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Spring/Summer 1985

World Order

Values, Culture, and Development

Gregory C. Dahl

Social and Economic Development

Toward World Peace

Anne Rowley Breneman

Radio for Development

Kurt Hein

World Education:

In Quest of a Paradigm

S. Pattabi Raman

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World Order

VOLUME 19, NUMBERS 3 & 4 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

BETTY J. FISHER

HOWARD GAREY

JAMES D. STOKES

Subscriber Service:

CANDACE MOORE

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. Second class postage paid at Wilmette, IL. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD ORDER, 536 Sheridan Road, Wilmette, IL 60091.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts can be typewritten or computer generated. They should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should send three copies—an original and two legible copies—and should keep a copy. Return postage should be included. Send manuscripts and other editorial correspondence to WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091.

Subscription rates: U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, 1 year, $10.00; 2 years, $18.00; single copies, $3.00. All other countries, 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies $3.00. Airmail, 1 year, $20.00; 2 years, $38.00.

Copyright © 1987, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
ISSN 0043-8804

IN THIS ISSUE

2 Help Is Like Advice

Editorial

4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

11 Values, Culture, and Development:

A Bahá’í Approach

by Gregory C. Dahl

21 Buddha

poem by Ian Stephen

23 Social and Economic Development

Toward World Peace

by Anne Rowley Breneman

39 Radio for Development

by Kurt Hein

53 World Education in Quest of a Paradigm

by S. Pattabi Raman

65 Restoring the Grammar of Belief

review by Alex Aronson

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Help Is Like Advice

IN THE life of the world Bahá’í community this is a time of dedication to the goals of social and economic development. Such goals are envisaged much like those of world peace: Just as in the effort to achieve true peace, social and economic development (whether in the Third World or in those parts of the developed countries burdened with pockets of misery, family breakdown, racial and sexual discrimination, drug addiction, and crime) must start at the personal and local levels, working through local resources both material and spiritual, often, with assistance from those better endowed with worldly, technological, and educational riches—but without the imposition of rule from “above” or such an outpouring of goods and services that personal and local initiative is stifled. The modalities of technological improvement must be compatible with the existing social, economic, and technical level of the populations concerned. Elaborate equipment that, once installed, cannot be maintained by the users is worse than useless. Any improvements that are offered must bear within them the possibility of progressive development by the people themselves; they should offer the means of continuing education and betterment, in close contact with those offering the resources but with independence, self-reliance, and personal dignity as the indispensable conditions under which such resources can be accepted.

Help is like advice: It should be offered to those who are under no compulsion to accept it but may take it, modify it, or reject it according to their own perception of their needs. Help, like advice, must not be a club nor a tool for the subjection of those who receive it, but a means for the achievement of their own goals.

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

THE NOVEMBER 1986 meeting of the WORLD ORDER Editorial Board was a time for reflection and reevaluation. It was the first time in several years that we had met in New Haven, where the magazine had its offices for many years. And it was the first time our newest member, Dr. Jim Stokes, had visited Yale, which he called “that medieval university town.” We took pleasure in renewing old friendships, recalling the successes and failures of the past, and engaging in heated and stimulating consultation about the future.

One piece of news—that a twenty-year subscriber to WORLD ORDER had, with a generous gift, set up an endowment for the magazine—gave us new hope for the future. The endowment is being invested and provides the beginning of a nest egg that will ensure the future of WORLD ORDER.

However, the continuing awareness that we are not producing the magazine in a timely manner pulled us up short and provoked a series of actions that promise to set things back in order. When the meeting ended, we had taken decisions about tables of contents for four issues; the appointment of a poetry editor; a style sheet for authors; another style sheet for freelance editors, with whom we plan to extend the hands of the Editorial Board; participation in a proposed conference for writers and scholars; copublishing a compilation on Bahá’í scholarship; and the seeking out of articles on a variety of topics for the next several years.

In the light of the October 1985 statement by the Universal House of Justice on peace addressed to the peoples of the world, one of our highest priorities for papers is those related to peace. We would like, in the coming years, to explore all aspects of peace, not only its prerequisites but also its applications. We would like to see our authors use the recently published compilation Peace: More Than an End to War (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1986) as a starting point for essays on various aspects of peace. The work, which has been called “an immensely important reference work,” “remarkable for its breadth and organization,” and “unsurpassed as a companion to the peace statement,” suggests endless possibilities—civilization coming of age, spiritual roots of peace, preparing the path for world order, constructing a global and peaceful society, securing the basis of human happiness.

Other suggestions for articles come from anniversaries: 1987 is the seventy-fifth anniversary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to America and the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith; 1988 is the 125th anniversary of the declaration of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission.

United Nations years and decades suggest other articles: 1987 is the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless; 1980-1990 is the Second Disarmament Decade; 1981-1990 is the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation [Page 5] Decade; 1981-1990 is the Third United Nations Development Decade; 1983-1992 is the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons; 1983-1993 is the Second Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination.

Articles on comparative religion are always welcome (ones involving Christianity and Judaism as well as ones on Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism) as are historical accounts (we suspect that our authors have not yet begun to mine the treasures of the National Bahá’í Archives).

As you can see, the recent meeting in New Haven has given us renewed confidence in the future. While we juggle assignments for the next three issues, we hope some of you, our faithful readers and supporters, will be inspired to research and write some fascinating and illuminating articles about your chosen facet of the emerging world order.

* * *

IF ONE word could describe the manuscripts that we have received in recent months, it would be “variety.” Bahá’í scholars are working in more areas—and using more approaches to that work—than ever before. The present issue is a case in point. Each of the authors addresses the important subject of world social and economic development, but the methods used could not be more diverse.

Gregory C. Dahl’s philosophically focused essay argues that true development must begin with a new vision, one that recognizes the essential relationship between moral and spiritual values and the “practical expression of those values in development activities.”

Kurt Hein’s anecdotal essay tells the story of a single project—the development of Radio Bahá’í in Ecuador—and its revivifying effect on campesino culture and life. His essay is, in effect, an extended illustration of the principles outlined by Dahl, as they are worked out in everyday life.

The innovative essay by Anne Rowley Breneman studies development in yet a third way. Using actual data gathered during a study of one community in the American South, she then extrapolates a model for change that, if followed, could result in the peaceful transformation and social renewal of that entire community.

S. Pattabi Raman brings yet a fourth method and perspective to the theme of development. Like Breneman, he perceives that education is central to the process of social renewal, but his essay is a kind of open letter to professionals in the world community of education. In it he argues that world education must replace its piecemeal theories and planning with a unifying new “paradigm of holistic thought” that is based on what he describes as a new “science of reality.”

Finally, Alex Aronson reviews a novel by Roger White that considers “vision” from [Page 6] an artistic and mystical point of view, seeing it as a quickening that universalizes and sensitizes understanding.

* * *

IN THIS thriving atmosphere of scholarly diversity we continue to welcome manuscripts reflecting inquiries and research of all kinds. To assist authors—and to reduce the delay time in our response—the Editorial Board is preparing a style sheet for authors. It will describe submission procedures and outline other matters of technical concern to authors, such as awareness of the audience, style, footnotes, and preparation of the manuscript. Authors may obtain a copy of the style sheet by writing to WORLD ORDER.

To the Editor

THE STATUS OF MEN

I want to congratulate WORLD ORDER for publishing Linda and John Walbridge’s article on “Bahá’í Laws on the Status of Men” (Fall 1984/ Winter 1984-85). I consider it the best research done on the Bahá’í Faith since Juan Ricardo Cole’s “The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá’í Writings” was published in 1982 (Bahá’í Studies, vol. 9). The Walbridges’ article is difficult to understand, and considerable further research and meditation on the writings of Bahá’u’lláh will be necessary before the Bahá’í community can decide whether the Walbridges are right. Regardless, the article is extremely thought provoking.

On page 26 the Walbridges note that menstruating women are not required to say the obligatory prayer or fast; rather, Bahá’u’lláh has given them alternate rites instead. I have heard Bahá’ís express the concern that, by making these exceptions to His laws, Bahá’u’lláh was implying that women in their courses are unclean, but a much more likely explanation occurs to me. It was inspired by a discussion I once had with a woman who was studying to be a rabbi. She told me of a women’s committee, of which she was a member, that was attempting to create Jewish rituals that were distinctively female. Among them were prayers to say during menstruation. It occurs to me that Bahá’u’lláh has done exactly this: by providing women in their courses with alternatives to obligatory prayer and fasting He has given them unique ways of expressing their spirituality during a unique period of their lives.

Concerning the question of cleanliness, we have Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl’s remarkable statement that “in order to show forth the abundant and perfect benefits of God in this great Dispensation, to protect people from melancholic imaginations of former nations and deliver more than one-half the population of the earth from an acquired insanity, the Blessed Perfection has pronounced all things clean” [italics mine] (Bahá’í Proofs, p. 86). An enlightened, educated, modern audience may not appreciate the significance of this observation by Abu’l-Faḍl. We usually measure the cleanliness of objects according to the germ theory, but even we have our inconsistencies: A plate full of food that one is eating is not considered dirty, but immediately after one is done eating, the scraps of food on the plate make it dirty, even though germs have not had time to multiply. Shoes on the floor may not be considered dirty, but shoes on the kitchen table are. Before the germ theory and the scientific method, every society had an elaborate and illogical system for declaring objects, foods, and persons clean or unclean. Abu’l-Faḍl recognized that Bahá’u’lláh had swept away all these former systems when, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, He abrogated the uncleanliness of a large number of items that had formerly been considered unclean (Synopsis and Codification of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 48).

The Walbridges conclude their essay by describing the Bahá’í teachings as advocating “a mildly patrilineal family” (p. 36). This raises the extremely significant question, if the family is only “mildly” patrilineal, do the laws achieve their purpose of gluing the man to his wife and children through actual economic and social restrictions and rights (which are largely unsubstantial) or by their symbolic value? The Walbridges do not discuss this question, but the evidence they present suggests the latter: that the laws are symbolic of the proper relationship between men and women, and thus create and reinforce proper social values. Western culture tends to downplay the importance of symbolism, but Bahá’u’lláh apparently does not. In any analysis of Bahá’í ethics it would seem that we cannot simply weigh the rights given to different groups by the Bahá’í writings but must consider the importance of the symbolic relationships that the writings decree as well.

A possible example of this is the exclusion of women from the House of Justice. Could this be another symbolic representation of the patrilineality [Page 7] of Bahá’í society? In other words, could it be a symbolic reminder to men that they have a responsibility to society, that they must serve society, and that they must develop their nurturing, loving, and “feminine” qualities? An advantage of this approach is that it eliminates all attempts to locate women’s exclusion in their “inferiority.” If anything it locates the exclusion of women in the social inferiority of men, for they are the ones who need to learn that they are a part of society and have a responsibility to it. Women, because of their intense physical, psychological, and spiritual bond with their children, are inextricably woven into the fabric of society. Weaving men into that fabric, it would seem, is a problem with which more than one Manifestation of God has wrestled.

ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

Somerville, Massachusetts

I wanted to share an additional view on some of the ideas presented in the conclusion of “Bahá’í Laws on the Status of Men.”

I agree that men need to be a real part of the family and must have an essential role in it. However, it seems to me that the statement that “women should thus have the freedom to be mothers without needing to work outside the home while their children are young” is a particularly Western view of economic and social life. Working “outside” of the home for many women in the world means working on the land, collecting water, and fetching firewood, all tasks necessary for survival. It is often the case that the children accompany the mother, or they are cared for by their older siblings. For most women of the world today, not to work would be to starve. In addition, men, for the most part, are not able to earn enough to provide for their wives or children.

While it may be an interesting intellectual exercise to discuss theoretically the way things “should” be, the reality of day-to-day life for most people in the world is dictated by economic necessity. In addition, the “family” takes on many different forms depending on what part of the world and what culture you are examining. For example, in many parts of the world, the grandparents play a key role in family life, and the extended family is the norm. The responsibilities of a mother and father are, therefore, modified depending on the cultural setting.

The Manifestation of God comes with teachings and laws for all of humanity, and we should candidly acknowledge that our own personal understanding of those teachings and laws is colored by our cultural experience.

SHIVA TAVANA

United Nations, New York

ELENI, DEVOTED TO A VISION

Having read Nicholas Gage’s Eleni, I was delighted to discover Gary Morrison’s review (Summer 1984): its brevity and clarity helped put order into my memories of the book. Like Mr. Morrison, I felt Eleni’s life had significance not only for Bahá’ís but for all people who struggle to survive with integrity and to contribute to a better future.

