New beginnings - 2012

Whenever i open my facebook account these last few days, all i read is "happy new year", comments about new year resolutions, promises to be in touch more in 2012, and all the other cliche things that people tend to write. For a long time i have been wondering what the big buzz about new years is and why people

At the core, i am convinced, is the desire for that second chance, a new start, trying again with a fresh page, opening a new chapter and closing an old one. We are humans - we make mistakes, so getting a new chance to start over is precious and always welcome. Baha'u'llah, in His 'Hidden Words' says: "bring thyself to account each day [...]", a passage that has accompanied me for a big part of my life. While reflecting on your actions and thoughts once a day may put a small strain on you momentarily, it does relieve you of the big stress that others feel annually. You no longer have that overwhelming pressure of having to make drastic changes in your life once a year, but rather you are allowed to engage in an organic process, in which at any given moment you can pause, reflect and adapt as you go. By no means is this to be understood as an anarchist viewpoint - every person should have a high and lofty vision of where they want to go, who they want to be, and work towards that objective. Enabling ourselves to do that in small and gradual steps liberates us from thinking we have to achieve something grand within the span of a single year and failing to do means having failed as a person. Life can be easier than that!

So to anyone who values presents for new years here is mine to you for 2012: bring thyself to account each day, and learn to grow in small steps! The fresh start we all seek can occur at any point in time, not just once a year.

Divine Programme

Christabel Pankhurst, who lived between 1880 and 1958, was a famous suffragette living in England. She was influential not only in the feminist movement, but also wrote a book entitled "Behold He Cometh", which talks about the second coming of Christ. In that book she writes "My practical political eye saw that the Divine Programme (the return of Christ) is absolutely the only one that can solve the international, social, political and other problems of the world" (Sears, William. Thief in the Night. Oxford: 1961)
Some decades before her, that thought was already uttered by Baha'u'llah in the following words: "That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith" (Baha'u'llah, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 91).

The more i engage in the study of international relations, and specifically conflict studies, the more i see these words confirmed. Many struggles are dead-locked and cannot be solved with our limited means of conflict resolution. The world is desperate: " Father, Father, Father, help us, Send some guidance from above..." (Black Eyed Peas, Where is the Love), is a cry for help all too familiar in our ears.
How can we solve the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis? What will solve the problem of the Basques in Spain? How can the Irish (North and South) be helped? What about Sri Lanka? Kosovo? Korea? How can contending religions be moved to abandon hatred towards each other? Only with the "union of all [the worlds] people in one universal Cause, one common Faith", with a "Divine Programme" that encompasses the world in its entirety.

There are many fields all over the world where society finds itself in a vicious cycle, out of which it can only break with an external influence that is sufficiently powerful. Baha'u'llah has offered His help to all of mankind, yet thus far, majority is either ignorant of it, or has rejected it. Who is to blame for the lack of knowledge of that ultimate medicine? Sure, those that have rejected it have a good share of the blame, but also those of us who were lucky enough to find out about the greatest tool ever given to us have been selfish with this precious gift.
we need to start sharing this message more with others, so that the atrocities in the world may finally come to an end. ultimately we (Baha'is) can hold ourselves responsible for the bad that is happening in the world at large, because we are not fulfilling our duties to the Covenant.

a nice initiative

today i encountered two blogs that caught my attention. i did not have time to read the second one, but i was really impressed by the first one. it is an initiative by a few young Muslims to protest against the discrimination of the Baha'is in the Middle East.
i think that these youth are a remarkable example of people that have understood Islam. the word Islam has two meanings: the first one being 'submission to God', and the second one being 'peace.' these youth have understood that their religion is one of peace, a fact that most of the western world loves to overlook in the light of increasing suicide bombings that are on the rise.
unfortunately these few aggressive Muslims are making life very difficult for their fellow Muslims who have to suffer the consequences of the actions of a few.
hopefully such laudable initiatives will result in more tolerance for other people's beliefs.
check out these blogs.

http://www.mideastyouth.com/2007/07/01/the-muslim-network-for-bahai-rights/

http://bahai-egypt.blogspot.com/

numerous people have commented on the first blog, with varying degrees of support/rejection. such exchange of opinions of course can be very healthy, but unfortunately there have been several comments of people who knew very little about either Islam or the Baha'i Faith, who were concerned primarily with expressing their frustration about life.
therefore i would like to urge everyone to independently investigate religions without being priorly influenced by so-called scholars.

