Posts from — July 2006

I came home from a meeting in London on Friday afternoon to find Hari and Jakey in the house. Jakey was to be ours for the evening, so that Hari and Doug could go and see the new Superman film.

As you can see from the bottom photo, we introduced Jakey to a ride-on tractor that one of Hari’s professors at the University of Hertfordshire had given her. Jakey loved it and was in transports (so to say) of delight, particularly with the horn, which he kept parping.

Erica and I had a wonderful time with our No. 3 grandchild. He’s such a happy, smiley soul. It was a grandson-y (grand sunny, gedit?) day.

Technorati Tags: baby, family, grandchildren, Hertfordshire, Herts, summer

Wednesday 12 July, 2006 How my heart sank when the news of the bombs on the trains in Mumbai began to come through yesterday. Yet another outrage by people who hold human life as a cheap commodity to be disposed of in the name of some ’cause’ or another! My prayers and thoughts are for the victims and their families.

Monday 10 July, 2006
So, what about Zinedine Zedane, then? Condemn or sympathize, we can all fall foul of the impulse to act in a way that we may regret later. Zedane’s problem was that he did this in the full glare of publicity in the closing moments of his international and national career. He did wrong, the ref was absolutely right to give him the red card, but Zedane may feel the pain of regret for a long time.

The office of High Sheriff dates back at least a thousand years in England. It is reputedly the oldest non-religious office in the land. The high sheriffs (shire reeves) of the English counties or shires were responsible, under the Sovereign, for law and order. Even now, although it is a largely ceremonial office, appointed annually by Warrant from the Privy Council, the high sheriff is the Sovereign’s representative in the shire for matters to do with the maintenance of law and order and with the judiciary.

This year, the High Sheriff of the County of Greater London is a Muslim, Dr Khalid Hameed CBE. As a letter I received from the Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey and Rector of St Margaret’s Church (next to the Abbey), Canon Robert Wright, explained:

Dr Khalid Hameed CBE is the new High Sheriff of Greater London and it is customary for the incoming Sheriff to have a service following his commissioning. Dr Hameed, who is himself a Muslim, wishes to have an inter-faith observance along the lines of the Commonwealth Observance that we have every year here at the Abbey.

Dr Hameed has asked that the theme be The Brotherhood of Man: Strangers and Neighbours and that there should be a three-minute reflection on that them from the various faith communities. Would you be prepared to do this from the Baha’i perspective?

Well, one does not turn down an invitation like this, so I was pleased to present myself at St Margaret’s in time for the 6 o’clock service on Wednesday 5 July. I joined the representatives of the nine major faiths in the UK (Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian) in a procession from the vestry to our seats in the nave.

This was not, as this and other press reports have stated, the first multi-faith service in Westminster Abbey. Far from it, in fact. The Abbey has a long history of multi-faith ‘observances’ (as they call them in preference to ’services’), particularly for Commonwealth Day each year, at which Baha’i representatives have read for many years. (Not so long ago I was going through some old copies of the Baha’i Journal and found a report of Baha’i participation in an observance in the Abbey in the early 1970s; the Baha’i concerned read a passage from the Writings of Baha’u'llah. Interestingly, this Baha’i participation predated participation by a number of the other faith communities that now regularly take part.)

Nor was this a service related formally in any way to the anniversary of the 7/7/05 London bombings, as the press reports claimed.

And a final grouse about the press reports: they completely failed to mention participation by Baha’is, Buddhists, Jains or Zoroastrians. This quite often happens. Size of community tends to count in the eyes of the media and the smaller communities are not deemed worthy of mention.

Anyway, enough of the inability of the media to report truthfully.

