Bahá’í World/Volume 8/Radio-Nations Calling
25.
RADIO-NATIONS CALLING
BY ETHEL M. DAWE
RADIO-NATIONS calling Australia and New Zealand! Radio-Nations calling Australia and New Zealand!” The call rang through the air from the studio of the League of Nations Wireless Station. In Geneva—it was cold and grey, yet as I waited in the studio beside the Lake the first rays of the morning sun softly lighted the mountains and the mists began to drift. In Australia it was the evening of a spring day but in a fraction of time my voice would have sped from Geneva and be heard in my own home. The miracle of radio!
There was a story behind that broadcast. It began three years before in Australia when I became Secretary of the League of Nations Union, a work taken up and animated, I hope, by the same impulse which had led me to find the Bahá’í Teachings a few years earlier—the desire to assist in the promoting of understanding between the different peoples of the world. Travelling in both the East and the West has brought the realization of the essential oneness of mankind and the urgent necessity to work for unity.
With this in mind, a new venture was made in youth work. Representative senior students from high schools and colleges gathered together each week in a study group to examine the problems and possibilities of international associations. They in their turn, took their assignments of study back to their schools to discuss it with their fellow students in smaller study circles. These young people were remarkably free from prejudice. They were attracted by the idea of world cooperation, although they realised its difficulties. The vision of a better world order gripped them. More than ever I was convinced that it is to the generous moods of youth that we must appeal. This was forcibly brought home to me by the remark of one girl who said—"We know all this—but how can we teach our parents?”
But these efforts brought rich reward. One day a cable came from the Secretariat of the League of Nations inviting me to become a temporary collaborator during the meeting of the Assembly of 1937. Within a few weeks from the receipt of this invitation I was on the sea en route to London and thence by air to Geneva.
As the plane descended into picturesque Switzerland over the mountains and lakes on to the green slopes, my heart was filled with joy. This project fulfilled a desire conceived years before when I walked by the home of the newly founded League of Nations. Since then I had come into the light of the Bahá’í Teachings and could approach the League—not in sadness—as one well might in this tragic hour of its impotence—but with the confidence in my heart that, in time, there would be a true League of Nations and that an International House of Justice would eventually be established. This was but a prelude to the real League, a fore-runner of the accomplishment of the ideal of cooperation. Even the very sadness in the hearts of its workers would make for a deeper conception of the fundamental needs underlying world unity. Shoghi Effendi has written in The Advent of Divine Justice “The ideals that fired the imagination of America’s tragically unappreciated President, whose high endeavours, however, much nullified by a visionless generation, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, through His own pen, acclaimed as signalizing the dawn of the Most Great Peace, though now lying in the dust, bitterly reproach a heedless generation for having so cruelly abandoned them.” The officials of the Secretariat viewed my optimism with something akin to dismay. Almost in chorus they said, "I do hope you won’t be disappointed.”
Days of interesting investigation in the
different departments of the League then
began. The Intellectual Cooperation section,
to which belonged the subjects of
the educational role of radio and its
use in the
cause of peace, and also the humanitarian
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and social sections
were the things that attracted me specially.
No one can view unmoved the gathering together in one Assembly of the representatives of fifty-two nations meeting in cooperation. And although one is told that their efforts will not succeed, yet the very attempt is surely a foreshadowing of that assembly of people who, in the course of time, through their spiritual unity of purpose will achieve their aims. Indeed at the conclusion of the Session when we gathered to listen to a concert of orchestral music, which all nationalities apparently appreciated, it was easy to believe, in spite of the black days ahead, in the ultimate establishment of international life.
With this background I went to the microphone to talk to Australia.
But that was not the end of my broadcasting adventures. Indeed it was just the beginning. With introductions from the International Radio Union I visited a number of radio stations in other countries. First Vienna, a fascinating place at that time for a folk-lore enthusiast, where they made for me records of actual folk festivals which had been recorded by their travelling microphone in distant provinces. In Budapest records of folk-songs and gypsy music were given me. These, with the knowledge gained at the London, Paris and Cairo stations, have proved most valuable in the compiling of talks in Australia. But I must leave the story of radio experiences and tell you of happenings in Paris, London and Haifa.
