children at residential schools, based only on a limited review of documents which were often not kept and not complete. For example, almost half of these confirmed deaths did not list a cause of death, and nearly a third lacked the child’s name. Given this, it has long been clear that properly supporting the search for these lost children would return evidence of far more deaths, by many thousands.

So to return to our question: How could the 2021 unmarked burials announcements be a “shock” and “unimaginable” to many Canadians? They were not, of course, a shock to Indigenous people. As Jody Wilson-Raybould explains:

While the reports were indeed horrific for Indigenous peoples, they were not shocking. Yes, they are triggering and extremely painful, on a personal level, for many. But in our communities, it has always been known that children never returned from residential schools, that they died there. In various ways, these missing children have always been spoken of, as part of our telling of our history in this country.¹⁷

Being incapable of seeing injustices that are right before one’s eyes is a perpetuation of injustice. Bahá’u’lláh highlights this truth in one of His definitions of justice, when He equates justice with being able to see the realities around oneself. Writing in the mid-1800s, He stated that the “best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice,” explaining that, by the aid of justice, “thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others” and “know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge” of others.¹⁸ He goes on to say, “justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.”¹⁹

Without the capacity to see justice and injustice, we allow injustice to prevail. We passively bestow upon the status quo a taken-for-granted quality and fail to look beyond what is immediately and directly in front of our eyes. What looks normal, no matter how pernicious and destructive the reality it perpetuates for others, we come to accept as right, having never sought to understand what may be, at first glance, unseen to us. According to Bahá’u’lláh, this dehumanizes us as individuals. In His view, it is a complete failure to use the capacities that make us truly human. We become blind imitators; we do not see for ourselves and are trapped by illusions, unable to effect change that is grounded in principle, progress, and truth in our lives, in our communities, and the world at large. As He writes:

The essence of all that We have revealed for thee is Justice, is for man to free himself from idle fancy and imitation, discern with the eye of oneness His glorious handiwork, and look into all things with a searching eye.²⁰

In the context of Canada, despite decades of revelations about the true history of the country and the racist and colonial treatment of Indigenous peoples, the reality of unmarked burials (among other aspects of the experience of Indigenous peoples in Canada) remained mainly invisible to governing institutions and the general public. This is not to say there hasn’t been some progress and change. There has been change, much of it vital and important in addressing harms and seeking a more just future. This change has been facilitated by growing awareness and knowledge. What has also been revealed, however, is how powerful and deeply entrenched narratives about Canada—portrayed as a nation forged by English Europeans and French Europeans and as a model of multiculturalism through diversity achieved by immigration— veil the true story of Canada’s foundation being built through exclusion, racism, and colonization. Truly achieving justice is impossible until we rip these veils away and reshape predominant narratives and discourses in ways that support systemic, structural, and transformative change.

Within this veiling is the erasure of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge and experience. What becomes predominant is a version of reality in which Indigenous peoples simply do not, and never did, exist. Douglas White III (one of the authors of this paper), recounted the following vivid illustration of this pervasive erasure:

At the time I was Chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation and had been asked to give a public talk about the history of our Nation. The talk was being held in Departure Bay, which was the site of our major winter village site—Stliinup in our language. We had been pushed out of Stliinup in the mid 1800s even though the village was to be protected for our people by the treaty we entered into in 1854. Settlers named Sliinup “Departure Bay” when they came across the village at a time of year when our people were across the Salish Sea at the Fraser River for our summer salmon fishery. They assumed we were gone for good, not understanding our yearly cycle of movement throughout our territories.

After the talk, during which I shared the history of Stliinup, a member of the public approached me to say that he had lived in Departure Bay for three decades. He said he was shocked to learn the history of where he lived, and that he had no idea that this was the main winter village of the Snuneymuxw.

I was stunned as well. It had never been made so explicitly clear to me how powerful the predominant narratives of history, time, and place were, and the extent of how they erased my people. But this was a reality that I confronted more and more in my years as Chief. I realized that the reality of erasure was all-encompassing. It extended to every aspect of our reality, from where we lived, to our way of life, to our culture, to our history, to our territory, to our contributions to broader society. Even those elements of our reality that were fully shared with the Crown—like our Treaty of 1854—were effectively forgotten and ignored. Even though the Treaty was recognized and affirmed by Canada’s Constitution in 1982, decades later, as Chief, I was constantly interacting with government officials who didn’t seem to see or understand a version of history that included my people, our experience, or the basis of our relationship with the Crown.

This importance of seeing injustice and justice, and the challenge we have in doing so, is at the core of much current study and action in response to racism. Recent anti-racist literature emphasizes this. For example, Ibram X. Kendi writes, “the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it — and then dismantle it.”²¹ Identification and description are necessary because of the blindness people often show toward the ways their choices, actions, and realities uphold forms of racism. Absent critical self-reflection, consciousness-raising, and shifts in perception of self and others (and the relationship between self and others), biases and ignorance remain unconfronted. As individuals and collectives, failure to see and apprehend this reality is not some neutral act for which one is not responsible. On the contrary, it perpetuates and reinforces beliefs, patterns, and unjust and harmful structures.

From Silos to Solidarity

Using the capacity and responsibility that each individual has to see justice and injustice is only a start. Consciousness-raising can inform and propel social transformation, but it does not actually achieve it. Seeing must translate into concrete and impactful social action—and it must do so in particular directions.

Systems of oppression construct visible silos that manifest themselves across all facets of society: cultural, social, political, and economic. In Canada, one expression of this is sometimes described as a socio-economic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. This gap exists across all social sectors: Indigenous peoples experience disproportionately high rates of incarceration, children in care, poverty, and suicide, as well as worse education and health outcomes, among other realities.

Underlying and reinforcing these visible silos are the invisible ones, of the vastly different perceptions, interpretations, and understanding–rooted in vastly different experiences–of people living in the same place at the same time. One by-product of colonialism is the construction of separate and cut-off knowledge systems simultaneously being built and shaped. Peoples, based on their differing experiences—some of privilege and some of oppression—construct ways of comprehending and explaining their reality and have distinct networks and mechanisms for sharing, transmitting, and acting based on that explanation. In conditions of systemic racial oppression, vastly different worldviews and belief systems animate the cultures and ways of life of the colonizer and colonized. As such, not only is there a vastly different experience that informs the development of a vastly different knowledge system, but this takes place in a context where there are already massive differences in how distinct groups interpret reality and share knowledge.

The hidden, invisible silos constructed by colonization run very deep. The disparate responses to the announcement of unmarked burials—“shock” by governments and some of the general public; confirmation and expression of what was already deeply and intimately known by Indigenous peoples—show how entrenched and enduring these silos are.

When these invisible silos are so deep, achieving justice and redress by dismantling the visible ones, such as the socio-economic gap, is much harder. Returning to Bahá’u’lláh’s terms: There is not a strong culture of “seeing with one’s own eyes” that allows, for example, the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ experiences, histories, and realities by governments or much of the population. As Kendi expresses it, there is a struggle to consistently “identify” and “describe” racism because of the power one constructed knowledge system has held in defining the predominant discourses and narratives about who we are, what we represent, and what our history and values are. Deeply entrenched architectures of social meanings and norms limit our ability to see the wrongs and harms that need to be confronted and to purposefully take action to address them.

The strength with which invisible silos operate can be seen in the debates and struggles Canada has had over the term and substance of efforts at “reconciliation” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. For a few decades, reconciliation has been the predominant term used to describe efforts to address Canada’s colonial legacy and the injustices Indigenous peoples faced. To some, with good reason, it is an odd term to use in this context. One of the meanings of the term is the idea of a “return” to a proper state of affairs or relations. But, of course, in the history of Canada—as in many histories of racial oppression around the globe—there is no such state to return to; rather, we are all being challenged to play our role in forging something new and different.

Another common connotation of reconciliation is its emphasis on relationships and healing. While transforming relationships and effecting healing are vital to redressing enduring injustices, there are concerns that placing such a focus on these elements can result in an overemphasis on symbolic or performative acts, rather than impactful changes to oppressive structures and systems.

The struggle over the term reconciliation speaks to a more fundamental global question, which is how to change profoundly entrenched patterns of injustice and forge change that builds cohesion, resiliency, and redress in conditions of diversity and inclusion. This is a challenge for humanity everywhere, whether addressing the legacy of slavery and the history of racism in America, or the decolonization of former European colonies in Africa, or addressing the legacy of apartheid in South Africa, or responding to decades or even centuries of oppression and persecution of religious or ethnic minorities in places around the globe.

From this perspective, the Bahá’í writings propose a particular understanding of the dynamics and requirements of social change in the contemporary world. As briefly discussed earlier, the Bahá’í teachings emphasize that constructive and progressive social change must be understood through the concept of unity. Unity, or oneness, is the central concept of Bahá’í theology, ontology, and social theory—it is the foundation of the Divine, the structure of reality, and the relationship between human beings. Humanity is understood as fundamentally indivisible and interdependent, and there is a responsibility and imperative to manifest that oneness in all our social relations. In such an integrative cosmology and worldview, conflict and violence are anathema, as are prejudice and oppression. There exist a responsibility and a necessity to focus on building patterns of unity that make destructive patterns, and the reinforcement of arbitrary distinctions, increasingly difficult and rare. As levels of social cohesion, affinity, and connection are deepened at multiple levels, conditions of individual and collective well-being are increased.

This Bahá’í vision of unity necessitates recognizing difference. Unity and interconnection do not mean uniformity and sameness, but rather the opposite: complete respect and affirmation of distinctions. In an article exploring Bahá’í approaches to social change, Roshan Danesh (co-author of this article) and Lex Musta explained:

History is rife with egregious examples of hatred and oppression masquerading as so-called unity. Perhaps most evident in history has been the association of the term unity with a limited racial unity, which carries with it an assumption of the inferior status, and in some cases subhuman status, of much of humanity standing outside of that limited unification. Because its inclusiveness is limited rather than universal, this false unity, achieved through uniformity, is antithetical to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

Understanding unity also entails a particular orientation to the relationship between oneness and difference (sometimes referred to as the relationship between unity and diversity). Oneness and difference, in this vision, are seen as essential and integrated concepts that are not in tension as values or constructs. The Bahá’í writings use frequent metaphors to describe this relationship. Bahá’u’lláh states, “Please God, that we avoid the land of denial, and advance into the ocean of acceptance, so that we may perceive, with an eye purged from all conflicting elements, the worlds of unity and diversity, of variation and oneness. …”²²

This concept of unity has many implications for how an action is taken in pursuit of social change, including the redress of historic and enduring injustices like those perpetrated against Indigenous peoples in Canada.

First, there exists within Baha’u’llah’s teaching of unity a stark critique and rejection of existing structures and systems of politics, law, economics, and society. The historical consciousness that Bahá’u’lláh advocates is one in which humanity is struggling to reflect the reality of its unity. In this historical consciousness, humanity finds itself, for the first time, both capable of and challenged in expressing that unity in a global form. This means, however, that existing structures and processes are not merely inadequate and insufficient; while they may have aspects that endure into the future, they also have exclusionary and divisive elements, histories, and principles that have contributed to injustice and harm toward certain peoples and groups. To say it another way: They are grounded in siloed knowledge systems, including those that have been the sources of colonization and oppression. The work of building social systems and structures that reflect the integrative worldview of the oneness of humanity requires a transformation of the status quo.

The Bahá’í writings describe forging this kind of shift—of building new forms of just and cohesive relations between peoples—as extremely challenging, requiring immense personal and collective sacrifice, as work that each and every one of us has a role to play a part in, and as a radical change. This necessary shift is a “turbulent transition.”²³ After all, if “justice is to be the ruling principle of social organization—then existing conceptions that were born out of ignorance of these emerging [global] realities have to be recast.”²⁴ For example, existing economic models “will not serve the needs of a world motivated by ideals of unity and justice.” Instead, new economic models are needed, “shaped by insights that arise from a sympathetic understanding of shared experience, from viewing human beings in relation to others, and from a recognition of the centrality to social well-being of the role of the family and the community.”²⁵ While new awareness and understanding are essential—indeed, shifts in individual consciousness are a necessary driver and engine of broader change—they are not nearly enough. For equal, just, and peaceful relations to exist in which humanity can face current collective challenges, sacrifice and hardship will inevitably have to be endured by individuals, communities, and societies. Long-entrenched patterns that reinforce inequality will have to be confronted.

In the context of the legacy of colonialism in Canada, one can see how there has been a propensity to sometimes pursue what may be seen as easy and to avoid or delay some of what is essential and hard. To put it even more critically, as some have done: There has been a propensity to disproportionately pursue symbolic or performative acts of reconciliation and to avoid making the necessary comprehensive political, economic, and structural shifts. So, for example, we see growing dialogue and debates about flying the Canadian flag at half-mast in response to the discovery of unmarked burials, the appropriateness of making land acknowledgements, the inclusion of Indigenous symbols and representation in ceremonies, the removal of statues, and the changing of placenames. While these types of actions are important and necessary—indeed, they are part of consciousness-raising and reflections of shifts in understanding—their limits are also clear. As Wilson-Raybould explains:

Symbolic acts do not lift a child out of poverty or help keep them with their family. They do not address the over-representation of Indigenous people in the justice system. They do not recognize and implement Indigenous rights, uphold the human rights in the UN Declaration, or do anything else tangible. And, for these reasons, they cannot be a primary focus of our attention, energy, and effort. Yes, there is necessary value in some of these actions. We need them as part of the process of learning and understanding. But no, they should not be the leading focus of the work of reconciliation. Or taken to mean we have reconciled.²⁶

While symbolic action grows, it occurs in a context where foundational structural and systemic change has been extremely slow. Treaties, some of them hundreds of years old, are consistently violated. As already noted, the predominant law governing the lives of most Indigenous peoples in Canada is the Indian Act, a nineteenth-century racist and segregationist statute. While the collective constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples were entrenched in the Canadian Constitution in 1982, Canadian governments adopted the position—after amending the Constitution to include Indigenous rights—that the amendments meant nothing, forcing decades of lawsuits and hundreds of court decisions about their meaning. Meanwhile, the movement toward structural and systemic change that is ultimately needed—to advance the “turbulent transition” and for “justice to be the ruling principle of social organization”—is painfully slow.

The emphasis on the symbolic over the real, of image and form over substance, has not gone unnoticed. It carries with it the potential to make true reconciliation more difficult and to increase conflict. Increasingly, performing reconciliation has become a flashpoint of controversy. For example, leaders from across the political spectrum posed for images on fields adjacent to Indian Residential Schools where children were understood to be buried. This immediately drew criticism because, for example, governments continue to be found liable for systematically violating the basic human rights of Indigenous children, including for providing lesser services for Indigenous children in government care than for non-Indigenous children. This gap between symbolic and substantive action can further reinforce mistrust, make necessary partnering for real change more difficult, and deepen cynicism and skepticism. At the same time, in other segments of society—with less sympathy toward the work of reconciliation—there can be growing frustration as this work seems to grow and intensify. Hostility toward substantive action could become even more intransigent among some as they realize that the growing attention around symbolic measures is not considered to be addressing the real work and real needs.

The focus on what is easier and avoidance of what is harder in the pursuit of reconciliation has been persistent. It continues today when recognition of the need for fundamental change is voiced, but followed up with action that is only on the margins. From a Bahá’í perspective, the resistance to breaking these patterns and to doing the hard work of restructuring political, economic, and social structures and systems effectively denies the reality of justice and unity. If we want to “reconcile”—actually build social systems reflecting inclusion, justice, and unity—we have to be willing to transform the foundations. We cannot do it while being unwilling to look at fundamental changes to systems and structures that facilitated and shaped the injustices in the first place and how those have become entrenched and continue to reinforce invisible and visible silos that arbitrarily and destructively divide human beings.

Transforming Human Communities

Addressing the legacy of colonization of Indigenous peoples requires distinct and specific actions. Enduring and systemic injustices must be approached, understood, and challenged on their own terms, with efforts to redress them grounded in the actual experiences and knowledge of those that have endured them. General platitudes and prescriptions, drawn primarily from theoretical or conceptual frameworks or applying the experiences from other situations of injustice, not only are likely to be ineffective, but can even contribute to perpetuating some of the injustices that one is striving to address.

This development of solutions and change that recognizes, affirms, and reflects the experiences of Indigenous peoples has been difficult. Indigenous peoples have had to fight hard to gain respect for the starting point of efforts at change to be: “nothing about us, without us.” Even when governments recognize the need for change, there remain elements of paternalism and superiority that are reflected in their belief that they still know best.

But, there has been progress. One of the central signs has been the acceleration in recognition by Canadians of all backgrounds of the history of colonization in Canada; the need to gain ever-deeper understanding of Indigenous cultures, peoples, and experiences; and the imperative to support and take action themselves to advance reconciliation. A growing recognition of the centrality and vitality of Indigenous leadership, voices, and experiences and of how much learning has to take place from them and from each other has become discernible. To get to this point of recognition, which is still deepening, Indigenous peoples have had little choice but to struggle and advocate on the terrain of imposed political and legal systems—often engaging in adversarial court processes, action in communities and on the ground, and through political processes. But there are limits to what this can achieve, and now the country is in that “turbulent transition.” Injustice is being seen and understood more and more and is increasingly accepted as untenable. The work of dismantling laws, policies, and practices that have supported injustice is well engaged. But the essential and constructive task of building deep patterns of justice and unity now requires transformation, not reformation. This transformation applies to our human community, in which elements of the status quo in political, legal, social, and economic systems and structures are changed to reflect first values and principles supporting inclusion, unity, and just relations.

