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Prejudice is "the breeding-ground of… tragedies",
wrote 'Abdu'l-Báhá, shortly after the end of the first world war. He called
that war "a hideous war, a war that is even as millstones, taking for
grain the skulls of men." He bitterly lamented that whole countries, great
cities and once-prosperous villages had been reduced to rubble. He grieved for
the children left fatherless, and for the mothers who "have wept away
their hearts over dead children". He asserted:
...the breeding-ground of all
these tragedies is prejudice: prejudice of race and nation, of religion, of
political opinion; and the root cause of prejudice is blind imitation of the
past — imitation in religion, in racial attitudes, in national bias, in politics.
So long as this aping of the past persisteth, just so long will the foundations
of the social order be blown to the four winds, just so long will humanity be
continually exposed to direst peril.
Still today, prejudices of race, religion and political
opinion are continuing to expose humanity to "direst peril", as news
bulletins daily describe. What solution do the Bahá'í teachings offer?
Since prejudice arises from ignorance, or "blind
imitation of the past", the remedy is spiritual truth. A powerful
awareness of the basic oneness of humanity needs to emerge throughout the
planet. In a letter to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, at The
Hague, in 1919, 'Abdu'l-Báhá wrote:
If this prejudice and enmity are
on account of religion consider that religion should be the cause of
fellowship, otherwise it is fruitless. And if this prejudice be the prejudice
of nationality consider that all mankind are of one nation… Then the
establishment of various nations and the consequent shedding of blood and destruction
of the edifice of humanity result from human ignorance and selfish motives.
As to the patriotic prejudice,
this is also due to absolute ignorance, for the surface of the earth is one
native land. Every one can live in any spot on the terrestrial globe. Therefore
all the world is man's birthplace.
Bahá'ís have great hope for the future, because tremendous
progress has been made in the period since 'Abdu'l-Báhá wrote those words.
Although conflict and violence continue to flare up, prejudices that for
thousands of years have seemed to be part and parcel of human nature have been
breaking down everywhere.
During the twentieth century the era of colonialism ended,
minorities gained recognition for their civil rights in most countries,
movements for racial harmony became influential, numerous civil wars were ended
through the establishment of democratic institutions, and people around the
globe learned to be tolerant and even welcoming of others' cultural practices
and religious beliefs.
If during just the last hundred years so much has been
achieved, then even more astonishing advances must surely be possible in the
years ahead.
Great success has been achieved in addressing most major
prejudices, but a form of prejudice that is still dangerously active is
religious intolerance. Many of the most volatile situations currently occurring
between countries (and within some countries), are entangled with religious
hostility.
Such hostility generally arises from beliefs by either side
that they have some form of exclusive access to religious truth. Regarding this
problem, the Universal House of Justice has stated, in a message distributed to
religious leaders throughout the world:
It is to this historic challenge
that we believe leaders of religion must respond if religious leadership is to
have meaning in the global society emerging from the transformative experiences
of the twentieth century. It is evident that growing numbers of people are
coming to realize that the truth underlying all religions is in its essence
one... Out of the welter of religious doctrines, rituals and legal codes
inherited from vanished worlds, there is emerging a sense that spiritual life,
like the oneness manifest in diverse nationalities, races and cultures,
constitutes one unbounded reality equally accessible to everyone.
The Bahá'í community is eager to help in any way it can
towards overcoming religious intolerance, and all other forms of prejudice.
Bahá'u'lláh wrote:
O contending peoples and kindreds
of the earth! Set your faces towards unity, and let the radiance of its light
shine upon you.
Quotations in context
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