Bahá’í World/Volume 33/Cultural Cleansing
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Cultural Cleansing
DESTROYING A COMMUNITY, ERASING MEMORY
T1711: statement by the Ballad ’2' community appeared in newspapers around the world in September 2004.
has persecuted the Bahé’i’s, a peaceful, law—abiding religious
minority. More than two hundred leading Baha’is have been put to death, tens of thousands have lost their jobs, tens of thousands more have felt compelled to leave their homeland, Baha’i youth have been denied access to higher education, and retired workers have had their pensions summarily canceled. In 1991 an official govern- ment document signed by Supreme Leader Kharnenei spelled out measures aimed at slowly strangling the community.
The hatred of the extremist mullahs for the Bahé’i’s is such that they, like the Taliban of Afghanistan who destroyed the towering Buddhist sculptures at Barnian, intend not only to eradicate the religion, but even to erase all traces of its existence in the country of its birth. It was for this reason they demolished the House of the Bab in Shiraz, center of pilgrimage for the Baha’is of the world and a gem of the city’s cherished past. This is why they confiscated Baha’i cemeteries and bulldozed the graves of Baha’i heroes and saints. This is why they desecrated the resting place of Quddi’ls, one of the apostles of the faith.
F or 25 years the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran
279
[Page 280]
280 THE BAHA’I' WORLD 2004—2005
This June a wrecking crew descended upon a historical mon— ument, a precious example of Islamic—Iranian architecture, “a matchless model of art, spirituality, and architecture.” “How is it,” a brave Tehran newspaper article asked, “that in the middle of the day. . . the very essence of our cultural heritage is being destroyed?” The answer is heartbreakingly simple.
The demolished building was the house of a great nineteenth— century statesman, calligrapher, and literary figure, Mi’rZé ‘Abbés Nt’lri’. Although he was born and died a Muslim, his son, Bahé’u’lléh, founded the Bahé’i’ Faith, 21 religion that promotes abolition of all prejudice, independent investigation of truth, equality of women and men, universal education, harmony of religion and science, and universal peace. For this the clerical bigots have declared Bahé’l's, followers of Bahé’u’lla’th, to be heretics and apostates, deserving of death.
In their determination to rid Iran of the Bahé’l’ community and obliterate its very memory, the fiindamentalists in power are prepared even to destroy the cultural heritage of their own country, which they appear not to realize they hold in trust for humankind. Surely the time has come for Iranians everywhere to raise their voices in protest against such willful desecrations.
For more information, please visit http://news.ba.hai.0tg/.