Positive and important change has occurred through existing systems and structures, and this must continue to be built. For example, in the 1920s, Indigenous leaders visited the Canadian Parliament to raise the alarm about the growing oppression and declining condition of their peoples and communities. In response to this advocacy, in 1927, the government amended the Indian Act to make it illegal for Indigenous peoples to obtain funds or legal counsel to advance rights issues, thereby shutting out these claims from the court system. Almost forty years later, when these limitations were removed, Indigenous peoples strategically turned to the courts as one avenue to drive change. Over time, the courts became a central venue and vehicle that tended to side with Indigenous peoples in their claims against the government. Ultimately, the courts have played a vitally important role in shifting some of the realities, policies, and conditions of Indigenous peoples—by, in effect, holding governments to account regarding human rights norms.

How much further can such efforts go? Courts do not write legislation, change policies, or undertake or implement practices. They do not build houses, feed children, or transfer land. They do not govern. Moreover, courts are not divorced from or outside of the structures and systems that created the injustice in the first place. Instead, they are institutions of a particular tradition that at one time were forces supporting colonization and at another time were part of addressing its legacy.

While the courts and other existing institutions, systems, and structures may help mitigate conditions of inequality and injustice, they do not have the ability to drive the deep-rooted systemic and structural changes needed to forge grounded patterns in unity. Instead, human communities—peoples—must do this, consciously acting to build new patterns between them and to express those patterns in transformed social relations, structures, and systems.

It is here that one can see some of the exciting and important dynamics of change emerging as the seeds of the transformation required. The fact that Canadians—particularly younger Canadians—increasingly know and understand Canada’s history and legacy of colonization is spurring new forms of action in families, neighbourhoods, and communities that would have been nearly unimaginable even a generation ago.

Local communities where much of the population, regardless of background, recognizes the roles Indigenous governments must play in stewarding the land, protecting the environment, and maintaining cultural, spiritual, and social traditions, are looking to support those roles as they are filled. Individuals, often young people, are engaging in social action in their communities and schools to advance reconciliation, for example, by supporting the creation of culturally safe spaces where learning and sharing with Indigenous peoples can appropriately occur. School systems are changing their curricula and ways of teaching to tell the true history of Canada and focus on what must be done today to advance reconciliation. Community programs are being designed to help new Canadians arriving from other parts of the world to learn and engage with Indigenous peoples to help forge new bonds and relationships that can transcend the destructive patterns that have dominated in so much of Canadian history.

There are also important shifts in social institutions that, historically, were complicit in colonization, and are now striving to be constructive forces in reconciliation. For example, religious institutions—such as the Catholic and Anglican churches—that played a direct and active role in perpetuating racism and injustice, we see ongoing formal and informal efforts at healing and redress, such as the apology by Pope Francis in 2022, with much work for redress remaining to be done. At the same time, some other religious communities that did not play this direct historical role are examining how to create patterns within their communities that are just and inclusive, and how to participate in society in ways that foster true reconciliation. The Bahá’í community of Canada, as one example, has for many decades publicly expressed the daunting responsibility it views its own community having to strive to be an example of reconciliation and a positive agent for transformation. As the Bahá’í community stated in its submission to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:

A great deal of work must be done to right wrongs, to create justice, and to educate a new generation. The Canadian Bahá’í Community would like to express the caution, no doubt very much on the minds of the members of the Commission, that instant solutions are not possible. We would like to offer our assistance should the Commission or Canada’s leaders, Aboriginal leaders or others, wish our help. We are a small community, but we are committed to working towards the creation of justice and unity, healing and well-being.²⁷

From a Bahá’í perspective, this moment in history is one of rupture. We cannot build the new—transformed communities characterized by justice and unity—on infirm foundations shaken and fractured by histories of injustice and violence, silos and division. Therefore, while we must continue to mitigate every enduring harm and make life better for peoples and communities that have suffered intergenerational prejudice and discrimination – and use every tool we can to do so – we must also, at the same time, be engaged in building anew the foundations for structures and systems that reject the possibility of such divisive and destructive actions from the outset.

In this vision, the work of reconciliation must move forward on multiple paths at once. There must be new knowledge and new discourses that lead to new actions by individuals and groups. There must be changes to laws, policies, and practices that recognize Indigenous peoples, governments, laws, traditions, and rights. There must be new forms of agreements and understandings that structure proper, sovereign relations between Indigenous and Canadian governments. But ultimately, while essential, none of these efforts alone will be enough to address the legacy of colonization or prepare for present or future challenges. To truly reconcile, human beings will also have to forge new spaces and patterns of community at the grassroots, striving to reflect the dynamics of peaceful co-existence and just relations from the beginning. This has to be done consciously, in a learning and humble mode, in which no peoples, worldviews, or knowledge systems are rendered invisible, and hidden, divisive silos are actively and visibly rejected. It is this work that is now emerging and that all of us have the capacity to foster to the best of our abilities.

The Bahá’í writings often use an analogy to describe the types of change reflected in shifts such as the work of true reconciliation–the analogy of the struggle of a human being coming of age.²⁸ At such a time, “widely accepted practices and conventions, cherished attitudes and habits, are one by one being rendered obsolete”²⁹ as new imperatives take over. True reconciliation is emblematic of these new imperatives, and achieving it–like addressing other pernicious forms of injustice and creating enduring conditions of peace and harmony–will require human affairs to be “utterly reorganized.” We must all be persistent and audacious in our efforts to advance and achieve this outcome.

Dr. Roshan Danesh, SJD, KC, has advised First Nations, the Canadian federal government, the British Columbia provincial government, local governments, and industry on reconciliation. He has also advised international organizations, including the United Nations, and civil society on issues of peace education and peace building. Roshan completed his doctoral studies in constitutional law at Harvard Law School.

Douglas White III (Kwulasultun), JD, KC, is a member and former Chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation. He is a practicing lawyer and currently is the Chair of the BC First Nations Justice Council. He has been granted Distinguished Alumni Awards from both Vancouver Island University (2013) and the University of Victoria (2015).

By Gustavo Correa

In neighborhoods and villages around the world, tens, hundreds, and in some places, thousands of people, inspired by the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, are engaged in activities that aim to “build community.” In their efforts, we can already see signs of the emergence of new patterns of collective life: a village coming together regularly at the hour of dawn to summon divine assistance before the day’s work; a group of people combining skills and knowledge to carry out a reforestation project; neighbors consulting on ways to establish classes for the spiritual education of their children; a population beginning to shed age-old prejudices and build new patterns of interaction based on justice and unity; young adults, in rural and urban settings, initiating small-scale agricultural projects to support their communities—examples like these and many more are springing up from every continent and multiplying.

The current global crisis has raised awareness about the importance of human solidarity and collective action. Within this context, it seems timely to ask ourselves: What is the place of community in our modern world and what is the kind of community towards which we aspire?

The image that is evoked by the word community can be quite different from one person to the next. Some think of a community simply as those who live in the same geographic area, regardless of whether its members interact; others use the word to refer to a collection of people who share common interests or are motivated by the pursuit of a common goal; and, for many, community is seen as a population that shares a common ethnic identity and set of traditions. We also come across people who believe that the sense of togetherness that we need as human beings can be fulfilled through virtual networks, and some thinkers even predict that the whole concept of a community as it has been traditionally known will eventually disappear.

Although certain aspects of the conceptions above may be valuable, the relationships that sustain society are also being reconceptualized by many in light of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Our understanding of community, then, will need to move beyond anything humanity currently knows or has experienced. To build a common vision of community, we turn to the messages of the Universal House of Justice. For instance, in 1996, the House of Justice described a community as

a comprehensive unit of civilization composed of individuals, families, and institutions that are originators and encouragers of systems, agencies and organizations working together with a common purpose for the welfare of people both within and beyond its borders; it is a composition of diverse, interacting participants that are achieving unity in an unremitting quest for spiritual and social progress.¹

The House of Justice has also written about “vibrant communities,” describing them as being characterized by “tolerance and love and guided by a strong sense of purpose and collective will” and explaining that they provide an “environment in which the capacities of all components––men, women, youth and children––are developed and their powers multiplied in unified action.”²

Over the past decade, Bahá’í community-building efforts have unfolded in smaller geographic areas like neighborhoods and villages. This process has been very similar to the organic processes that take place in nature. Indeed, creating something new in social reality is, like the growth of a tree, an organic process that begins by planting a seed in fertile soil.

The process begins with a group of people inspired by a hopeful vision of change who take action together within the context of a neighborhood or village. The initial steps they take are not random or haphazard but rather unfold within a framework defined by the growing experience of the worldwide Bahá’í community. The various elements that cohere to advance this process include classes for the spiritual education of children; groups of junior youth who, together with an older youth, support one another, study together, and carry out acts of service; the opening of homes and community centers for collective prayer and discussions about the progress of a neighborhood or village; regular visits by neighbors to meet with one another and strengthen bonds of friendship; educational programs for youth and adults in which they reflect on the spiritual dimension of life and prepare themselves for a life of service; and in some places, initiatives that seek to enhance the social and material well-being of a population. Whatever the form and arrangement of activities, however, the process of community building is a process of transformation in which a population takes ownership of its own spiritual and social development.

The fruit of the process of community building is a unit of civilization that is characterized by the principles and teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. The House of Justice has explained the long-term nature of these efforts:

The work advancing in every corner of the globe today represents the latest stage of the ongoing Bahá’í endeavour to create the nucleus of the glorious civilization enshrined in His teachings, the building of which is an enterprise of infinite complexity and scale, one that will demand centuries of exertion by humanity to bring to fruition. There are no shortcuts, no formulas. Only as effort is made to draw on insights from His Revelation, to tap into the accumulating knowledge of the human race, to apply His teachings intelligently to the life of humanity, and to consult on the questions that arise will the necessary learning occur and capacity be developed.³

We are, of course, too early in these efforts to know exactly what the entire process looks like, what stages we will have to pass through, what obstacles we might face along the way, and what capacities will need to be developed at each stage of development by the members of the community, individually and collectively. These are questions we must ask ourselves in the years and decades to come, and answers to these questions will become clear to us as we engage in a systematic process of learning.

Much has already been learned about the early stages of community building: A group of people turns to the sacred Writings and the guidance of the Universal House of Justice and takes action within a framework defined by the growing experience of the worldwide Bahá’í community; it draws insights from the existing body of knowledge and reflects on experience; it has regular conversations in which questions are asked and ideas are clarified; and, as understanding advances, the group adjusts its plans, approaches, and activities. The result is that its efforts become more and more effective, and the process it is trying to promote advances. In this way, the Bahá’í community is gradually developing its capacity to operate in a mode of learning and, as an organic global community, is advancing collectively.

As people learn more about the process of community building and how to effectively contribute to it, certain questions arise. For instance, what is my conception of community and what contributions can I make to the development of my community? What are those qualities, skills, and abilities that need to be developed in individuals and in groups to build vibrant communities? What are the things that are needed to enhance the relationships in a community? In seeking answers to these questions, we turn to the guiding and operating principles involved. As we understand these principles better and internalize them, they begin to find expression in our actions. They influence how we see ourselves in relation to others which in turn influences how we interact with others.

There are many principles that are relevant to the process of community building. Foremost among these is the oneness of humankind. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, talked about the principle of oneness as “the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve.”⁴ He said that it cannot be seen as a “mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope” and that it cannot be merely identified with the “reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men.”⁵ It has profound implications for every aspect of the organized life of society. Having the principle of oneness in mind as the guiding and operating principle sheds light on the process of community building and gives direction to our efforts as participants.

In His letter to Queen Victoria, Bahá’u’lláh writes: “Regard the world as the human body.” This metaphor of the human body, or a living organism, was also often used by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He wanted to illustrate the implications of the principle of the oneness of humankind. Like any analogy, there are limits to how much it can explain. Nevertheless, like the elements of the human body, “all the members of this endless universe are linked one to another.” He urged us to act as the members of one body, each connected to the other with “a linkage complete and perfect” ⁶ and contributing its part for the benefit of the whole. He said that “man cannot live singly and alone. He is in need of continuous cooperation and mutual help… He can never, singly and alone, provide himself with all the necessities of existence. Therefore, he is in need of cooperation and reciprocity.” The House of Justice, in commenting on this metaphor, has further explained:

In the human body, every cell, every organ, every nerve has its part to play. When all do so the body is healthy, vigorous, radiant, ready for every call made upon it. No cell, however humble, lives apart from the body, whether in serving it or receiving from it. This is true of the body of mankind in which God “has endowed each humble being with ability and talent”⁷

Some characteristics of the living organism suggest where to focus our efforts as individuals. For example, the cells of the body are intimately connected to each other; their existence is purely in relation to the whole body. There is no possibility for the cell to live without its connection to the rest. The purpose of the cell is to maintain the health of the body and, at the same time, its life depends on it. In this regard, a characteristic that stands out is the necessity for the basic units of the organism to be selfless. Cells, in their very essence, are selfless. They are made that way. They adapt their functions in order to respond to unforeseen needs or emergencies or to protect the organism. The cell also takes only what it needs from the organism. The behavior of healthy cells in the body illustrates well the high standard that the individual whose purpose is to work for the common good aspires to as a member of a group or community. This implies, for instance, giving of one’s time and energy generously, sacrificing when the situation requires it, being detached from the results of what we do, and carrying out our actions with sincerity and purity of heart.

This concept of selfless service and the responsibilities that everyone has in accomplishing the collective aim have many implications for the way we relate to others and to our work. It adds significance to various roles and responsibilities that we undertake. To see ourselves like the cells of the body implies that each of us gives our very best in fulfilling our responsibilities; each one is conscious that everything he or she does influences the functioning of the community. And since each of us is responsible not only for his or her part but also for the functioning of the whole, cooperation and reciprocity should characterize relationships. In such an environment, everyone strives to draw out the best in people and to help others develop their full potential and takes joy in the progress of others.

This concept of selfless service also has implications for the manner in which we approach the acts of service we undertake and our various roles and responsibilities in a community. Serving with selflessness and diligence requires making choices, because, unlike the cells, we have free will. To put the interests of the collective before our own and to devote ourselves to doing things with excellence; to be ready to collaborate; to prefer our brothers and sisters over ourselves; to orient ourselves toward that which brings about the well-being of the community; to move beyond the inertia that sometimes holds us back from working to the best of our ability––all of these are individual choices that have to be made consciously. To give of ourselves is embedded in our nature; it is a capacity within us that can be developed and strengthened through constant effort, prayer, reflection, and the acquisition of knowledge. Maybe a word of caution is also needed here: To put the interest of the community before our own does not imply that we lose our individuality. We do not become dissolved in the community. There are many references in the Writings that shed light on the question of serving the common good.

O My Servant!
Thou art even as a finely tempered sword concealed in the darkness of its sheath and its value hidden from the artificer’s knowledge. Wherefore come forth from the sheath of self and desire that thy worth may be made resplendent and manifest unto all the world.⁸

Senses and faculties have been bestowed upon us, to be devoted to the service of the general good; so that we, distinguished above all other forms of life for perceptiveness and reason, should labor at all times and along all lines, whether the occasion be great or small, ordinary or extraordinary, until all mankind are safely gathered into the impregnable stronghold of knowledge.⁹

How excellent, how honorable is man if he arises to fulfil his responsibilities; how wretched and contemptible, if he shuts his eyes to the welfare of society and wastes his precious life in pursuing his own selfish interests and personal advantages.¹⁰

In these early stages of building this new kind of community that reflects the divine teachings, we have to learn how to manage the apparent tension between pursuing our own interests and contributing to the common good. It is a very real tension within human beings. Undoubtedly, this will always be the case, since it is part of human nature. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has explained:

Man is in the ultimate degree of materiality and the beginning of spirituality; that is, he is at the end of imperfection and the beginning of perfection. He is at the furthermost degree of darkness and the beginning of the light. That is why the station of man is said to be the end of night and the beginning of day, meaning that he encompasses all the degrees of imperfection and that he potentially possesses all the degrees of perfection. He has both an animal side and an angelic side, and the role of the educator is to so train human souls that the angelic side may overcome the animal. Thus, should the divine powers, which are identical with perfection, overcome in man the satanic powers, which are absolute imperfection, he becomes the noblest of all creatures, but should the converse take place, he becomes the vilest of all beings. That is why he is the end of imperfection and the beginning of perfection.¹¹

Although this tension will always be there, the Bahá’í writings also explain that the desire to do good is inherent in human nature because we are created noble. This desire to do good, however, needs to be cultivated and strengthened. It is through faith and our spiritual alignment with the will of God that we are enabled to do this.

The image of the functioning of the human body also gives us insights into the quality of the relationships that should exist within a healthy community. In the human body, we can appreciate how healthy interactions take place and how they contribute to maintaining unity and harmony among the diverse parts. Different organs, each with their own assigned functions, work together to allow new capacities to emerge––capacities that are manifested only when all the parts are functioning properly, each in its own sphere, and in perfect synchronization. Some of these capacities are associated with a specific organ while others do not belong to any particular one; the emergence of such capacities requires cooperation and reciprocity among the parts of the body. Whenever this cooperation breaks down or is replaced by competition, the body’s ability to manifest these capacities is inhibited.

