It’s a long way to Lancaster (to give a paper at a seminar)
It’s over 220 miles from Welwyn to Lancaster. Yesterday I caught an early train from Welwyn North station to Sandy (in Bedfordshire), where I met up with Moojan and Wendi Momen to travel in their car to Lancaster University. We were all, together with Nazila Ghanea, going to give presentations at a seminar organized by the Lancaster University Baha’i Society on the denial of access to higher education that the Baha’is in Iran are currently suffering.
About 28 people (not including the speakers) gathered in a very cold Roman Catholic chapel in the Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre, where the very first Baha’i Studies seminar had been held in the early 1970s, to listen to and discuss the presentations:
- Barney Leith - Unity, Justice and Human Rights: A Baha’i Discourse
- Dr Moojan Momen - A Historical Review of the Baha’i Persecutions in Iran
- Dr Nazila Ghanea - Human Rights, the UN and the Bahá’ís in Iran
- Dr Wendi Momen - The Denial of Higher Education to the Baha’is in Iran
Dr Dominic Brookshaw, who is a lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Manchester and co-editor with Seena Fazel of The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, recently published by Routledge, chaired the seminar.
After a lively discussion, some of us repaired to the home of one of the Lancaster Baha’is for a vegetable curry before Wendi, Moojan and I set out for the long drive back. I arrived home at about half-past midnight. A long day!
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Lancaster, travel, Iran, persecution, seminar
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6 comments
I am sorry Lancaster is soooo far away from Lisbon!
You missed a good, if rather long, session, Marco.
Peace barney,
I hope it was a good 220 miles! I did my undergraduate degree in Lancaster! I have many, many happy memories of the campus and city.
Abdur Rahman
It was a good 220 miles, Abdur Rahman! I have to say that this was my first trip to Lancaster University, although a number of my friends have studied there (religious studies seemed to be very popular). I don’t think I’ve even been to the city of Lancaster before. I have passed by on the motorway or through on the train many times.
I may have been through the city by car in the 1950s with my parents on our way to Scotland, long before the M6 was constructed.
As the organizer of the first Lancaster Baha’i Studies seminars let me express my pleasure that the tradition is being continued. BTW, the Seminars were held in the Sociology Department rather than the Chaplaincy Centre.
Peter, great to hear from you. Yes, you were a pioneer in the field of Baha’i studies. Thanks for the correction about the location of the first seminars. I have to thank your colleague, Dr Moojan Momen, for the information I posted. Ah well, can’t get it right all of the time.
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