The theme of the observance was, of course, a gift to a Baha’i speaker. My thoughts went immediately to the first passage in Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. My reflection on the brotherhood of man, delivered from the lectern, was this:

In reflecting on the theme of this Observance, I feel I can do no better than to quote the words of ?Abdu?l-Bah? ? the eldest son of Bah??u?ll?h, founder of the Bah??? Faith. ?Abdu?l-Bah? spent much of his life in exile and as a prisoner of conscience. He knew what it means to be a stranger, but he dedicated his life to teaching and promoting the brotherhood of man. ?Abdu?l-Bah? brought his message to London in 1911. In this passage, he refers to his father as ?the Blessed Beauty?:

?O peoples of the world! The Sun of Truth hath risen to illumine the whole earth, and to spiritualize the community of man. Laudable are the results and the fruits thereof, abundant the holy evidences deriving from this grace. This is mercy unalloyed and purest bounty; it is light for the world and all its peoples; it is harmony and fellowship, and love and solidarity; indeed it is compassion and unity, and the end of foreignness; it is the being at one, in complete dignity and freedom, with all on earth.

?The Blessed Beauty saith: ?Ye are all the fruits of one tree, the leaves of one branch.? Thus hath He likened this world of being to a single tree, and all its peoples to the leaves thereof, and the blossoms and fruits. It is needful for the bough to blossom, and leaf and fruit to flourish, and upon the interconnection of all parts of the world-tree, dependeth the flourishing of leaf and blossom, and the sweetness of the fruit.

?For this reason must all human beings powerfully sustain one another and seek for everlasting life; and for this reason must the lovers of God in this contingent world become the mercies and the blessings sent forth by that clement King of the seen and unseen realms. Let them purify their sight and behold all humankind as leaves and blossoms and fruits of the tree of being. Let them at all times concern themselves with doing a kindly thing for one of their fellows, offering to someone love, consideration, thoughtful help. Let them see no one as their enemy, or as wishing them ill, but think of all humankind as their friends; regarding the alien as an intimate, the stranger as a companion, staying free of prejudice, drawing no lines.?

In the front row on one side of the church was Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. And on the other side, Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. How wonderful to have the privilege of reading the Word of God, loud and clear, to these and other worthies in St Margaret’s (which is, by the way, the parliamentary church).

The reflections from the other faith representatives resonated well with what ‘Abdu’l-Baha says about human solidarity. And why wouldn’t they? They do come, after all, from the same Divine Source.

The choir for the observance came from the West London Synagogue, and prayers at the end were lead jointly by Revd Graeme Napier, Minor Canon and Succentor of the Abbey, and my very good friend, Imam Abduljalil Sajid. Imam Sajid is outspoken against Islamic and other religious extremism - and has suffered attacks because of this - and is a great friend of the Faith. To hear the Imam chant a chapter of the Qur’an in Arabic while standing next to Graeme Napier in front of the altar in St Margaret’s was eerie, prompting me to think, in this church which was founded in the 12th century, of the Crusades and the ancient enmity between Christians and Muslims - so clearly negated in this remarkable multi-faith observance.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Church of England, inter-faith, interfaith, Islam, multi-faith, Muslim, Abdu’l-Baha, Westminster Abbey

Erica and I have just returned from a wonderful commemoration for the anniversary of the Martyrdom of the Bab. Some 25 Baha’is from Welwyn, Welwyn Garden City, and Hertford got together in the home of one of the Welwyn Baha’i families. We had visitors as well: Jerry Smith, a British Baha’i who is native to Hertfordshire but who lives in Latvia; and Gill, who grew up in Welwyn but now lives in Lincoln, - her son is part of the Welwyn community.

The anniversary of the Maryrdom of the Bab is one of the solemn holy days of the Baha’i calendar and is our opportunity to remember the injustice and prejudice and rage against the Bab and his followers in 19th-century Iran that led to the shooting by firing squad of the young Manifestation of God.

Our programme consisted of a reading of the story of the martyrdom and the events surrounding it, interspersed with prayers and passages from the Bab’s writings. Here’s a bit of the story from The Baha’is website:

Ultimately, those opposed to the B?b argued that He was not only a heretic, but a dangerous rebel. The authorities decided to have Him executed. On 9 July 1850, this sentence was carried out, in the courtyard of the Tabriz army barracks. Some 10,000 people crowded the rooftops of the barracks and houses that overlooked the square. The B?b and a young follower were suspended by two ropes against a wall. A regiment of 750 Armenian soldiers, arranged in three files of 250 each, opened fire in three successive volleys. So dense was the smoke raised by the gunpowder and dust that the entire yard was obscured.