The intention of this presentation is not to present a thorough analysis of the process of community building. It is simply to share a few ideas for reflection on the efforts of Bahá’í communities worldwide to bring about a new kind of community and ultimately contribute to the emergence of a peaceful and just world civilization envisioned in the sacred Writings. In this connection, we have spent some time examining the implications of the principle of the oneness of humankind. The analogy of a human body was used to see how the principle of oneness is foundational to our conception of a community and guides our choices and our actions.

The Bahá’í world is still in the early stages of the process of community building, and there is a great deal to be done before the process reaches fruition. In light of the challenges facing humanity, the task before us may seem daunting indeed, but we are committed to this process over the long term and are inspired to make constant efforts to better understand the relevant principles and to reflect this understanding in our approaches. We draw on spiritual forces to assist us and to propel us forward, and the most powerful force binding us together is the force of universal love. ‘Abdu’l-Baha addresses us: “Strive to increase the love-power of reality” and “to make your hearts greater centers of attraction and to create new ideals and relationships.”¹² Love, He writes, is “the magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms” and “the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world.”¹³

By June Manning Thomas

June Manning Thomas, Professor Emerita of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan, specializes in social equity and racial justice related to urban planning and civil rights. She is author of a number of books and articles.

Lack of unity among people of various races, ethnicities, and classes is a major problem for human society. Many nations face such disunity, which can cause social conflict, lack of empathy for “others,” discrimination, and exploitation. Bahá’ís think of such problems as symptoms; the illness is absence of the unity of the human race. One subset of the unity that is necessary is racial unity. As the term is used here, racial unity focuses on unity among various racial and ethnic groups.

Eliminating individual prejudice is a necessary, but insufficient, part of promoting racial unity. Human beings have embedded racial disunity within geographic space, where it is hard to change and is reinforced by political, economic, and social boundaries. Thus, individual people may believe themselves free of racial prejudice, but they may face no or weak testing of this belief if they are isolated in geographic circumstances that solidify racial disunity. Spatial geography can reinforce systemic racial discrimination.

This is a difficult problem, but throughout its history the Bahá’í Faith has always championed racial unity, even in difficult circumstances. Direct guidance from the Head of the Faith, in each period of Bahá’í history, has consistently counseled the Bahá’ís to abandon prejudice against different races, religions, ethnicities, and nationalities. In addition, the Bahá’í community has purposefully aimed to increase diversity within its own religious community by inviting people of diverse races, ethnicities, and nationalities into its ranks. The approach that the worldwide Bahá’í community now uses builds on these historic principles and strategies, while extending beyond them to offer lasting social transformation for all people in a community. It offers the world a process that can help promote racial unity, even in situations of geographic disunity. Considering how to accomplish this requires strategic thinking.

The Bahá’í Plans and Spatial Unity

The worldwide Bahá’í community’s dedication to the principle of racial unity dates back to the founding of the religion. Bahá’ís have held fast to key principles related to the unity of humanity, in general, and to racial unity, specifically, while learning to develop flexible new strategies that recognize contemporary challenges. They have done so within the framework of global plans that guide the growth and development of the Bahá’í community worldwide.

Since its birth in Iran in the mid-nineteenth century, the Bahá’í Faith has given rise to a religious community with significant capacity to unite people across traditional barriers of race, class, nationality, gender, and creed. Its cardinal teaching is the oneness of all humanity. Bahá’í administrative institutions have paid special attention to the issue of racial disunity in North America; much guidance on the subject relates to that continent. This has been true ever since the head of the Faith at that time, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, visited North America in 1912. Through both word and deed, He emphatically encouraged interracial fellowship and disavowed traditional norms of racial segregation and discrimination. He urged people to overcome racial barriers through means such as intermarriage and multiracial meetings, and He praised the beauty of such diversity. These were remarkable exhortations for that time, when interracial marriage was illegal in many American states and Jim Crow laws discouraged free association between people of different racial backgrounds.¹ The principles He enunciated for North America also pertained to the world with all its various forms of prejudice and social conflict.

Following His visit, in letters sent to the North American Bahá’í community and later published collectively as Tablets of the Divine Plan, Abdu’l-Bahá presented a visionary spatial strategy for unity of the world’s peoples. He asked North American Bahá’ís to travel first to other states and provinces in their own countries and then to a long list of countries, territories, and islands in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe, spreading the unifying teachings of the Bahá’í Faith to peoples of diverse race and ethnicity. He also placed great importance on teaching America’s indigenous populations. His vision was to “establish the oneness of the world of humanity.”²

When leadership of the worldwide Bahá’í community passed to Shoghi Effendi, the grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in 1921, he continued to emphasize interracial fellowship as a path to racial unity, even when custom discouraged such fellowship. Starting in the 1920s, his letters to North American Bahá’ís addressed these issues, with his most forceful communication being the book-length 1938 letter The Advent of Divine Justice. In that work, he laid out principles for the success of a global plan for the growth and development of the Bahá’í community. This Seven Year Plan covered the years 1937 through 1944 and encouraged North American Bahá’ís to travel to other North, Central, and South American states, provinces, territories, and countries—many of them mentioned in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Tablets of the Divine Plan—to share with peoples of all races, nationalities, and ethnicities the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’ís were encouraged to reach out in particular to “the Negro, the Indian, the Eskimo, and Jewish races. … No more laudable and meritorious service can be rendered …”³ Among the three major requirements for success of that plan was freedom from racial prejudice, a necessary precondition in that momentous spiritual endeavor to share the Faith with diverse people. ⁴ The assumption in the two subsequent global plans that Shoghi Effendi initiated, the second Seven Year Plan (1946-53) and the Ten-Year Crusade (1953-63), was that freedom from racial prejudice would continue to be important as the geographic scope of the Faith expanded to the entire world. ⁵ Notably, each global plan aimed to increase the number of nationalities, tribes, ethnicities, and races represented within a faith that could then shelter its members from the pernicious influences of division, prejudice, and materialism. As “pioneers” spread the Bahá’í teachings, thus increasing the Faith’s reach and diversity, Shoghi Effendi illustrated detailed global maps showing the increasing number of tribes, ethnicities, and peoples who were joining the Bahá’í Faith worldwide. ⁶

Since its first election in 1963, the worldwide governing body of the Bahá’í Faith, the Universal House of Justice, has continued to champion the central principles of racial unity and diversity. Between 1964 and 1996, it launched five global plans that reached the world’s diverse peoples in various ways, such as by sending travelers to various countries. ⁷ As time passed, however, it became increasingly obvious that the ability of the Bahá’í community to effectively contribute to constructive social change and new models of social organization was limited. One reason was that, despite its wide geographic spread, the Bahá’í community was still relatively small in number. The other was the lagging moral and spiritual state of the world’s people in the face of rapid social, scientific, and technological developments and of a rampant materialism.

Place and the Institute Process

In a new series of global plans initiated in 1996 with the call for a “network of training institutes,” the worldwide Bahá’í community began to approach expansion in a different way.⁸ One innovation was the creation of training institutes. These “centers of learning” aim to build human resources and improve communities through a spiritually-based training program designed for different age groups, ranging from children to adults.⁹ They embody a form of distance education that can reach even remote areas of the globe. By 1999, these centers of learning had made “significant strides in developing formal programmes and in putting into place effective systems for the delivery of courses.”¹⁰ The program involves direct education as well as participatory study circles open to youth and adults, with all activities open to people of all faiths, races, and creeds. The Universal House of Justice calls the efforts for capacity building for advancing community building and propelling social change the “institute process.” After a few years of reflective learning, the worldwide Bahá’í community adopted, from among several options, the curriculum that first arose from the Ruhi Institute in Colombia.

As the Universal House of Justice learned more about the institute process and as Bahá’ís gained more experience with Ruhi educational materials, they began to focus their efforts on neighborhoods and villages.¹¹ The Universal House of Justice sent messages between 2010 and 2016 that described salutary experiences in several such receptive locations. It advised the world’s Bahá’ís to look for “smaller pockets of the population” that would benefit from the institute process. It defined such pockets: “in an urban cluster, such a centre of activity might best be defined by the boundaries of a neighbourhood; in a cluster that is primarily rural in character, a small village would offer a suitable social space for this purpose.”¹²

In such places, the role of the institute would be both to nurture the population spiritually and to enable the building of capacity and community. The means for doing so were deeply participatory: to “enable people of varied backgrounds to advance on equal footing and explore the application of the teachings to their individual and collective lives.”¹³ By 2013, the Universal House of Justice could report clear evidence for the power of “community building by developing centers of intense activity in neighbourhoods and villages.” In 2016, the Universal House of Justice reported that, because of such strategies, the Teachings of the Faith were influencing people in many different spaces: “crowded urban quarters and villages along rivers and jungle paths.”¹⁴

All of this was an effort to support salutary transformation in the lives and fortunes of the world’s people. In 2015, the Universal House of Justice described the following: “A broader cross section of the population is being engaged in conversations, and activities are being opened up to whole groups at once—bands of friends and neighbours, troops of youth, entire families—enabling them to realize how society around them can be refashioned. … Prevailing habits, customs, and modes of expression all become susceptible to change. … Qualities of mutual support, reciprocity, and service to one another begin to stand out as features of an emerging, vibrant culture among those involved in activities.”¹⁵

Addressing Racial Unity through Institutes

In 2010, the Universal House of Justice bemoaned that “prejudices of all kinds—of race, of class, of ethnicity, of gender, of religious belief—continue to hold a strong grip on humanity.” It noted, however, that its current global plans could “build capacity in every human group, with no regard for class or religious background, with no concern for ethnicity or race, irrespective of gender or social status, to arise and contribute to the advancement of civilization.” It expressed the hope that the process set in place by these plans would steadily unfold to “disable every instrument devised by humanity over the long period of its childhood for one group to oppress another.”¹⁶

Indeed, institute-related activities began to bring into collaboration members of diverse faiths, creeds, and ethnicities, as whole villages, cities, and neighborhoods around the world studied unifying spiritual principles and turned away from separations by race, ethnicity, caste, or class. In 2018, the Universal House of Justice reported on results “from country to country.” “As the work in thousands of villages and neighbourhoods gathers momentum,” it wrote, “a vibrant community life is taking root in each.” The House of Justice then explained that, as this happens, a “new vitality emerges within a people taking charge of their own development. Social reality begins to transform.”¹⁷

The Universal House of Justice sent special assurances to North American believers about the effectiveness of the institute process. Steady promotion of the institute process “will usher in the time anticipated by Shoghi Effendi … when the communities you build will directly combat and eventually eradicate the forces of corruption, of moral laxity, and of ingrained prejudice eating away at the vitals of society.”¹⁸ In this letter and in many others, the Universal House of Justice affirmed the potential benefits of the institute process as a tool for racial unity.

The North American community needed such assurance. The United States, especially, continues to experience problems of racial disunity, characterized by lingering racial segregation, social and economic lags for minority-race people, and political/cultural confrontation. Racial prejudice continues to be a problem ingrained in society and in its geographic places. Metropolitan areas in the United States demonstrate spatial inequality, implanted by historic federal and state policies or by ongoing discrimination and exclusionary zoning. Efforts to resolve problems falter: “Any significant progress toward racial equality has invariably been met by countervailing processes, overt or covert, that served to undermine the advances achieved and to reconstitute the forces of oppression by other means.”¹⁹

Not just in the United States, but in other countries, place-based action in small geographic areas could encounter such built-in racial disunity. Many metropolitan areas and cities around the world contain sectors or neighborhoods set aside for specific racial, ethnic, or national groups and habitually marginalize the poor. Spatial segregation by race, ethnicity, or income level persists, often oppressing the disadvantaged. How, then, could the current plan’s institute process, an educational initiative based in discrete neighborhoods or localities—some of them defined by racial exclusion—promote racial unity?

Consider two hypothetical families as examples. The first family lives in a modern metropolitan area. That family lives a life of relative prosperity, is not a “minority,” and holds no antagonism toward people of minority races—although its everyday life is isolated by race and income level. Only families of its own, comfortable income bracket live in its section of the city, because of historic circumstances or municipal laws limiting access. Because of longstanding exclusionary practices, the city where this family lives is home to few minority-race people. Schools are similarly homogeneous, and the family’s children have no friendships with diverse people. How might this family help promote racial unity?

The second family lives in the same metropolitan area. That family is of a minority race and has low income. It lives in an isolated neighborhood, housing families with very similar characteristics to its own. Like the first family, this family also has no antagonism toward other racial groups. Its most challenging issue is not overcoming its own individual prejudices, but surviving in a hostile environment. Its children go to inferior schools; its adults suffer from underemployment or unemployment; and the public services it receives are grossly inferior to the norms for its nation. How might this family make sense of the concept of racial unity, while hemmed in by the geographic proof of disunity?

The Universal House of Justice has explained that different circumstances call for different approaches. Both families and the neighborhoods they live in contain people who can benefit from the institute process, but the utility of the process may manifest itself differently in the two neighborhoods. The specific approach to racial unity would vary as well. Here are four of several possible approaches:

Become free from racial prejudice

The first principle is individual freedom from racial prejudice. The Bahá’í Writings offer much guidance on exactly what this means, but they refer to both attitudes and actions. What binds this guidance is a fundamental recognition of our common humanity and an unwillingness to prejudge people because of race, color, or other exterior characteristics. The Bahá’í teachings also counsel action. In 1927 Shoghi Effendi gave specific spatial advice; he told Bahá’ís to show interracial fellowship “in their homes, in their hours of relaxation and leisure, in the daily contact of business transactions, in the association of their children, whether in their study-classes, their playgrounds, and club-rooms, in short under all possible circumstances, however insignificant they appear.”²⁰ Bahá’í institutions have continually confirmed the importance of mirroring forth freedom from racial prejudice in both attitude and action.

Both the family of comfortable means and the family of circumscribed means should treat others without racial prejudice, but their charges differ. Although Shoghi Effendi noted that both blacks and whites should make a “tremendous effort,” he called on whites to “make a supreme effort in their resolve to contribute their share to the solution of this problem.” Blacks, in turn, were to show “the warmth of their response” when whites did reach out.²¹ In conditions of geographic isolation, a majority-race family may need to make special efforts to help promote racial unity. This might require seeking diverse friendships, associations, and social activities, as a matter of general principle and as a service to its own children. It is important to replace racism with “just relationships among individuals, communities, and institutions or society that will uplift all and will not designate anyone as ‘other.’ The change required is not merely social and economic, but above all moral and spiritual.”²²

Reach out to minority peoples

This, too, is a principle enshrined within Bahá’í history and widely assumed in the present activities of the global community.²³ This principle applies to both families in our hypothetical examples. Assume they are all Bahá’í. The more privileged family might consider how to help greater numbers of minority people gain access to the capacity-building potential inherent in the institute process. This would require some form of access and communication; fortunately, a range of possibilities exists. In a letter, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States recommended that Bahá’ís consider homefront pioneering into communities predominantly populated by African-Americans, Native Americans, or immigrants.²⁴ Alternatively, such a family might steer toward mixed-race neighborhoods when it makes its next move from one domicile to another. Another strategy would be to befriend and engage minorities in their own locality, or to reach across municipal boundaries and associate with people who live in areas segregated from their own. This may require a concerted, conscious effort to overcome the geographic boundaries that exist and to offer genuine friendship. The second family, living in a high-minority, low-income area, could find it easier because of location to offer neighbors local opportunities for collaboration as part of the institute process, although that family, too, may face challenges of agency and receptivity.

Utilize the institute process as a matrix for racial unity

The institute process can help build community as a part of a process of social transformation. Both hypothetical neighborhoods could benefit; usefulness of the institute process is not dependent on the socio-economic status or racial characteristics of any geographic area. The institute process can support racial unity in part because it allows people to converse on related topics in a warm and loving atmosphere, and because it allows them to walk together along several paths of service to humanity.²⁵ This process would work best as a tool for racial unity, of course, with diverse participants. For the two families that we have described, both in homogeneous areas, it could be difficult to arrange activities for racially diverse participants, dampening the ability of the institute process to support racial unity. Even so, the spiritual principles enshrined within the institute curriculum are a useful foundation for raising consciousness in people about the importance of racial unity, since those principles include such virtues as respecting the nobility of human beings, valuing kindliness and generosity, seeking justice, and nurturing the life of the soul as opposed to materialistic pursuits. If more people of privilege understood and acted on such principles, this would help counteract self-righteousness, prejudice, and lack of empathy, shortcomings that pose major barriers for racial unity. Likewise, understanding such principles could be of tangible, even life-saving importance for a minority-race family living in a low-income area experiencing social disintegration. Indeed, a main protection against pernicious influences in such a situation may be spiritual education for themselves and for their surrounding neighbors, giving rise to a process of social transformation.

Aim toward social and economic development

We have already mentioned several benefits that could come from engagement in the institute process, including elevation of spiritual dialogue, the education of children, the nurturing of junior youth, and the promotion of moral conduct. All of this could lead to various forms of social action. Built into the institute process is the idea that groups of people can raise up protagonists for social action from within their own communities. This happens by nurturing individuals’ capacity and then enhancing collective capacity as the community consults on possibilities for action that address complex needs. These needs could range from health and welfare to water safety, the provision of food, or neighborhood beautification. Although this level of collective action is still, in some nations, only in embryonic form, in other nations the institute process has led to a flowering of social and economic development initiatives that are borne out of a deep understanding of the needs of local inhabitants of all faiths, races, and ethnicities, joined together in unified action.

