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Since this is a rather lengthy article, I am going to place it on the site in sections. This first section will be on view until the date of October 31 2002.
August 2002
Transcript of talk given to the Bahai' Community in Adelaide,
August 2002
by Dr. Peter Khan, Member of the Universal House of Justice
The needs and opportunities facing the Bahai' community.
Dear friends, it is a great pleasure for Janet and myself to be here in
Adelaide at this time and to be able to meet with you this afternoon.
As some of you may know I used to live in Adelaide in 1955 and at
various times for a total of two years between 1955 and the early part
of 1958. So much of this area is familiar to me; it has obviously
changed enormously in 4 to 5 decades. Janet and I arrived in Adelaide
on Friday afternoon and we spent yesterday largely walking around
the city and up to North Adelaide and seeing various places which
were particularly meaningful to me from my period of residence in the
greater Adelaide area. It is with a sense of nostalgia then that I
returned to Adelaide and to have the pleasure of meeting with you. As
Counselor David Chittleborough mentioned I, at present, Janet and I
are serving in the Holy Land. We have been there for almost 19 years
and I've been a member of the Universal House of Justice since
March of 1987.
It is clear from what one sees and reads and hears in the news and also
from the statements of the Universal House of Justice, particularly in
its Ridvan messages, that the world around us is going through a
period of turmoil unprecedented in recorded history. A time of great
change, disorder, anxiety and unrest. And this condition of society,
invading every part of the world is creating for the Bahai'ÂÂs "needs"
and "opportunities" the like of which we have not seen before." It is
on this subject that I want to take this time to speak to you this
afternoon.
I want to speak for some time and then with the permission of the
organizers I hope we can have a question and answer period in which
I will try to help you with any information I can give you about any
question you have about the work of the Faith or its activities or its
directions or its needs or whatever and I want to encourage you at that
point to feel free to ask any question you wish. But what I want to do
is to share with you this afternoon my perspective on what I see to be
some of the needs and opportunities facing the members of the world
wide Bahai' community, Australia included. Generally what is a
"need" for us is at one and the same time an "opportunity". We have
needs to resist the negative influences of an increasingly disordered
society: to avoid becoming caught up in its disorder, its tensions, its
anxieties, its extremism. And we have great opportunities in this time
of turmoil and transition. We have great opportunities to attract others
to the cause of God through our attitudes and our behaviors.
My perception is that there are 3 major issues which we as Bahai'ÂÂs
need to address as this particularly pertinent time in human history.
And I want to go through these three issues one by one and to share
with you my perception of the needs and opportunities, which each
one of these three issues in turn presents to us.
A.
The first point I want to make, the first of these three issues, is the
need and the opportunity for us to acquire more fully and express a
Baha'i perspective on world events.
World events are increasingly bombarding our attention. They are
causing great fear, great concern and great distraction. As is apparent
to anybody who follows at all closely world events through the news
or through travel or other ways: the world is in a condition of
unprecedented turmoil.
For example the disintegration in the generally accepted functioning
of society. Such examples as the extremes of wealth and poverty that
are affecting western society and through that the rest of the world.
The rise of uncontrolled greed affecting the international and national
business communities. The lack of concern or sensitivity about the
welfare of others who are deprived, who are suffering, who are ill in
terms of their condition in relation to society. Corruption in
government, one government upon the other around the world. Some
governments we observe from my perspective in the Holy Land. Some
governments are essential unable to function because of corruption.
Certain countries of the world, a small but growing number are
essentially now ungovernable. Have been reduced to an anarchistic
condition such that there is no way in which they can function at a
national level. Somalia is of course one particularly pertinent example
but not the only one. Corruption in business, corruption in law
enforcement. For many many years sport was free of corruption. Now
with drug taking, with bribery and various other illegal activities, even
sport, which was in many ways a refuge of recreation, has become
tainted by corruption. Violence is increasing all over the world.
Obviously coming from the Holy Land we have a particular
perspective on violence because it is all around us in the city of Haifa
and in other parts of the Holy Land but it is not confined simply to
those countries which make the news. Janet and I return almost every
year if possible to a small city called Macay, in central Queensland
and we have observed over these 19 years, year after year, Macay
become less and less safe. When we arrive each year we are oriented
by relatives in Macay as to which parts of the city it is not safe to
walk in at night. We have now reached the point where we feel safer
walking in Haifa at night than we do in Macay. Let alone in Sydney or
riding the trains in Sydney or walking through Hyde Park, or
whatever. Even areas of the world that have traditionally been known
for their safety are being affected by crime, by violence, by the affect
of narcotics, and the like. The spread of Aids is not only a catastrophe
in the world today, but gives indications of a far greater catastrophe to
come. There are some countries where 25 percent of the Adult
population is HIV positive. And as a result the country is facing the
prospect of the whole of a section of its population dying within the
next few years. There are countries in the world where aged
grandparents are left to bring up children because the parents have
been killed by Aids. Villages where you can find no adult and the
children are, of the village, are huddled together try to survive, the
older ones caring for the younger ones, trying to maintain some kind
of agriculture for sustenance and survival.
