Then They Came for the Bahai
Opinion
By Roya Hakakian
Thu. Jun 19, 2008
If one must master the knowledge that even bigotry is relative and comes in gradations, then I was a premature pupil. I learned this lesson when I was only 10.

In 1977, in an eclectic neighborhood in Tehran, my Jewish family lived on a narrow, wooded alley in what was then an upscale area, alongside two other Jewish families and many more Muslims. There was also a Bahai family, the Alavis, next door.

By then, I had already intuited that my relatives, in the presence of Muslim friends and neighbors, were somehow less flamboyant creatures, quieter and more measured. But the Alavis, debonair and highly educated, were mere ghosts.

Theirs was a corner house on the alley, one of the most beautiful in the neighborhood, and the first to be sold within days in 1979, after the return of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. In a neighborhood so closely-knit that even the mailman dispensed pearls of pedagogical wisdom to our parents, the Alavis simply vanished one day.

No chance for tears, or promises to keep in touch. Not even a forwarding address. My mother insists they said goodbye to her, but my mother considers inventing happy endings a maternal virtue.

American audiences, their eyes brimming with anxiety, often ask me about the condition of Jews living in Iran today. But the hardships they assume to be the burden of the Iranian Jews is really the daily experience of the Bahais.

In a 1979 meeting with five of the Iranian Jewish community leaders, Khomeini summarized his position on the local Jews in one of his quintessentially coarse one-liners: “We recognize our Jews as separate from those godless Zionists.” The line has served as the regime’s position on the Jewish minority ever since. So important were these words that they were painted on the walls of nearly every synagogue and Jewish establishment the day after the ayatollah spoke them.

It did not prevent Jews from being relegated to second-class citizenry, nor did it enable them to thrive in post-revolutionary Iran. But it recognized the legitimacy of the Jewish existence in Iran and allowed the community to live on, albeit extremely restrictedly.

But it is the Bahai community that has been suffering the bleak fate assumed to be that of the Jews. It is the Bahais who are not recognized by the Iranian constitution. Decades ago, Khomeini branded them, among other unsavory terms, a political sect and not a religion, circuitously defining them as plotters against the regime. Iranian Bahais have been accused of espionage for every major power save the Chinese, and simultaneously so. They are not allowed to worship. Their properties are vandalized. Even their dead know no peace, as their cemeteries are systematically destroyed.

Their children cannot attend schools, nor can Bahai academics teach. That is why in 1987, unemployed professors, in an act reminiscent of the Middle Ages, established underground universities to educate the Bahai youth.

Last month, six Bahai leaders were arrested. They had already been accustomed to routine weekly harassments and interrogations, which is why some of their wives have taken up sewing blindfolds to keep the guards from forcing dirty ones onto their husbands’ eyes. What is most alarming about this particular arrest is that they have not returned home and are being kept incommunicado.

What compels me to write these lines is the eerie similarity between this and another historical parallel to which I have been a witness. When the American embassy was seized in Tehran in November 1979, the world took the ayatollah at his word for the egregious act he vehemently supported — that it was solely against America. But for those living in Iran, the hostage taking turned out to be about everything but America.

Newspapers were shut down. Political parties were banned. Opposition group members were arrested and their leaders hauled off to stand before firing squads.

When it was all said and done, the hostages, despite their great suffering during 444 days of captivity, eventually returned home. But the secular opposition of the regime was practically obliterated, and in perfect silence, too, as all attention was focused on the news from the embassy.

The current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has taken a page from Khomeini’s book. He rails against Israel. He denies the Holocaust. Through these means he focuses all attention on Jews, and while the world remains perfectly oblivious his men assault the Bahais.

Though Ahmadinejad’s intentions against Israel are gravely alarming, in immediate terms, the community that is paying the most for his pan-Islamist ambitions is the Bahai. Since Ahmadinejad’s election to presidency, there has been a sharp rise in anti-Bahai literature in government-sponsored journals, which has, in turn, led to a rise in gang attacks against the community.

That the Bahais shy away, per religious mandate, from advocacy on their own behalf surrounds their predicament with even greater silence. But for those in the West — especially for Jews, who know the lessons of World War II — the plight of the Iranian Bahais is most urgent: It is an act of destruction, not simply promised, but already underway.

Roya Hakakian, the author of “Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran” (Crown, 2004), is a recipient of a 2008 Guggenheim fellowship.

http://www.forward.com/articles/13602/

http://bahairants.com/how-do-you-say-bahai-in-sign-language-161.html#comment-52997

Farhan wrote:

Dear Friends,

“Why Islamists Persecute the Baha’is” by Amil Imani
is an excellent article from a non-Bahá’í defender of the Faith found at:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/why_islamists_persecute_the_ba.html

enjoy:

… It is imperative for the free people of the world to defend freedom of conscience, including freedom of religion, irrespective of one’s own personal belief. It is for this reason that as a person who is not a Baha’i, I find it my solemn duty to speak up on behalf of a peaceful people, severely-persecuted by the savage Islamists.