Such action could take place in a wide variety of neighborhoods of various economic means. This characteristic would be of particular importance, however, to the hypothetical low-income family. From their perspective, a necessary aspect of “racial unity” could indeed be support for their movement toward sustenance and survival. The training institute could offer short-term support from visiting helpers, teachers, or study circle tutors. The aim, however, would be for residents to arise to become tutors within their own neighborhoods, becoming indigenous teachers and accompanying growing numbers of their fellow residents to contribute to the betterment of their community. The institute process is “not a process that some carry out on behalf of others who are passive recipients—the mere extension of the congregation and invitation to paternalism—but one in which an ever-increasing number of souls recognize and take responsibility for the transformation of humanity.”²⁶ People living in a particular place could begin to reshape their destinies as they engaged growing numbers of friends and neighbors in collective action.

Furthering the Racial Unity Agenda

The struggle for the unity of humanity is a long-term one that requires much concerted action along the way. Members of the Bahá’í Faith have continued to advance international, national, and local plans and efforts designed to further such unity. On the specific matter of racial unity, both ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi provided unifying spiritual guidance within the framework of visionary, international plans designed to bring the world’s people into one human family. They also addressed such matters as how to change both attitudes and actions in order to overcome racial prejudice and help bring about unity. The Universal House of Justice has supported and advanced these strategies.

This worldwide governing body has now offered humanity a potent tool in the form of the institute process, an educational strategy that can help prepare people to build up their communities and contribute their share to the betterment of humanity. The Universal House of Justice has also turned the attention of Bahá’ís to the challenge of helping to bring about such social transformation within small portions of nations, such as villages or neighborhoods that are part of cities or metropolitan areas. This article concerns one of the dilemmas connected with efforts to advance unity, particularly racial unity, in such places: society has segmented people and communities by divisive lines that have cemented disunity. This poses a spatial problem that needs thoughtful action in response.

We used two hypothetical (but realistic) examples to serve as thought experiments, efforts to think through the implications of geographic space for race unity action within the framework of the institute process. The examples were just that; the point is that people in many places face difficulties of various kinds in promoting a race unity agenda in contemporary times. The challenge is to assess our own situations and to take appropriate action. We do know, based on experience from around the globe, that the institute process offers a powerful tool for social transformation and for bringing about several forms of social unity, including racial. It is also capable of raising up individual protagonists who can begin to reshape themselves and their communities in myriad positive ways, a matter of great importance particularly to neighborhoods suffering the consequences of historic racial inequality.

Study circles, a fundamental element of the institute process, have an essential function in what the Universal House of Justice sees as a process of community building starting with spiritual empowerment and moral education, extending to social action at a small scale, and ultimately expanding to include progressively complex community-building projects. The experience that is being gained opens the possibility for the greater influence of spiritual principles in important matters of public discourse, such as racial unity, the environment, health, and other areas of concern. In such ways, the process of implementing Bahá’u’lláh’s vision, furthered by the institutions of His Faith, is advancing.

By Kerilyn Schewel

In recent years, the scale of migration and displacement across the world has generated a sense of crisis in many societies. In 2015-2016, for example, Europe experienced the largest influx of migrants since the Second World War. Many of these were asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa, seeking security and well-being in Europe; over one million people applied for asylum in 2015 alone.¹ The European “migration crisis” received tremendous attention in news outlets around the world, yet the most dramatic consequences of displacement were arguably happening elsewhere. That same year, over 65.3 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations.² The vast majority of refugees were not hosted in Europe, but rather Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia and Jordan. Beyond those who count as forcibly displaced were a far greater number of peoples moving for other reasons, including education, work, or family. In 2015, there were over 244 million international migrants worldwide.

Although large-scale population movements are nothing new – global international migration rates have remained surprisingly stable, hovering around some three percent of the world’s population since at least the 1960s³ – the sense of crisis that present-day migration generates provides an opportunity to reflect on the root causes of this movement, to see the ways in which migration and displacement are expressions of deeper processes of integration and disintegration transforming our world.

In response to a letter seeking guidance about how to respond to the migration crisis in Europe in 2015, the Universal House of Justice wrote to one National Spiritual Assembly, “It is all too easy to be swept up in the immediacy of the crisis and echo the cries arising on one side or another of the contemporary debate surrounding the flow of refugees and migrants, seeking a rapid solution to a problem which is but the latest symptom of a much deeper and far-reaching concern.”⁴ The message goes on to suggest that, rather than becoming enmeshed in the political divisiveness migration-related issues are now generating, a more productive line of inquiry is to consider the underlying drivers of migration and displacement and the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith that address them.

This article aims to make a modest contribution to the task suggested by the Universal House of Justice by examining the root causes of migration in the contemporary period. First, it reframes migration as a consequence of social transformation, a perspective that shows why migration is an intrinsic part of humanity’s collective life, and why any fundamental shift in patterns of migration will require transforming the very fabric of global society. Second, it describes elements of a Bahá’í view of the present moment that can help us see beyond the tumult of today and look with hope towards a future of global integration. In doing so, this article argues that migration provides a lens to better understand the social forces shaping our world order, and the depth of transformation required to realize peace and prosperity for all of humanity.

Migration and Social Transformation

In debates about migration, there are two common yet polarized perspectives. The first sees migration as a problem to be solved, a temporary response to “push” and “pull” factors that may be remedied as socioeconomic opportunities become more equal between places. This perspective assumes sedentary life as the normal human condition, and migration as an aberration requiring explanation or intervention.⁵ It is often from this vantagepoint that governments and non-governmental organizations seek to address the root causes of migration. If livelihood opportunities can increase, development policy assumes, less people should need to leave their homes. A second perspective alternatively emphasizes that human beings have always moved, and that there is nothing unnatural about migration. “Ours is a migratory species,” the author Mohsin Hamid reminds us.⁶ Indeed, almost everyone can find a story of migration in their family history. Rather than a problem to be solved, this perspective emphasizes that migration is the means by which human beings throughout history have solved their problems, explored the world and improved their lives.

Both perspectives contain a kernel of truth, yet both obscure important realities about migration trends today. The first perspective, for example, neglects a growing body of research that shows rising levels of income, health and education in poorer countries are associated with greater emigration.⁷ The pursuit of “development” in the modern period appears to stimulate, rather than reduce, migration. In particular, development ideologies that emphasize the free movement of goods, capital and ideas also seem to propel the movement of people. Similarly, the second perspective, which emphasizes the naturalness of migration, can fail to appreciate how and why migration patterns have changed over time. Indeed, people have always moved, but the forces driving and shaping migration patterns have changed in rather dramatic ways across the ages. Further, a singular emphasis on migration as “normal” can risk ignoring or even naturalizing the unjust social structures that widen inequalities between people and places and also motivate population movements.

Dissatisfied with prevalent framings and theories of migration, a group of researchers associated with the International Migration Institute at the University of Oxford and later the University of Amsterdam began articulating a “social transformation perspective” for the study of migration.⁸ This theoretical approach assumes that the ways in which people move and settle transform in patterned ways whenever social transformation, defined here as a “fundamental shift in the way society is organized that goes beyond the incremental processes of social change that are always at work,”⁹ occurs. Migration is not inherently “good” or “bad” – indeed, examples abound of both – but rather reflects how humanity organizes its social life. A core implication of a social transformation perspective is that to understand the underlying causes of migration, we must look to the nature and transformation of society itself.

The relationship between migration and social transformation is easier to discern from a historical perspective, when one can step outside the complexities and sensitivities that surround migration today. Taking a long-term perspective, there are at least three fundamental turning points in the migration history of humankind, each of which corresponds to important shifts in the deep structure of humanity’s collective life. The first occurred when human beings first ventured off the African continent. It is perhaps no coincidence that these new ventures overlapped with another new development: speech, which emerged sometime between 90,000 to 40,000 years ago. Speech gave unprecedented advantages for survival by enabling heightened levels of collective organization. While we cannot be sure of the exact causes of our early human ancestors’ first great migrations, historians note a remarkable dispersal of human beings out of Africa across the globe relatively soon thereafter, between 40,000 and 10,000 BCE.¹⁰

Another turning point in humanity’s migration history began to take place around 10,000 BCE. Innovations surrounding the storage of food, and later the domestication of plants and animals, enabled and encouraged human beings to live together in larger groups, giving rise to the first agricultural villages. This Neolithic Revolution brought profound mobility consequences: it allowed human beings to settle down, seasonally or more permanently. The very act of settling created the conditions out of which the first cities, and later civilizations, emerged. In the several thousand years thereafter, the possibility of settlement gave rise to three distinct yet interlocking ways of life: the rural agricultural, the nomadic pastoral, and the urban complex—each playing distinct and important roles in the emergence and spread of civilization throughout the centuries to come. The political strength and economic diversification possible in urban centers rested upon the acquisition and production of rural hinterlands, and pastoral communities played a crucial part of “trade and raid,” twin drivers of human movement and exchange.¹¹ During this time, urban centers were often perceived as the seats of civilization, yet the vast majority of humanity lived in rural settings.

Over the last several centuries, another fundamental shift in our collective migration history has been unfolding: urbanization, that is, the gradual displacement of rural and pastoral livelihoods by urban-centric social and economic organization. This process of urbanization, from a global perspective, has witnessed the mass movement of humanity from rural areas to urban centers, within their homelands or outside of them. While in 1800, only 15-20 percent of humanity lived in urban areas, this share increased to 34 percent in 1960 and by 2007 humanity reached a tipping point; the majority of humanity now lives in urban areas, a share that is projected to increase to 68 percent by 2050.¹² Transformations in recent international migration trends may be seen as an integral part of this global urbanization process. While a relatively high proportion of international migration in the 17th through 19th centuries was directed towards settling or conquering less population-dense territories – a kind of “frontier” or “settler” migration – today a growing share of international migration is directed towards “global cities” and large urban areas in wealthier countries. Humanity is thus in the midst of another migration transition,¹³ and the causes and consequences of these new population movements are what we are grappling to understand today.

The social forces driving humanity’s urban transition are complex. Technological innovations in manufacturing and transport led to the wide-scale displacement of traditional systems of economic production, which often relied on producing goods by hand, with machine-based systems of production that tend to concentrate production processes in urban areas. This Industrial Revolution is intimately tied to a range of other social shifts: new conceptions of work based on wages rather than subsistence; the expansion of formal education designed to prepare students for the specialization and division of labor in industrial and post-industrial societies; rising levels of consumption and changing notions of the good life; investments in infrastructure to facilitate heightened levels of connectivity, to name but a few. As societies around the world experienced the political, economic, technological and cultural changes associated with industrialization, more people began to leave rural ways of life to work in neighboring towns or cities elsewhere.¹⁴ And as the world becomes increasingly connected, the destinations potential migrants consider become increasingly distant.

Globalization, what has been described as the “widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life,”¹⁵ is thus another important process of social change shaping the nature and direction of migration trends. As processes of globalization accelerate, international migration flows follow global geopolitical and economic shifts. Consider the rise of the Gulf States after the discovery of vast reservoirs of oil in the mid-20th century, and the 1973 Oil Shock that suddenly increased the price of oil. This generated new financial resources to undertake major development projects in the region, as well as greater demand for foreign workers to carry out the work. While there were only some two million migrant workers in the Gulf region in 1975, some 68 percent of whom were from other Arab countries,¹⁶ the scale of migration increased dramatically over the following decades. By 2017, Saudi Arabia alone hosted some 12.1 million migrants, comprising some 37 percent of its total population, and making it the second major migration destination after the United States.¹⁷ Most migrant workers now come from countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The incomes migrant workers can earn in Saudi Arabia far exceed any opportunity available to them at home, while in Saudi Arabia, the work they provide is considered “cheap.” Economic globalization has contributed to the emergence of new “migration systems” across long distances, to such a degree that a young woman in rural Ethiopia, for example, may find it easier to migrate to Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker than to find sustainable work in her home region.¹⁸

Given the uneven nature of globalization in the modern period, particularly the growing divide between the richest and poorest countries and peoples, it is perhaps not surprising that, from a global perspective, migration scholars Mathias Czaika and Hein de Haas find that international migration occurs from an increasingly diverse array of origin countries, but concentrates on a shrinking pool of destination countries.¹⁹ While theorists once hoped that globalization would “flatten” the world and reduce levels of inequality in opportunity and welfare, globalization has thus far been a highly asymmetrical process, favoring particular countries, or powerful groups within these countries, at the expense of others.²⁰ Migration patterns, it seems, have followed these asymmetries.²¹

Because of these asymmetries, the drivers of internal and international migration should not be analyzed separately from patterns of displacement and refugee migration. The widescale displacement of populations around the world – due to conflict, natural disasters, or livelihood constraints – are also part of the social transformations of the modern period. The modern transformation has forged a global civilization, and today, more than ever before, “the welfare of any segment of humanity is inextricably bound up with the welfare of the whole.”²² Yet, despite this reality, individuals, companies, and countries continue to prioritize their own well-being in isolation from their neighbors’. The gap between the humanity’s richest and poorest is widening as unprecedented quantities of wealth are amassed by a relative few.²³The pursuit of power and economic gain continues to overrule concern for how the environment, which sustains all of humanity, is affected.²⁴ These social ills nurture the conditions within which prejudice, insecurity, and conflict take root. In this light, it is easier to see why, although common discourse and legal pathways for migration often make a hard distinction between “refugees” and “economic migrants,” the reality is much more blurred. People’s movement in response to these shifting forces may be conceptualized as occurring along a spectrum of “forced” to “voluntary,” with much contemporary migration occurring somewhere in the middle.

Humanity’s response to migration and displacement

Many governments remain ill-prepared to respond to the opportunities and challenges migration presents to their societies. Migration policies in many countries tend to favor the entry of the so-called “highly skilled” while restricting the entry of “low-skilled” workers, asylum seekers and refugees.²⁵ Yet, as one migration researcher Stephen Castles observed, “the more that states and supranational bodies do to restrict and manage migration, the less successful they seem to be.”²⁶ Stronger border controls, because they do not address the underlying reasons why people leave, push many migrants into more dangerous and precarious trajectories.²⁷ Development aid that does seek to address migration’s root causes is simply not large enough to meaningfully stymie the complex forces driving people’s movement,²⁸ nor eliminate the persistent demand for immigrant labor in wealthy countries.²⁹ Further, millions of refugees now live in precarious situations, and despite unprecedented levels of generosity, the gap between needs and humanitarian funding is widening.³⁰

Recognizing that contemporary migration patterns stem from the structure of society complicates the hope that addressing its root causes is an easy task. On the contrary, it points to the depth of transformation required to fundamentally reshape the drivers and dynamics of migration in the world today. As humanity grapples with the opportunities and challenges posed by migration, the Baha’i Writings provide a perspective from which we can situate our reading of the present reality and orient long-term approaches to migration and social change.

First, concerning the present: implicit within the Baha’i teachings is the assurance that we are living through a period of global transformation, in which humanity is progressing towards its collective maturity, characterized by the unity of the human race within one social order. In this period of transition, Bahá’ís are “encouraged to see in the revolutionary changes taking place in every sphere of life the interaction of two fundamental processes. One is destructive in nature, while the other is integrative; both serve to carry humanity, each in its own way, along the path leading towards its full maturity.”³¹ As humanity proceeds through its collective adolescence and into maturity, all of humanity is affected by these twin forces of integration and disintegration simultaneously, and migration is but one of innumerable social processes affected by them.

In this light, the patterned relationships described above between industrialization and urbanization, or globalization and international migration, are not inevitable in any absolute sense. After all, the pursuit of industrialization and globalization have been highly political and ideological processes, often shaped by narrow economic conceptions about how “modernization” or “development” ought to be achieved. While these processes most likely cannot be reversed, they can evolve in new directions. “However much such conditions are the outcome of history, they do not have to define the future,” the Universal House of Justice writes, “and even if current approaches to economic life satisfied humanity’s stage of adolescence, they are certainly inadequate for its dawning age of maturity. There is no justification for continuing to perpetuate structures, rules, and systems that manifestly fail to serve the interests of all peoples.”³² To fundamentally reshape patterns of migration or to alleviate the structural drivers of displacement, then, will require long-term approaches to social change that strive for the material and spiritual prosperity of all of humankind while recognizing our global interconnectedness.

Second, concerning the future: the Baha’i Writings envisage a future global society unified in all aspects of its political and economic life, where “the flow of goods and persons from place to place is vastly freer than anything which now obtains in the world as a whole.”³³ As Bahá’u’lláh wrote in 1882, “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” The task Bahá’u’lláh set before humanity is to recognize its fundamental oneness and transform its collective life in light of this reality. The principle of the oneness of humankind is, as Shoghi Effendi declared, “no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope.” Its implications are deeper: “its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family. […] It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced.”³⁴ This perspective suggests that debates surrounding migration must go far beyond the question of whether countries should open or close their borders. Only when the earth functions as the common homeland of humankind can the full benefits of migration be realized and the drivers of displacement eliminated.

The magnitude of transformation the Bahá’í Writings envision could lead to a sense of paralysis in the face of the immediate and weighty challenges associated with migration: the needlessly lost lives of migrant men, women, and children seeking opportunities for a better life (in the Mediterranean Sea alone, more than 18,500 people have been recorded dead or missing since 2014)³⁵ the strength of anti-immigrant sentiment and the flourishing of prejudice and racism that eclipse any opportunity for meaningful public debate about migration; the reality that young generations in many societies around the world can no longer envision building a future where they are. These challenges cannot be addressed by a single country or movement, no matter how benevolently motivated.