One feature of Eleni’s life seems to me so essential and so relevant that I would like to challenge the central idea in the following sentence from the review: “Eleni is the story of how an otherwise ordinary individual becomes heroic and finally exemplary by holding fast to human decency and faith, by allowing devotion to traditional values of family and the survival of one’s children to determine one’s choices and actions.” Steeped in the same values as all around her, Eleni did, no doubt, hold to “traditional values of family,” though I doubt her neighbors would have seen her that way, for gradually she began to break with tradition in her earnest attempt to secure a better life for her children. Eleni was heroic long before she died.

Bahá’u’lláh identifies blind imitation of ancestral worship as one of the most powerful factors imprisoning mankind in religious superstition, fanaticism, and violence—the very phenomena which cost Eleni her life. Long ago, I heard a talk by Ellsworth Blackwell, whose smiling and kindly face still shines along with his view of the Kingdom of God on earth: “when the rulers of men will be the lovers of mankind.” This is the vision of the future for which ordinary Bahá’ís are also becoming heroic, whether as pioneers, teachers, administrators, or martyrs. It is the same heroism of breaking with blind imitation, no matter what the neighbors think.

I would suggest, therefore, only one small but significant change in the sentence in question: “Eleni is the story of how an otherwise ordinary individual becomes heroic and finally exemplary by holding fast to human decency and faith, by allowing devotion to the vision of a better future to determine one’s choices and actions.”

ELIZABETH ROCHESTER

St. John’s, Newfoundland

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WORDS OF THANKS

I was recently introduced to your magazine by some friends and was shocked that I had never heard of it previously. I thoroughly enjoyed the articles and poetry in the issue that I was given. I found the works both spiritually and intellectually encouraging—and, as one who often finds himself broken by news of apartheid, Russia’s continued aggression in Afghanistan, and, of course, the ongoing brutality in the Middle East, I find such encouragement of crucial importance. I appreciate your efforts in making such a magazine available in this age of slick, say-nothing rags.

TOM SEIBLES

Dallas, Texas

First of all I want to tell you how happy I am whenever I receive WORLD ORDER, to see how it becomes more interesting and attractive year after year, to see how many Bahá’í scholars write beautiful articles on important items. My knowledge of the Faith can grow also because I read “our” WORLD ORDER, and for this I am grateful not only to the scholars and to the Editorial Board, but also to all those who participate in the practical work of this beautiful Bahá’í magazine.

I want to send a gift subscription to a friend I met in Florence during an International Conference sponsored by Defense for Children. . . .

JULIO SAVI

Bologna, Italy

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Values, Culture, and Development:
A Bahá’í Approach

BY GREGORY C. DAHL

Copyright © 1987 by Gregory C. Dahl.

AN ESSENTIAL part of any process of development is a consideration of human values. By definition, development means growth and change involving, explicitly or implicitly, an aim and direction. If the objectives of that development are not clearly defined, the process is likely to be chaotic and the results less than satisfactory—an outcome one sees all too often in today’s development efforts. In other words, without a clear concept of where one wishes to go, one is unlikely to arrive where one wishes to be.

Though the definition of objectives is fundamental to success in human life, both individually and collectively, the importance and difficulty of this step in one’s thinking is often underestimated. For example, one may agree that education is good. But what is the education to be about, and toward what objective will it be directed? One has agreed only on the means, not the desired end. As the immortal words of Proverbs (29:18) warn: “Where there is no vision the people perish.”

And where does a society get vision? It may come from political figures or other leaders of thought, from ideologies imported from abroad, from grass-roots movements. A successful vision, however, must touch a chord in the culture and values of a people, must both complement and stimulate their existing views and aspirations. Throughout the ages religion has been the greatest source of this type of vision.

It is interesting, therefore, to examine, in the case of one young and fast-growing religion, the relationship between the moral and spiritual values animating the faith of its followers and the practical expression of those values in development activities.

The manner in which this religious community has been able to encourage diversity while simultaneously promoting a spirit of unity and cooperation is also worth investigating. The religion in question is the Bahá’í Faith, the adherents of which are to be found in over 100,000 localities in some 166 countries.

The Bahá’í Approach to Development

BAHÁ’ÍS, like the followers of most religious traditions, view the purpose of human life in fundamentally spiritual terms—that is, in relation to the progress of the human soul through this world and other worlds of God. The emphasis in the Bahá’í teachings, however, is on work and service in this life as the principal means by which the soul is trained in spiritual qualities. Thus the inner life, which is the goal of human existence, must necessarily be expressed in spiritual and humanitarian behavior. Such attitudes provide [Page 12] strong motivation for community service and cooperative development efforts.

Furthermore, the Bahá’í teachings emphasize the great importance of the spirit of unity in human afifairs. The Founder of the Faith, Bahá’u’lláh, wrote: “O contending peoples and kindreds of the earth! Set your faces towards unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you.” “Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.” Thus Bahá’ís avoid political activities, which they view as generally divisive in nature, and make every effort as individuals to overcome the many prejudices that tend to divide all societies into rival subgroups. Bahá’í communities tend to be diverse, drawing members from many classes, backgrounds, and walks of life. The Bahá’í Faith often cuts across traditional divisions, bringing together in a cooperative atmosphere people who previously would not have wished to work together.

The Bahá’í teachings uphold the vital importance of both individual and cultural diversity. In the Bahá’í view the beauty and dignity of humankind are reflected in the infinite variety of attributes and characteristics with which God has endowed it. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith and appointed Head of the Faith until His passing in 1921, emphasized during a talk in Paris in 1911:

The diversity in the human family should be the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together in the making of a perfect chord. . . .

Do not allow difference of opinion, or diversity of thought to separate you from your fellow-men, or to be the cause of dispute, hatred and strife in your hearts.

Rather, search diligently for the truth and make all men your friends.

Every edifice is made of many different stones, yet each depends on the other to such an extent that if one were displaced the whole building would suffer. . . .

Thus the spirit of unity that Bahá’ís strive to establish is based not on uniformity but on an appreciation of diversity. In fact, it is this appreciation of diversity within a community with strong bonds based on shared values that gives Bahá’í communities considerable resiliency and flexibility in dealing with potentially contentious problems.

While Bahá’ís strongly uphold and value diversity, they do not believe that it is either possible or desirable to protect cultural differences through an attempt at isolation. Bahá’u’lláh, Whose life ended before the close of the nineteenth century, foresaw a global society and the emergence, after a period of turbulence and conflict, of a world government, a world auxiliary language, global communications, and other elements of a global society, many of which have already come into being. But, for Bahá’ís, the irresistible force of a shrinking world need not impose a uniform culture and manner of thinking on the diverse peoples of the world. Just as individuals may have infinitely varied personalities while living together in one society, so varied and diverse societies can coexist in the world without destroying each other. The key is an attitude of mutual respect and appreciation rather than one of distrust and competition. The military and economic confrontations in today’s world bring home how far humanity is from this ideal. Unfortunately, cultural imperialism is an integral part of the present competitive and destructive system. It is these forces that Bahá’ís are consciously trying, with increasing success, to counteract at the level of individual human attitudes and commitments.

What, then, are the implications when the Bahá’í attitudes toward unity and diversity are applied to institutions and processes of development?

An emphasis on the importance of cultural [Page 13] identity and the intrinsic dignity of humankind leads directly to the notion that human development must be motivated and guided principally by the developing people themselves. The core of development activity must be sought in individual and local initiative, in self-reliance and self-determination. No one is an island, whether individually or collectively, and all require assistance, support, and guidance from others. Neither is anyone a machine to be programmed by someone else. From childhood all children grow; they are not made to grow by their parents. They receive assistance and support at every step of their development, and their choices and prospects are necessarily limited by the opportunities available to them; but they, nevertheless, assume adult responsibility for their behavior and accomplishments, and no one can live their lives for them. True progress, for a community as well as for individuals, must come from within. As Bahá’u’lláh has written, “All that which ye potentially possess, can, however, be manifested only as a result of your own volition.” From this point of view development is not something that can be given by one country to another, or administered, or rigidly planned. It is a process with its own life. It cannot be delivered by international or bilateral agencies nor by national planning organizations or central governments. It is necessarily individual and community-based, meaning, for most developing countries, a largely rural and decentralized process.

In fact, development is not only occurring in so-called developing countries. All human beings are involved in a process of development from birth to death. All have lifelong challenges, both material and spiritual, to overcome. When viewed in terms of human worth and whatever kind of reward or judgment a soul may face when it passes on to another life, it is impossible for anyone to judge whether one individual, or one society, is more worthy or more “advanced” than another. Although it is common to think in terms of clichés regarding “advanced” and “developing” countries, and in particular in terms of the advantages of wealth and education versus the disadvantages of poverty and ignorance, in the Bahá’í view neither wealth and education nor poverty and ignorance automatically open the doors to heaven. Spiritual worth comes from detachment from selfish material concerns and a life of service to others. These can only be achieved by rising above the tests and trials of life. Just as an athlete becomes strong from undergoing punishing training, so those who have had the greatest difficulties in their lives and have endured those difficulties with a positive spirit are most likely to be strong spiritually. The rich have fewer physical tests than the poor, but the distractions of their material possessions present them with spiritual tests they often fail. Thus, as Jesus observed, it is difficult for the rich to get into heaven (Matt. 19:24). The relatively rich and educated would, therefore, do well to approach the business of international and intercultural interactions with a degree of humility, realizing that they may be able to learn and receive as well as teach and give.

All of which is not to say that the kind of development involving aid flows, technical assistance, planning, and so on has no place. Countries require financial, physical, and technical assistance for a broad range of essential development activities. The point is that assistance should not involve the dictation of a set of values by one country or institution to others. Simultaneous with the traditional economic approach to development, in which the emphasis is on large-scale international transfers, there is in many countries an increasing upsurge of grass-roots efforts with purely local objectives. Probably the two approaches to development—one involving humble local organizations with no resources except human ingenuity and initiative, the other involving international financial flows and negotiations between governments and organizations—will both continue [Page 14] to grow and evolve until the two meet, eventually, in a complementary relationship.

The greatest need in the world, as Bahá’ís see it, is not directly material but rather a unifying spirit that would assist people to come together in a constructive manner to solve their problems. In the Bahá’í view the absence of such a spirit has been the fundamental cause of wars, injustices, and inequalities that characterize global society; therefore, if humankind is to overcome these basic obstacles to human progress, it must first deal with the attitudes and values that give rise to conflict, misunderstanding, and alienation among peoples. Thus Bahá’ís stress an open, accepting, and unprejudiced attitude toward others, and they try to balance a concern for material well-being with spiritual and moral objectives. For example, if a Bahá’í community builds a school, Bahá’ís are likely to ask: “Has this project increased the ability of the community to work together? Has it helped the community to understand the importance of service to others? Has it resulted in a sense of accomplishment? Has it been conducive to the preservation of human honor?” Thus the spirit in which the project is conducted is viewed as even more essential than the physical result because a positive, unified spirit will lead to more and better results and will form the foundation of lasting development.

In other words, material and spiritual development are seen as inextricably interrelated, indeed as different aspects of the same process, and neither can proceed very far without the other. In the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “the object of every Revelation [is] to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions.”

The Bahá’í belief that successful development requires a balance between encouragement of individual or local initiative and the strength that comes from unified community action, and between concern with the material aspects of life and the spiritual, is reflected in the way Bahá’í activities are organized. Each locality with a sufficient number of adult Bahá’ís elects a “spiritual assembly” of nine members to take charge of Bahá’í affairs. The number of such assemblies around the world is now approaching thirty thousand. There is no professional clergy in the Bahá’í Faith, and the elections are conducted by secret ballot with no nominations or campaigning. The assembly, in turn, elects its own officers, but all members have an equal say and an equal vote; all are enjoined to express themselves openly and frankly during the meetings. The goal is to reach joint decisions that all can support, while avoiding the divisiveness of partisan platforms. The process of consultation is considered fundamental by Bahá’ís, not only for Bahá’í assemblies, but for solving all human problems. It is a skill requiring practice and a continuous consciousness of the underlying objective—the establishment of a spirit of unity and accord leading to constructive joint action.

In addition to the election of spiritual assemblies local Bahá’í communities encourage community consultation and individual expression in other ways as well. A regular community meeting every nineteen days combines a devotional period with administrative and social functions. During the administrative part of the meeting there is two-way communication: the assembly reports on its deliberations and seeks opinions and suggestions from the members of the community, who are encouraged to express views on any subject of interest to the community. As might be expected from the absence of any professional clergy, the structure of Bahá’í gatherings and observances is flexible. Rituals and fixed forms are not emphasized. In fact, Bahá’ís avoid any tendency to adopt rituals or rigid procedures, which could discourage the development of new of more appropriate [Page 15] forms of expression as the community evolves. Thus there is no fixed type of Bahá’í music or Bahá’í marriage ceremony. Many types of music, dance, and Other forms of expression can be incorporated into Bahá’í gatherings, worship, and daily life.

