Reprinted with permission of the Bahá’í International Community

The photo above was taken in Ivel, the same village where the following report takes place – from a similar act of violence two years ago. Baha’i World News Service reports:

GENEVA — Homes belonging to some 50 Baha’i families in a remote village in northern Iran have been demolished as part of a long-running campaign to expel them from the region.

The demolitions are the latest development in an ongoing, officially-sanctioned program in the area which has targeted every activity of the Baha’is.

“They’re being forbidden to associate with Muslims, or even offer service to their friends and neighbours,” said Diane Ala’i, representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations in Geneva.

“Even the smallest acts of good will – such as taking flowers to someone who’s sick in hospital or donating gifts to an orphanage – these are being seen as actions against the regime.”

Read the full story: Homes demolished in campaign to drive Baha’is out of Iranian village.

Reprinted with permission of the Bahá’í World Centre

This last weekend, we completed two units in Releasing the Power of Junior Youth, a training course for animators of junior youth groups. Here are a few things we learned:

• Having a sense of purpose changes the environment of a study circle. When the participants are there because they intend to help adolescents contribute to the betterment of their communities, then everything we talk about – everything we read – everything we do – is in light of that commitment to study and action.
• Preparation is super helpful! Tutors should get together beforehand and read through any material to be covered that day. Look for places in the text that may require a different pace, or a different approach to study. What are the major concepts or themes? Is there relevant guidance that might apply to discussions when they arise?
• Youth will invite other youth! This has been one of the best parts. When participants are excited, they will invite their friends. Then the conversation is enriched with diverse expression.

Will share more after round 2 this weekend. Have you been in one of these trainings? What did you learn at yours?

Just learned that another court date has been set for the Baha’i leaders imprisoned in Iran: June 12th. Please keep them in your prayers. Here’s a link to Lev’s last post on this topic, describing Roxana Saberi’s account of her time with the Baha’is in Evin Prison.

Also want to point you towards the website for the Ziba Kazemi Foundation, named after the Canadian photojournalist who was imprisoned in Evin prison and came out in a coma, with signs of physical and sexual abuse. She died soon afterwards but her son has developed this foundation to try to seek justice. I believe their main income (to pay for court fees) is from selling her photos. The ones from Haiti are particularly timely, so please check them out. (I learned about it from Zahra’s Paradise, a webcomic about Iran, featured in the Economist recently – also worth a gander.)

As the growth of the junior youth empowerment program continues in our region, and as Negin and I look at the next few years, it seems like we’re entering a new phase. As such, I’ve been seized by an organizational bug – trying to arrange my hopes and goals for potential doctoral programs, trying to be more systematic about the continued growth of junior youth groups, even going to bed earlier! The following passage from Baha’u'llah sums it up nicely:

…After all, [political correctness] comes from a good place with good intention to which most of us would subscribe: to make sure that all people feel comfortable and even valued. It doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing to err on that side of caution much of the time.
We live in a far more open, tolerant, and equitable society today than people did 50 years ago. The flat-out rejection and demonization of political correctness strikes me as a repudiation of much of this progress.

It is, for Muslims, incredibly offensive to try to portray the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in any way. Christians tend to not understand this, because there is a long historical tradition in Christian art of portraying Jesus the Christ and pretty much everyone associated with Him. (And often His Holiness Christ is portrayed with seriously Eurocentric features, but I’ll save that discussion for the essay I’m working on for the Mirror of Race website.) So for people coming from a Christian/ western understanding of the world, it’s an issue of free speech and common practice. For people coming from a Muslim religious background, it’s just ineffably horrifying.

Anyway, usually I’d chalk it up to old frameworks and lack of cross-cultural understanding and willingness to take perspective, etc, but I caught a fragment of a news story that this whole Facebook thing (and probably some other motivating factors) has led the government of Pakistan to place a ban on Facebook. And Youtube, Flickr, etc. Now this has gotten political – and because of my sister’s current residence, personal. So I thought I’d explore this a bit.

My interest is in framing this at a more personal level. In essence, what’s taking place here is: If A does something which offends B horribly, and A feels B’s response is inappropriate, then A will keep doing that offensive act, because A deems it important to exercise A’s right to free speech. Meanwhile, B gets frustrated and furious in response to what feels like a direct attack in utter disregard of all B holds sacred.

To look at this only in terms of free speech is to come at it from an individualistic framework. It is certainly clear that American culture and institutions value the right of the individual to self-expression. Cultural psychologists have been making this point for decades. In this case the prioritization of the individual (A) above all else is clear. But it isn’t everything.

The response (B) is coming from a deeply held religious belief about the offensiveness of a certain form of that expression – and unfortunately sometimes this is transmuted into calls for violence. The reactionary nature of that type of response – to shut down communication, or go on the attack – is truly harmful, and suggests a lack of faith in human nobility/ integrity.

Either way, I think we can do better. I honestly believe we as a human race are more mature than this – or at least capable of more maturity. For Baha’is, this issue is placed in the context of humanity’s relationship with God. The Universal House of Justice explains:

“The prohibition on representing the Manifestation of God in paintings and drawings or in dramatic presentations applies to all the Manifestations of God. There are, of course, great and wonderful works of art of past Dispensations, many of which portrayed the Manifestations of God in a spirit of reverence and love. In this Dispensation however the greater maturity of mankind and the greater awareness of the relationship between the Supreme Manifestation and His servants enable us to realize the impossibility of representing, in any human form, whether pictorially, in sculpture or dramatic representation, the Person of God’s Manifestations.”

More on maturity later…

a take away show from Nikolas Konstantin on Vimeo.

What other games could we alter?

If you’re looking for awesome games, Lev and I recently came across a board game called Pandemic , which is VERY challenging! It requires a good bit of consultation and teamwork with the other players to try to attain the goal (which is to stop the spread of disease across the world/board). I highly recommend.

Yesterday I proctored an exam in a classroom full of undergraduates. Proctoring an exam makes you, for a while, almost superhuman in your highly attuned perception of hand movements. You stare out at a sea of people, writing, thinking, chewing on pencils, trying not to act suspicious. They shift, rub their faces, run their hands through their hair. Lean head against hand. Every movement of the fingers could be the beginning of a signal to you, the TA, that there’s a question to be resolved. Up a hand goes and you’re off, squeezing in between the aisles, hoping that you’ll understand the question and can help them.

Hope you all have a great Earth Day!

Between Two Worlds by Roxana Saberi

Roxana Saberi talks about the Baha’is in Iran’s notorious Evin prison on NPR Weekend Edition. Ms Saberi’s interview is remarkable. As an American-born Baha’i, I have certainly asked myself whether I would be strong enough to persevere amidst the religious persecution faced by our dear co-religionists in Iran. Ms Saberi confronted a similar situation during her time in Evin prison, and speaks frankly about the challenges, the pressure to make false confessions, and the strength she saw in her cellmates – Mrs Fariba Kamalabadi and Mrs Mahvash Sabet.

Her description of Mrs Kamalabadi and Mrs Sabet echoes this passage from a reknowned history of the Baha’i Faith:

Despite the shame and cruelties they were made to suffer, not one of these captives was known either to recant or to utter one angry word against his persecutors. Not even a whisper of discontent escaped their lips, nor did their countenances betray a shadow of regret or grief. No amount of adversity could succeed in darkening the light that shone in those faces; no words, however insulting, could disturb the serenity of their expressions. The Dawn-Breakers: Nabil’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Baha’i Revelation, p577