And yet, alongside these manifestations of disintegration, promising signs of global solidarity and new forms of international cooperation provide hope that processes of integration are also gaining strength. At the local level, examples abound of individuals and communities organizing in ways that increasingly reflect the counsel ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave to humanity over a century ago: “Let them see no one as their enemy, or as wishing them ill, but think of all humankind as their friends; regarding the alien as an intimate, the stranger as a companion, staying free of prejudice, drawing no lines.”³⁶ This is not only the case in Europe or North America, whose immigration dynamics receive the bulk of scholarly and public attention, but also in countries like Uganda, which in 2018, hosted the largest number of refugees after Turkey and Pakistan. While migration brings many social and economic challenges in a country where poverty levels remain high, many Ugandans are proud of their country’s welcoming stance towards refugees. “They are our brothers and sisters” is a common sentiment..³⁷ One might also consider the way the inhabitants of small Mexican towns fed, clothed, and sheltered thousands of Central American migrants traveling North in 2018. “This is a poor town, but we still did all this,” one city councilwoman in Pijijiapan expressed. Another woman serving food explained, “We know that we are all brothers. What God gives us, we should share.”³⁸ Although the media and public discourse often suggest rising levels of social strain or xenophobia associated with migration around the world, examples of everyday kindnesses and solidarity, motivated by consciousness of our common humanity, are everywhere if one looks for them.

At the institutional level, an increasing number of spaces are also being created for national governments and international organizations to go beyond a focus on crisis management to consult on the positive potential of migration, and the need for greater policy coherence and global cooperation. The 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is one such example. It is the first-ever United Nations global agreement on a common approach to international migration in all its dimensions, endorsed by 164 countries. Its objectives highlight the global cooperation required to alleviate the adverse structural conditions that hinder people from building and maintaining sustainable livelihoods in their countries of origin.³⁹ At the same time, many countries that express strong fears about immigration in public and political discourse also experience a strong economic demand for immigration as their native populations age. Nation-states and international organizations are considering new ways to facilitate migration that can realize migration’s powerful potential for good, for migrants themselves as well as origin and destination societies.⁴⁰

Nevertheless, all actors involved recognize that such compacts and other promising developments will fail to achieve their aims without concerted effort on the part of individuals, communities, and institutions around the world to realize more profound transformations in the fabric of society and the relationships that govern it. This will require an approach to migration, development, and international cooperation that recognizes our common humanity and global interconnectedness and that the well-being of one place cannot be pursued in isolation from the well-being of the whole. This is the direction towards which the Bahá’í community and like-minded individuals and organizations are striving. Migration, then, is but one lens to better understand Baha’u’llah’s injunction that, “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.”⁴¹

By The Bahá'ís Magazine

The world’s great faiths have animated civilizations throughout history. Each affirms the existence of an all-loving God and opens the doors of understanding to the spiritual dimension of life. Each cultivates the love of God and of humanity in the human heart and seeks to bring out the noblest qualities and aspirations of the human being. Each has beckoned humankind to higher forms of civilization.

Over the thousands of years of humanity’s collective infancy and adolescence, the systems of shared belief brought by the world’s great religions have enabled people to unite and create bonds of trust and cooperation at ever-higher levels of social organization―from the family, to the tribe, to the city-state and nation. As the human race moves toward a global civilization, this power of religion to promote cooperation and propel cultural evolution can perhaps be better understood today than ever before. It is an insight that is increasingly being recognized and is affirmed in the work of evolutionary psychologists and cultural anthropologists.

The teachings of the Founders of the world’s religions have inspired breathtaking achievements in literature, architecture, art, and music. They have fostered the promotion of reason, science, and education. Their moral principles have been translated into universal codes of law, regulating and elevating human relationships. These uniquely endowed individuals are referred to as Manifestations of God in the Bahá’í writings, and include (among others) Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh. History provides countless examples of how these Figures have awakened in whole populations capacities to love, to forgive, to create, to dare greatly, to overcome prejudice, to sacrifice for the common good, and to discipline the impulses of humanity’s baser instincts. These achievements can be recognized as the common spiritual heritage of the human race.

Today, humanity faces the limits of a social order inadequate to meet the compelling challenges of a world that has virtually shrunk to the level of a neighborhood. On this small planet, sovereign nations find themselves caught between cooperation and competition. The well-being of humanity and of the environment are too often compromised for national self-interest. Propelled by competing ideologies, divided by various constructs of us versus them, the people of the world are plunged into one crisis after another—brought on by war, terrorism, prejudice, oppression, economic disparity, and environmental upheaval, among other causes.

Bahá’u’lláh—as the latest in the series of divinely inspired moral educators Who have guided humanity from age to age—has proclaimed that humanity is now approaching its long-awaited stage of maturity: unity at the global level of social organization. He provides a vision of the oneness of humanity, a moral framework, and teachings that, founded on the harmony of science and religion, directly address today’s problems. He points the way to the next stage of human social evolution. He offers to the peoples of the world a unifying story consistent with our scientific understanding of reality. He calls on us to recognize our common humanity, to see ourselves as members of one family, to end estrangement and prejudice, and to come together. By doing so, all peoples and every social group can be protagonists in shaping their own future and, ultimately, a just and peaceful global civilization.

One humanity, one unfolding faith

We live in a time of rapid, often unsettling change. People today survey the transformations underway in the world with mixed feelings of anticipation and dread, of hope and anxiety. In the societal, economic, and political realms, essential questions about our identity and the nature of the relationships that bind us together are being raised to a degree not seen in decades.

Progress in science and technology represents hope for addressing many of the challenges that are emerging, but such progress is itself a powerful force of disruption, changing the ways we make choices, learn, organize, work, and play, and raising moral questions that have not been encountered before. Some of the most formidable problems facing humanity—those dealing with the human condition and requiring moral and ethical decisions—cannot be solved through science and technology alone, however critical their contributions.

The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh help us understand the transformations underway. At the heart of His message are two core ideas. First is the incontrovertible truth that humanity is one, a truth that embodies the very spirit of the age, for without it, it is impossible to build a truly just and peaceful world. Second is the understanding that humanity’s great faiths have come from one common Source and are expressions of one unfolding religion.

In His writings, Bahá’u’lláh raised a call to the leaders of nations, to religious figures, and to the generality of humankind to give due importance to the place of religion in human advancement. All of the Founders of the world’s great religions, He explained, proclaim the same faith. He described religion as the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world and of tranquility amongst its peoples and referred to it as a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world. In another of His Tablets, He states that the purpose of religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. The religion of God and His divine law, He further explains, are the most potent instruments and the surest of all means for the dawning of the light of unity amongst men. The progress of the world, the development of nations, the tranquility of peoples, and the peace of all who dwell on earth are among the principles and ordinances of God. Religion bestoweth upon man the most precious of all gifts, offereth the cup of prosperity, imparteth eternal life, and showereth imperishable benefits upon mankind.

The decline of religion

Bahá’u’lláh was also deeply concerned about the corruption and abuse of religion that had come to characterize human societies around the planet. He warned of the inevitable decline of religion’s influence in the spheres of decision making and on the human heart. This decline, He explained, sets in when the noble and pure teachings of the moral luminaries who founded the world’s great religions are corrupted by selfish human ideas, superstition, and the worldly quest for power. Should the lamp of religion be obscured, explained Bahá’u’lláh, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness and justice, of tranquility and peace cease to shine.

From the perspective of the Bahá’í teachings, the abuses carried out in the name of religion and the various forms of prejudice, superstition, dogma, exclusivity, and irrationality that have become entrenched in religious thought and practice prevent religion from bringing to bear the healing influence and society-building power it possesses.

Beyond these manifestations of the corruption of religion are the acts of terror and violence heinously carried out in, of all things, the name of God. Such acts have left a grotesque scar on the consciousness of humanity and distorted the concept of religion in the minds of countless people, turning many away from it altogether.

The spiritual and moral void resulting from the decline of religion has not only given rise to virulent forms of religious fanaticism, but has also allowed for a materialistic conception of life to become the world’s dominant paradigm.

Religion’s place as an authority and a guiding light both in the public sphere and in the private lives of individuals has undergone a profound decline in the last century. A compelling assumption has become consolidated: as societies become more civilized, religion’s role in humanity’s collective affairs diminishes and is relegated to the private life of the individual. Ultimately, some have speculated that religion will disappear altogether.

Yet this assumption is not holding up in the light of recent developments. In these first decades of the 21^st century, religion has experienced a resurgence as a social force of global importance. In a rapidly changing world, a reawakening of humanity’s longing for meaning and for spiritual connection is finding expression in various forms: in the efforts of established faiths to meet the needs of rising generations by reshaping doctrines and practices to adapt to contemporary life; in interfaith activities that seek to foster dialogue between religious groups; in a myriad of spiritual movements, often focused on individual fulfillment and personal development; but also in the rise of fundamentalism and radical expressions of religious practice, which have tragically exploited the growing discontent among segments of humanity, especially youth.

Concurrently, national and international governing institutions are not only recognizing religion’s enduring presence in society but are increasingly seeing the value of its participation in efforts to address humanity’s most vexing problems. This realization has led to increased efforts to engage religious leaders and communities in decision making and in the carrying out of various plans and programs for social betterment.

Each of these expressions, however, falls far short of acknowledging the importance of a social force that has time and again demonstrated its power to inspire the building of vibrant civilizations. If religion is to exert its vital influence in this period of profound, often tumultuous change, it will need to be understood anew. Humanity will have to shed harmful conceptions and practices that masquerade as religion. The question is how to understand religion in the modern world and allow for its constructive powers to be released for the betterment of all.

Religion renewed

The great religious systems that have guided humanity over thousands of years can be regarded in essence as one unfolding religion that has been renewed from age to age, evolving as humanity has moved from one stage of collective development to another. Religion can thus be seen as a system of knowledge and practice that has, together with science, propelled the advancement of civilization throughout history.

Religion today cannot be exactly what it was in a previous era. Much of what is regarded as religion in the contemporary world must, Bahá’ís believe, be re-examined in light of the fundamental truths Bahá’u’lláh has posited: the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of the human family.

Bahá’u’lláh set an uncompromising standard: if religion becomes a source of separation, estrangement, or disagreement—much less violence and terror—it is best to do without it. The test of true religion is its fruits. Religion should demonstrably uplift humanity, create unity, forge good character, promote the search for truth, liberate human conscience, advance social justice, and promote the betterment of the world. True religion provides the moral foundations to harmonize relationships among individuals, communities, and institutions across diverse and complex social settings. It fosters an upright character and instills forbearance, compassion, forgiveness, magnanimity, and high-mindedness. It prohibits harm to others and invites souls to the plane of sacrifice, that they may give of themselves for the good of others. It imparts a world-embracing vision and cleanses the heart from self-centeredness and prejudice. It inspires souls to endeavor for material and spiritual betterment for all, to see their own happiness in that of others, to advance learning and science, to be an instrument of true joy, and to revive the body of humankind.

True religion is in harmony with science. When understood as complementary, science and religion provide people with powerful means to gain new and wondrous insights into reality and to shape the world around them, and each system benefits from an appropriate degree of influence from the other. Science, when devoid of the perspective of religion, can become vulnerable to dogmatic materialism. Religion, when devoid of science, falls prey to superstition and blind imitation of the past. The Bahá’í teachings state:

Put all your beliefs into harmony with science; there can be no opposition, for truth is one. When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions, and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great unifying, cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements, discords and struggles—and then will mankind be united in the power of the Love of God.

True religion transforms the human heart and contributes to the transformation of society. It provides insights about humanity’s true nature and the principles upon which civilization can advance. At this critical juncture in human history, the foundational spiritual principle of our time is the oneness of humankind. This simple statement represents a profound truth that, once accepted, invalidates all past notions of the superiority of any race, sex, or nationality. It is more than a mere call to mutual respect and feelings of goodwill between the diverse peoples of the world, important as these are. Carried to its logical conclusion, it implies an organic change in the very structure of society and in the relationships that sustain it.

The experience of the Bahá’í community

Inspired by the principle of the oneness of humankind, Bahá’ís believe that the advancement of a materially and spiritually coherent world civilization will require the contributions of countless high-minded individuals, groups, and organizations, for generations to come. The efforts of the Bahá’í community to contribute to this movement are finding expression today in localities all around the world and are open to all.

At the heart of Bahá’í endeavors is a long-term process of community building that seeks to develop patterns of life and social structures founded on the oneness of humanity. One component of these efforts is an educational process that has developed organically in rural and urban settings around the world. Spaces are created for children, youth, and adults to explore spiritual concepts and gain capacity to apply them to their own social environments. Every soul is invited to contribute regardless of race, gender, or creed. As thousands upon thousands participate, they draw insights from both science and the world’s spiritual heritage and contribute to the development of new knowledge. Over time, capacities for service are being cultivated in diverse settings around the world and are giving rise to individual initiatives and increasingly complex collective action for the betterment of society. Transformation of the individual and transformation of the community unfold simultaneously.

Beyond efforts to learn about community building at the grass roots, Bahá’ís engage in various forms of social action, through which they strive to apply spiritual principles in efforts to further material progress in diverse settings. Bahá’í institutions and agencies, as well as individuals and organizations, also participate in the prevalent discourses of their societies in diverse spaces, from academic and professional settings, to national and international forums, all with the aim of contributing to the advancement of society.

As they carry out this work, Bahá’ís are conscious that to uphold high ideals is not the same as to embody them. The Bahá’í community recognizes that many challenges lie ahead as it works shoulder to shoulder with others for unity and justice. It is committed to the long-term process of learning through action that this task entails, with the conviction that religion has a vital role to play in society and a unique power to release the potential of individuals, communities, and institutions.

By Bahá'í World News Service

The sun rises in the Congolese village of Ditalala, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee fills the air. For generations, the people of this village have been drinking coffee, which they grow themselves, before heading out to work on their farms.

Over the past few years, this morning tradition has come to take on a deeper significance. Many families in the village have been inviting their neighbors to join them for coffee and prayers before starting the day.

“They’ve transformed that simple act of having a cup of coffee in the morning,” says a recent visitor to Ditalala, reflecting on her experience. “It was truly a community-building activity. Friends from the neighboring houses would gather while the coffee was being made, say prayers together, then share the coffee while laughing and discussing the issues of the community. There was a sense of true unity.”

Neighbors enjoy a morning coffee together in Ditalala.

In Ditalala, villagers prepare for the day by gathering for prayers.

The central African nation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has experienced, for over a century, a series of violent struggles. The most recent war from 1998–2002 is estimated to have claimed over 5.4 million lives, making it the world’s deadliest crisis since World War II. For the last two years, it has been the country with the highest number of people displaced by conflict—according to the United Nations, approximately 1.7 million Congolese fled their homes due to insecurity in the first six months of 2017 alone.

Yet, there are communities throughout the country that are learning to transcend the traditional barriers that divide people. Inspired by Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings, they are striving for progress both material and spiritual in nature. They are concerned with the practical dimensions of life, as well as with the qualities of a flourishing community like justice, connectedness, unity, and access to knowledge.

“What we are learning is that when there are spaces to come together and discuss the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh in relation to the challenges facing their community, people will come and consult about what we can do together to find solutions to our problems,” reflects Izzat Mionda Abumba, who has been working for many years with educational programs for children and youth.

“When everyone is given access to these spaces, there is nothing that separates us—it’s no longer about who are Bahá’ís and who are not Bahá’ís. We are all reading these writings and in discussing them we find the paths to the solutions for whatever we are doing. Inspiration comes from these writings and directives,” he says.

The story of this country is a remarkable one. The process which is unfolding seeks to foster collaboration and build capacity within all people—regardless of religious background, ethnicity, race, gender, or social status—to arise and contribute to the advancement of civilization. Among the confusion, distrust, and obscurity present in the world today, these burgeoning communities in the DRC are hopeful examples of humanity’s capacity to bring about profound social transformation.

A path to collective prosperity

The village of Walungu is in South Kivu, a province on the eastern side of the country, bordering Rwanda and Burundi. In recent years, a spirit of unity and collaboration has become widespread among the people of Walungu. They pray together in different settings, bringing neighbor together with neighbor, irrespective of religious affiliation. This growing devotional character has been complemented by a deep commitment to serving the common good.

At the heart of Walungu’s transformation has been the dedication of the village to the intellectual and spiritual development of the children.

Walungu is a remote area of the country. Years ago, the community was not satisfied with the state of formal education available for their children. In response, a group of parents and teachers established a school in the village with the assistance of a Bahá’í-inspired organization that provides teacher training and promotes the establishment of community-based schools.

Distinct from traditional educational institutions, community schools, such as the one in Walungu, are initiated, supported, and encouraged by the local community. Parents, extended family, other members of the community, and even the children have a deep sense of ownership and responsibility for the functioning of their school.

When the school opened in 2008, it was comprised of only one grade taught by a single teacher. After a year, the community was able to add another grade and employ a second teacher. Gradually, the school grew, adding more students, grades, and teachers. Today, it is a full primary school with over 100 students.

A teacher presents a lesson in a community school in Walungu, Democratic Republic of Congo.

A student at a community school in Walungu, Democratic Republic of Congo

Children in class at a community school in Walungu, Democratic Republic of Congo

However, the community faced certain challenges as the school began to grow larger. They did not have the funds to pay the teachers a salary or take care of the school. Realizing that something needed to be done to support the school financially, they called a meeting with all the parents and others involved. At the meeting, the director of the school suggested that he could teach them how to weave baskets, and that if they could sell the baskets in the market they would have some funds that could be used to pay the school fees. Sixty-seven parents signed up, happy at the prospect of learning a new skill and being able to support their children’s education themselves. To this day, all of them are still weaving baskets, which are sold in the markets of the surrounding villages.