Farhan, thank you for posting this link and the text of this beautiful, beautiful very well written article. That is certainly the religion that I joined in 1971 and the religion that I fervently hope will exist again some day in the far, far future when the Faith goes back to the Teachings of God for the New World Age as expressed by the MYSTICISM of the Bab and the CONSCIOUSNESS of Baha’u'llah and the GENTLE LOVING KINDNESS of Abdu’l Baha. That religion of both mystical and practical daily Sufi insight amid the flow of the gentle life giving poetry of life could indeed find life and thrive in the world and do great good. It is a religion of a complete and total change in mindset away from fanaticism in human interaction. I once loved the very idea of it so greatly that I dedicated my entire life to it and would have laid down my very life for it.

I think it may return some day after the current people leading the Baha’i Faith completely into the ground are TO A MAN AND TO A WOMAN all dead and have gone to their Divine Judgments and have taken up their eternal abode in the inner smoky and fuming circles of hell.

Consultation of ANY KIND no longer exists at ANY level in the shameful top down controlled system of fear and self censorship that the Baha’i Faith has now become. Consultation and independent investigation of truth are no longer core vales of the now top down fiercely suffocating group think Baha’i Faith.

This wonderful article ends with a stirring appeal in the name of INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM OF HUMAN CONSCIENCE for the thinking and just people of the world to defend the sacred human rights of Baha’is in Muslim countries. I fully agree with this appeal. But someone should inform this excellent writer that THE BAHA’I ORGANIZATION ITSELF now no longer believes in the value and merit of individual human conscience or teaches it’s worth.

I believe the Central Figures of the Faith DID TEACH THIS. But, sadly, what the Founders of the Faith taught is no longer part of the Baha’i Faith organization any more. That was the former spiritual Baha’i Faith that is now long gone from the Earth.

“We have inherited a dangerous delusion from Christianity that our
individual conscience is supreme. This is not a Baha’i belief. In the
end, in the context of both our role in the community and our role in
the greater world, we must be prepared to sacrifice our personal
convictions or opinions. The belief that individual conscience is
supreme is equivalent to ‘taking partners with God’ which is abhorrent to the Teachings of the Faith.”
- Douglas Martin
Former Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha’i Faith

“The experience of the Ruhi Institute has shown that we do not suppress the imagination or the personality of the participants when we refrain from posing questions such as, ‘What does this mean to you?’; on the contrary, we are helping to nurture the development of communities which look first to the Writings as the principal basis of consultation whenever they are faced with a question.

We believe that the habit of thinking about the implications of the
Writings with the minimum of personal interpretation would eliminate a great share of the disagreements which afflict consultation in many
communities, and would make the activities of our communities more
effective.”

“TO THE COLLABORATORS” - Ruhi Book One

Yep. Things are going to get A LITTLE HOT around the clerical collar for some souls in the innermost circles of hell.

Meanwhile, I believe Keith Moon is now sitting at the Right Hand of Almighty God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlUlFvkQL0k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zydAs5bRW1U

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/why_islamists_persecute_the_ba.html

enjoy:

June 08, 2008

Why Islamists Persecute the Baha’is

By Amil Imani

Ideas and beliefs, including religion, are the software that determines how we behave. And some of the software of the past is no longer working because it is out of phase with the needs of the time as well as infected with destructive viruses.

Even a cursory look is enough to show that the software of Islam, over time, is so greatly manipulated by numberless sects, sub-sects and schools that it can hardly be considered a unitary belief system. And people are their ideas. Any assault on beliefs and ideas provokes the assailed to action.

This clash of beliefs, the old versus the new, is the reason for Islamists to unleash their power against the upstart iconoclastic Baha’i faith. In fact, the Baha’is revere Islam and respect all other religions. Baha’i faith has many teachings in common with Islam, so much so that some call it “Islam light,” because, while it retains some of Islam’s principles, it also abrogates a number of outdated and counter-productive Islamic laws and practices. Baha’is say their faith is not a wrecking ball that aims to demolish the schoolhouse of God called religion: a badly divided schoolhouse where everyone claims to worship the same God, yet keep oppressing, fighting and killing each other in the name of the same God.

Baha’is have a very rosy and possibly unrealistic view of humanity. They say that their goal is for every human being, irrespective of any and all considerations, to be granted all his God-given rights and be allowed to worship his creator the way he sees fit. They have a sort of lovey-dovey vision of the world where everyone will live as a valued member of the larger human family. Apparently they have hit a responsive enough cord with some 6-7 million people of the world from every ethnic, religious and national stratum. This vision may not convert the remaining 6-7 billion people any time soon, but it sure beats hands down the Islamists’ idea to force the world under their so called Ummeh with its stone-age shariah law.