At the national level Bahá’ís in each country annually elect a national spiritual assembly that takes overall responsibility for the affairs of the Faith in that country. The election takes place at a convention of delegates; and, as in local elections, there are no nominations or campaigning. The delegates vote only for those they consider best qualified to serve on the assembly. There are now 148 national spiritual assemblies around the world.

Finally, every five years the members of the national spiritual assemblies gather at the Bahá’í World Center in Haifa, Israel, to elect the nine members of the supreme governing body of the Faith, the Universal House of Justice. Thus the developing Bahá’í administrative structure incorporates important contributions by individual Bahá’ís, in this case to play their part in selecting the leadership of the local, national, and international community.

Another aspect of the Bahá’í approach to development is the emphasis on effort. Work performed in the spirit of service to humankind is elevated by Bahá’u’lláh to the rank of worship, while begging is forbidden and idleness discouraged. Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “Waste not your time in idleness and sloth. Occupy yourselves with that which profiteth yourselves and others.” And again: “Please God, the poor may exert themselves and strive to earn the means of livelihood. This is a duty which, in this most great Revelation, hath been prescribed unto every one, and is accounted in the sight of God as a goodly deed. Whoso observeth this duty, the help of the invisible One shall most certainly aid him.”

The belief that God will come to the assistance of anyone making a sincere effort— that God helps those who help themselves— is important to Bahá’ís. Many passages in the Bahá’í writings encourage Bahá’ís to overlook their weaknesses and to trust in God when they undertake challenges they think are beyond their capacity. Such an attitude of reliance on God to strengthen one’s own capacities improves self-confidence and motivation, whether one is rich or poor. However, materially poor people, because they are at the lowest levels in society, more often lack self-esteem and motivation. Interestingly, the vast majority of Bahá’ís in the world are drawn from oppressed minorities and the rural poor—those who respond most readily to the Bahá’í concepts of the worth and dignity of each human being and to the potential for self-improvement.

As individuals become more confident and more self-reliant, they paradoxically find their relationships with others improving and can learn to cooperate more fruitfully. Thus there is an important distinction to be made between interdependence and dependency. As individuals grow and mature, interdependence increases and dependency decreases. Interdependent people have a sense of dignity and self-worth, while dependency undermines these essential human qualities. The Bahá’í effort around the world is to encourage strongly a sense of human worth in the matrix of a global family, thus cultivating a spirit of interdependence while discouraging dependency.

As an expression of the attitude of interdependence, Bahá’í communities and individuals first seek solutions to local or individual problems at the local or individual level. If an individual has a problem, his first question must be, “What can I do to resolve my problem?” The election of Bahá’í local assemblies, their consultation on all questions of concern to their community, and their reaching decisions by consensus or, failing [Page 16] that, majority vote, in a spirit of love and fellowship is a purely local process, drawing on local resources, without direct reference to outside material assistance.

Yet an individual or an assembly, finding that external assistance is required, is free to request help from the national or even the international level of Bahá’í administration. Such assistance is made available to the extent that resources permit. In fact, a major responsibility of Bahá’í national assemblies is to assist and encourage the development of the local assemblies under their jurisdiction. This task is not much different from that of raising a child. Initially, the senior institutions must give great attention, care, guidance, and even protection to the junior local institutions. But this nurturing must be done in such a way that assemblies develop their own maturity, strength, and independence— not in a way that encourages permanent dependence, as much current “development assistance” does.

Bahá’u’lláh’s injunction to the poor to “Strive to earn the means of livelihood” is balanced by His admonitions to the rich to share their wealth with the poor: “They who are possessed of riches, however, must have the utmost regard to the poor. . . .” “Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor. . . . To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.” In response to these teachings of Bahá’u’lláh a proportionately large number of affluent Bahá’ís have chosen to settle in less-industrialized countries to further the spread of their Faith and to be of greater service to humankind. Many Bahá’ís, if they are Bahá’ís at the time of choosing a career, select a service-oriented profession. Increasingly, young Bahá’ís in affluent countries are obtaining training in professions directly useful in the Third World, such as medicine, agriculture, and development economics. Because the Bahá’í sense of community cuts across class and other barriers, the human resources of each national community are more widely available to all members than is the case in most groups, and the spirit of sharing and working together for common ends is very strong.

While many Bahá’ís from developed countries have made personal choices leading them to careers or occupations in developing countries, the financial and human resources of the global Bahá’í community still remain small because most followers of the Bahá’í Faith are villagers in developing countries. Even in the more affluent countries the membership of the Bahá’í community tends to be weighted in favor of minorities and disadvantaged groups. Thus the present capacity for financial transfers between countries within the Bahá’í community is extremely limited. However, in keeping with the principles outlined above, the primary emphasis in Bahá’í development activities is on local initiative and self-sufficiency. If villagers are to gain confidence, self-respect, and dignity, their development efforts cannot depend on a continuing flow of external resources. Their developmental activities must be designed in such a way as to be self-sustaining. To this end Bahá’í institutions have been instructed by the world governing body of their Faith to be generous, within their available resources, in offers of technical advice or assistance with capital acquisitions, but to avoid continuing commitments that would make one community dependent on the resources of another. Similarly, the 148 national spiritual assemblies have been aiming to organize their affairs in such a way that continuing administrative and operating expenses are covered entirely by their own resources. Most national assemblies have achieved this aim, a remarkable accomplishment considering the limited financial resources of Bahá’í communities in most countries. The achievement of financial self-sufficiency reflects the dedication and commitment of the Bahá’í communities to take charge of their own affairs [Page 17] and to shoulder the responsibility for their own development.

The principles of dignity, self-reliance, cooperation, and interdependence are emphasized and elaborated in a recent message from the world governing body of the Bahá’í Faith, the Universal House of Justice, to the Bahá’ís of the world on the subject of economic and social development:

From the beginning of His stupendous mission, Bahá’u’lláh urged upon the attention of nations the necessity of ordering human affairs in such a way as to bring into being a world unified in all the essential aspects of its life. In unnumbered verses and tablets He repeatedly and variously declared the “progress of the world” and the “development of nations” as being among the ordinances of God for this day. . . .

. . . The steps to be taken must necessarily begin in the Bahá’í Community itself, with the friends endeavoring, through their application of spiritual principles, their rectitude of conduct and the practice of the art of consultation, to uplift themselves and thus become self-sufficient and self-reliant. Moreover, these exertions will conduce to the preservation of human honor, so desired by Bahá’u’lláh. . . .

. . . Progress in the development field will largely depend on natural stirrings at the grassroots, and it should receive its driving force from those sources rather than from an imposition of plans and programs from the top. The major task of National Assemblies, therefore, is to increase the local communities’ awareness of needs and possibilities, and to guide and coordinate the efforts resulting from such awareness. . . .

This challenge evokes the resourcefulness, flexibility and cohesiveness of the many communities composing the Bahá’í world. Different communities will, of course, perceive different approaches and different solutions to similar needs. Some can offer assistance abroad, while, at the outset, others must of necessity receive assistance; but all, irrespective of circumstances or resources, are endowed with the capacity to respond in some measure; all can share; all can participate in the joint enterprise of applying more systematically the principles of the Faith to upraising the quality of human life. The key to success is unity in spirit and in action.

The approach to economic and social development outlined by the Universal House of Justice is, indeed, an unusual one—preserving human honor, seeking the driving force for development from “natural stirrings at the grassroots,” and yet drawing on the resources of a vast worldwide community.

Principles Expressed in Action

THE BAHÁ’Í principles for economic and social development would not be of any practical significance if they were not expressed in actions. What, then, have been the accomplishments of the Bahá’ís in the development field?

Until recently the main emphasis of Bahá’í work has been the formation of Bahá’í consultative assemblies and their growth as institutions. The number of such assemblies has increased from about one thousand in 1957 to almost thirty thousand today. Since most assemblies have only been in existence a short time, their capacity to handle problems is very much in a developmental stage. Increasingly, however, they are tackling some of the needs and problems of society, within their limited resources.

Most of the development projects spring from the organic growth of the assemblies themselves, expressing both a growing awareness of society’s needs and an increasing capacity for self-initiated action. Initially the projects are simple and small, tending to concentrate in the fields of education, health and hygiene, and agriculture. As the assemblies gain confidence and experience, and as their resources increase, they will expand the scope [Page 18] of their endeavors, undertaking larger, more varied, and more difficult projects.

The stirrings at the local level have already found expression, in more than three hundred localities in at least thirty-six countries, in the establishment of simple rural elementary schools, often constructed entirely of local materials and with a minimum of external assistance. The number of such schools is growing rapidly as communities hear of the efforts and success of their sister communities. There are also some thirty-five larger and more formal schools run by Bahá’í communities in eleven countries, which in varying degrees combine a high standard of academic excellence with innovative programs addressed to the needs of village youth.

National Bahá’í communities, usually with some international assistance, have also undertaken a few more ambitious projects.

The New Era Center for Rural Development. One such national effort is a rural development project in the Chikali Valley near the Bahá’í-run New Era High School in Panchgani, Maharashtra State, India. The project, operating from the New Era Center for Rural Development, was launched in 1975 by a group of Bahá’ís motivated by the ideals and teachings of their Faith. Their activities have included the improvement of agriculture and livestock; the development of craft and small industries; the upgrading of health and sanitation through personal hygiene and cleanliness, appropriate nutrition, and a clean domestic water supply; and the promotion of manpower development through strengthening village cooperatives and decision-making councils and by providing adult literacy training and moral education for children.

The main focus of the project is the preservation of human honor and dignity through self-reliance. To this end, project training activities stress the acquisition of problem-solving skills and attitudes. Trainees are expected to demonstrate a practical self-reliance and to share their insights and methods with others in their community. In the words of one project member: “self-reliance according to our definition is when a people acquire sufficient capacity to make effective decisions under varying situations, and knowing when and how to tap technological know-how.” Self-help has been an integral part of all project activities, with the villagers themselves installing, and meeting most of the costs of, new latrines, refuse disposal pits, a bio-gas plant, wells, and a piped water supply constructed under the aegis of the project. Various innovations encouraged by the project, such as small garden plots, have also proven attractive enough to be adopted spontaneously by families not directly connected with the project.

The project staff believe that their activities in the Chikali Valley have generated a self-sustaining momentum, and they now plan to expand their program so that they can offer training to rural people from other parts of India. Operating within a new Bahá’í Development Institute, the Rural Development Center will offer training for rural elementary school teachers, village craftsmen, and agricultural and health workers.

Radio Bahá’í Ecuador. A second project of regional scope is a radio station in Otavalo, Ecuador. Initiated in 1977, Radio Bahá’í Ecuador is dedicated to promoting indigenous culture and is a leading example of the participatory approach to broadcasting. It is operated as a service by the Ecuadorian Bahá’í community—most of whom are Quichua-speaking Indians—for the benefit of the indigenous rural population of the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys. The goals of the station, according to a report by one of the founders, are:

[Page 19]

first, to promote and maintain the value, dignity, and significance of the people and their traditional indigenous culture; second, to promote education, the delivery of social services, and the dissemination of basic development information; third, to serve as a voice for the community, enabling villagers within a 50-mile radius to exchange information, make announcements, and share news about important activities and events in the region.

As a consequence of these principles Radio Bahá’í has adopted a novel approach to programming. It was the first Ecuadorian station to broadcast a major portion of its programs in Quichua and to play traditional Andean music exclusively. In order to broadcast in Quichua it has drawn on a staff of volunteers the majority of whom are indigenous and many of whom are illiterate. In the spirit of self-reliance these volunteers, who receive only a subsistence pay, have all been trained in the operation of the station’s equipment and in program production. To supplement available recorded Andean music the station has sponsored annual music festivals, “Nucanchic Tono” (“Our Music”), which are recorded for use by the station. Beginning on a small scale—in part because of the difficulty of finding traditional musicians to perform—the festivals have grown in size to the point that a recent festival was attended by over seven thousand people and provided an eager audience for more than thirty-five music groups. Seeing the success of Radio Bahá’í and the music festivals, other stations have increased their programming of traditional music. As a result of this demand traditional musicians have become more active, and this important expression of indigenous culture has experienced a resurgence.

Since Radio Bahá’í is operated by Otavaleños themselves, it is an authentic expression of their tastes and preferences. Perhaps for this reason it has become the most popular station in the area. Typical of the community-oriented programs that attract great interest is a twice daily local-events program, with notices contributed by the listeners—a service that has filled an urgent need in the mountainous Otavalo region where the only other means of communication is foot travel.

