Baha’i Rants

A few months ago the Baha’is of Washington DC organized an event in support of the Baha’is of Iran. The evening featured Ms. Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dr. Azar Nafisi, Dr. Dwight Bashir, Layli Miller-Muro, as well as theatrical and musical performances.

Here is a short video of the Emmy award winning and Oscar Nominated actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo, speaking via video from Los Angeles to the gathering in DC:

Ms. Aghdashloo is featured in the upcoming film, Mona’s Dream, about the life and martyrdom of Mona Mahmudnizhad. She will be playing the role of Mona’s mother. The film is set to (hopefully) go into production this year.

Here is a quick recap of the evening:

More recently, the Universal House of Justice released a short statement asking Baha’i communities around the world to observe a special day of prayer on May 14th in honor of the unjustly persecuted Iranian Baha’is:

It grieves our hearts to contemplate the passing of yet another year in which the seven former members of the Yaran remain imprisoned on baseless charges for which the authorities have no evidence whatsoever. The approach of the second anniversary of their incarceration calls to mind the multifarious forms of oppression being visited upon the members of the Baha’i community in Iran of all ages and walks of life, including interrogations, summary arrests and imprisonment, deprivation of the means to a livelihood, wanton destruction of property, and the denial of education to Baha’i students. The heroic steadfastness of the friends in Iran in the face of such relentless persecution inspires their fellow believers around the globe to redouble their efforts to serve humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. It has also led to the gradual, but undeniable, awakening of the conscience of fair- minded Iranians, who have been moved to express their concern at the violation of the human rights of their Baha’i compatriots.

We call upon the Baha’is of the world to organize special meetings of prayer around 14 May for the indomitable followers of Baha’u'llah in Iran, indeed, for all the people in that blessed land who are similarly subject to oppression, that the Hand of Divine Providence may grant them relief from their long ordeal. To this end we too offer our fervent supplications at the Sacred Threshold.

Omid Djalili, the Iranian-born Baha’i comedian and actor stars in the new UK comedy “The Infidel”. In the film Djalili plays a Muslim man who discovers suddenly that he was adopted… from Jewish parents.

Here is the trailer:

They have also started a contest for the “funniest” religion. Here is Omid starting things off with a joke about Palestine:

Let’s hear your funniest joke about religion!

Last year’s charade election in Iran laid bare the stark reality in that country for not only the rest of the world but also for many of the usually apathetic Iranians inside Iran. The friction between the oppressed and their oppressors reached a climax with street protests and violent clashes.

After a few weeks of shocking dismay, the powerful control apparatus put in place by the Basiji, the Revolutionary Guards and Ahmadinejad clamped down and eventually snuffed out the protests. But don’t mistake the tranquility on Tehran streets as a sign that everything is back to normal. The turmoil in Iran is simmering under the surface, ready to boil over at a moment’s notice. This is far from over.

Amidst this historic upheaval, the acclaimed film director Bahman Ghobadi made his latest work: “No One Knows About Persian Cats”. Like most Iranian cinema it defies classification being more a documentary than film. It chronicles the lives of a group of young Iranian musicians struggling against the stiffing oppression that prevents them from even playing the music they like.

The film was the winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival and was written in collaboration with Roxana Saberi (Ghobadi’s fiance), who as you might recall, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of espionage. I haven’t watched the movie yet but this clip featuring a Persian rapper is mesmerizing (pause if you need to, to be able to read what he is saying):

The ruling mullahs are afraid of the power of music like this. And for good reason. The video above is just one of the musicians featured in the film. All of them decided to leave Iran (and not to return from Cannes) expect the man rapping in this clip. Click to watch the trailer for “No One Knows About Persian Cats” or this alternative trailer:

This theme of leaving Iran to the decrepit cleptocracy is one that I’ve written about more than a few times already. Iran is bursting at the seams with youth who are brimming with potential. The problem is that the country has been organized in such a way to snuff out any and all hope and progress. Your average Iranian youth, like the ones above, have no qualms about leaving Iran in order to create a better life. Even Baha’is are doing so every day in groups.

My only bone to pick is with the Baha’i administration that actively pursues a policy to keep as many Baha’is inside Iran as possible. No matter how dangerous the consequences may be for them. Anyway, if you can catch Ghobadi’s latest work in your local cinema, don’t miss the chance.

The global financial crisis is abated and while most are glad to see it drop from the top spot in the media, there is still a danger that the underlying reasons why it occurred have not been resolved.

As Sonja asked last year, what would the Baha’i answer have been? Of course, the Baha’i Faith does not pretend to be an economic system. It neither endorses a laissez-faire economic system, nor a Marxist, socialist or communist system.

The world is by now becoming keenly aware that none of the frameworks implemented throughout history have been successful. The failures of Marxism and communism provided the right with a few decades to gloat. However, the recent collapse of the world economy is a sharp slap in the face of the Chicago school of thought.

Understandably, everyone is confused. Experts, economists, and politicians argue incessantly about what happened and why and what should be done. As always, there are a few who tenaciously cling to the old, fatal ideas, claiming that they are valid but their implementation was flawed. This is the tired refrain we’ve heard so many times from the left to excuse the collapse of communist states. And so it is equally invalid.

People are angry. The gap between the rich and the poor has reached epic proportions not seen for more than 80 years. Michael Moore who has his finger on the pulse of the masses has captured the zeitgeist yet again and released a scathing new documentary: “Capitalism, a Love Story”. Here is the trailer:

Being the agent provocateur that he is, Michael Moore doesn’t pretend to offer answers in this documentary. Instead, he exposes a broken system by asking a lot of daring questions. One of his main ones is that both capitalism and socialism are constructs 100′s of years old. We are now living in the 21st century – isn’t it time we created a new financial system for today’s world?

And most damning of all: how can we pretend to live in a political democracy when our economy is not democratic? Can we ever have true democracy when the top 5% of Western society control the majority of its wealth? When that top 5% uses money to influence politics to protect the status quo?

Of course, answering these questions and proposing new paths for humanity is complex and will take time. But if you look carefully, even right now, amid all the chaos and injustice, there are a few glimmers of hope. One that I learned about recently is a micro-credit project being spearheaded by a Baha’i NGO in South America. They are working with the locals to set up self-sustaining banking institutions, run democratically by the community, for the community. While these tiny micro-credit institutions have a Baha’i model built in, the vast majority of the members and participants are non-Baha’is.

The work they are doing is amazingly good as you can see from this documentary. It is a bit long at 40 minutes but well worth it. I encourage you to watch it. If you can’t in one sitting, come back and see it in two or three installments. And make sure you share it with your friends. It is life affirming and during difficult times like these, it is important to be reminded of the good in the world:

I’m not suggesting that these simple community based finance institutions are the panacea for an incredibly complex and interwoven global financial marketplace. But the underlying philosophy is what is important. Had the animating spirit behind these micro-credit institutions also powered Wall Street, we would not have gone through the wrenching financial crisis.