The report of the execution, written to Lord Palmerston, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, by Sir Justin Shiel, Queen Victoria’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Tehran on July 22, 1850, records: ‘When the smoke and dust cleared away after the volley, B?b was not to be seen, and the populace proclaimed that he had ascended to the skies. The balls had broken the ropes by which he was bound but he was dragged from the recess where, after some search he was discovered and shot.’

After the first attempt at execution, the B?b was found back in His cell, giving final instructions to one of His followers. Earlier in the day, when the guards had come to take Him to the courtyard, the B?b had warned that no ‘earthly power’ could silence Him until He had finished all that He had to say. When the guards arrived this second time, the B?b calmly announced: ‘Now you may proceed to fulfill your intention.’

Again, the B?b and His young companion were brought out for execution. The Armenian troops refused to fire, and a Muslim firing squad was assembled and ordered to shoot. This time the bodies of the pair were shattered, their bones and flesh mingled into one mass. Surprisingly, their faces were untouched. The light of the “Mystic Fane,” as the B?b referred to Himself, had been quenched under a dramatic set of circumstances. The last words of the B?b to the crowd were: “O wayward generation! Had you believed in Me every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above most of you, and would have willingly sacrificed himself in My path. The day will come when you will have recognized Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you.’

Read the rest here.

The reading of the story and the prayers together created an atmosphere that was both powerful and reflective. After the reading, we paused for a time and shared stories about the development of the Baha’i community. Jerry and Gill both spoke, each moved that the Baha’i community has become so well established in their native county.

Then at 1.00 p.m. (noon by the sun), the proper time, Erica recited the Tablet of Visitation. It was difficult to break the silence after that recitation.

After the spiritual food, Roya, our hostess, treated us to wonderful Persian food. We ate and we talked. And then home, to digest.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Hertfordshire, Herts, holy day, Welwyn, religion

Last Monday I was one of four Baha’is (one of the Baha’is is the Development Officer of the Scottish Interfaith Council, another Baha’i was representing the Bolton Interfaith Council, and I was representing the UK National Spiritual Assembly) at the annual National Meeting of the Inter Faith Network for the UK. The theme was Challenge and Opportunity: Changing Patterns of Inter Faith Engagement in the UK. To quote the programme blurb:

?Faith? and ?inter faith? issues have come strongly to the forefront of the public agenda in recent years and the importance of people of different religious backgrounds living harmoniously has become more widely recognised; indeed, it is now at the heart of the community cohesion agenda alongside good race relations. These two strands will also be central to the ?good relations? work of the forthcoming Commission on Equality and Human Rights.

The number of organisations specialising in inter faith and multi faith working is increasing rapidly. Over 300 are now engaged in this work at national, regional and local level. There are also several hundred more individual inter faith projects being run by faith communities and other bodies such as local authorities and youth organisations. New streams of public funding are encouraging this work.

This year?s National Meeting is a chance to explore this rich and complex new terrain…

This is a very positive time to be engaged in inter faith work with many opportunities to deepen, and make more effective, relations between people of different faiths. Yet there are also challenges. The day provides a chance to consider, as faith and inter faith organisations, such practical questions as:

• How can we build on the good practice developed over the last two decades and ensure this is continued and extended?
• In what ways can inter faith work involving members of the UK?s different faith communities be further developed and deepened?
• How can faith groups and inter faith bodies best make use of short term project funding while keeping true to their long term aims and ensuring sensibly developed and sustainable programmes and staffing levels?
• How can we avoid being drawn by the availability of project funding into unhelpful competition between inter faith bodies? Are there possibilities for more cooperative working?
• Government?s interest in ensuring good relations is welcome and important but are there dangers in over ?governmentalisation? in the area of inter faith relations?
• More development workers and programme specialists are needed in the inter faith area. What sorts of training opportunities and programmes are needed for them and what recruitment and employment strategies can help attract qualified people and retain them?
• What is the distinctive contribution which inter faith organisations nationally that the UK has a vibrant and effective inter-faith scene.

There’s no doubt that the UK has a vibrant and effective inter-faith scene. Developments since the year 2000 have been astonishing. As preparations were being made for the Millennium the question was: ‘Should faith communities be involved?’ By the time of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002, the question was: ‘How should faith communities be involved?’