Another popular and useful program developed by the station staff, with the support of a small matching grant from the Canadian International Development Agency, is an agricultural program designed to assist farmers to communicate their concerns and receive assistance from experts. Research had shown that the support and information programs of the Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock were not reaching the indigenous farmers or addressing their most urgent needs. For example, when the station staff first approached Ministry officials, the interview focused on advice for planting wheat and barley. However, when the staff interviewed farmers, they wanted advice on dealing with a plague among their chickens and pigs. The station was then able to obtain technical information on this subject from the Ministry and to disseminate it to the farmers in a timely fashion.

The research on the ineffectiveness of the government agriculture and livestock programs suggested the pattern adopted by the project. Two project staff, a village woman and an elderly farmer, interview local farmers in the field.

Having identified and recorded some of the farmers’ major concerns, the staff then visits local Ministry offices and interviews experts about the issues raised by the farmers. Segments recorded on the farms and at the Ministry offices are combined with scripted materials and music into a daily 30-minute program in Quichua entitled “Tarpucpac Yuyay,” which roughly translates into English as “The Thought/Knowledge/Opinion of the Farmer.” The program airs between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., [Page 20] the period selected as “optimal” by the farmers themselves.

Because the indigenous program moderators are trusted by the listeners, the program has become an effective means of promoting constructive change. And by going first to the villagers, it reverses the usual top-down orientation of development projects. Through this and other programs that are prepared by indigenous people themselves and that reflect their respect for indigenous culture and for the wisdom and experience of villagers, Radio Bahá’í is providing a means for the people of the Otavalo region to further their own development.

Following the example of Radio Bahá’í, Bahá’ís in several other countries have established or are in the process of establishing service-oriented community radio stations. Stations are operating in Bolivia, in Peru, and in Hemingway, South Carolina, in the United States, while new stations in Chile, Brazil, Panama, and Liberia are under development.

Conclusion

WE HAVE seen that the Bahá’í approach to development is based on an appreciation of the dignity of man and a recognition that diversity can be a strength if combined with a spirit of unity and cooperation. Bahá’ís, therefore, stress consultation, local initiative, and self-reliance and strive to expand their capacity, in the many localities where they live, for constructive community action. They view material progress and spiritual growth as aspects of the same process and place major emphasis on the spirit of unity, cooperation, and service that animates their activities. The fruits of this approach are now beginning to become apparent as many local Bahá’í communities begin to test their consultative skills on problems of immediate material concern, such as the provision of education for their children, the improvement of health, or the adoption of more productive agricultural practices. A few larger scale projects have also been undertaken, such as formal schools, integrated rural development projects, and radio stations; but these projects, like the small ones, have been in response to local initiative and have been designed to foster confidence and self-reliance. Bahá’í communities are still in the early stages of awareness of their potential in the development field, but the early evidence already demonstrates that the spirit of unified action and the natural emphasis on grass-roots initiative that spring from fundamental Bahá’í views and beliefs will become an increasingly effective means for constructive change in many parts of the world.

[Page 21]

Buddha

Surely, you had to think, going in,

that there should be Swiss-city things

more typical and topical to see

than Japanese sculptures which themselves

were only short-term visiting

And yet the folds came down,

not in cascades,

but simply falling, circling

from the stonecalmed head and hand.

And there these folds—

but in the bended knees and coat

and in the white and brushed-back hair

of a very Zurich man

who stoops before to watch.

—Ian Stephen

Copyright © 1987 by Ian Stephen

[Page 22]

[Page 23]

Social and Economic Development
Toward World Peace

BY ANNE ROWLEY BRENEMAN

Copyright © 1987 by Anne Rowley Breneman.

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
—Isaiah 2:4

The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with its entrenched pattern of conflict, can change to a world in which harmony and cooperation will prevail.
—The Universal House of Justice

IN A letter dated October 1983 the Universal House of Justice, the international governing body of the Bahá’í Faith, enjoined the Bahá’í world community to initiate social and economic projects within established Bahá’í communities. This seminal document encouraged the application of spiritual principles to practical problems, grass-roots identification of needs and projects, involvement of women and youth, consultation, self-reliance, and the preservation of human honor. Bahá’ís from all backgrounds were told that, although a spiritual foundation must precede the material development of any Bahá’í community, each Bahá’í community should undertake a modest social-economic development project addressing an expressed need of a portion of the Bahá’í population as soon as considered feasible by the spiritual assembly of the community. Gradually, under the direction of the spiritual assembly, the effects of such a project, as well as the experience gained in the process, would begin to benefit the community at large.

To illustrate how such a process might occur, how Isaiah’s long-hoped-for dream of turning swords into plowshares might come about, how patterns of conflict can be changed into harmony and cooperation, I have selected Dudley County, Georgia, as a model. By using data extracted from a three-year ethnographic study of the community, including previous response to the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, as well as inherited patterns of conflict, and by applying the spiritual principles involved, I will extrapolate a model of what could happen in this particular community.

A caveat, however, is the omission of references to the works of other Bahá’í and of [Page 24] non-Bahá’í scholars. Because I have focused on the application of specifically Bahá’í concepts of social and economic development, the thrust has been to describe the social, economic, and religious attitudes and patterns of an actual community—and then to demonstrate how the developmental process can be set in motion and guided by universal religious principle, rather than short-lived theories of social change. Though hypothetical, the scenario may serve to encourage the following two categories of people: (a) individuals wondering how the Bahá’í Faith can influence entrenched patterns of prejudice and conflict in social situations, and (b) Bahá’í communities wondering about the spiritual prerequisites of social and economic development and how to begin.

A Rural Southern Community

DUDLEY COUNTY, with its current population of 8,929, is most likely to be encountered on the way to somewhere else, since the county has little industry and limited commercial enterprise. The largest town, Bradford, has 498 inhabitants, a decrease of 20.2 percent since the 1970 census. Ten miles west, Royalton, with its colonial homes, magnolias, and boxwoods, was described by an 1849 traveler as one of the most “southern” towns in the state.

Occupied by Creek and Cherokee Indians before its purchase by a governor in 1773, the county was settled in 1783 by a group of aristocratic Virginian planters. A 1773 treaty between the English government and the Cherokee had ceded a large portion of the county to England in return for cancelation of Indian trading post debts. After the Revolutionary War the land became the property of the new American government and wealthy individuals. In 1838 the Indians were forcibly driven from the area to resettle in the Southwest, leaving behind fertile, forested homelands and a growing slave population. The more slaves a planter owned, the more land he was entitled to purchase from the government under the headright system. On the eve of the Civil War 541 planters, out of a total white population of 4,014, owned 7,514 slaves.

Following the emancipation of slaves after the Civil War the black population burgeoned to a high of 11,495 in 1920, compared with a white population of 8,783. This agricultural community flourished for many years as a quasi-plantation economy. Blacks were dependent on white landowners for their livelihoods, while upper-class whites continued to rely on blacks for an abundant and cheap labor supply on the flourishing tobacco and cotton plantations. However, over 5,000 blacks and 2,200 whites left the county during the 1920s after the boll weevil ravaged nearly all of the cotton crops. By 1980 blacks comprised only 32 percent of the total population of the Georgian county.

Although few blacks in the county now own over an acre of land, some speak of a time when blacks had made some advances in property ownership but had lost a large portion of it during the Depression:

But even my momma and daddy taught me to not get myself in debt. That was how blacks lost all their land here in the county. Back in the ’twenties, blacks owned about 32% of the land, my daddy told me, but we lost it in the depression. The cotton prices went way down so they couldn’t make enough from the cotton to pay for the fertilizer. There was a big fertilizer group—about four or five rich white men. We had rations in those days, and we had to get our rations from them. So when the cotton went down, those people got the land. The blacks lost all their land that way. They had to trade it to pay for the rations and get the fertilizer. (Elderly black deacon)

[Page 25] Although dilapidated homes occupied by blacks can still be seen near large spacious homes occupied by whites in the midst of expansive, well-tended lawns and agricultural land, the shacks are gradually being replaced by trailers and modest cinderblock or brick homes. Yet, of the 2,488 single-family homes reported in the areawide Housing Element Census of 1977, 644 were counted as dilapidated and 1,214 as marginal. When these are blown down in a storm, or burned in a fire, few housing options are available for blacks in the county. One either moves in with kin, buys a trailer, or migrates to another county where housing developments with subsidized rents are available. Since the shacks are too cold and damp to permit normal activity, families living in shacks spend much time huddled around wooden stoves or fireplaces in the winter. Often the floor boards are wet, doors hang from rusted hinges, and occupants lack adequate footwear and clothing during inclement weather. Indoor plumbing and toilet facilities are usually nonexistent in such shacks.

A rather symbiotic relationship between whites and blacks still exists in the community, a relationship that prevented blacks from participating openly in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A 4 September 1969 editorial in the county newspaper warned blacks contemplating a more active role that whites still held the purse strings of the economy:

Some of the whites will move away. But most of them have their roots deep in the rich, prairie soil. They will stay on, minding their own business and watching the circus. They hold the wealth of the county—own businesses, plantations, and other property—and the county government alone can’t confiscate property yet.

Few blacks own more than an acre of land, and many families are indebted to white grocery and feed-store owners or to the county government, sometimes leading to the confiscation of property in exchange for unpaid debts. The following account by a young black woman about her twenty-three-year-old male cousin, who inherited ten acres of property when his mother died in 1977, serves as an illustration:

His momma, she was my aunt, stood right up here in Momma’s house one day before she died and said to Mike, “Son, I won’t be leaving any unpaid debts behind. You’re going to have a paid-up house.” Well, Mike lived there with his girlfriend for awhile after she died and everything was going fine, but then she left him and he took to drinking. You couldn’t talk no sense in that boy after that. He let those payments [on the accumulated tax debt] get behind. When Momma heard about it, she and another lady got up $400 to pay it up. But he didn’t care—he just let it go, and Momma paid it again. But, you know, she ain’t got much herself, and she couldn’t keep doing like that. He wasn’t doing nothing except drinking and letting hisself go. So we told Momma she’d have to let him handle it hisself, so some white folks came and took over the house. That sure hurt me and Momma. And I know his momma turned over in her grave—she’d worked so hard to keep that place up. We were all born and raised there too. And you know what happened? That house burned down to the ground not too long after them white folk moved into it. No one was hurt, but I guess it just wasn’t meant for white folk to live in it!

Since Dudley Countians prefer a relatively isolated style of life, kin groups tend to cluster in small settlements, forming mutual help relationships. Family vegetable gardens laced with brightly colored flowers are common in a community that remains largely agricultural. The rural preference surfaces among whites when attempts are made to move industry and business into the county. The Dudley Courier editor wrote in the early 1980s about [Page 26] the “development vs. anti-development split in the county” after a public hearing concerning the building of a paper mill. Admitting that jobs, industry, and a better tax base were needed in the county, the editor continued, “but we don’t want to surrender entirely our precious environment and rural style of living. Another natural resource that might go down the drain during the controversy is the cooperative and friendly relationship of this county’s citizens. . . .”

The opponents of the new paper mill were successful in blocking its establishment, furthering the tendency for lower-income Dudlians, particularly blacks, to migrate from the county. Simultaneously white urban commuters began to buy or rent nonfarm property and move into the county to escape high urban taxes and congestion. Dudley County’s leaders appear to have taken a stand against development as well. Although one of the oldest county governments in the state, Dudley County has gained the reputation among state development agencies as one of the least progressive.

Since pre-Civil War days, white landowners have controlled the political organs, the newspaper, and the law-enforcement agencies. Often laws and regulations are relaxed for kin and fellow church members in return for other favors. A white teacher recalled her prom date’s being stopped for reckless driving and issued a ticket by the sheriff, who instructed the young man, who was from another county, to leave the ticket and return in the morning to pay it. Instead, the boy took the ticket to the courthouse, paid the fifty-dollar fine, and then left town. The sheriff telephoned the young woman’s father to find out why the young man did not stop by as he had suggested, since the sheriff intended to tear the ticket up; the families had known one another all their lives.

Marijuana and opium patches abound in Dudley County because of the low-key, informal nature of the county government and of law enforcement, the unpaved country roads, and the sprawling acres of timber and agricultural lands. In 1980 the county was reported to have one of the heaviest drug traffics in the state. In February 1981 the Dudley Courier warned drug traffickers:

It is becoming dismayingly clear that someone in [this] county is heavily involved in the drug traffic. It is also clear that with the tremendous amounts of money to be made that it is a high stakes game, which could possibly become dangerous. This bodes ill for the whole community.