Baha’is believe that God sends his teachers to his school, from time to time with new lessons, to help advance the people to a higher and higher level of humanness. Trouble is, they believe, that people cling to the old school-work and the old teacher and doggedly resist accepting the new teacher and his teachings. Baha’is think of God’s prophets as renovators who come from time to time to tear down walls of separation and to bring God’s children together in an open-air general classroom out of their own foolishly walled-in dungeons of exclusivity and ignorance.

Below are some of the Baha’i teachings that clash head on with Islam’s and provoke the Islamists to do all they can to destroy the new religion.

* The people of God. Muslims believe that they are the chosen people of Allah and recognize no other system of belief as legitimate. Baha’is believe that all people are the chosen people of God: that there is only one God, one religion of God, and one people of God, the entire human race.

* Pearls on a string. Muslims contend that Muhammad is the seal of the Prophets; that God sent his best and final messenger to mankind, and any other claimant is an imposter worthy of death. Baha’is believe that God has always sent his teachers with new and updated lessons to educate humanity and shall do so in the future. There have been numberless divine teachers in the course of human history who have appeared to various people. They say that these teachers are like pearls on a string and that Baha’u'llah is the latest, but not the last pearl.

* Independent thinking. Blind imitation is anathema to Baha’is. Baha’is believe that the human mind and the gift of reason should guide the person in making decisions about all matters. To this end, they place a premium on education and independent investigation of truth.

Baha’is consider the education of women as important as that of men, since women are the early teachers of children and can play their valuable part by being themselves educated. By contrast, Muslims look to religious authorities for guidance and often deprive women of education and independent thinking.

In recognition of the importance of independent thinking, no one is born Baha’i. Once one is born to a Muslim, he is considered Muslim for life. If he decides to leave Islam, he is labeled apostate and, apostates are automatically condemned to death. By contrast, every child born in a Baha’i family is required to make his own independent decision regarding whether or not he wishes to be a Baha’i. Freedom to choose and independent thinking are cherished values of the Baha’is, in stark contrast to that of the closed-minded Islamists.

* Religion or science. Baha’is believe that truth transcends all boundaries. Scientific and religious truth emanate from the same universal source. They are like the two sides of the same coin. To Baha’is, science and religion are as two wings of a bird that enable humanity’s flight toward the summit of its potential; that any religious belief that contradicts science is superstition. Muslims believe that their religious scripture and dogma, irrespective of their proven falsehood, are superior to that of science.

* Gender equality. Muslims hold the view, expressly stated in the Qur’an, that men are rulers over women. Baha’is reject this notion and subscribe to the unconditional equality of rights for the two sexes. This Baha’i principle emancipates one half of humanity from the status of subservient domestic to that of a fully participating and self-actualized human. It aims to put an end to the heartless exploitation of women and demands that women be treated with all due respect under the law.

* Participatory decision-making. Islam, by its very nature, is patriarchal and authoritarian. Baha’is believe in the value of decision making through the practice of consultation; a process where everyone, irrespective of any and all considerations, has a voice in making decisions. This participatory decision-making principle abrogates a major prerogative of Islamic clergy who have been dictating matters to their liking and advantage. Also, at all levels of society, including the family, all affected members have the opportunity, even the responsibility, to make their views known without fear. Baha’i teachings clearly emphasize this commitment to a democratic decision-making in their scripture, “The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions.”

* World-embracing outlook. Baha’is love their native countries, yet extend that same love to the entire planet and its people. Baha’is believe that love has no limit and need not have limits. One can love his country and love the world at the same time. This love of the world is frequently used as a pretense by the Islamists to accuse the Baha’is of Iran as traitors to their own homeland. It is for this reason that the present mullahs ruling Iran falsely claim that the Baha’is are agents of the Zionist Israel and its American sponsor.

* Eradication of prejudice. Prejudice of any type is alien to the Baha’i faith and severely undermines its pivotal principle of the oneness of humanity. Prejudice against others is thoroughly exploited by the Islamists. In contrast, Baha’i scriptures say, “…again, as to religious, racial, national and political bias: all these prejudices strike at the very root of human life; one and all they beget bloodshed, and the ruination of the world. So long as these prejudices survive, there will be continuous and fearsome wars.”

* Abolition of priesthood. A major point of conflict involves the abolition of the clergy. Baha’is believe that humanity has matured enough that it no longer needs a cast of professional clergy to serve peoples’ religious needs. By one stroke, this Baha’i teaching puts hundreds of thousands of mullahs and imams out of business and arouses the powerful cast of the do-nothing clergy to fight to retain their highly privileged parasitic positions.

It is imperative for the free people of the world to defend freedom of conscience, including freedom of religion, irrespective of one’s own personal belief. It is for this reason that as a person who is not a Baha’i, I find it my solemn duty to speak up on behalf of a peaceful people, severely-persecuted by the savage Islamists.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL1840003220080618

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=vhSrpnpJWaw