VOLUME 28, NUMBER Editorial Board: FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH BETTY J. FISHER IN THIS ISSUE HOWARD GAREY ROBERT H. STOCKMAN JAMES D. STOKES 2 Ethics and Elections Consultant In Poatry: Editorial HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN 4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor Subscriber Service: LISA CORTES 7 A Concurrent Resolution: The Emancipation of the Iranian Baha'i Community WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bah:i'fs 12 House Debate: Calling for Freedom of Conscience of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wil­ and Worship mette, IL 60091. POSTMASTER: Send ad­ dress changes to WORLD ORDER Subscriber 17 Senate Debate: Noc Forgetting Persecution for Service, Baha'i National Center, Wilmette, IL Religious Convictions 60091. The views expressed herein are chose of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the 19 Diversity opinions of the publisher, the National Spiri­ poem by Veronica Shoffstall tual Assembly of the Bah:i'is of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts 21 The Manyrs of Manshad can be typewritten or computer generated. by Siyyid Mubammad Tabib-i Manlfl.ddi They should be double spaced throughout, translated by Ahang Rabbani and Naghmeh Astani with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should send four copies-an original and three 37 Destiny legible copies-and should keep a copy. Re­ poem by Monica A. Reller turn postage should be included. Send man­ uscripts and other editorial correspondence to 39 The New Family: The Role of the Father, The Role WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wil­ of the Mocher mette, IL60091.E-mail:[email protected] by Constance M. Chen Subscription rates: U.S.A. and surface to all ocher countires, 1 year, $19.00; 2 years, $36.00; Inside back cover: Authors & Anises in This Issue single copies, $5.00. Airmail to all other coun­ tries, 1 year, $24.00; 2 years, $46.00. WORLD ORDER is protected through trade­ mark registration in the U.S. Patent Office. Copyright © 1996, National Spiritual Assem­ bly of the Baha'is of the United Scates. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0043-8804 2 Ethics and Elections VERY four years for more than two hundred years America has gone E through paroxysms of presidential elections. Political parties offer the voters platforms to which no one pays much attention. Issues are simplified beyond recognition, and the candidates turn into caricatures of themselves. A thick fog of unrestrained partisanship settles upon the land, poisoning the atmosphere and leaving a residue of erosive bitter­ ness. Even George Washington, who had no opponent in his two elec­ tions, was not spared vicious and unfair attacks by unscrupulous pam­ phleteers. But that was another age, the age of public hangings, of slavery sanc­ tioned by the Constitution, of naked aggression against the original inhabitants of the continent. Although many things have changed for the better, partisan politics have not improved. The rhetoric of divisiveness and antagonism is much the same. It is a sad relic of the past, a throw­ back, inappropriate and harmful at the close of the twentieth century. In today's strident debates all sides appeal to ethical ideals that are never clearly stated because in this society morality is relative, notions of right and wrong are not shared, and moral authority does not exist. When recognized norms of behavior do not exist, discussions of character become irrelevant to large segments of the population, a meaningless noise that dulls the senses, drives away reason, and keeps millions away from the polls. It is at such times that one turns to standards that, though derived from a particular faith, are truly universal, and capable of inspiring men and women who seek a harmony between thought and feeling, between private virtue and social commitment. We find our inspiration in words such as these: Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the 3 fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ens'. gn of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility. How different society would be if its leaders took these words to heart and at least to some extent turned their sublime poetry into action. 4 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1996 Interchange LETTERS FROM AND To THE EDITOR THOSE who doubt that religion is about 1906, the 1930s, 1955, and most recently the most serious and fundamental of throughout the seventeen years of the revo­ human concerns need only look at the lutionary Islamic regime. Subsequent edito­ pages of the present issue, the consider­ rials, appealing to reason and to the teach­ ations of which range from the right to ings of the Baha'i Faith, have called upon the belief, to religious persecution in its starkest Iranian authorities to desist. Others have form, to the future and changing nature described the events, calling for the world to of the family, to the need to nourish both see what is being done and to respond. Yet body and soul. others, with an almost Job-like tone, have Between our Winter 1978-79 issue and marveled at the certitude of the martyred the present, nineteen issues of the maga­ Baha'is and their families and explored the zine have included discussion of the waves meaning of that suffering. In later issues there of persecutions that began to fall upon the has gradually emerged a transcendent under­ Iranian Baha'i community with the arrival standing that out of the suffering is evolving of the Islamic revolution in that country. what one author called "a universal moral order." Through editorials, articles, reprintings of While recording the Baha'i response, World Congressional hearings and resolutions, Order has also charted the sustained response and reviews of books on the subject, the of successive U.S. governments, which are pages of World Order constitute a unique leading the world in condemning the atroci­ historical record of one of the century's ties, pogroms, and persecutions and bringing most sustained and brutal genocidal cam­ pressure on them to stop. Six times-in 1982, paigns against a religious minority. More­ 1984, 1988, 1990, 1993, and 1996-the U.S. over, the successive issues provide a fasci­ Congress has held hearings and issued con­ nating record of the evolving response of current resolutions condemning the actions both the Baha'i community and the non­ of the Iranian authorities. All have been printed Baha'f world to the new round of horrors in the pages of the magazine. The most recent in Iran, as both struggled to comprehend appears in this issue. and then to respond to events. The heartfelt expressions of support for The first editorial on the persecutions the Iranian Baha'fs by American governmen­ in the Winter 1978-79 issue offered a com­ tal leaders of both parties, and similar state­ prehensive overview of organized state vio­ ments by the United Nations and many of lence against the Baha' fs that began in the its major member states, provide evidence of 1840s and 1850s with mass killings and a quickened global community increasingly recurred spasmodically in 1896, 1903, committed to principles of universal taler- INTERCHANGE 5 l 1 ance and the protection of religious freedom. than rigid role-playing is required of par­ The parallel responses by the Baha'i commu­ ents, one that allows women the right to nity and the governments of the world con­ work both within and outside the home, stitute a unique convergence of moral au­ if they like, and men the right to engage thority that gives transcendent meaning to with the nurturing of their children as the martyrs' suffering. they should? Shocking though it is to This issue of World Order also offers the acknowledge, such inquiries, which seem first English translation of an eye-witness benign and useful in a Western society, account of one of the most horrifying of the could still result in death sentences if they episodes of violent suppression of the Baha'is were uttered aloud in some repressive states; in Iran-the massacre of some one hundred even in parts of Western society they can persons in Manshad and neighboring villages still be met with severe disapproval. There in 1903. Not a mere litany of horrors­ is not such a great distance in the resis­ though it is that-it is also a record of heroic tance faced by those simply investigating and patient faith in the face of mortal threats.