Basket-weaving has remained a collective activity—typically, the parents gather to work on them together, sometimes teaching each other new weaving techniques. And these gatherings have become something more. They are a space to talk about spiritual and profound matters as well.

“The women and men are not coming only to weave,” explains Mireille Rehema Lusagila, who is involved in the work of building healthy and vibrant communities. “They begin with a devotional meeting, they read holy writings together. They are improving their literacy, teaching each other how to read and write. The people there have told me that this activity is helping them not only to progress in a material sense but also on a spiritual level.”

Members of the community in Walungu weave baskets and sell them in the markets to raise funds for the functioning of their community school.

Towards unity, youth lead the way

Along the eastern border of the country in the Kivu region, young people are taking ownership of the development of the next generation. In the village of Tuwe Tuwe, there are 15 youth working with some 100 young adolescents and children, helping them to develop a deep appreciation for unity and navigate a crucial stage of their lives.

For several years, youth have been at the vanguard of transformation in this community. In 2013, a group of young Bahá’ís and their friends returned from a youth conference with a great desire to resolve the tension and hostility between their villages.

At the conference, the group studied themes essential to a unified community, such as the importance of having noble goals, the idea of spiritual and material prosperity, the role of youth in serving and improving their localities, and how to support each other in undertaking meaningful action.

In reflecting on the experience, Mr. Abumba, who travels often in the region to support Bahá’í-inspired educational programs, shares a story about how these young people became a force for unity.

“When these youth returned to their respective communities they saw that hostilities were increasing between their two villages because of conflict over their agricultural fields. The youth asked themselves: ‘what can we do to find a solution and help the adults understand that we should live in harmony?’ And they decided to take action together,” says Mr. Abumba.

“The idea they came up with was to organize a football match involving the youth of both villages and to hold it in a field between the villages, in the hopes that the parents would come and watch. For them, it was not about who would win or lose the match. Their goal was to bring a large number of people from both villages together to the same place and to try to give a message about how to live in unity.”

These young people prepared for the match—they bought a football and created the teams of each village with members of different tribes. Finally, the moment came. Quite a big crowd from both villages turned up because it was a Sunday. Those watching were impressed by the way the youth played for the joy of the game.

“Then at the end of the match, the youth spoke to the crowd,” explains Mr. Abumba. “They said ‘You have seen how we played and how there was no conflict between the youth of one village and the youth of the other village. And we believe that our villages are capable of this, of living like the children of one same family.’ Then the chiefs of the villages took the stage and told those gathered that it was time to turn a new page and start to live and work together.

“In these villages, there are different tribes who are often in conflict,” Mr. Abumba concludes. “The people there are drawing on the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh to find ways to address these deep-rooted problems. And the Bahá’í-inspired educational programs are giving youth in particular a voice to be a force for positive change in their communities.”

A village named ‘Peace’

A remote village in the central part of the country, Ditalala is connected to the closest town by a 25 kilometer path, sometimes travelled on foot, sometimes via off-road vehicle.

Susan Sheper, who has lived in the DRC since the 1980s, recalls that on her first visit to Ditalala 31 years ago, some Bahá’ís had come to meet her at the train and walk with her on the five-hour journey by foot to the village. “We got off the train and were just enveloped by this group of singing, happy Bahá’ís, and then they said to us, ‘Can you walk a little bit?’”

And with that Mrs. Sheper was on her way, with an escort of singing Bahá’ís, walking 25 kilometers through the night.

“It was an extraordinary experience,” Mrs. Sheper recalls, “and they never stopped singing, they would just move from one song to the next. You know, they have that experience of having to walk long distances, and it’s the singing that keeps you going because your feet just move to the rhythm.”

Music infuses every aspect of life in the village of Ditalala.

Although at that time there was a vibrant Bahá’í community in the village, which used to be called Batwa Ditalala, there were distinct barriers between different groups, including the Bahá’ís.

“So flash forward 31 years, and I went back to Batwa Ditalala,” says Mrs. Sheper. “And one of the things I learned very quickly was that it was no longer called Batwa Ditalala.”

The term Batwa refers to the Batwa people, who are one of the main “Pygmy” groupings in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have been marginalized and exploited because of discrimination against them based on their hunter-gatherer way of life and their physical appearance. This has created a complex reality of prejudice and conflict wherever they live in close proximity to settled agricultural populations.

“But today, those barriers have been so broken down by Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings of oneness and the elimination of prejudice, they no longer call the village Batwa Ditalala. They just call it Ditalala,” Mrs. Sheper explains.

The word ditalala means peace in the local language—and the village itself has been transformed by a vision of peace.

“The people there told me that there used to be very distinct divisions between them in the village, but that because of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings they don’t see themselves as different tribes anymore, they see themselves as being united,” Mrs. Sheper relates. “They told me that life is much better when there is no prejudice.”

Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings have reached almost everyone in Ditalala and their influence is evident in many dimensions of the lives of the population. Today, over 90 percent of the village participates in Bahá’í community-building activities, ranging from coffee and prayers in the mornings to spiritual and moral education classes for people of all ages.

Ditalala’s chief often supports the activities of the Bahá’í community. He encourages the community to gather for consultation, a central feature of decision-making for Bahá’ís.

Singing at a community gathering in Walungu

Chiefs in the village of Ditalala, Democratic Republic of Congo

The people have also undertaken a number of endeavors to improve their social and material well-being, including agricultural, maternal healthcare, and clean water projects; constructing a road; and establishing a community school.

Weaving work in Ditalala

A luminous community

Throughout the DRC, tens of thousands of people have responded to the message of Bahá’u’lláh. The celebrations of the 200th anniversary of His birth in October were extraordinarily widespread—countless numbers participated in the festivities held across the country. It is estimated that as many as 20 million people saw the television broadcast of the national commemoration, attended by prominent government and civil society leaders.

The country has also been designated by the Universal House of Justice as one of two that will have a national Bahá’í House of Worship in the coming years.

Amidst all of its recent developments, what stands out so vividly about the community is that it is moving forward together.

The podcast associated with this Bahá’í World News Service story, can be found here.

By Bahá'í World News Service

NEW YORK — Dizzy Gillespie is remembered not only for his genius as a trumpeter who broke new ground in jazz but also for his long-standing dedication to the teachings of Baha’u’llah. Reflecting on the life and accomplishments of this iconic figure 100 years after his birth would be incomplete without reflecting on the Baha’i belief that seemed most to inspire and drive his work—that all human beings are part of one family.

“Dizzy represented an organic breakthrough in music,” asserts jazz pianist Mike Longo about Dizzy Gillespie, his late collaborator and friend.

“His music is from such a deep place,” Longo says, scanning the walls of his apartment on Riverside Drive on Manhattan’s upper west side. Framed photographs capture the decades of a musical partnership that ranged from playing sold-out concerts in major venues to private practice sessions at Gillespie’s home in Englewood on the other side of the Hudson River.

But jazz was not the only uniting factor in Gillespie and Longo’s enduring friendship. Both men were attracted to Baha’u’llah’s message of oneness and unity—principles that would lead them to embrace the Baha’i Faith.

“The night I joined the band was the night he heard about the Baha’i Faith,” says Longo.

When Gillespie encountered the Baha’i Faith for the first time, after a concert in Milwaukee, he discovered that it immediately resonated with his thinking—and his music.

“Jazz is based on the same principles as the Baha’i Faith,” says Longo. “Interracial mixing was way back when jazz first started. Dizzy described jazz as a marriage between African rhythm and European harmony and so, if you look at that from a broader perspective, that’s a marriage between the black race and the white race. And Dizzy’s music specifically, when they say that the Prophet unleashes a new power in the universe, Dizzy’s concept of bebop…is a reflection of that.”

Gillespie’s deep commitment to unity and justice expressed itself through the inclusive spirit that characterized his music and his interactions with people of all walks of life.

Dizzy Gillespie greets Saichiro Fujita, a prominent figure in Baha’i history and one of the first Japanese Baha’is. This photograph was taken at the Baha’i World Centre in 1975. Gillespie performed a concert during his visit to Haifa that year.

Bebop pioneer

Born John Birks Gillespie in Cheraw, South Carolina, on 21 October 1917, Dizzy Gillespie was at the cutting edge of the bebop jazz phenomenon in the 1940s, often considered the most radical and vital music of its time. Bebop is characterized by its high energy tempos and rapid key changes, complex chord progressions, and dazzling improvisations around a melody.

“They were doing very difficult things,” explains British jazz and art critic Martin Gayford. “Gillespie’s technique alarmed other trumpet players, particularly because he was playing so high.”

“While Charlie Parker came up with the phrasing and the rhythmic approach, Gillespie’s contribution was more the technical side of the harmony and great showmanship.”

“The photographs that typify the bebop era are of Dizzy, with his beret and goatee beard,” says Gayford.

That vibrant persona and sheer technical virtuosity—with Gillespie’s trademark cheeks ballooning out bullfrog-like around the mouthpiece of his distinctive bent trumpet—make him a hard act for trumpeters to follow today.

“When, at the age of 8, I first heard a recording of his music, I was just astonished by what the trumpet could do,” says James Morrison, the celebrated Australian musician who was at the helm of an anniversary tribute concert held at London’s Royal Albert Hall on 4 August 2017, as part of the world-famous BBC Proms concert season.

“I have always been inspired by his way of playing the trumpet,” says Morrison. “I’m very heavily influenced by him.”

Morrison, who played with Gillespie on a number of occasions, believes his outgoing personality helped to make his innovative music a lot more accessible.

“He was there pushing boundaries, but he was so approachable as a person. There is a clichéd idea that an innovator has to be a dark, brooding person, off in his own world. But Dizzy was so garrulous and made such a great connection with the audience.”

Trumpeter James Morrison performs with the James Morrison Trio and the BBC Concert Orchestra under conductor John Mauceri at the 2017 BBC Proms. (Photo courtesy of the BBC)(performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri with Dianne Reeves: singer, James Morrison: trumpet and Victor Sangiorgio: piano - The James Morrison Trio-William Morrison: guitar, Patrick Danao; drums, Harry Morrison: bass)) on at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday, 4 Aug. 2017. Photo by Mark Allan

In honor of the 100 year anniversary of Dizzy Gillespie’s birth, his contributions to jazz are being celebrated in a number of tribute concerts around the world. Here, singer Dianne Reeves and trumpeter James Morrison perform with the James Morrison Trio and the BBC Concert Orchestra under conductor John Mauceri at the 2017 BBC Proms. (Photo courtesy of the BBC)

Encountering the Bahá’í Faith

It was just such an audience member who first introduced Gillespie to the Bahá’í Faith. Beth McKenty, a Canadian who attended one of his shows in Milwaukee, had been inspired to reach out to him after reading about the tragic death of Charlie Parker, bebop’s co-originator. Parker was a saxophonist, who had at one point claimed that Gillespie was the “other half of his heart.” He died in 1955 at the age of 34, following a long period of drug addiction.

“Beth had called Dizzy and told him, ‘Charlie Parker didn’t have to die like he died’ and could she talk to him,” remembers Longo. “And so that night, she and her husband came and Dizzy was sitting with them at the table and she told him about the Bahá’í Faith and gave him a lot of literature.”

After a period of intense reading and studying, Gillespie formally accepted the Bahá’í Faith on 5 April 1968, the night after the assassination of Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Jr. The musician was attracted by the emphasis given in Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings to unity, particularly by their assertion of the harmony of science and religion, the equality of women and men, and the oneness of humanity.

“He and I were both very upset about the racial situation here with all the riots and everything,” says Longo. “We were talking and I said, ‘It don’t have to be like that,’ and I remember we were saying, ‘There’s got to be somebody that represents the way we feel,’ and that’s when he discovered the Faith.”

Gillespie wrote in his autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop, “When I encountered the Bahá’í Faith, it all went along with what I had always believed. I believed in the oneness of mankind. I believed we all come from the same source, that no race of people is inherently superior to any other.”

“Dizzy was tuned into the vibe,” says Longo.

Gillespie had long been interested in exploring the rhythms and harmonies of diverse cultures, and Longo believes his music evolved even further after he embraced the Bahá’í teachings.

“It got deeper,” he says. “If you listen to the chronology of his recordings, when he embraced the Afro-Cuban thing, the music went to a much deeper level… It went to a world level. And if you think about the Faith, that was a reflection of all the people coming together, it went on to a level as close as a human being can get to perfection.”

Becoming a Bahá’í influenced Gillespie’s life in every way. He wrote that it gave him “a new concept of the relationship between God and man—between man and his fellow man—man and his family.”

“I became more spiritually aware, and when you’re spiritually aware, that will be reflected in what you do,” wrote Gillespie.

And jazz musicians, Gillespie believed, were among “the people most ‘in tune’ with the Universe.”

“What is more appropriate than a musician being in tune with nature and with our Creator?” he wrote. “The best example is the way that they perform; how do they come up with things that have never been played before? Where did they get it? They have to have some kind of divine inspiration.”

Longo concurs. “This music doesn’t come from thinking. You can’t think and play at the same time. It comes from behind the mind, so there’s a sort of a bliss place back there that’s totally spiritual. That is the animating force to our music. In fact all of the arts, and sciences as well. The power that Bahá’u’lláh unleashed is the animating force in the arts.”

“Dizzy said, ‘What you hear is the divinity in the music.’”

The United Nation Orchestra

“Gillespie was around for a very long time,” reflects Martin Gayford, “from the 1940s right through to the 1990s. So he became something of an elder statesman of jazz, and a great encourager of young talent.”

The most ambitious, and final, fusion of his music with his religious beliefs was Gillespie’s formation of his United Nation Orchestra, with which he toured the world in the 1980s. The Bahá’í principle of building unity that maintains and celebrates cultural diversity was Gillespie’s key inspiration for the big band made up of younger musicians from the United States and outstanding players and singers from Brazil, Cuba, and Panama.

“That’s what he believed in,” says Longo, “and so that’s what the principle of the United Nation Orchestra was.”

“In the Bahá’í religion we don’t believe in cutting loose anything good,” Gillespie wrote. “Cut loose your heritage? Bahá’ís believe that you bring it in and work with others. Bring it into the whole just like a master painting. Because I’m purple and there’s another cat who’s orange doesn’t mean that we can’t come into one big compatible complementary arrangement. Just contribute from your own uniqueness, but don’t get over in their groove. Stay outta theirs!”

Gillespie during a visit to the Baha’i World Centre in 1985

A lasting legacy

Since his death in 1993 at the age of 75, Dizzy Gillespie continues to be revered by enthusiasts the world over. His music has become the subject of academic study and symposia; his recordings are constantly being remastered, reissued, and rediscovered by younger generations. In the coming months, tribute concerts marking 100 years since his birth are taking place across the globe.

“When you pay a tribute to someone, there’s that question – do you imitate them?” says James Morrison. “And I believe, sound-wise—no. There are recognizable ‘Dizzyisms’ in what happens, but a true tribute is to create the atmosphere. It’s always like he was having a party, and he would take that onto the stage. I’ve always felt that’s what I wanted to do too.”

But Mike Longo believes Gillespie’s music is still not fully understood. Speaking at the trumpeter’s funeral in 1993, Longo told the congregation that, “a lot of people know what Dizzy played but they don’t know how he played.”

“At this point in time most of the educators and so forth are imitating it,” he says. “They don’t understand the concept, they understand the notes. So they imitate the notes and they try to imitate the feeling, but they’re not coming up with the essence yet. So he’s not fully appreciated yet.”

“Might be another 100 years before that happens,” Longo laughs.

Listen to the podcast episode associated with this Bahá’í World News Service story.

Two new murals of Dizzy Gillespie were recently painted in Harlem as a part of Education is Not a Crime, a street arts campaign that seeks to raise awareness for human rights in Iran.

By Matt Weinberg

At the heart of human experience lies an essential yearning for self-definition and self-understanding. Developing a conception of who we are, for what purpose we exist, and how we should live our lives is a basic impulse of human consciousness. This project—of defining the self and its place in the social order—expresses both a desire for meaning and an aspiration for belonging. It is a quest informed by ever-evolving and interacting narratives of identity.

Today, as the sheer intensity and velocity of change challenges our assumptions about the nature and structure of social reality, a set of vital questions confront us. These include: What is the source of our identity? Where should our attachments and loyalties lie? And if our identity or identities so impel us, how—and with whom—should we come together? And what is the nature of the bonds that bring us together?

The organization and direction of human affairs are inextricably connected to the future evolution of our identity. For it is from our identity that intention, action, and social development flow. Identity determines how we see ourselves and conceive our position in the world, how others see us or classify us, and how we choose to engage with those around us. “Knowing who we are,” the sociologist Philip Selznick observes, “helps us to appreciate the reach as well as the limits of our attachments.”¹ Such attachments play a vital role in shaping our “authentic selves” and in determining our attitudes toward those within and outside the circle of our social relationships. Acting on the commitments implied by these attachments serves to amplify the powers of individuals in effecting societal well-being and advancement. Notions of personal and collective identity can thus exert considerable influence over the norms and practices of a rapidly integrating global community.