But, as some of the speakers at the meeting pointed out, there are cautions and challenges. One of those is the risk of ‘governmentalization’ of inter-faith relations. The increasing interest that government has in talking to and enabling inter-faith work to take place may undermine the freedom and independence of inter-faith NGOs. And the larger the purses of money the government offers to inter-faith and multi-faith work, the greater the risk of distorting this work to fit the government’s funding criteria.

Now, I hasten to add that none of us wishes to return to the days when the government had no interest at all in what the faiths had to offer to the country. We’re all glad of the government’s interest in us (for all that it gives us huge amounts of work that we cannot always cope with), but we all recognize that the faith communities and inter-faith bodies need time and space for their own business.

The Revd Canon Guy Wilkinson, Inter-Faith Adviser to the Church of England made some thought-provoking points in his presentation. He expressed caution about the language we use to talk about British society. It has become something of a commonplace to refer to the UK as a ‘multi-faith’ and ‘multi-cultural’ society. How far, Guy asked, does this reflect the lived experience of most people in Britain? At the national level, he said, Britain is not particularly ‘multi-anything’, nor is it at the level of the city or even of the neighbourhood. The problem with words like ‘multi’ is that they carry agendas - it may be an aspiration for Britain to be multi-faith and multi-cultural, but we have to move away from ‘host-guest’ relations between the white majority population and minority communities that are or were migrant in origin. We need to think more in terms of ‘co-citizenship’.

For Baha’is, concepts like ‘co-citizenship’ are closer to the reality of human oneness than are a ‘host-guest’ model. But the Writings of Baha’u'llah, ‘Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi are so clear and emphatic that we humans are all one family that we wonder why people of every colour and creed make such heavy weather of living together.

Guy also spoke about religion in the public square- it has always been there, at least implicitly; now that religion has become a more explicit and salient presence in the public square some people, especially those who, like secularists, are hostile to any public role for religion, are becoming increasingly anxious - and the place of Christianity in the culture, constitution and government of Britain. Christianity has been central in shaping British society, thinking and mores. We must remember and acknowledge this.

After workshops on a number of important themes, Meg Munn MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary for State in the Department of Communities and Local Government addressed the conference. Amongst other things she reassured those present of the continuing commitment of the government to deepening its relations with the faith communities and inter-faith organizations at all levels.

I had been invited to be on the closing panel for the day and to offer some reflections on what I’d heard. I said that Baha’u'llah commanded the Baha’is to associate with the people of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship. That is the starting point for Baha’i involvement in inter-faith work. I questioned the use of ‘majority’ vs ‘minority’ thinking. In some settings all of us are part of majorities; in other settings all of us are part of minorities. It would be better, I suggested, to recognize all faiths, whether in the majority or the minority, as diverse expressions of humankind’s common spiritual resource and heritage. Our common task as human beings is to create new relationships and to nurture human flourishing.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Church of England, inter-faith, interfaith, religion

One year ago yesterday morning I was at a conference of African Sufis at Goldsmiths College in south London to speak about the life of ?Abdu?l-Baha, the eldest son of the Baha’u'llah, Founder of the Bah??? Faith, renowned for his promotion of peace and work against racism in the years before and immediately after the First World War. People began to come in with news of something terrible that was happening in central London. Nobody was quite sure what, but bombs were mentioned.

I gave my presentation, the irony of whose subject on that particular day only later became apparent, and then set out on the journey back to central London, where public transport was not running, and the Bah??? Centre. At that stage I was almost completely unaware of the enormity of the events of that day. It was only as I walked from London Bridge station, along the Thames Path, towards Westminster and failed to get through to home on my mobile (because the system had crashed under the strain of the numbers trying to use it all at once) that I realized just how serious the events were. The streets were empty of traffic other than police cars; many more people were walking, rediscovering the pavements.

Yesterday London, along with the rest of the UK, remembered the events of 7 July 2005. Yesterday I was in London again. This time, unlike last year, I commuted into King’s Cross. Last year, one of the bombs went off on a Piccadilly Line train between King’s Cross and Russell Square at about 08:50. Now that I live in Welwyn I often use the Piccadilly Line to get from King’s Cross to the office. But yesterday I used the Northern Line to London Bridge, whence the Jubilee Line to a meeting at Canary Wharf.

