Despite all of this, the Bahá'í Faith still maintains the status of the largest minority religion in Iran. Why is this? It is because the Bahá'ís are steadfast in their Faith and they know that if they give in to the pressure of the Iranian regime, what they are fighting for will be lost. For 165 years, hundreds and thousands of people in Iran alone have lost their lives fighting for this one cause. This cause is the unity of humanity. The Iranian government, backed by the Mullahs and other religious leaders, claim that the Bahá'í Faith desires to spread corruption in the world. If corruption means working together for the betterment of the global society, then yes-it is true.
For now I will leave you with a passage from the Fire Tablet and two accounts from the perspectives of Iranian Bahá'ís (I keep their identities anonymous for their own sake).
Were it not for the cold, how would the heat of Thy words prevail, O Expounder of the worlds? |
The first two sections relate the idea that if one does not understand the lowest parts in life, then the brightest parts cannot be appreciated. We are powerful and must defend ourselves against the world; we can defend ourselves with the pen-not the sword.
This is a commentary written by a Bahá'í who left Iran about ten years ago.
Why?
Why must my grandparents have to suffer living apart from their children and grandchildren, b/c their grandchildren would not be allowed to attend university solely because of their Faith, when they (my grandparents) have spent their entire LIVES in service to their countrymen, to their land, and working to create a better life for their posterity? This is injustice, for me to have to hear my grandfather's tired voice over the phone, from thousands of miles away, telling me that old age is sweet, but only if you have your children, their spouses, and their children around you, and me knowing full well that, unless I want to give up my education and practically my future, there's nothing I can do to help. Thank you blind prejudice and utter ignorance for doing this to our lives.
This one is from a father writing about his child unable to go to school.
The Forgotten Child
(Translated by Gloria Yazdani)
A friend once told me that when she took her first child to school, her little one who was a bit younger than the other child (and most eager to go to school) looked angrily upon her and complained as to why she had not obtained the same sort of birth certificate for him as she had for his brother, so that he, too, could go to school…
Years have now passed since then, but our children still pine with the same eagerness to begin school and learn the alphabet and more with the tender affections of a loving teacher… When August comes around, the hustle and bustle of back-to-school begins also; and the kids along with their parents set out excitedly to buy books, pens and papers and other school supplies.
But for my child, the excitement of the back-to-school month is one filled with great fear, disappointment and grief. So I call out to you… To those of you who enjoy utmost liberty in your lands … those of you who have the freedom to register your child at any time, at any school, and to send him/her off to acquire knowledge of all that she/he desire… To those of you who sit back in your armchairs at day’s end and give ear to the news of the world … such news as is meant to inform you of patrol resources and of its price fluctuation in the world market … of the rise and fall of stock from this firm and that factory… or of rocket-science research and countries that have developed nuclear power…
I call out to you to listen to the cry of my child as he recounts his own excitement of the back-to-school season:
Is anyone out there on the face of this planet thinking of me … even a little? As the back-to-school season rolls around, my life begins its circle of an unexplainable fear about whether or not I can find a school that would enroll me… Would I be able to find a place that would allow me the opportunity to gain knowledge? I don’t seem to understand what difference there is between your child who was born on the other side of the globe and someone like me who was born in Iran! Are we not all – as children -- the future of the world? Then why is it that I have been deprived of my most basic rights while some of you are sitting quietly in other parts of the planet in comfort and raise not a cry against such a perverse calamity? Or do you not consider my plight to equal that of a calamity? The expulsion of a bomb or the firing of a bullet may take a life and release the physical body of its earthly attachments instantly… But my soul is broken every single day… No, every single hour in this corner of the world with the pain of this deprivation -- and yet the world does not seem to care!
I walk inside the school registry office with my hand in mother’s hand. The man looks upon the form which mother has filled out and shakes his head in disappointment… A discussion pursues between him and my mother on legality and the sort, of which I don’t understand anything…. And we are finally sent to see the school principle. I look upon my mothers face with expectant eyes and she drowns my heart in a sea of love with her affectionate gaze. But the principle -- who seems to have been already informed of the nature of our complaint -- does not even lift his face from off his papers and shaking his head in a sign of negation directs us -- with his finger pointed at the door -- to take our leave... And I realize that this school, too, like the one before does not allow a space for me…
From news clips on television and listening to my parent's conversations, I gather that there are countries in other parts of the world that give children great importance and in which governments actually support and protect tender souls…. I hear that those governments actually come up with ways and means of facilitating education for children from every walk of life, because they believe their children are their nation’s greatest assets for the future.
I cannot fathom why it is not so in my land!!! I am being tossed around from one school to the other; and -- even if one were to enroll me -- would I dare contemplate the manner in which I would be treated there? I hear the reason for this chaotic treatment of my enrolment is because my parents are Baha’is. I have heard of a word here and there which I am told is used to define a virtue… A virtue, of which some are possessed and some are not. .. The word is “fair-mindedness”… It seems that school principals in Iran are amongst those who are not possessed of this virtue. I am sure though that they receive their orders from higher up… I am also certain that most of you are fair-minded, and so I dare ask you: “Why don’t you raise your voices in my defense? Why don’t you speak out and say “that it is every human being’s right to gain an education and that no-one should remain illiterate in today’s world”? Why do you busy your minds only with such issues as nuclear energy? Why do you show interest only in such news as those pertaining to wars and homicide? Why have you all forgotten me? Why don’t the powerful men of this world stand up for a defenseless child like me? Why do most people define nobility only in involvement in matters of an astronomical proportion? What would you do if your own child was afflicted with such atrocity? Would you not expect others to stand up for you and for your children? Why then -- I ask again -- have you forgotten me?”
These are questions that are burning away in the hearts of many Baha’i children, pre-youth and youth in Iran who are afflicted every year at this time with the fear and dilemma of deprivation from education while everyone else is enjoying the excitement of the “back-to-school” season… Is anyone out there who would give ear to this call? Can anyone hear the cries of my child?
Here are the voices. Be the amplifier which blasts it across the world.
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