Widespread rumors said that the authorities themselves were involved in the drug ring. Many parents claimed that the county middle and high schools were major markets for drug sales.

Rightly or wrongly, legitimacy has been lent to the governing bodies of the community by the common religious heritage of the majority of county residents, both black and white. Over forty Protestant churches were counted in a recent census, providing a common moral framework for residents. Elementary teachers unanimously agreed that the church has a significant effect on the development of Dudley County children’s values and behavior. One teacher explained, “They don’t all go to the same church, but, in general, I think the community is very fundamentalist in nature. There are a lot of Pentecostals and predominantly Baptists, and the kids are talking about what goes on in church. . . . And I tell them what goes on in my church.” Because of these shared religious values teachers in Dudley County Elementary School enjoy a moral authority that few urban teachers experience.

While providing common moral values, church communities nonetheless reinforce the racial and class barriers that characterize the social structure of the county. Evidence of a castelike prejudice can be found in the newspaper, which features social columns submitted [Page 27] by representatives of both black and white church communities. While those submitted by whites are listed under the names of each church or settlement, reports submitted by representatives of the numerous black church communities are all grouped together under one title—“Black Community.” From the perspective of many white Dudlians the attribute of blackness dominates other distinguishing characteristics of black people, such as community of residence, family membership, church affiliation, achievements as individuals, or occupation.

Blacks have achieved a degree of cohesion, self-confidence, and progress since the Civil War through the formation of black churches. The records of older white churches in the county document the voluntary withdrawal of blacks from church membership following the Civil War. As members of their former masters’ churches, blacks were assigned standing room in the back of, or to the sides of, the church proper during the services. With the establishment of their own churches, blacks began to form their own hierarchies within the church community. In addition, their community life and common social values developed from the frequent and prolonged church activities in which young children learned to sing solos and recite speeches and poems before their elders and peers. Black men, displaced economically as freed men, achieved high status within the church and community as preachers, deacons, elders, evangelists, or gospel singers. Black leadership in the South grew out of this religious context.

Many incidents in the daily lives of Dudlians reveal the subtle operation of a caste structure that creates social and psychological pathology and perpetuates the myth of biological separateness. A high incidence of blacks jailed for minor or trumped-up offenses and the schools’ records of comparatively low achievement of black children and youth since the desegregation of schools in 1970 disturb black parents and increase feelings of suspicion toward whites. Many blacks believe police beat up blacks in jail, especially those who dare to speak up to a white man to defend their rights. One informant, a black woman with four sons and a husband who had been forced to leave the state after a minor encounter with his white employer at a service station, told of a black sixteen year old who had been jailed for trouble-making but reportedly hanged himself while in jail. The young woman said resentfully, “Every one knows that they [white authorities] beat the boy to death and said he hung hisself to cover up what they were doing.”

A white teacher in the county elementary school spoke about the resegregation of students in the early days of forced, U.S. Supreme Court-ordered desegregation:

When the school systems integrated, they made this into the elementary school and would have white children in one class and black children in another because—they could justify this—whites were smarter than black children because their emphasis had always been on the academics and the blacks’ had not. . . . Your predominantly low groups have been black children. They were when I came here. There hadn’t been a white face in what we call a low group. And your gifted children were all white. . . . The classrooms that I’ve taught here, the first year I had two black children in one class, and I had one black child in another class. I didn’t have a low group at that time. I had average classes. That was it—That was the extent of it.

During the desegregation process white parents worried about the lowering of academic standards and miscegenation, while black parents were anxious that their children might experience discrimination from white teachers and administrators. A common belief among black parents at that time was expressed by one father, “They’ve got a percentage set over there—at the elementary [Page 28] school—for how many blacks are allowed to make the grade.”

A deep-seated fear of miscegenation exists among many white Dudley Countians, who have managed through the years to ignore illegitimate interracial relationships resulting in “blacks” of all shades. To ensure the genetic purity of the white caste, children with any discernible Negro features have been traditionally assigned to the black caste. Whites speak of interracial relationships in hushed tones:

I know a number of names in the county. My husband works in the bank in Bradford, and he has a man who is classified as black (he’s no blacker than my husband) who brings repossessed cars back from Florida. And he’s the half-brother of a very prominent man in the county. So there’s plenty of it; there’s several people in the county who’re like that. (White teacher)

The federal and state governments have unwittingly lent support to the caste prejudice by categorizing blacks and whites on census surveys, job applications, and reports rather than by making use of a “mixed race” category. Children of mixed racial unions have often been denied recognition by their white parent and, consequently, are raised as members of the black caste. In reality, many white and black families in the South are genetically interrelated, often sharing names, personality traits, and physical characteristics of their common ancestor. Gayle Morrison relates in her biography of Louis G. Gregory how he attempted to make contact with his white kin, the Dargans of Darlington, South Carolina, but was met with cool indifference.

Assigning to the black caste whites who socialize with blacks, openly mate with them, or inherit black genes is what maintains a caste structure in Dudley County and other parts of the South. Whiteness is preserved by casting out both those who manifest genetic mixtures and those whose behavior threatens the caste ideology. Since normal social exchange between opposite sexes of the two races has been taboo, a common practice has been for members of the privileged caste to take illegitimate lovers, willing or otherwise, from the subordinate caste group. Usually white males seek black female lovers but do not consider them as marriage partners. Occasionally a white woman flaunts racial barriers and seeks a black lover, according to stories told by black informants about members of their own family. Black men and their kin who are involved in such relationships fear the retaliation of white men seeking revenge for contamination of their white women. As in the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, there is always the possibility that a white woman, out of fear for her reputation, will accuse a black man of rape.

As a result of the fears and prejudices, a peculiar pathology can be discerned in all human relationships in the county, particularly cross-racial ones. Individuals are often forced into one of several extremes, depending on their personalities and racial affiliations. Blacks may avoid, as much as possible, contact with whites so that they can preserve a measure of self-esteem and dignity; however, when in the company of whites, they maintain a formal aloofness as a defense measure. Others struggle with overwhelming feelings of self-hatred, often accompanied by secret feelings of white envy and a tendency toward what has been termed “Uncle Tom” behavior in the presence of whites.

Whites, however, may either accept the myth of white superiority and black inferiority or become what are despised by whites—“nigger lovers.” Much has been written, notably in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, about the strange psychology of a person who regards others as less [Page 29] than human; apparently such an attitude not only blights one’s character and personality but retards one’s intellectual and spiritual progress. Those described as nigger lovers in Dudley County often find themselves at first attracted to blacks because of the forbidden nature of such relationships. Later they become enamored of the genuine humanity they discover in their particular black friends but become the object of jeers and threats of fellow whites. Thus they are forced to choose between the two races. Often such people become confused and begin to entertain a form of white hatred, taking on the cultural expressions and appearance of their black counterparts as much as possible, and rejecting their own families and social circles.

Although the schools of Dudley County were forced to desegregate in 1970 and much progress has been made subsequently, schools are still an expression of a community’s values and ideals. Because the racial issue was viewed as a federal imposition disturbing the peaceful nature of rural life in Dudley County, the schools complied with federal and state regulations to desegregate but never adopted a goal of racial integration. A principal who tries to introduce innovations and improvements not approved by the community, especially in a rural area, will be soon dismissed from his or her job. Consequently, the principal hired to handle the special problems desegregation engendered several years after the event had occurred decided to change the focus from a racial one to an academic achievement goal. The school has gained a reputation in the ensuing years for raising the standards of achievement through many interesting innovations. However, in 1983, thirteen years after desegregation, white children still comprised 99 percent of the gifted classes and black children 98 percent of the special education classes. Viewed with approval by those benefiting from the current status quo, the school is reproducing the social order in which it exists.

As in many small rural communities the subtle logic of their symbiotic relationships compels Dudley County inhabitants to band together to defend the status quo when confronted by outsiders. Regardless of the inherent injustice of their social patterns, many find the predictability of such a lifestyle reassuring in the face of dramatic change occurring all around them and being reported in the media. Notwithstanding the undercurrent of frustration, fear, and violence, and so long as all know their places with respect to caste, class, religious denomination, and kin group, the rural and moral references of their daily lives bind Dudley Countians into a social framework with many shared understandings.

The Winds of Change

BEFORE change can become permanent, those affected must feel an inner yearning for progress and possess some vision of an ideal community. In addition, widespread recognition of the negative effects traditional patterns of thought and behavior impose on the community’s well-being and the lives of individuals can help to create a desire for change. Experience has shown that real, enduring changes must involve diverse members of the community in the process of goal setting, strategy development, and implementation. As has become evident during the process of modernization during the last century, not all change is for the betterment of all humanity; therefore, a universal standard is necessary to the kind of progress that uplifts and improves the entire human condition.

The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, provide the standard and principles for building a world civilization in which each community can creatively transform its unique patterns of conflict into new patterns of unity and cooperation. As Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings spread, they touch the hearts of those who not only possess a vision of a united community ruled by justice, righteousness, and love but also are prepared to make sacrifices to bring the new world into existence. Through these “waiting souls” an embryonic foundation is laid for a pattern of human relationships so new and attractive that it gradually draws most of the [Page 30] people into, or closer to, itself in belief and practice.

In Dudley County those most ripe for change have been those most oppressed by the traditional socioeconomic structure: lower-class blacks, young people, and blacks and whites suffering from the schizophrenic psychology of racial prejudice. Also dissatisfied and increasingly disillusioned have been those aware of the hypocrisy of church leaders who preach Christian brotherhood while supporting a caste structure. Some Dudley Countians, for example, have been led to believe by their clergy that blacks are descendants of the Biblical Cain, permanently marked for divine reproach by darkness of countenance.

The white upper-class landowners, employers relying on cheap labor, government leaders, law-enforcement personnel, many religious leaders, drug pushers, and businessmen (liquor, grocery, and feed-store owners) with predominantly poor, black clientele have all been slower to welcome change, as was demonstrated during the school desegregation controversy in the county. A special category of Dudlians who resist change are blacks fearing repercussions from white employers and leaders with whom they have learned to coexist on certain, unspoken terms.

A New Life Stirring. When an interracial Bahá’í teaching team began working in Dudley County in the fall of 1978, lower and middle-class black women and youth, as might be expected, were among the first to respond. A few older black men and a Jewish woman from Ohio, married to a mixed-race Dudley County farmer, also enrolled as Bahá’ís, joining the worldwide Bahá’í Faith committed to a new age of unity. Two spiritual assemblies were elected from among the new believers in Bradford and the unincorporated areas of the county. Interracial and multicultural teams of Bahá’ís from an adjacent county began weekly visits to assist in the development of the embryonic communities in Dudley County.

Through friendship, study of the Bahá’í teachings, visits to black and white churches, children’s classes, conferences and social gatherings, service projects, and newspaper articles and ads covering Bahá’í events and teachings Dudley County began to notice the presence of a new standard in its midst. Meanwhile, Dudley County Bahá’ís began to gain some experience in consultation and planning. For a people subjected for centuries to arbitrary authority, even in their own churches, the concept of consultation, in which everyone expresses his or her views before reaching a group decision, comes slowly. Learning to articulate feelings, beliefs, ideas, hopes, and needs in a mixed group, the Dudley County Bahá’ís gradually began to develop a new sense of dignity, mutual trust, and self-worth. Because of a large university in the adjacent county, with an unusual number of international students and faculty, opportunities became frequent for fellowship with Bahá’ís and their friends from diverse cultural backgrounds. A new concept of world citizenship began to emerge in the consciousness of people whose social worlds had included very few persons outside of kin and church groups within the county, but who now welcomed Thais, Filipinos, Iranians, Nigerians, and Asian Indians into their homes for the first time and heard new expressions of diversity.

A Source of Progress. As the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh spread throughout Dudley County, attracting the first white woman in 1978 and the attention of all, the spiritual assemblies began to grow in strength. Referred to by Bahá’u’lláh as local “houses of justice,” the spiritual assemblies are institutionalizing the new spiritual values into an administrative pattern. In speaking of this unique institution, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh and His appointed successor, indicated that it will have a profound effect on a community’s course of development:

These Spiritual Assemblies are shining lamps and heavenly gardens, from which the fragrances of holiness are diffused over all regions, and the lights of knowledge are shed abroad over all created things. From them the spirit of life streameth in every direction. They, indeed, are the potent [Page 31] sources of the progress of man, at all times and under all conditions.