The Tube was as hot and crowded as ever. I’m sure there were many travellers who, like me, wondered if any idiots would try a repeat event. I get a tad claustrophobic on hot and crowded Tube trains and the thought of being trapped deep underground severely injured and unable to move fills me with horror.

News programmes included pictures of the various commemorations that took place. There was one at King’s Cross at 08:50 (just about the time yesterday I was catching my train into London), and others at Aldgate and Edware Road Underground stations and at Tavistock Square, where the No. 30 bus was destroyed. There was a commemoration service in Regent’s Park. The Evening Standard was full of stories and pictures. The rhetoric has all been about the heroism of London and Londoners, praise for the heroes, sorrow for the dead, sympathy for their families and for the injured.

Last year, there was a two minutes’ silence in London one week after the bombings. On that day I had just come out of a meeting in Church House and was standing outside Westminster Abbey. On the stroke of noon, the whole of London came to a complete halt. The silence was eerie, powerful and deeply moving. Yesterday at noon I was on a No. 9 bus travelling along Piccadilly from Green Park towards Knightsbridge. The driver stopped the bus, turned the engine off and announced that there would be a two-minutes’ silence. A woman who was obviously a tourist from the Far East carried on chatting on her mobile phone. Traffic continued to flow along Piccadilly. A driver, clearly impatient that the bus, which had stopped at a road junction, part-way through a set of traffic lights, had blocked his path sounded his car horn several times.

The TV news last night showed that the silence had worked rather better around the places where the bombs had gone off a year ago, but I was sad that people where I was at noon yesterday couldn’t stop for two minutes to give thought to those who had died or suffered so greatly as a result of the most serious peace-time outrage in London.

Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has warned that another terrorist attack on London is inevitable. The events of 7/72005 (as, indeed, the events of 9/11/2001) make it impossible to avoid the public collision of religion and politics as an issue that required (and still requires) informed and reflective study and debate.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Baha’u'llah, Bahai, Bahaullah, Islam, London, Muslim, politics, religion

Technorati Tags: ?Abdu?l-Baha

It’s been a busy week, hence no serious post on Barnabas Quotidianus. I’ve masses to write about, from the Inter Faith Network for the UK’s National Meeting on Monday, through my presentation on freedom of religion and belief to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Freedom of Religion Panel on Wednesday, participation in the service for the installation of the new High Sheriff of Greater London on Thursday evening, Westminster SACRE this morning, and a presentation to an academic conference tomorrow.

I hope to write about some or all of these over the weekend.

Thankfully the weather is less humid and somewhat cooler. London in a humid 30?+ is not pleasant.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, church, human rights, inter-faith, interfaith, freedom of religion, religion, Westminster Abbey

I had an extraordinary moment of synchronicity outside Birmingham Central Library yesterday.

I’m hovering at the Chamberlain Square entrance to Paradise Forum (a really nasty piece of 1970s concrete brutalism) trying to find a couple of friends who are late for the Human Dignity Conversation Group meeting and who can’t find the room. I can’t see them anywhere, so I’m scanning the people entering and leaving Paradise Forum.

I see a woman towing a suitcase out of Paradise Forum and into Chamberlain Square. There’s something familiar about her. I’m sure I know her. But not in central Birmingham…

‘Deirdre?’

The woman turns. Looks puzzled for the briefest of moments. Exclaims, ‘Barney!’

And then we’re hugging and talking and catching up with news.

Deirdre Hayward (and her husband, Nigel) are old and very close friends from our days in Shetland in the 1970s and 1980s - and they still live there. I haven’t seen Deirdre since Erica and I visited Shetland in 2003 for the Golden Jubilee of the Baha’i community there. Deirdre convened and conducted the Capella Singers, a small choir of eight unaccompanied voices I was part of in Shetland.

I’m still looking for the friends for the Human Dignity conversation. We were supposed to start at 10:30 a.m., but it’s now 11:15. But I want to hear all Deirdre’s news and she mine. Deirdre’s been examining in music for one of the examination boards for eight days in Birmingham and is off to Sutton Coldfield. We swap news of ourselves, our families.