As we have many associational linkages, identity comes in a variety of forms. At times we identify ourselves by our family, ethnicity, nationality, religion, mother tongue, race, gender, class, culture, or profession. At other times our locale, the enterprises and institutions we work for, our loyalty to sports teams, affinity for certain types of music and cuisine, attachment to particular causes, and educational affiliations provide definitional aspects to who we are. The sources of identification which animate and ground human beings are immensely diverse. In short, there are multiple demands of loyalty placed upon us, and consequently, our identities, as Nobel laureate Amaryta Sen has noted, are “inescapably plural.”²

But which identity or identities are most important? Can divergent identities be reconciled? And do these identities enhance or limit our understanding of and engagement with the world? Each of us on a daily basis, both consciously and unconsciously, draws upon, expresses, and mediates between our multiple senses of identity. And as our sphere of social interaction expands, we tend to subsume portions of how we define ourselves and seek to integrate into a wider domain of human experience. This often requires us to scrutinize and even resist particular interpretations of allegiance that may have a claim on us. We therefore tend to prioritize which identities matter most to us. As the theorist Iris Marion Young stresses: “Individuals are agents: we constitute our own identities, and each person’s identity is unique…A person’s identity is not some sum of her gender, racial, class, and national affinities. She is only her identity, which she herself has made by the way that she deals with and acts in relation to others…”³ The matrix of our associations surely influences how we understand and interpret the world, but cannot fully account for how we think, act, or what values we hold. That a particular identity represents a wellspring of meaning to an individual need not diminish the significance of other attachments or eclipse our moral intuition or use of reason. Affirming affinity with a specific group as a component of one’s personal identity should not limit how one views one’s place in society or the possibilities of how one might live.

While it is undoubtedly simplistic to reduce human identity to specific contextual categories such as nationality or culture, such categories do provide a strong narrative contribution to an individual’s sense of being. “Around the world,” the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah writes, “it matters to people that they can tell a story of their lives that meshes with larger narratives. This may involve rites of passage into womanhood and manhood; or a sense of national identity that fits into a larger saga. Such collective identification can also confer significance upon very individual achievements.”⁴ Social, cultural, and other narratives directly impact who we are. They provide context and structure for our lives, allowing us to link what we wish to become to a wider human inheritance, thereby providing a basis for meaningful collective life. Various narratives of identity serve as vehicles of unity, bringing coherence and direction to the disparate experiences of individuals.

In the wake of extraordinary advances in human knowledge, which have deepened global interchange and contracted the planet, we now find ourselves defined by overlapping identities that encompass a complex array of social forces, relations, and networks. The same person, for instance, can be a Canadian citizen of African origin who descends from two major tribes, fluent in several languages, an engineer, an admirer of Italian opera, an alumnus of a major American university, a race-car enthusiast, a practitioner of yoga, an aficionado of oriental cuisine, a proponent of a conservative political philosophy, and an adherent of agnosticism who nevertheless draws on insights found in the spiritual traditions of his forebears. One can simultaneously be a committed participant in local community affairs such as improving elementary-level education and an ardent supporter of transnational causes like human rights and environmental stewardship. Such juxtapositions of identity illustrate how individuals increasingly belong to multiple “communities of fate” in which long-existing spatial boundaries are being entirely redrawn and reconceptualized.⁵ Modernity has transformed identity in such a way that we must view ourselves as being not only in a condition of dependence or independence but also interdependence.

The recasting of longstanding narratives of identification and affiliation is giving rise to widespread anxiety, grievance, and perplexity. In the eyes of many, the circumstances of daily life lie beyond their control. In particular, “the nation-state…that preeminent validator of social identity—no longer assures well-being,” the anthropologist Charles Carnegie avers.⁶ Other established sources of social cohesion and expressions of collective intention are similarly diminished in their efficacy to ground the actions of populations around the planet, resulting in a sense of disconnection and alienation. The philosopher Charles Taylor attributes such disruption of customary social patterns to the “massive subjective turn of modern culture,” involving an overly atomistic and instrumental view of individual identity.⁷ This exaggerated individualism accompanies the dislocation from historic centers of collectivity that is a repercussion of the centrifugal stresses of globalization. Against this kaleidoscope of change, including the major migrations of peoples, the international nature of economic production, and the formation of communities of participation across territorial borders through the means of modern communications, the concept of citizenship, as membership in a confined geographic polity, is in need of reformulation.

Our connections to others now transcend traditional bounds of culture, nation, and community. The unprecedented nature of these connections is radically reshaping human organization and the scale and impact of human exchange. But globalization has been with us a long time; the movement of peoples, goods, and ideas is an inherent feature of human history and development. Virtually every culture is linked to others by a myriad ties.⁸

Culture is neither static nor homogeneous. Anthropological and sociological research reveals that cultures cannot be seen as fixed, indivisible wholes. The various manifestations of “social belonging” exhibit a “constructed and pliable nature.”⁹ Cultural resiliency has much to do with heterogeneity, assimilation of outside ideas, and the capacity to adapt. “We should view human cultures as constant creations, recreations, and negotiations of imaginary boundaries between ‘we’ and the ‘other(s)’,” the political scientist Seyla Benhabib emphasizes.¹⁰ The multifarious processes of integration now at work are serving to accentuate and accelerate such social, economic, and cultural interchange. Under these conditions, Benhabib adds, presumed lines of cultural demarcation are increasingly “fluid, porous and contested.”¹¹ To perceive cultures, then, as objects of stasis, immune from the complex dialogues and interactions of human existence, is a fundamental epistemological and empirical error. As Appiah maintains: “Societies without change aren’t authentic; they’re just dead.”¹²

Often, the insistence that the essence of cultural distinctiveness is its putative immutability emerges from a sincere desire to preserve and honor the power of an existing collective narrative. What is at issue here is a legitimate fear that valued identities may be lost or overwhelmed by unfamiliar external forces. Although an advocate of cultural rights designed to prevent such unwanted change, the theorist Will Kymlicka notes that “most indigenous peoples understand that the nature of their cultural identity is dynamic…”¹³ From this vantage point, Kymlicka believes that globalization “provides new and valued options by which nations can promote their interests and identities.”¹⁴ This suggests that a balance must be sought between the requirements of self-determination and the possibility of defining an aspect of self-determination as participation in the construction of a broader collectivity. Participation of this kind by a diverse array of cultures and peoples offers the promise of enriching the entire fabric of civilized life.

Recognition of the reality of globalization, however, does not mean that the current inequities associated with the process—how resources, opportunities, and power are distributed—should go unchallenged. And perhaps more important, the exhausted ideologies and intellectual frameworks that allow such inequities to persist must also be directly confronted.¹⁵ It is here where the insights provided by diverse human traditions and value systems can engage with the constructive phenomena of contemporary change to open new frontiers of identity—frontiers offering a peaceful and just future.

In 1945, aware of the imminent test of the first atomic weapon, Franklin D. Roosevelt warned: “Today we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world, at peace.”¹⁶ Clearly, the perceptions that human beings hold of themselves and each other matter. In a world convulsed by contention and conflict, conceptions of identity that feed the forces of prejudice and mistrust must be closely examined. Assertions that certain populations can be neatly partitioned into oppositional categories of affiliation deserve particular scrutiny. The notion of civilizational identity as the predominant expression of human allegiance is one such problematic example.¹⁷ For Amartya Sen, such thinking leads to “conceptual disarray” that can undermine international stability.

To view the relationships between different human beings as mere reflections of the relations between civilizations is questionable on both logical and pragmatic grounds. First, civilizations themselves are not monolithic in character; indeed, their vast internal diversity is among their distinguishing features. Second, as we have seen, reducing personhood to a “singular affiliation” denies the essential variety and complexity of human experience.¹⁸ Of most concern, argues Sen, is the danger that assigning “one preeminent categorization” to human beings will exacerbate and harden conceptions of difference between peoples.¹⁹ This presumption of a “unique and choiceless identity,” that people are what they are because they have been born into a certain ethnic, cultural, or religious inheritance, is an “illusion” that underlies many of the “conflicts and barbarities in the world.”²⁰ “Reasoned choice,” Sen believes, must be used to examine the intrinsic merit of our antecedent associations as well as the broader social ramifications of identity.²¹

“A tenable global ethics,” Kwame Anthony Appiah concurs, “has to temper a respect for difference with a respect for the freedom of actual human beings to make their own choices.”²² For this reason, there exists an intimate relationship between cultural diversity and liberty. A sustainable and authentic expression of collective development must be a freely chosen path pursued by the members composing the group in question; current generations cannot impose their vision of what a desirable form of life is upon future generations. Existing mores, practices, and institutions can inform, validate, and even ennoble the human condition, but cannot or should not foreclose new moral or social directions for individuals and communities. Indeed, collective learning and adjustment are defining characteristics of social evolution. Because our perceptions and experiences change, our understanding of reality necessarily undergoes change. So too, then, do our identities change. “The contours of identity are profoundly real,” Appiah states, “and yet no more imperishable, unchanging, or transcendent than other things that men and women make.”²³ At the same time, “if we create a society that our descendants will want to hold on to, our personal and political values will survive in them.”²⁴

Significant portions of the world’s peoples, we know though, are deprived of the autonomy necessary to develop a plan of life or a corresponding identity that can inspire and assist them to realize life goals. The widespread subordinate social position of women and minorities restricts the latitude of their self-determination; members of these groups are frequently denied, in a systematic way, the chance to fully explore their individual potential and to contribute to the processes of cultural, social, and moral advancement. Constructions of identity can therefore be quite tenuous for marginalized groups or individuals whose personal characteristics fall outside received categories of classification. This can be especially true for persons of mixed ethnic, racial, or religious descent. Concepts of race and nation can serve as powerful instruments and symbols of unity, but can also lead to the isolation, dispossession, and “symbolic dismemberment” of minorities.²⁵ In this regard, Charles Carnegie’s call for a “new consciousness of belonging” seems vital.²⁶

The prevalent stance that identity is about difference is untenable. Perceiving identity through the relativistic lens of separation or cultural preservation ignores compelling evidence of our common humanity and can only aggravate the forces of discord and disagreement now so pervasive in the world. The only alternative to this path of fragmentation and disunity is to nurture affective relationships across lines of ethnicity, creed, territory, and color—relationships that can serve as the warp and woof of a new social framework of universal solidarity and mutual respect. A one-dimensional understanding of human beings must be rejected. As Amartya Sen underscores: “The hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies to a great extent in a clearer understanding of the pluralities of human identity, and in the appreciation that they cut across each other and work against a sharp separation along one single hardened line of impenetrable division.”²⁷ This is an appeal for imagination in creating new ways of being and living; for a new vision of human nature and society—one that recognizes the unmistakable shared destiny of all peoples. The resolution of the problems now engulfing the planet demands a more expansive sense of human identity. As articulated by Bahá’u’lláh more than a century ago: “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.”²⁸

The crucial need of the present hour is to determine the conceptual and practical steps that will lay the foundations of an equitable and harmonious global order. Effectively addressing the crises now disrupting human affairs will require new models of social transformation that recognize the deep interrelationship between the material, ethical, and transcendent dimensions of life. It is evident that such models can emerge only from a fundamental change in consciousness about who we are, how we regard others who enter our ambit—no matter how near or distant, and how we collectively design the structures and processes of social life, whether local or global.

Such observations lead to yet more questions. In a world of pluralistic identities and rapidly shifting cultural and moral boundaries, is a common understanding of human purpose and action possible? Can a genuine cosmopolitan ethic, one that fully embraces human diversity, emerge from the multiple experiences and perceptions of modernity?

A basis of an affirmative Bahá’í response to these questions can be found in Bahá’u’lláh’s exhortations to the world’s peoples to “set your faces towards unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you,”²⁹ and to “let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own self.”³⁰ For Bahá’ís, though, such a perspective is not simply a matter of belief or hopeful aspiration, but is grounded in experience.

A conviction of the practicality of world unity and peace, coupled with an unwavering dedication to work toward this goal, is perhaps the single most distinguishing characteristic of the Bahá’í community. That this community is now representative of the diversity of the entire human race, encompassing virtually every national, ethnic, and racial group on the planet, is an achievement that cannot be casually dismissed. The worldwide Bahá’í community, as an organic whole, eschews dichotomies prevalent in public discourse today, such as “North” and “South,” and “developed” and “underdeveloped.” Bahá’ís everywhere, irrespective of the degree of material well-being of their nations, are striving to apply the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh to the process of building unified patterns of collective life. In this undertaking, every member of the community is a valued participant. In this respect, the roots of Bahá’í motivation and the formation of Bahá’í identity have a long history.

In the early part of the twentieth century, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—Bahá’u’lláh’s son and appointed successor—urged the some 160 Bahá’í inhabitants of a small village in a remote part of Iran who were experiencing persecution to “regard every ill-wisher as a well-wisher.… That is, they must associate with a foe as befitteth a friend, and deal with an oppressor as beseemeth a kind companion. They should not gaze upon the faults and transgressions of their foes, nor pay heed to their enmity, inequity or oppression.”³¹ And further, they should “show forth love and affection, wisdom and compassion, faithfulness and unity towards all, without any discrimination.”³² But apart from enjoining upon them an attitude of remarkable forbearance and amity, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá did not address these followers as simple rural people with narrow parochial concerns. Rather, He affirmed their innate dignity by speaking to them as citizens of the world who had the capacity and the power to contribute to the advancement of civilization:

O ye beloved of the Lord! With the utmost joy and gladness, serve ye the human world, and love ye the human race. Turn your eyes away from limitations, and free yourselves from restrictions, for … freedom therefrom brings about divine blessings and bestowals…

Therefore, so long as there be a trace of life in one’s veins, one must strive and labour, and seek to lay a foundation that the passing of centuries and cycles may not undermine, and rear an edifice which the rolling of ages and aeons cannot overthrow—an edifice that shall prove eternal and everlasting, so that the sovereignty of heart and soul may be established and secure in both worlds.³³

In short, the perceptions, preferences, and assumptions of the denizens of this small, isolated village were radically transformed. Their identity had been remade. They no longer were concerned just with local matters, and even though they were far removed from the mainstream of intellectual and cultural exchange, they regarded themselves as “servants” of the “entire human race,” and as protagonists in the building of a new way of life. They understood their “ultimate sphere of work as the globe itself.”³⁴ That the broader Iranian Bahá’í community achieved, over the course of three generations, levels of educational advancement and prosperity well beyond the general population, even under conditions of severe religious discrimination, underscores the capacities that can be released when the moral and spiritual dimensions of human consciousness are awakened and purposively channeled.³⁵ For those interested in apprehending the sources and mechanisms of individual and community empowerment, it would be difficult to find a more compelling example of social transformation than the case of the Iranian Bahá’ís.

In response to Bahá’u’lláh’s call for the creation of a universal culture of collaboration and conciliation, Bahá’ís drawn from almost every cultural and religious tradition “have achieved a sense of identity as members of a single human race, an identity that shapes the purpose of their lives and that, clearly, is not the expression of any intrinsic moral superiority on their own part…”³⁶ It is an accomplishment “that can properly be described only as spiritual—capable of eliciting extraordinary feats of sacrifice and understanding from ordinary people of every background.”³⁷

So it is clear that from a Bahá’í perspective, a universal identity is a vital precursor to action that is universal in its effects—to the “emergence of a world community, the consciousness of world citizenship, the founding of a world civilization and culture.”³⁸ In emphasizing our global identity, Bahá’u’lláh presents a conception of life that insists upon a redefinition of all human relationships—between individuals, between human society and the natural world, between the individual and the community, and between individual citizens and their governing institutions.³⁹ Humanity has arrived at the dawn of its maturity, when its “innate excellence”and latent creative capacities can at last find complete expression.⁴⁰ Accordingly, new social forms and ethical precepts are enunciated in the Bahá’í teachings so that human consciousness can be freed from patterns of response set by tradition, and the foundations of a global society can be erected.

Bahá’u’lláh thus speaks to the reshaping and redirection of social reality. That all individual action and social arrangements must be informed by the principle of the oneness of human relationships, gives rise to a concept of moral and social order that safeguards personal dignity while deepening human solidarity. In recognition of this central insight, the Universal House of Justice, the international governing body of the Bahá’í community, urges all to “embrace the implications of the oneness of humankind, not only as the inevitable next step in the advancement of civilization, but as the fulfillment of lesser identities of every kind that our race brings to this critical moment in our collective history.”⁴¹

From the basic principle of the unity of the world’s peoples are derived virtually all notions concerning human welfare and liberty. If the human race is one, any assertion that a particular racial, ethnic, or national group is in some way superior to the rest of humanity must be dismissed; society must reorganize its life to give practical expression to the principle of equality for all its members regardless of race, creed, or gender;41 each and every person must be enabled to “look into all things with a searching eye” so that truth can be independently ascertained⁴²; and all individuals must be given the opportunity to realize their inherent capabilities and thereby foster “the elevation, the advancement, the education, the protection and the regeneration of the peoples of the earth.”⁴³

In the Bahá’í view, social origin, position, or rank are of no account in the sight of God. As Bahá’u’lláh confirms, “man’s glory lieth in his knowledge, his upright conduct, his praiseworthy character, his wisdom, and not in his nationality or rank.”⁴⁴ This emphatic declaration of the essential moral and spiritual worth of every human being is echoed in an epistle of Bahá’u’lláh’s to a devoted follower: “Verily, before the one true God, they who are the rulers and lords of men and they that are their subjects and vassals are equal and the same. The ranks of all men are dependent on their potential and capacity. Witness unto this truth are the words, ‘In truth, they are most honored before God who are most righteous.’”⁴⁵ Hence, embedded in the Bahá’í understanding of human identity is a fundamental expectation of justice and equality of opportunity, as well as an imperative of striving for greater moral awareness and responsibility.