Elected annually without discussion or canvassing of names, its very membership represents a grass-roots preference. The new standards for personal conduct require that the elected show forth, as much as possible, truthfulness, courtesy, kindness, trustworthiness, integrity, compassion, chastity, detachment, humility, steadfastness, love for all humanity, and willingness to serve others. Diverse membership is especially encouraged by giving preference to a minority person when a tie occurs during the election. Spiritual assemblies soon begin to look very unusual compared with other administrative organs in the community at large. Though both the Bradford and Dudley County spiritual assemblies are predominantly black, the vision and desire for unity of their members will eventually attract representatives from all backgrounds in the county to work together in building a foundation for world peace within the community.

Up to this point the description of Dudley County has been based on personal research and experience. The pattern of progress suggested can be predicted with some certitude on the basis of evidence from thousands of other spiritual assemblies growing through similar stages of development in every country and territory of the world—even in the jungle villages of Orang Asli in Malaysia. The movement is inevitably toward the amalgamation of diverse peoples, formerly separated by traditional divisions of race, language, religion, nationality, and culture. To guide and facilitate the interrelationship of the spiritual assemblies, a corresponding institution exists on the national level. Presiding over all the national spiritual assemblies of the world is the Universal House of Justice, comprised of nine men elected every five years from among Bahá’ís of the world community. The primary task of all of these divine institutions is to promote the oneness of humankind and establish the new standards of spiritual, social, and economic progress in the world.

Building a Model for Peaceful Social and Economic Development

BASED on what Dudley County, Georgia, has been and considering both its strengths and weaknesses, it is possible to construct a model for change in the community. While the changes described are hypothetical, they are based on actual possibilities and resources within the grasp of the community. The scenario opens with some members of the Dudley County Bahá’í community informally sharing concerns about their children’s school progress.

Tutorial Project. One afternoon some of the Dudley County Bahá’ís find themselves discussing their feelings about their children’s low achievement records in the county schools compared with those of white children. From their understanding of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh they are certain their children are just as capable of scholarship as others, but something is holding the children back. Perhaps black children are still victims of discrimination in the classrooms, however subtle. Because of discrimination and low academic achievement black youth have limited job opportunities in the summers and after graduation, if they make it that far. The resulting poverty, both economic and intellectual, instills a need to learn survival skills, some of which, in the long run, are unwholesome and unconducive to self-reliance and human dignity. Too many young boys and girls, lacking a vision of their own potential, roam the county without adult supervision, while their mothers raise the children of white families for a pittance. Consequently, teenaged unwed mothers and school dropouts abound among the poor of Dudley County, who draw upon government welfare programs. Under such circumstances the children grow up without the benefit of parental guidance and support.

After considerable discussion of the problem [Page 32] the Bahá’í parents bring their concerns and some possible solutions to the Dudley County Spiritual Assembly, for they have begun to feel that their children need to be tutored in basic language, math, and science skills during the summer. The Spiritual Assembly notes that since desegregation and consolidation most of the formerly black elementary schools have been abandoned. They decide to obtain permission from one of the churches that owned and operated a black elementary school in Stevens to rent it for a small sum. Inviting their Bahá’í friends from neighboring communities to help, Dudley County Bahá’ís put together their resources to purchase paint and refurbish the old Stevens School, which will serve as the Stevens Center and Tutorial School. The church minister is so happy with the new look the Bahá’ís have given to the old school that he changes his mind about charging rent. While they are working together to renovate the building, several Bahá’í university students volunteer to teach weekly Bahá’í children’s classes and to train some local Dudley County black high school students to tutor Bahá’í children in basic skills.

As news of the tutorial project spreads, stores, schools, and individuals begin to contribute materials and books. Non-Bahá’í children ask their parents if they can attend the tutorial program. To offset the costs of operating the Tutorial School parents are asked to contribute whatever they can toward their children’s instruction. Under the sponsorship of the Dudley County Spiritual Assembly the university students become directors of the program, which is now staffed by trained high school tutors and volunteer mothers. With money coming in, the Spiritual Assembly decides to give a small salary to the high school tutors; the two student directors remain volunteers. The training of the tutors is expanded to include study of work ethics, good character, self-esteem, principles of Bahá’í education, and the spirit of service. By August many youth are inquiring about the program at Stevens Tutorial School; some of these are white.

Toward the end of the summer the Spiritual Assembly consults with the parents of children in the program about the progress of the Stevens Tutorial School and about some concerns that have emerged from its operation. The parents are pleased with their children’s progress in academics, in self-esteem, in character, and in their attitudes toward people with backgrounds different from their own. But they are concerned that much of the improvement will be lost if the program is discontinued until the next summer. After several weeks of consideration parents offer to host a yard and bake sale at the Stevens School to raise more funds to pay a full-time director for the entire school year. In addition, they volunteer to transport the children to the Tutorial School after regular school hours. The parents also recommend Saturday Bahá’í children’s classes and related activities.

The Spiritual Assembly approves the plans and suggests that the children give a performance during the yard and bake sale to demonstrate what they are learning at Stevens Tutorial School. Both Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í parents work to prepare for the fund-raising event, which is supported by white and black Dudley Countians. The result is $7,000 and an article in the Dudley Courier accompanied by a photograph of Stevens Tutorial School staff and students. A few weeks after the event a Bradford bank offers a low-interest loan to support the tutorial project’s expansion. Though one of the university students volunteering to direct the tutorial program through the summer can no longer continue, the other, a young Nigerian Bahá’í majoring in education, accepts the offer to become a full-time director during the school year as an intern in educational administration. But the Stevens Tutorial School proves to be only the first element of change in Dudley County.

Dudley County Maid Service: A Women’s Project. One day at the Stevens Tutorial School a group of mothers talking about the progress of their children and the beauty of the Bahá’í teachings begin discussing their dissatisfaction with their own employment situations. Most of them are working as maids with low [Page 33] pay, inconvenient and arbitrary working hours, and feelings of humiliation and resentment toward their white employers. The idea of a maid service occurs to them. One of the Bahá’í women brings the idea to the next Nineteen Day Feast for consultation. Well received by others in the community, who make various suggestions and offers to help, the recommendation is discussed by the Dudley County Spiritual Assembly at its next meeting. The idea is approved, and someone is assigned to investigate the facts and devise a modest plan to begin. Finally, with more information in hand, the Spiritual Assembly decides to appoint a Women’s Committee, which assumes responsibility for advising, assisting, and monitoring the progress of the new project.

The women seek professional advice from a Small Business Administration service in the next county to learn about legal structure, start-up costs, and service-delivery pricing and scheduling. Offering to train a Dudley County Bahá’í in bookkeeping, a Persian Bahá’í woman studying business at the university contributes a modest sum as working capital in memory of her late husband, who was martyred in Iran. Advertising attracts the first customers in Dudley County after the office for the new service is established at Stevens Center.

Although the maid service begins as a sole proprietorship, the women draw up plans for incorporation, including a standard of work ethics drawn from the Bahá’í teachings; the standard is to be required study for all new employees. Clients, too, are expected to maintain their part of a work contract and to refrain from asking any employees to perform uncontracted work. Several lower-income white women apply for work in the maid service after hearing of its fair working conditions, standards, and wages. Weekly consultation sessions are held between employees and the assistant managers to identify concerns and problems as they arise. Upon the request of the Women’s Committee the Persian business woman acts as manager-proprietor until the women who founded the service become trained in bookkeeping and administration. They are the assistant managers for the time being and take turns in the office answering calls from potential employers.

Eventually both maid workers and clients find that the maid service lends new dignity to the work of housecleaning and liberates both employer and employee from the former slave-mistress relationship. Black and white professional women in both Dudley and a neighboring county begin to call on the maid service to allow themselves more time with their families when not working.

Shelter for the Homeless: Expanding the Bahá’í Center. Meanwhile the Bahá’í community has grown in numbers over a five-year period. Though the community remains predominantly black, the white percentage of Bahá’ís in Dudley County has increased to 10 percent; several interracial couples have moved in. Few Dudley Countians are unaware of the existence of the Bahá’í Faith and its major teaching—the oneness of humanity. Steps are being taken to incorporate the Dudley County Spiritual Assembly and acquire legal possession of the Stevens Center and ten additional acres. The black Baptist church owning the Center is willing to sell the land to the Bahá’ís at a small profit to enable them to repair their church building. A talented Bahá’í architect has offered a plan for building a Bahá’í Center, using local materials and labor to keep the costs down. The Center must accommodate the growing community of nearly fifty Bahá’í families now attending meetings [Page 34] and Feasts. The Stevens Center is to be renovated by the men in the community so that it can continue operating as an educational center and tutorial school. To accommodate occasional Bahá’í travelers and to provide temporary housing for a Cambodian refugee family whom the Assembly has decided to sponsor an extra cabin is added on the property. The Women’s Committee and Stevens Center Staff and students pitch in to help raise the necessary funds and to construct and renovate the buildings.

Baby-Sitting Service: Adolescent Girls’ Program. In addition to conducting children’s classes on Sunday afternoon during adult study classes, the Women’s Committee has initiated Saturday morning classes for young women on child care and development, marriage and family, and home management. Young adolescent girls are attracted to the classes because of the warm, accepting atmosphere and the feelings of hope and progress the classes engender. Moreover, girls who attend the classes find that they have better chances of being hired as baby-sitters. Several young women have begun talking of organizing a baby-sitting service on principles similar to those of the maid service at Stevens Bahá’í Center. Employees would be required to complete a six-week child care and development course at Stevens Center, while clients would have to agree to fair pay and working conditions. Eventually a day-care center might be established within the new Bahá’í Center so that Bahá’í working mothers could feel assured that their children were not only safe and secure but were learning the love of God, the oneness of humanity, world citizenship, and good character. The Dudley County Spiritual Assembly advises the women to begin with the baby-sitting service so that young school girls will have jobs when the summer comes; meanwhile, members of the Women’s Committee appoint several people to investigate the state and county regulations for daycare operations and to conduct a needs survey among the Bahá’í families to determine whether such a service would be supported by the Bahá’ís. After a report of the results to the Spiritual Assembly consultation can resume of that subject.

An Agricultural Project. Though fewer girls are seen strolling aimlessly about Dudley County after the baby-sitting service is initiated, many boys seem more idle than ever and prone to mischief. A concerned father brings his observations about the unemployed male youth and their low self-esteem to the Spiritual Assembly’s attention. At the next Nineteen Day Feast the Spiritual Assembly asks for volunteers to train boys for yardwork, farm chores, carpentry, and farm machine operation and maintenance. Two Bahá’í agronomy students from Nigeria and China, who share a trailer in Dudley County, offer to work with the boys on weekends. This project eventually leads to a small model agricultural experiment on the Stevens Center property. While helping the university students fill degree requirements, the project trains the local young men in character, ethics, and application of scientific knowledge to agriculture. Interested in the results of the new approach, some Dudley County farm laborers offer their help and experience. The young men decide to sell produce from their garden at a makeshift road stand. Eager to become more self-supporting, the Cambodian family living on the Stevens Bahá’í Center property begin working with the project and sharing some of their experiences as farmers in Cambodia.

An International Agricultural Development Model. Amazed by the degree of local participation the non-American Bahá’í agronomy students have been able to elicit, a university agricultural extension worker consults with them to consider applying for an applied research grant to test more extensively the innovations used during the project. As a result some of the boys involved in the project are offered scholarships by the agronomy department at the university upon receipt of their high-school diplomas.

Visiting agriculturalists from other countries are taken to the Stevens Bahá’í Center to see the project, meet the participants, and consider implications for their respective [Page 35] countries. Because the visitors are received so warmly by the Dudley County Bahá’ís, who remind them of villagers in their own countries, they invite the young men involved in the agricultural project to visit their countries and share skills, methods, and human-relations techniques. Later the projecteers receive formal invitations from the agricultural ministries of Nigeria and China, which offer to pay all the expenses. The success of the Stevens Center agricultural project eventually leads to a student exchange program between the agronomy departments of a Nigerian university and the university near Dudley County. The Stevens project is used as a training ground for the Dudley County agronomy students participating in the exchange.

Expansion of the Public School Curriculum. Meanwhile the schools of Dudley County have begun to work closely with Stevens Tutorial School since many Stevens students from the tutorial program have been scoring in the higher percentiles of nationally normed tests. Only five years after the tutorial program was initiated 55 percent of those in the gifted program at Dudley Elementary are black and mixed-race students. At all levels of the school system the social-studies curriculum more accurately depicts the reality of Dudley County’s history, as well as its relationship to the nation and the world. In a local-history class upper-elementary students search for connections between black, white, and Indian families over a two-hundred-year period. In world history classes in junior-high-school students spend a semester studying world cultures and civilizations, including migrations and cultural mixing of various populations through the ages. Then they trace the development of internationalism and the concept of world citizenship.