The religious clergy, traditionally a haven of trust and security and an
exponent of traditional values has now been corrupted by scandals
involving money, scandals involving pedophilia, scandals involving
other kinds of sexual abuse and the like. Society in every country is
under tension as a result of racial and in many instances religious
prejudices and antagonisms. Extremism is on the rise, irrationality a
ruthless attitude towards people of other background, of other faith or
of other ethnic group. Increasingly in the world and of course
accelerating as a result of the events in the United States of September
11 last year is the rise of fear and apprehension about violence and
warfare by terrorists. The prospect of nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons affecting a society has become very real and is a growing
source of concern in many parts of the world, not the least of which is
the middle east, but not only. Now days if you plan to travel, to the
United States or through the United States to Europe, you need to be
prepared that at some point you will be asked to take off your shoes
and allow them to be x-rayed if you want to board a plane. It is
relatively minor inconvenience, but stop and think of what such a
thing says about the state of our society that one has to be searched
and interrogated before you carry out even the most least minor of
events. In Israel we have become accustomed to the fact that when
you want to enter a shopping mall or a restaurant or any other place of
public gathering: Janet has to open her handbag and have it searched
by the guards at the entrance. I have to stand up and hold my hands
like this while the guards check that I am not wearing a weapon. And
we've become accustomed this and we do it very naturally. We had a
very odd experience a few months ago. We went to Germany to Berlin
for a very short visit and we found ourselves unconsciously going
through this ritual as we entered the departments stores or the various
other place of public gathering and this produced a great deal of
amazement to the German citizens wondering who these strange
people wondering why was he going like this and she was opening her
handbag.
But it is a measure of the fact that our world has changed
tremendously. It is changed in incredible ways. It has happened little
by little. Year by year, but those of you who can remember back ten,
twenty of thirty years will be well aware of how the degree of disorder
and tension and turmoil in the world has increased enormously.
People are reacting to it in a variety of ways. Some people are
complacent. They say well lets not get too excited about that it has
always been a little like this, its just a little bit worse. Don't worry
about it, it will all go away. A refusal to contemplate the reality of
the situation and its prospects. There are others who search for magic
solutions for panaceas. Who feel: if we just do this it will all finish.
if the government adopts this particular policy it will all go away. There
are others who embrace an extremist's solution. That matters have
reached a point where we must do something very extreme. That is a
panacea that will solve it. There is, and I observe it, and the friends
who come to the World Center on pilgrimage or as three-day visitors
also tell me, that in their societies that the friends or the people
around them they find a growing pessimism about the future. A sense of
despair. An apocalyptic sense that the civilization is coming to an end.
People are talking about the prospect of the descent of another Dark
Age. Of civilizations on trial and the clash between the Islamic and
Christian civilizations leading to the destruction of both of them.
And of course there are some who are searching for new paradigms,
for new solutions for a whole new way of looking at what is
happening in the world.
Well so much for what is going on. What is the Bahai' perspective? I
want to remind you of a number of things that you may well be fully
aware of but I feel it important to draw these again to your attention
because we are going draw these again to your attention because we
are going through a very very challenging time in history and we as
Bahai's need to be very clear on certain elements of our religion that
are pertinent to the conditions that I have described.
a) The first part of the Bahai' perspective as I understand it, is the
realization that what is happening at the world is over all not random.
Not accidental, not something the world stumbled into because of
erroneous policies of the twentieth or nineteenth centuries. We believe
that individuals have freedom of will and are to be held to account for
their actions, but our religion also tells us that there is a great plan
of God at work in the world. That: that plan of God is moving humanity,
like it or not, under the influence of great spiritual forces, to a
predetermined destiny. It is not accidental. It is not random. The future
of it is not in doubt. How it gets there, how it happens in the process
in unclear and subject to freedom of will. But the world is going through
a definite course of transition predestined as part of God's plan for
humanity. There is a connection between the promises set out in
sacred writings such as the New Testament, the promises of the
coming of the kingdom of God on earth, the promises of world peace;
of world unity at a time of an end of the age. There is a definite
connection between those prophecies of the Koran, of the Old
Testament of the New Testament, the scriptures of Hinduism, of
Buddhism and other religions. There is a definite connection between
that, and what we are going through today: The great plan of God.
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