300 Spartans

Two days ago i watched the much anticipated movie that many people in my environment talked about: 300. While i got a warning before watching it that the persians were portrayed entirely as barbarians, no one told me about how incredibly bad and boring the film was going to be. In general i tend to be quite generous with movies, but this one was really bad. The only other example of when a movie actually made me angry was "catwoman" that was just plainly an insult to any intelligent human being, but this one really topped it. The whole film was an extended war-scene, which, i must admit, had very detailed and well-made special effects. However, these special effects, such as a decapitated head that spins through the air, enabling the viewer to have an intimate glimpse of the spinal cord and lots of blood, usually tend to get a vast range of responses. As i am not a person to get excited when viewing such images, they did little to raise my opinion of the movie.
What was wrong with 300? Well, to begin with, i felt that both the spartans and the persians were barbarians, but the movie was supposed to portray the former as the good and the latter as the evil and inhuman. At the beginning we get a glimpse into the life of the greek city-state and how they kill babies that are not born as ideal soldiers. Is that not barbaric? Slightly later the persian messenger gets killed for delivering a message the spartan king did not like. Is that not barbaric? Then there were all these weird creatures in the movie that at least made it obvious that the directors were not taking facts too seriously. When seeing them i was slightly relieved, because i understood that it was not supposed to be factual.
The persians in the film looked like they were from africa, not persia, but i guess with the large empire that they covered one could find supporting arguments for their totally non-persian features. I must admit i found the portrayal of king xerxes extremely amusing: he looked like a transvestite that was taller than yao ming. His face had several piercings, also in really random places, his eyebrows were neatly plucked, and he had as much make-up on his face as usually persian women above 40 do. So at least that last element could be argued as representative, though for the wrong gender. Oh, i almost forgot, he just had to have that typical monster-like voice that hollywood loves to use, for people to understand that he was evil.
The entire film was essentially a big battle scene, with a few shots that only supported that craze about warfare. I find movies that glorify these kind of things abhorring. Throughout watching this i was thinking about how the greeks are representative of the western world, while the persians for the eastern, especially the muslim middle-east. Both sides in my eyes were barbaric, and yet the makers wanted to convince the viewer that the western side was the good one. It just seemed so representative of the present-day world we live in with huntingon's "clash of civilisations" theory becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It is not my purpose to defend iran, or belittle the moral decline that has been taking place there, but it does bother me to see how media (including film) forge information to make it more dramatic. A perfect example is the alleged statement of the iranian president, ahmadinezhad, calling for israel to be wiped off the map. This never took place! I myself believed it for quite a while until i got a chance to read the actual persian text of that statement. The word "map" does not appear! He was referring to the violent regime, not the country as a whole. I think that this example greatly demonstrates the influence media has on us, for the whole world is taking the actual occurance of that declaration for granted, even though it is not true!
This movie about the spartans ought to be viewed with the same skepticism as the alleged statement of ahmadinezhad should have been. Otherwise we become blind to mind games that coerce wrong opinions upon us.
enough from me, peace out

Happy Naw Ruz

a happy new year to all of my people out there. i hope you all have beautiful celebrations and will start this new year full of energy gained from the fasting month. =)

Little Addition to "Axis of Evil"

my dear friend jess in her comment asked which countries participated in the questionnaire and how they decided about which countries are actually evil.
the participating countries were: Argentine, Australia, Egypt, Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, France, Greece, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Italy, Canada, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, Hungary, the USA, and the UAE.

the countries that were being evaluated were: China, France, Great Britain, India, Iran, Israel, Canada, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the USA, and Venezuela.

the main factor shaping this negative image of these countries is their military behaviour. i do not think that i need to discuss the issue any further, as all three of these countries are very conspicuous about their military ambitions.

for the german speakers, here is a link to the site that talked about the study: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,470061,00.html

thats it for today.

the new axis of evil

so today the results of a new study came out. according to it, there are three countries that have a very bad reputation on a global scale. in each of 27 countries 1000 people were asked about the positive vs. negative influences of certain countries. apparently the top three evil countries were israel, iran, and the united states; in that order. my first thought, of course, was that the united states will be disappointed to be categorized on a more evil spot than north-korea, a thought that amused me i must admit.
however, my second thought was that these three countries are probably the most important ones for my fellow Baha'is and myself. iran is the birthplace of our religion, and Baha'u'llah has said that if there were any place more degraded than iran, He would have been born there. well, now iran is officially evil, so His words are confirmed again. iran is the "Cradle of the Baha'i Faith" and the country that suppresses our religion the most. secondly, we got israel, the place were both of our Messengers, the Bab and Baha'u'llah, are buried. due to that fact, it is among the holiest countries in the world to us. now the united states were called the "Cradle of Baha'u'llah's World Order" by Shoghi Effendi, our Guardian. he explained their privileged role with the fact that it was the most politically corrupt country in the world.
it is interesting how religion works. it always choses the most degenerated places and people for its purposes. i guess this way the real power of religion becomes manifest. to give examples of that: Moses was born as a slave, Jesus was born in a stable, and His father was unknown to other people, Muhammad was an illiterate simple man, Baha'u'llah was a political prisoner. all of these Messengers of God ultimately succeeded over their oppressors as history shows.

thats it for now, enjoy.