In high school social studies freshmen study world religions and philosophies to discover parallels in the evolution of moral standards, ethics, family relationships, and social structure. They learn to see all religions in a progressive sense and the rise and fall of civilizations as closely related to human receptivity to divine revelation. High-school sophomores study social problems through lectures, discussions, and actual research into local issues such as racism, economic inequality, religious strife, law enforcement, inequality of women and men, child abuse and parental neglect, juvenile delinquency, and unemployment. Consultation sessions are held every Friday to evaluate research findings and modify strategies for alleviating identified problems. During the summer students are required to participate in one of three social-issue projects in the community cosponsored by the school district and area-wide industries.

High-school juniors apply political-science concepts to the study of international law and the United Nations. Seniors examine various careers and occupations to evaluate their own abilities and interests within the framework of service to humanity and the interdependence of all human beings. Gradually, as a result of association of Bahá’í youth who plan a year of service upon completion of high school requirements, Dudley County schools begin to offer an optional one-year practicum to seniors; those qualified by conduct, grades, and interest can take their required social studies, math, literature, and science courses in the summer following their junior year and be placed in specially designed social-issues projects anywhere in the state, nation, or world where their abilities and characters match the needs of the project. Those students unable to pass their junior requirements will either repeat the failed courses or continue their studies during their senior year in a vocational program that includes apprenticeship with a local worker of reputable character and ability to train a young person on the job. All seniors are required to return to the high school for debriefing, evaluation, and graduation. Because of the innovative nature of the Dudley County school district’s curriculum the state and a federal agency have made available a special grant to fund some of the programs involved.

During the fifteen-year period since the Bahá’í teachings began spreading in Dudley County in 1978 many changes have occurred [Page 36] in every aspect of the community’s life—some directly due to Bahá’í intervention and others indirectly influenced by the example of Bahá’ís and their vision of a united, progressive community. New businesses, owned and operated by black and white Dudley Countians, have sprung up in the county. More interracial fellowship is apparent everywhere; even interracial marriages are becoming more common and are replacing the illicit relationships between the races described earlier. Where opposition from those attached to the status quo has occurred, the Bahá’ís have struggled to maintain a just, firm, and loving response through the guidance of their Spiritual Assembly, guided in turn by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.

Implications

AND SO, “swords of conflict” are gradually transformed into plowshares of spiritual, social, and economic change—from inherited patterns of conflict to innovations that unite and uplift the peoples of Dudley County. Human ingenuity is rechanneled from the maintenance of oppressive and unjust relationships to cooperative endeavors that enrich the quality of life both within and without the Bahá’í community. Instead of waiting for experts to define their problems and design projects to remedy them, the Bahá’ís of Dudley County began to consult among themselves to find ways to apply the new spiritual principles of their faith to the improvement of their lives. The Spiritual Assembly of Dudley County responded to the concerns raised by the Bahá’ís in their community and advised them on how to proceed with their venture. Spurred on by grass-roots initiative, enthusiasm, and participation, each project spawned another in the scenario. Yet the Spiritual Assembly guided each project and monitored its progress and integrity. While individuals benefited from each project’s success, both the Spiritual Assembly and Bahá’í community were strengthened in the process. The spiritual and positive nature of the activity involved spread to the wider community, awakening it from its complacent acceptance of the status quo and inspiring its agencies to make long-needed reforms in the educational system of the county.

While to the skeptical the Dudley County model may seem simplistic, the scenario is not intended to act as a comprehensive treatment of all the issues. Moreover, little attention has been paid here to the role of the individual’s spiritual response to the revitalizing revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Yet this factor is central to the growth of a Bahá’í community. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, emphasized the essential relationship between the spiritual and the practical. Just as worship divorced from social, humanitarian, educational, and scientific pursuits can have no lasting effects, however exalted in nature, any attempt to serve humanity will ultimately falter without a spiritual foundation.

The relationship between the spiritual and the practical implies that the Dudley County Bahá’í community must have a number of Bahá’ís strong enough in their love and understanding of the Bahá’í Faith to endure, without becoming disillusioned or recanting their Faith, all the hardships such change is bound to incur. In a small, rural community pressure and persecution will come from all sides; in some cases, even family members may join forces with religious leaders to discourage one’s embracing such a new and revolutionary religious movement, particularly as the implications for change become more apparent. To stand up and be counted as a Bahá’í openly requires the spirit of faith, courage, and sacrifice expressed by some aborigine Bahá’ís accosted by Malaysian Muslim officials several years ago and asked to recant their faith in Bahá’u’lláh or lose privileges as Malaysian citizens. Their reply was that the Faith is like a nail pounded so deeply into their hearts that no one could pull it out, not even themselves.

Anether premise of the scenario that bears explanation is that the Dudley County Bahá’í community qualifies as a “well-established community” within ten years of its introduction [Page 37] to the Bahá’í Faith. What characterizes a Bahá’í community sufficiently well-established to embark on the path of socioeconomic development?

The role of a functioning spiritual assembly in a community’s progress has been discussed, as well as the role of participation of local Bahá’ís in the Nineteen Day Feast and Bahá’í children’s classes. Though fund raising was depicted as a natural outcome of community spirit in the building of a center, nothing was said about the role of the Bahá’í Fund in the community’s development. Just as Christ pointed out to His followers that where a man’s heart is there will his treasure be also, so the support of the Bahá’í Fund by individual believers can be seen as a measure of their commitment to the laws, principles, and teachings of a new age and to the expansion and development of the worldwide Bahá’í community.

Also at the heart of all strong Bahá’í communities are programs for deepening believers in the verities of their Faith and preparing Bahá’í teachers. Without these two vital functions the spirit of faith born in the heart of every new believer would, sooner or later, wither and die. The Dudley County community was presumed to be well-established because these activities were at the core of its growth. While the model placed emphasis on classes on Bahá’í topics for children and youth, the adult Bahá’ís also gathered weekly for study classes on Bahá’í literature and topics relating the Bahá’í teachings to their daily lives.

Since every Bahá’í shares the obligation to teach the Bahá’í Faith to others, study classes can double as teacher-preparation classes. In Bahá’í communities where expansion has been painfully slow Dudley County’s rapid growth may seem implausible to some. However, it is a well-known fact that the Bahá’í Faith often finds a more immediate and enthusiastic response among those who have suffered the most and who are relatively uncorrupted by materialism and godlessness. Therefore, the greatest population of American Bahá’ís resides in the southeastern part of the United States and is predominantly black and of mixed race. As southern Bahá’í communities develop, whites and other ethnics are likely to be introduced and drawn into the widening circle of believers by black or mixed-race teachers. In contrast to the treatment meted out to southern blacks over the past two hundred years by many of their white counterparts the new relationships created by the Bahá’í teachings create feelings of love and forgiveness between the teacher and student, bonding all into one human race.

The Bahá’í concept of development should be viewed as a fundamental change in the ordering of human relations. More than ever before humans must learn to give of themselves unselfishly for the improvement of the whole, for, as the Universal House of Justice has written, “The oneness of mankind, which is at once the operating principle and ultimate goal of His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] Revelation, implies the achievement of a dynamic coherence between the spiritual and practical requirements of life on earth.” In this light social and economic development in well-established Bahá’í communities can become a building block for world peace—the peace Bahá’u’lláh envisaged when He wrote: “We cherish the hope that through the earnest endeavours of such as are the exponents of the power of God . . . the weapons of war throughout the world may be converted into instruments of reconstruction and that strife and conflict may be removed from the midst of men.”

[Page 38]

[Page 39]

Radio for Development

BY KURT HEIN

Copyright © 1987 by Kurt Hein. This article is based on research conducted in Ecuador between 1980 and 1983 and is adapted from a forthcoming case study, “Radio Bahá’í, Otavalo, Ecuador,” commissioned in 1984 by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation’s Project on Methods and Media in Community Participation. Opposite: Illustration by German Pavon for Radio Bahá’í poster.

Introduction

IN OCTOBER 1983 the Universal House of Justice, the supreme administrative authority of the Bahá’í Faith, issued a letter to the Bahá’ís of the world encouraging their increased involvement in social and economic development activities. The letter expressed the desire that community development work be the result of “natural stirrings at the grassroots” rather than “an imposition of plans and programs from the top.” The principles of self-sufficiency and self-reliance at the most basic levels of society are not new to the Bahá’í Faith; they are fundamental elements of Bahá’í social teachings and can be found throughout the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. However, their relevance has become more apparent in the last several decades because of the rapid growth of the Bahá’í community in Third World countries. The vast majority of the Bahá’ís in the world are rural people—most of them peasant farmers.

From the inception of the Bahá’í Faith in 1844 through the end of its first century the Bahá’ís have concentrated primarily on spreading the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith and on increasing the number of its adherents. Success in these objectives has led to the need for Bahá’ís to approach more systematically the development of social institutions that can meet their spiritual, intellectual, and physical needs and those of the communities in which they reside.

An examination of Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador documents a response of the Bahá’ís of Ecuador to challenges resulting from a rapid and widespread expansion of the Bahá’í Faith among rural indigenous peasants in that country. It shows how Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador, a community radio station, developed and evolved in response to the needs of Bahá’ís and their neighbors in the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys; how the station applied Bahá’í principles to its management policies, programming, training, and research; how the station became popular by fostering and modeling community participation as it serves the people of the region; and how the station’s unique features have evolved into a model that is now being replicated by Bahá’ís and others in several countries around the world.

Origins

OTAVALO is located on the Pan American highway about two hours north of Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. A town of approximately twelve thousand inhabitants, Otavalo is the center of commerce for the Otavaleños, the Quichua-speaking indigenous people who live in numerous small villages scattered throughout the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys. Agriculture is their principal activity; most of them work their own small plots of land to raise subsistence crops of maize, potatoes and other tubers, wheat, barley, and [Page 40] guinua, a protein-rich local grain. Livestock ownership is usually limited to two oxen for plowing and a few sheep and goats. Most of the landholdings of the Otavaleños are on mountainsides or in high, remote valleys that are not served by roads or electricity and have limited access to water. There is little irrigation; farmers rely almost entirely on rainfall. While the high altitude protects the Otavaleños from most tropical diseases, the lack of potable water and the cold climate contribute to high morbidity and mortality rates. Tuberculosis and intestinal parasites are quite common.

Although oil was discovered in Ecuador in 1972, most of the resulting capital was invested in large-scale industrial development. The lives of the indigenous Ecuadorians, who comprise roughly 50 percent of the population, generally have been unaffected by the increased prosperity. For the Indians the most common impact of Ecuador’s economic growth in the last decade has been the migration of peasants to the cities in search of jobs in industry. As in many other Third World countries this movement has had the doubly negative result of taking farmers away from their fields and communities and putting them into isolating, economically depressed city slums, which in addition to economic hardships, has contributed to the erosion of the Indians’ traditional culture and, at the same time, excluded them from the mainstream of urban life.

Approximately ten thousand indigenous people in the region are members of the Bahá’í Faith; they comprise the majority of the Bahá’ís of Ecuador. In the early 1970s the primary concern of the Bahá’í community of Ecuador was finding ways to develop the local communities and to improve the quality of life for Bahá’ís living in rural areas, for it was proving very difficult to provide direct assistance to Bahá’ís in remote villages such as those in the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys.

Raul Pavon, a resident of Otavalo and a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Ecuador—the governing body for the Bahá’ís in that country—recognized that radio was perhaps the best medium for reaching the large, diverse, and largely illiterate population. Mr. Pavon leased a small commercial station in Otavalo and staffed it with three Bahá’ís—two North Americans and one Otavaleño. As neither Mr. Pavon nor any of the staff had any previous broadcast experience, the experiment lasted only a few months. However, encouraged by the villagers’ positive response to their attempt, the group began producing half-hour Bahá’í radio programs for broadcast on several commercial stations throughout Ecuador; air time for these programs was purchased by the Bahá’ís.

The Bahá’ís in Otavalo maintained the hope that one day a Bahá’í-owned radio station could provide regular programming to assist development of Bahá’í communities and administrative institutions in the villages. Organizers also hoped that the station could provide programming for Bahá’í women’s groups, children’s classes, holy day observances, and other community events. Until then such activities were primarily dependent upon visits to the villages by Bahá’í teachers. But those visits were a difficult and time-consuming service that could not be extended to every Bahá’í community.

Although the Otavalo region is served by over thirty radio stations, none of them focused on the indigenous audience. Few stations played indigenous music, and then only occasionally, and no stations were using Quichua regularly for their broadcasts. Most of the radio stations that could be received in the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys were commercial stations, and commercial broadcasters did not regard the indigenous people as an economically significant audience. Up through [Page 41] the late 1970s the only programs directed at the indigenous people were religious programs from the large Christian evangelical station in Quito.

