Phillipe’s round-up of Baha’i blogwarriors
Phillipe does a great job with his regular round-up of Baha’i blogs that have particularly struck him in the last week or so.
I’m amazed at the number of Baha’i blogs that are on the go - around 200-300, according to Phillipe. Of course, that’s a drop in the mighty blog ocean, and not a high proportion of the Baha’i population - even of the Baha’i population in the parts of the world that are likely to have access to the technology necessary to write blogs.
I shall be running a course on basic blogging for Baha’is at the Liverpool Baha’i Centre at the beginning of June. My aim is to encourage a few more Baha’is to dip a toe into this particular ocean.
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Wow. You’ll have to tell me about how you teach a course on Baha’i blogging. Thanks for all the support, you’re a real ‘gent’.
This reminded me something else: there are few baha’i blogs in Spanish or French.
Who knows you could run that course in France and in Spain…
Phillipe, I’ll let you know once I’ve done it. It will be something of an experiment. My current thinking is this: participants will take time to consider why they want to have a blog, who they’re writing for, and the kinds of things they’d want to write as Baha’i bloggers; we’ll look at the basic technicalities of setting up a blog (Blogspot or other hosted service vs setting up your own domain and renting space on a server); we’ll look at how to increase the readership of the blog - the importance of “link love”, comments, social blogging, etc; and we’ll look at the Baha’i Internet Agencies guidance notes for Baha’i bloggers.
Marco, let me see how well the course runs in the UK, and then we can consider franchising it worldwide! Actually, I’ll be blogging about the course as it runs and will be happy to share whatever I learn with fellow bloggers.
There are a number of online opportunities - some are recent and some are older than the internet. Email discussions groups go back a long time while blogging and online videos places like youtube are more recent. Wikipedia has a fair presence of the Baha’is. There are also podcasts, informally and formally (associated with radio stations.) One place to grasp a history of Baha’i use of computers is at http://members.cox.net/bahai.libraries.archives/Scriptum/4.htm
I used to take part in a number of Baha’i email discussion groups, but no more. I prefer the blog format and social web places such as Facebook.
Back in the mid-1980s, when I had a 300 baud modem, I used to take part in discussions on various bulletin boards, predating even email discussion groups. From the time I had my first modem, before the Internet was a concept that any of us were familiar with, I was very excited by the potential to link computers, to use computers as communication devices, and by the social linking potential of computers.
I distinctly recall, standing up at our National Convention in 1993 (I was a delegate for the first time for many years) and proclaiming that the Internet and email would be the way communications would develop in the coming years. By then, I had my first proper email address and Internet account - but the Web hadn’t yet begun to be really useful in the way it is now. Most delegates looked at me as if I came from Mars.
So I’ve been online, one way or another, for about 20 years and I find the increasing possibilities and use of the Internet really exciting. We have to exploit these potentialities.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about the blogging course and you’re right Marco we need more blogs in various languages. Alas, folks like me are only proficient in English! I’m interested in experimenting more with “live blogging”, or at least something close to it. I have people in my life that are involved with My Space, but I’m not as excited about that as blogging and can’t take on more than one on-line passion at a time at this point. I imagine that sometime soon there will be forums for Baha’i bloggers to come together and learn from each other. For no, we can do it in a virtual way.
I recall in the 90’s having several opportunities slip by because people didn’t grasp the opportunities we had then. Years later people would remember me as the guy who encouraged them to learn email to teach the Faith.
Some relevant quotes
“A mechanism of world inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and
functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity.”
Shoghi Effendi — 11 March 1936, published in “The World Order of Baha’u'llah: Selected Letters”, BPT(US) 1938 (1974) p. 203
“Surely the invincible arm of Baha’u'llah, working through strange and mysterious ways, will continue to guard and uphold, to steer the course, to consolidate, and eventually to achieve the world-wide recognition and triumph of His holy Faith.”
Shoghi Effendi, Baha’i Administration, p.150.
“The Baha’is should not always be the last to take up new and obviously excellent methods but rather the first, as this agrees with the dynamic nature of the Faith which is not only progressive, but holds within itself the seeds of an entirely new culture and civilization.”
From a letter dated 5 May 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, in Design for Victory: 1976-1979 (Wilmette: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1976), pg. 13.
The Guardian also indicates that one of the purposes of Baha’u'llah in designing such flexibility into the structure of the Administrative Order of the Faith is that “whatever is deemed necessary to incorporate into [the machinery of the Cause] in order to keep it in the forefront of all progressive movements, [could] be safely embodied therein….”
Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u'llah, pp. 22-3.
Steven, many thanks for the quotations. They really help us get to grips with where we are in the evolution of human relationships. It is particularly important to understand the relationship between the Covenant, the Administrative Order and the means of communication - there’s that interesting balance between what is fundamental (the Covenant) and what must remain flexible (the outworking of the Administrative Order in practice).
By the way, the Internet hasn’t quite achieved freedom from “national hindrances and restrictions”. The governments of certain countries block their citizens’ access to websites of which they do not approve. But the ethos is definitely one of an unrestricted freedom to communicate. Which, of course, raises questions about moderation in one’s utterance. Subject for another post, perhaps?
Dear Barney:
I recently came across your Baha’i blogging course advertisement to be held in Liverpool. It sounds very interesting and I hope that a similar workshop might be available to the Canadian Baha’i community in the near future. I hope everything is well with the friends in the U.K.. Perhaps when I have a bit more time to work with, I’ll e-mail you again. Bye for now.
Sincerely,
Dinesh
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