In Paris, in company of my hostess Madame Dreyfus-Barney, we visited the places where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had been and I would listen entranced as Madame said, “Here He stopped and spoke to us.” “This is the view He loved.” The spell of the Master is still upon those who knew Him, something of His spirit has fallen upon them.
The really wonderful Exposition of 1937 was then in progress and it was interesting to see that the section given to the Pavillons des Etrangers was that part of the Trocadero Gardens where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used to walk each day. There, where He used to sit, was erected the long Column of the Golden Star of Peace that dominated the Exposition. On the final night of the Exposition Madame and I went to see the playing fountains of colored water. We entered where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had so often entered and where now stood the Pavilion of Palestine. Here where the Master loved to walk, strangers from the ends of the earth were gathered together and we felt that these things were a parable.
From Paris to London. There to hear from Lady Blomfield of the Master’s visit to London. To listen to these stories told by one whose words vibrate with His power was an unforgettable experience and a fitting introduction for the visit to Haifa.
How can I tell you of the meeting with Shoghi Effendi? How describe to you the power which radiates through him—the boundless love which envelops all humanity. His compassion yet his Justice; the dynamic energy which demands—all. With a quivering breath one realizes the greatness of this Day, the value of this time; and with radiant joy knows that every breath of one’s life is too little to give in this Cause. “There is no sacrifice if we are conscious of the privileges.”
Here the glorious certainty of God’s illimitable power and immutable purpose for mankind pulsates through one’s heart in ever deepening waves of strength and joy. Truly the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh is the heart of the world; the source of all peace from which the revivifying waves of His love permeate all things. "He is verily nearby, even though you may think Him far away.”1
In humble tribute to the memory of that inestimable one Munirih Khánum, wife of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, I want to give you her message which seemed to be for us all. Holding me in her loving arms she said: "Read the Words of Bahá’u’lláh, dear. Read the Words of Bahá’u’lláh. Everything is in them. Oh, they are wonderful, wonderful! Blessed are the hours spent with the Words of God.” She quoted many words of Bahá’u’lláh which Ziyáíyyih Khánum, Shoghi Effendi’s mother, translated. The presence of Rúḥíyyih Khánum at that hallowed spot was an inspiration words fail to describe.
The Guardian wished to send to the Bahá’ís of Australasia a most precious relic for their national archives, a lock of the
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1Four Valleys, p.55.
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hair of Bahá’u’lláh,
every strand of which
had been arranged by the Greatest Holy
Leaf. This precious relic was entrusted to
this overwhelmed servant to carry to
Australia. Oh that the glory of the moment of
its uncovering could be transmitted too.
The profound reverence of the Guardian.
The intensity of the power that enveloped
all. The dynamic force of love flowing out
in ever widening circles. Shoghi Effendi said
that he wished this most precious relic,
which he was sending to us because we were
so distant, to be presented at our next
Convention but that he would like Mother and
Father Dunn, our much loved pioneers, to
see it soon. He would like them to feel the
strands of the hair of Bahá’u’lláh. “Their
work,” he said, “was beyond recounting.”
One leaves Haifa with new found strength. Life has begun afresh. “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Protector, the Self Subsistent.”2
A subsequent visit to the Egyptian Bahá’ís revealed the happiness of the spiritual unity of the East and the West. But to complete this record of radio work I should add that upon returning to Australia I undertook new types of work. Experiments were made with a series of radio talks by young people from the study group which took the form of discussions between themselves on a number of subjects under the heading of If We Had Our Way. Then over the national network undergraduates talked of religion. Women also have been given the opportunity to discuss together, at intervals, over the national network such subjects as the status of women and similar points which interest us so deeply. But these are small things. Our joy is in knowing that "Through the power of the Words He has uttered the whole of the human race can be illumined with the light of unity.”3
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2Four Valleys, p. 53.
3Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.