It must be stressed that the “watchword” of the Bahá’í community is “unity in diversity.”⁴⁶ Oneness and diversity are complementary and inseparable: “That human consciousness necessarily operates through an infinite diversity of individual minds and motivations detracts in no way from its essential unity. Indeed, it is precisely an inherent diversity that distinguishes unity from homogeneity or uniformity.”⁴⁷ Just as integration of the differentiated components of the human body makes possible the higher function of human consciousness, so too is global well-being dependent on the willing give and take, and ultimate collaboration, of humanity’s diverse populations.⁴⁸ Acceptance of the concept of unity in diversity implies the development of a global consciousness, a sense of global citizenship, and a love for all of humanity. It induces every individual to realize that, “since the body of humankind is one and indivisible,” each member of the human race is “born into the world as a trust of the whole” and has a responsibility to the whole.⁴⁹ It further suggests that if a peaceful international community is to emerge, then the complex and varied cultural expressions of humanity must be allowed to develop and flourish, as well as to interact with one another in ever-changing forms of civilization. “The diversity in the human family,” the Bahá’í writings emphasize, “should be the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together in the making of a perfect chord.”⁵⁰ More than creating a culture of tolerance, the notion of unity in diversity entails vanquishing corrosive divisions along lines of race, class, gender, nationality, and belief, and erecting a dynamic and cooperative social ethos that reflects the oneness of human nature.

The ideology of difference so ubiquitous in contemporary discourse militates against the possibility of social progress. It provides no basis whereby communities defined by specific backgrounds, customs, or creeds can bridge their divergent perspectives and resolve social tensions. The value of variety and difference cannot be minimized, but neither can the necessity for coexistence, order, and mutual effort. “The supreme need of humanity,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá underscores, “is cooperation and reciprocity. The stronger the ties of fellowship and solidarity amongst men, the greater will be the power of constructiveness and accomplishment in all the planes of human activity.”⁵¹ Diversity by itself cannot be regarded as an “ultimate good.”⁵²

Unity, in contrast, “is a phenomenon of creative power.”⁵³ To foster a global identity, to affirm that we are members of one human family is a deceptively simple but powerful idea. While traditional loyalties and identities must be appreciated and recognized, they are inadequate for addressing the predicament of modernity, and consequently, a higher loyalty, one that speaks to the common destiny of all the earth’s inhabitants, is necessary. And so, in our quest for solutions to the problems that collectively confront us, a first step must involve relinquishing our attachment to lesser loyalties. Yet, while Bahá’u’lláh is saying that at this moment in human social evolution a global identity is vital, an inherent aspect of such a universal identity is recognition of the spiritual reality that animates our inner selves. ⁵⁴ To be sure, a global identity grounded in awareness of our common humanness marks a great step forward from where humanity has been, but a strictly secular or material formulation of global identity is unlikely to provide a sufficient motivational basis for overcoming historic prejudices and engendering universal moral action. Establishing a global milieu of peace, prosperity, and fairness is ultimately a matter of the heart; it involves a change in basic attitudes and values that can only come from recognizing the normative and spiritual nature of the challenges before us. This is especially so given that the vast majority of the world’s peoples do not view themselves simply as material beings responding to material exigencies and circumstances, but rather as beings endowed with spiritual sensibility and purpose.

In light of ongoing social turmoil and the upheavals of the last century, it is simply no longer possible to maintain the belief that human well-being can arise from a narrow materialistic conception of life. The persistence of widespread human deprivation and despair speaks to the shortcomings of prevailing social theories and policies. Fresh approaches are required. A just social polity, Bahá’ís believe, will emerge only when human relations and social arrangements are infused with spiritual intent, an intent characterized by an all-embracing standard of equity, unconditional love, and an ethos of service to others. Addressing practical challenges through a spiritual lens is no easy task, but it is to this objective that Bahá’ís are firmly committed. Through recognition of the centrality of spiritual values and the deeds they inspire, “Minds, hearts and all human forces are reformed, perfections are quickened, sciences, discoveries and investigations are stimulated afresh, and everything appertaining to the virtues of the human world is revitalized.”⁵⁵ The power of a spiritually-actuated identity in furthering human betterment cannot be overestimated, for those “whose hearts are warmed by the energizing influence of God’s creative love cherish His creatures for His sake, and recognize in every human face a sign of His reflected glory.”⁵⁶

It is still regrettable that the identity of certain individuals or groups emerges from a shared experience of oppression—from being the victims of systematic discrimination or injustice. In addressing this dimension of human identity, Bahá’u’lláh speaks forcefully and repeatedly about the rights and dignity of all human beings, and the indispensability of creating mechanisms of social justice, but He also explains that spiritual oppression is the most serious of all: “What ‘oppression’ is more grievous than that a soul seeking the truth…should know not where to go for it and from whom to seek it?”⁵⁷ From this standpoint, it is in the displacement of a transcendent understanding of life by an ascendant materialism that we find the source of the disaffection, anomie, and uncertainty that so pervades modern existence. All forms of oppression ultimately find their genesis in the denial of our essential spiritual identity. As Bahá’u’lláh earnestly counsels us: “Deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee, for his face is My face; be then abashed before Me.”⁵⁸

These words tell us that we must choose who we wish to be; we must “see” with our “own eyes and not through the eyes of others.”⁵⁹ We must create our own sense of self and belonging. To have such power of choice affirms human nobility and is a sign of divine grace. Our different senses of identity consequently become fully realized through the development of our spiritual identity; they each provide a means for achieving our basic existential purpose—the recognition and refinement of the spiritual capacities latent within us. Through the tangible expression of such capacities—compassion, trustworthiness, humility, courage, forbearance, and willingness to sacrifice for the common good—we define a path of spiritual growth. In the end, though, whether we have attained our spiritual potential is enshrouded in mystery: “the inner being, the underlying reality or intrinsic identity, is still beyond the ken and perception of our human powers.”⁶⁰

Connected with the idea of spiritual identity, then, is the inalienable sanctity of every human soul; that a unique destiny has been bestowed upon each of us by an all-loving Creator—a destiny which unfolds in accordance with the free exercise of our rational and moral powers. As Bahá’u’lláh indicates, “How lofty is the station which man, if he but choose to fulfill his high destiny, can attain!”⁶¹ This promise of new vistas of accomplishment for both the individual and society, is, for Bahá’ís, a source of enduring confidence and optimism. The forces now buffeting and recasting human life, Bahá’u’lláh attests, will serve to release the “potentialities inherent in the station of man,” thereby giving impetus to “an ever-advancing civilization.”⁶²

The Bahá’í belief in the spiritual nature of reality, and its underlying unity, sheds new light on the question of religious identity. In stressing that “the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God,”⁶³ Bahá’u’lláh is confirming a basic intuition that the truth underpinning the world’s great religions is in essence one. This explicit rejection of exclusivity and superiority, which have so dominated religious thinking and behavior, and suppressed impulses to reconciliation and unity, clears the ground for a new ethos of mutual understanding. For indeed, to believe that one’s system of belief is somehow superior or unique, has only led humankind to misery, despair, and ruin. In warning His followers never to assume what their own spiritual end might be, Bahá’u’lláh plants the seeds of humility and spiritual maturity so necessary for the creation of a world of tolerance and tranquility. In recognizing the divine origin of the world’s great religions, and that they have each served to unlock a wider range of capacities within human consciousness and society, the Bahá’í Faith does not and cannot make any claim of religious finality, but rather a claim of paramount relevance to humanity’s current spiritual and social plight. Its role as a reconciler and unifier of religions is clearly anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh: “A different Cause…hath appeared in this day and a different discourse is required.”⁶⁴

Bahá’u’lláh clarifies that a moral logic pervades the fabric of human life, and that it is through observance of spiritual principles that the individual can realize the divinely intended goal of his or her existence. As beings capable of spiritual and moral development, our autonomy and welfare are not only determined by the laws and constraints of the natural world, but also by an objective spiritual world that is integrally related to it. To follow a moral path is not only to carry out the duties that we have to those around us, but is the only means for realizing true happiness and contentment. Our obligations to God, our inner selves, our family, and the wider community give definition to who we are and what our aims should be. For Bahá’ís, fulfillment of these obligations to the Divine will and to our fellow human beings ensures the emergence of a stable and progressive society. Moreover, by honoring such responsibilities, the nobility and rights of others are protected. In this sense, it is the requirement of individuals’ being able to meet primary spiritual and moral obligations that safeguards human rights.⁶⁵

The Bahá’í teachings explain that moral insight is both transcendentally and dialogically derived. The values and ideals that bind human beings together, and give tangible direction and meaning to life, find their origins in the guidance provided by the Founders of the world’s great religious systems. At the same time, it is human action in response to such guidance that gives real shape to social reality. Bahá’u’lláh makes clear that all such action must be consultatively-inspired and directed. Given that human life has a “fundamentally dialogical character,” it is through interchange that individuals and the communities they compose are able to give definition to their identities and their long-term goals.⁶⁶ Consultation can lead to the creation of new social meanings and social forms that reflect what is reasonable and fair for society to achieve. But any such process of collective deliberation and decision-making, the Bahá’í writings insist, must be devoid of adversarial posturing as well as dispassionate and fully participatory in spirit. It is through discourse which is inclusive and unifying that the religious impulse finds expression in the modern age.

Clearly, there can never be an absolutely objective or static understanding of what constitutes concepts such as social equity, human security, power, “the common good,” democracy, or community. There is an evolutionary aspect to social development—a dynamic process of learning, dialogue, and praxis in which social challenges and solutions are constantly redefined and reassessed. There are always multiple understandings of particular social questions and these diverse perspectives each typically contain some measure of validity. By building a broader framework of analysis that encompasses not only material and technical variables but the normative and spiritual dimensions of various social issues, new insights can emerge that enrich dialogues previously locked into narrow conceptual boundaries. A unifying sense of identity can obviously play an important role in facilitating and sustaining such a consultative path.

In many ways, the struggle to understand our identity is tied up with the question of meaning in modern life. Increasingly, calls are being made for rooting meaning and identity in community, but when the community is religiously, morally, and culturally pluralistic in character it is challenging for diverse voices to find common ground. It is here where the Bahá’í concepts of unity in diversity and non-adversarial dialogue and decision-making can offer a potent alternative vision of social advancement. Engaging in a cooperative search for truth will no doubt lead to the discovery and implementation of shared perspectives and values. Such open moral dialogue within and among variegated communities can lead to a process of action, reflection, and adjustment resulting in genuine social learning and progress.⁶⁷ As Bahá’u’lláh emphasizes, “No welfare and no well-being can be attained except through consultation.”⁶⁸

Meaning emerges from an independent search for truth and a chosen freedom grounded in social experience and social participation—a participation that leads to the enlargement of the self. Participation creates new identities and new solidarities. In Bahá’í communities around the globe, patterns of fellowship, knowledge-building, and collaboration among diverse peoples are giving rise to a new human culture. Bahá’ís have found that encouraging new modalities of association and participation is key to promoting meaningful social development and effective local governance that is democratic in spirit and method. Hence, Bahá’u’lláh’s statement that fellowship and sincere association “are conducive to the maintenance of order in the world and to the regeneration of nations.”⁶⁹

Human beings are social beings. The self, therefore, cannot evolve outside of human relationships. Indeed, the self develops principally through endeavors that are participatory in nature. Virtues such as generosity, loyalty, mercy, and self-abnegation cannot be manifested in isolation from others. The Bahá’í teachings affirm that the essential arena of moral choice is the autonomous person. But this autonomy is exercised within a broader social context, as well as an all-encompassing spiritual reality that informs the nature of that social context. The Bahá’í teachings thus offer a social conception of human identity in which the inner aspirations of the self are aligned with the goals of a just and creative global polity. In this way, the Bahá’í community is able to reconcile “the right” with the “good.”⁷⁰

Individual well-being is intimately tied to the flourishing of the whole. It is a reciprocated benevolence, founded on the ideals of service and selflessness, rather than utilitarian self-interest, that underlies the Bahá’í idea of social life. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states, “the honor and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good.”⁷¹ While preservation of “personal freedom and initiative” is considered essential, so too must the relational aspect of human existence be recognized. The “maintenance of civilized life,” the Universal House of Justice explains, “calls for the utmost degree of understanding and cooperation between society and the individual; and because of the need to foster a climate in which the untold potentialities of the individual members of society can develop, this relationship must allow ‘free scope’ for ‘individuality to assert itself’ through modes of spontaneity, initiative and diversity that ensure the viability of society.”⁷²

Given the social matrix of human reality, the quest for true self-determination and true identity involves finding one’s place within a moral order, not outside it. But in the Bahá’í view, such “ordered liberty” concerns the awakening of the soul to the capacities of integrity, kindness, and sincerity that lie within it. And spiritual growth of this kind must be fostered by the community in which the individual is embedded. Any conception of “the good”—an equitable society promoting the development of individual potential—must recognize the necessity of imbuing the concept of duty into society’s members. In this respect, laws and ethical standards are intended not to constrain but to liberate human consciousness so that a moral ethos can come into being. To a great degree, then, the emergence of the citizen devoted to a moral praxis results from the collective voice of the community. Although a path of social virtue and service must be freely chosen, the community must strive to cultivate and empower this voice.⁷³ The ultimate expression of this spiritually motivated moral voice is a culture where action flows not from externally imposed duties and rights but from the spontaneous love that each member of the community has for one another. From our shared recognition that we are all sheltered under the love of the same God comes both humility and the means for true social cohesion.

This spiritually-based conception of social life goes beyond notions of mutual advantage and prudence associated with the idea of the social contract. While the principle of self-interested, rational exchange implied by the social contract indisputably represents an advance over coercion as a basis for social existence, there surely exists a step beyond exchange. As the philosopher Martha Nussbaum states, the pursuit of “individual ends” must “include shared ends.”⁷⁴ Social cooperation, as manifested through a “global society of peoples,” she argues, cannot be based on seeking mutual advantage, but can only result from recognizing that “a central part of our good is to live in a world that is morally decent, a world in which all human beings have what they need to live a life with dignity.”⁷⁵ Yet, Nussbaum’s thoughtful critique of current social forms falls short in outlining a pathway for mediating among divergent identities and value systems so that unity on a global scale becomes a realistic possibility. For without a genuine, transcending love emanating from the heart of human consciousness and motivation, it is unlikely that contending peoples and cultures can come together to form a harmonious and interdependent whole. Under the pluralism of the social contract, however enlightened that pluralism may be, disunity reigns.⁷⁶

Bahá’u’lláh instead offers a covenant of universal fellowship, a spiritually-empowered ethic of deep and abiding commitment, as the basis for collective life. As a result of this covenant of oneness, in the deprivation and suffering of others we see ourselves. Such a frame of reference opens the door to critical reflection and real social transformation. In the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Let all be set free from the multiple identities that were born of passion and desire, and in the oneness of their love for God find a new way of life.”⁷⁷

The Bahá’í concept of an inhering human diversity leading to higher forms of unity suggests that we can and must move beyond a liberal construction of pluralism that is unable to provide an overarching vision of human development. But rather than engaging in a quixotic quest to overcome the innumerable evils at work in society or right the “countless wrongs afflicting a desperate age,” Bahá’ís are devoting their energy to building the world anew.⁷⁸ As we have seen, recognizing the essential spiritual character of our identity is a defining feature of this project. Further, at this moment in our collective evolution, the appropriate locus for action is the globe in its entirety, where all members of the human family are joined together in a common enterprise of promoting justice and social integration. Here, it should be noted that the Bahá’í teachings envision social and political development unfolding in two directions: upward beyond the nation-state and downward to the grassroots of society. Both are vital and interlinked. In this regard, the Bahá’í community offers its own unique system of governance as a model for study.⁷⁹

Bahá’u’lláh provides us with a potent new moral grammar that allows us to appreciate and nurture human diversity while expanding our horizons beyond the parochial to a solidarity encompassing the boundaries of the planet itself. By extending human identity outward to embrace the totality of human experience, Bahá’u’lláh offers a vision of a comprehensive good that recognizes and values the particular while promoting an integrating framework of global learning and cooperation. His summons to unity articulates an entirely new ethics and way of life—one that flows from a spiritual understanding of human history, purpose, and development. He also gives us new tools that allow us to negotiate amongour diverse perceptions and construct unified modes of living without resorting to adversarial means and the culture of protest that heretofore have characterized even the most advanced democratic polities. He exhorts us to “flee” from “dissension and strife, contention, estrangement and apathy…”⁸⁰

By redefining human identity, the Bahá’í teachings anticipate the moral reconstruction of all human practices—a process that involves the remaking of individual behavior and the reformulation of institutional structures. It entails the internalization of spiritual concepts so that the theory, assessment, and reformation of social affairs reflect the ideals of altruism, moderation, reciprocity, and justice. When society draws upon the spiritual mainspring of human identity and purpose, truly constructive avenues of social change can be pursued. “Among the results of the manifestation of spiritual forces,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá confirms “will be that the human world will adapt itself to a new social form…and human equality will be universally established.”⁸¹

In our very longing for a world free from violence and injustice, lie the seeds of hope. But such hope can only be sustained by the certitude conferred by faith. As the Universal House of Justice assures us: “The turmoil and crises of our time underlie a momentous transition in human affairs…That our Earth has contracted into a neighbourhood, no one can seriously deny. The world is being made new. Death pangs are yielding to birth pangs. The pain shall pass when members of the human race act upon the common recognition of their essential oneness. There is a light at the end of this tunnel of change beckoning humanity to the goal destined for it according to the testimonies recorded in all the Holy Books.”⁸²