‘When are you coming to Shetland again?’ Deirdre asks.

I make some enthusiastic sounds - actually, I would love to visit Shetland again.

Deirdre’s parting shot: ‘Don’t just say you’re coming. Come next summer!’

If Viv and Rita hadn’t arrived late for the Human Dignity meeting, and if I hadn’t told them that I’d come and find them and take them to our meeting room, and if they hadn’t been out of site, I might not have had this wonderful opportunity to see and catch up with a friend from Shetland in the middle of Birmingham.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, synchronicity, Shetland

It’s something to travel to Birmingham on a very hot Sunday, when I could have been sitting comfortably in the garden or - more likely - in the shade relaxing. So it had to be good. And it was.

In fact ten of us met up in the Shakespeare Memorial Library in Birmingham’s Central Library to have a conversation about human dignity. Human dignity is foundational to human rights. The opening sentence of the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins:

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the UK had called this conversation group together to begin to map out the territory of the multi-dimensional concept of human dignity with a particular focus on the spiritual dimension. The aim was to begin to develop a discourse on human dignity and human rights from a Baha’i perspective that can be used in different settings.

The conversation was long and very rich, with varied perspectives from a clinical psychologist, a psychotherapist, an assisted fertility consultant, someone involved in a Baha’i-inspired and run youth empowerment project, a media person with many years of experience, someone who runs a project for asylum seekers in the East Midlands, a diversity trainer for the police, the development officer for a national interfaith organization, and someone who has great experience bringing up children. Of these, four were members of our National Spiritual Assembly. The conversation was deeply informed by the Baha’i Writings, by these various perspectives, and by quotations from human rights texts and the experience of one member of the group whose work focuses a great deal on human rights.

I was particularly touched by a quote from one human rights text:

The key point has been to recognize what at its core our subject is about, what the essence is from which all else flows. We have seen that at its heart, the idea of human rights is two-dimensional. There is the absolute side ? the moral wrongness of cruelty and humiliation, and there is also the ? perhaps less but nevertheless essential ? dedication to human flourishing. The two are linked in that each flows from a commitment to human dignity, which is in turn manifested in acts of compassion towards the other. In its prohibitory form, this demands that we do not degrade our fellow humans by depersonalising them. The positive side, stressing growth and personal success, sees human rights as radically pluralist in the hospitality towards others ? rather than mere tolerance of them ? that its underlying ethic demands. Viewed as a whole, therefore, human rights is an idea that both protects us as persons and enables us to grow at the same time.? [Conor Gearty, Can Human Rights Survive? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 140?1.]

I think we were all touched by the understanding that a vital aspect of human rights is a commitment to human flourishing. As Baha’is, we all felt ourselves committed to human flourishing and growth, since that is precisely what Baha’u'llah’s healing message brings about.

A number of questions were posed to the group. Some were addressed, some not. But that didn’t matter. The conversation was a rich one - and I may return to it in the next day or two.

1. What do we mean by ?human dignity??
2. What do the Bah??? Writings say that has a bearing on human dignity?
3. What are human rights for? What or whom do they protect? And from what?
4. Do we need human rights at all? Would a utilitarian devotion to the greatest happiness of the greatest number do the trick?
5. How, if at all, is human dignity foundational for human rights?
6. Do human rights need a philosophical or metaphysical foundation?
7. What work does the language of ?human dignity? do?
8. Would talk of ?hospitality? and/or ?compassion? do the same work? Or better?
9. What examples can we give of situations in which human dignity is denied?
10. Are these also situations in which human rights are denied?
11. Do we need a theory of human nature to ground human rights? Or will any given theory of human nature exclude from the human rights field those who do not share the theory? (The same question could be asked about metaphysics.)
12. What is the Bah??? theory of human nature?
13. How do human nature and human dignity relate to each other?
14. How do we give a voice to the oppressed?
15. Will we need a theory of human rights and human rights law and jurisprudence in a Bah???-run society?

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, human rights, human dignity, religion, spiritual, spirituality