The Individual and Social Action

The Baha'i Community, Special to The Independent

A growing number of people in Gallup and all over the world, believing that powerful global forces have ignored the well being of average citizens in favor of the interests of big businesses, transnational corporations, governmental elites, war machines, ecological destruction, and other evils, are taking to the streets to protest. They see their governments as failing, their livelihoods and ways of life threatened, and convincing evidence of social injustice.

It is no wonder, then, whether they are troubled by the hardship resulting from the actions of multinational corporations, worried about the alarming deterioration of the environment, horrified by the worsening plight of the world's poor, or angered by their government's participation or nonparticipation in various military interventions around the world, that a growing number of people are searching for ways to make themselves heard and to make a difference.

There is much debate about the best way to move forward, however. While some advocate the slow route of pursuing reforms within existing legal or administrative avenues, others favor direct action as a faster, more efficient way to remedy social ills. This increasing emphasis on direct democracy reflects both widespread disillusionment with established political systems and the conviction that the "self-actualizing" power of the individual is the strongest means of effecting change and bringing about social justice. According to individualist and anarchist social theories, to which the anti-globalization movement bears some relation, the state and society block the power and "natural energies" of individuals through their perpetual efforts to control them.

Underlying the various paradigms encompassed by this approach is a long-standing conviction that attacks on the "other" whether governments, corporations, or institutions are the most effective means for accelerating change in society.

But can a movement based on adversarial strategies sustain unity within its own ranks or engender a society that can meet the needs of all its members? Too often, as well, the root causes of activists' concerns largely remain unaddressed.

Within this wider context, the Baha'i community, which is also concerned with addressing the ills that beset society, sees itself as making a number of contributions to the struggle for social transformation but with a distinctive vision and approach based on its sacred scriptures. A basic tenet of Baha'i belief is that humanity, standing on the threshold of its collective maturity, must develop appropriate new qualities, attitudes, and skills that can carry humanity beyond the simplistic and limited conviction that human beings are aggressive and quarrelsome by nature and can only progress through the adversarial pitting of "us" against "them."

For Baha'is, conflicts can best be resolved and social transformation accomplished through a new paradigm of unity and cooperation based on the recognition of humanity's underlying oneness. It is a vision of human unity that also stresses the importance of humanity's spiritual nature.

Accordingly, Baha'is seek to solve social problems by attempting to address what they see as the spiritual root of the problem facing humanity its failure to recognize and wholeheartedly embrace the oneness of the human race.

But if adversarial relationships are taken for granted as the norm of operation in society, how can we move from the current model of "containment," where institutions are seen as controlling and limiting the freedom of individuals, to a model of empowerment?

The Baha'i view of change as organic in nature provides a perspective that allows the community to pursue it through established, lawful channels. Just as a human being must traverse numerous stages from infancy to adulthood, the political world "cannot instantaneously evolve from the nadir of defectiveness to the zenith of rightness and perfection. Rather, qualified individuals must strive by day and by night, using all those means which will conduce to progress, until the government and the people develop along every line from day to day and even from moment to moment," according to Abdu'l-Baha.

The recognition that spiritual transformation needs to be the foundation of lasting material improvements is central to the Baha'i approach to social change. "Humanity's crying need will not be met by a struggle among competing ambitions or by protest against one or another of the countless wrongs afflicting a desperate age," writes the Universal House of Justice. "It calls, rather, for a fundamental change of consciousness. Each human being on earth must learn to accept responsibility for the welfare of the entire human family."

The Baha'i Community can be contacted at (505) 863-4377, 1-800-22unite, or at http://www.nativeamericanbi.org/