The erosion of the traditional indigenous culture, the campesinos’ (peasants’) limited awareness of and access to social services and information, and the limited communications facilities available to them were obviously contributing to their marginality, impoverishment, and powerlessness. Given the Bahá’ís’ own limited resources, they felt that the best service they could offer would be to establish a radio station dedicated to serving the spiritual, administrative, social, and economic development of the indigenous population.

Assured of the numerous potential advantages of radio in the service of the indigenous communities, the Bahá’ís of Ecuador in 1974 decided to approach the government for a license. Their efforts culminated in 1977 when a license was awarded and Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador went on the air.

The radio station began modestly, in part because of its innovative and experimental nature, but with the hope and intention that it would develop into a thriving, vital, permanent community institution. The project was designed to be modest, both to be economical (the annual budget averages about U.S. $40,000) and to keep it accessible and manageable. The station broadcasts to a population of approximately 300,000 over a 1kw medium-wave transmitter that reaches approximately fifty miles, an area encompassing all of the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys.

Objectives

THE PRIMARY objectives of Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador were established through consultation between the Bahá’ís in the Otavalo region and the National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador.

The station is licensed as an educational, cultural, and religious institution. Its aims include:

— providing universal education for the general population;

— assisting in the development and instruction of the Bahá’í communities in the region;

— promoting the development of human potential;

— promoting the unification of humankind into “one universal family”; and

— helping raise the listeners’ standard of living without destroying their values.

General objectives stemming from the overall principle of serving the indigenous population include:

— enhancing the self-respect of the listeners, especially through the preservation of their heritage, the promotion and maintenance of traditional history, cultural values, the Quichua language, indigenous music, dress, arts, and crafts;

— disseminating information conducive to the maintenance and strengthening of communities, especially promoting the family and the interdependence and cooperation of community members;

— creating programs that provide appropriate, relevant, and useful information on such topics as health and agriculture;

— broadcasting local news and supporting civic events;

— promoting the role of women in the community; and

— promoting the participation of indigenous people in station operations.

Objectives specifically intended for the Bahá’í audience include:

— increasing the Otavaleño Bahá’ís’ knowledge of the history and teachings of the Bahá’í Faith;

— promoting the development of Bahá’í communities, especially by electing local administrative bodies and by promoting the use of “consultation” in group decision making;

— providing regular classes for children; and

— promoting the role of women in the Bahá’í community.

After establishing aims and objectives the National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador recruited [Page 42] individuals from the region to assist in developing the station. Those recruited included campesinos, city dwellers, and a few foreign Bahá’ís (most from North America) who worked in the area. From among these individuals the National Spiritual Assembly appointed a Radio Commission and provided it with the basic guidelines under which Radio Bahá’í was to operate. The Commission was given the responsibility for developing the design, setting the operational guidelines, managing the personnel, and initiating the programming of the station.

The basic principles underlying the station were, and continue to be, enthusiastically supported by the staff, the audience, civic leaders, and government authorities. While the objectives have remained constant since the station’s inception, administrative procedures and programs have undergone several changes due to the experience gained on the job and to the staff’s continually growing awareness of the needs and interests of the audience.

Community Participation

STAFFING. The station was established in part to promote self-determination and self-reliance among the villagers. These concepts, because they represent fundamental principles of Bahá’í social teachings and of Bahá’í community life, were wholeheartedly supported by the station sponsors. Hence, the Bahá’ís of the region were the first people approached to participate in the station’s operations. They were the first individuals to promote the station, and they were an accessible and willing group from which local participants initially could be drawn. From the outset Bahá’ís, their friends, and their neighbors understood that they were welcome and were encouraged to participate in the operations of the station.

Well over two hundred individuals (and, in all likelihood, many more) worked at the station during its first three years in administrative, programming, production, technical, and support functions. Contributors included young children, elderly farmers, professional broadcasters, secondary school students, artisans, illiterate peasant women, Bahá’ís, Protestants, Catholics, and agnostics. More than half of them were campesinos. They have performed tasks ranging from putting a straw roof on the meeting hall to producing day-long, live broadcasts of major music festivals. (Perhaps it should be noted that, at Radio Bahá’í, “community participation” has meant that Ph.D.’s have helped with the roofing and elderly women have helped produce programs, and vice versa.)

Most of the regular staff at Radio Bahá’í have been campesinos from villages and “white” male youth from the town of Otavalo. Both groups are normally excluded from participating in existing social and cultural institutions in the town. Most of the campesinos who have worked at the station are Bahá’ís, a fact that suggests their willingness to participate is probably motivated by their trust in and knowledge of the nature of the station, their desire to serve a Bahá’í institution, and their desire to serve their fellow campesinos. In contrast, the city youth, who were not Bahá’ís when they first volunteered, were probably motivated by the appeal of working at a radio station rather than by an opportunity to serve campesinos. At the outset the staff was handpicked and recruited by the Bahá’í community of Ecuador and included several foreigners. After the first few years the staff consisted entirely of people who came from the local region.

Management and Administration. Because Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador was the first Bahá’í institution of its kind in the world, the station is carefully monitored by the administrative agencies of the Bahá’í Faith. Major policy decisions taken by the Radio Commission are subject to the approval of the National [Page 43]

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Studio and offices of Radio Bahá’í in Otavalo, Ecuador.

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Staff member of Radio Bahá’í at a production console.

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[Page 44] Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador—approval given through correspondence, technical advisors, and broadcast professionals who have volunteered their services. Advisors— Bahá’ís from North and South America and the Caribbean—have included a broadcast engineer who designed the transmission system and who provides regular technical assistance, and professional broadcasters who have provided expertise in areas such as administration, participatory programming, nonformal education, evaluation, and production. The consultants, in collaboration with the National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador and with volunteers, have helped the station to fulfill its mandate as a participatory service to the indigenous community by training staff, consulting with the Commission, conducting research projects, and working as volunteer staff members for periods of between one month and two years.

At the time the study of Radio Bahá’í was conducted, membership of the Commission for Radio Bahá’í, which is charged with managing the station, reflected the station’s commitment to its objectives. The Executive Director, who manages day-to-day operations, was a twenty-four-year-old native of Otavalo; he originally came to the station as a seventeen-year-old volunteer. Another member, who supervised the participation of the indigenous staff and volunteers, was a thirty-seven-year-old woman from a remote village. Like most rural women in the region, she was illiterate and had received no formal schooling. After joining the staff, she became the most popular and prominent campesina in the region and served as the Mistress of Ceremonies for the two largest cultural festivals of the region—the first woman, and one of a few Indians, ever to do so. The third Commission member, one of the few foreigners in the region totally fluent in both Spanish and Quichua, was a Canadian who previously worked at the station as the head of agricultural programming for a project jointly funded by the Bahá’ís of Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency.

The Commission meets weekly to review programming and personnel issues. The policies the Commission establishes are implemented by the Executive Director, who holds weekly meetings with the entire staff of the station. At these meetings the station’s operations are reviewed and recommendations are made to the Commission. Following explicit Bahá’í principles of group decision-making, or consultation, every member of the staff, including volunteers, is encouraged to offer ideas and suggestions for improving the station. The meetings have generated a number of diverse activities, ranging from painting the buildings to holding music festivals in remote villages.

Community Organization and Leadership. Radio Bahá’í serves community organization through programming that encourages participation by all community members, especially women, and by teaching the principles of consultation as a method for community decision making. The main audience for such programming is the Bahá’í communities in the region. The National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador and the Commission for Radio Bahá’í feel that consultative skills, once developed and strengthened in the existing Bahá’í communities, can then be introduced into the community at large. Programming also seeks to discover and train community leaders by helping community members to develop in themselves—and recognize in others—such leadership skills as a well-trained mind, organizational ability, mature experience, and loyalty and devotion to the values of the community.

Radio Bahá’í deliberately avoids involvement in partisan political issues because it regards such activity as antithetical to the promotion of unity, cooperation, and consensus in the community. This posture has led to the emergence of community leaders who might not otherwise have been discovered. For example, the two native members of the Radio Commission (an urban youth who had not completed high school and an illiterate peasant woman) became respected, prominent members of the Otavalo community, whose [Page 45] leadership consists primarily of older, established, educated, urban, white males.

Community Relations. No aspect of Radio Bahá’í’s operations receives more attention than assuring that the staff be wholly involved in the lives of the audience. This involvement includes the continuous, though difficult, recruitment of audience members to work at the station. It also includes regular contact with the audience in their own environment. The station requires that all staff members be in the campo (countryside) at least once a week, primarily by producing participatory radio programming. Many of the informational programs require the inclusion of the voices of the campesinos; hence production teams visit villages regularly to interview and record the people concerning rural farming techniques, community problems, women’s activities, oral traditions, and so on. In addition, a number of campesinos have their own radio programs. Either they travel to the station to record the program or, in the case of older individuals, a production team travels to their village to record them.

A major festival of indigenous music and a festival for children hosted each year by Radio Bahá’í provides another means by which excellent community relations are fostered. Each of these events includes elimination rounds in the villages in which groups from a region compete to appear in the finale. Because the festivals require extensive preparation and coordination, staff members spend a great deal of time out in the campo meeting with teachers, students, local officials, community leaders, musicians, and others.

Important communication between the station and its audience also occurs in the reception offices of the station, where more than two thousand people a year come to leave announcements for the local news program. Many come from remote villages and are unaccustomed to approaching urban offices in person. In addition, they often speak only Quichua and are humble and self-effacing. Regular training sessions with the nonindigenous staff ensure that they know how to greet and treat the visitors from the villages appropriately. Groups of campesinos often spend several hours on the property, resting after their long trip to the station and enjoying the gardens.

Programming. Although some programs are designed to serve specific groups of people, the station attempts to serve as wide a spectrum of the indigenous population as possible. Even the religious programs, while primarily intended to assist in the growth and development of the local Bahá’í communities, are designed to promote the spiritual, moral, and social development of the entire community.

While Radio Bahá’í broadcasts are devoted principally to indigenous music and to Quichua programming, listening patterns of city dwellers and campesinos are substantially different. The campesinos listen almost exclusively during the early morning and late afternoon hours; city dwellers tend to listen during the day and in the evening. While the station is most popular with the indigenous audience, which feels Radio Bahá’í is “its” station, it is also very popular in the city. Therefore, conscious attempts have been made to provide programs for the city audience during midday (the station comes on the air at 4:00 a.m. and goes off the air at 7:00 p.m.).

The staff regularly attempts to develop programs that will serve both campesinos and city-dwelling listeners, most commonly by providing local news and information programs. Radio Bahá’í broadcasts a daily community news program that includes announcements of lost children; lost livestock and identity papers; births, marriages, and deaths; meetings and community events. A sample survey of two hundred communicados (announcements)—from both individuals and institutions—found that they had come from [Page 46] seventy-five different communities in the region. Institutional messages have been broadcast from the Civil Registry; the Artisans’ Association; the Chauffeurs’ Association; the Adult Literacy Campaign; the Social Security Institute; the Ministries of Public Health, Transit, Public Works, Defense, and Agriculture; primary and secondary schools; the Catholic University; sports associations (including football, bullfighting, and bicycling); social groups; churches; hospitals; and so on.

The station also broadcasts many other service programs. For example, one day two veterinarians from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, who were concerned about an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease, came to the station to inform the staff that during the previous month only seven animals had been vaccinated. They asked Radio Bahá’í to produce spots in Quichua announcing the availability of free vaccinations. Two weeks after the station started airing the spots, the veterinarians reported that more than 250 farmers had brought livestock to their clinic.

Radio Bahá’í also produces regular programs on agricultural and health issues relevant to the campesinos. These programs are effective for two reasons. First, the audience’s needs and desires are assessed; then programming is developed to address those expressed needs. This method contrasts dramatically with that of ministries in the capital, which often devise a project and then implement it in villages without sufficient regard for the needs and desires of the villagers. Second, the programming of Radio Bahá’í uses the voices of the villagers not only so they can hear themselves but so they can be heard by civil servants.

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Competitors in annual indigenous music festival hosted by Radio Bahá’í.

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In one programming method Radio Bahá’í records in a village a program, such as a discussion among farmers about their problems with crop pests. An indigenous producer then takes the tape to the Otavalo offices of the Ministry of Agriculture or to the local agricultural school and interviews experts. The experts discuss the problems raised by the farmers and offer their advice, which is immediately [Page 47] translated into Quichua. A program such as this is popular with the farmers because they realize that their concerns are being taken seriously and because they receive direct, comprehensible advice in their own language. In addition, the exchange offers service agencies an unprecedented entree to the villages. People from government ministries and civic agencies have become frequent visitors to the station because they recognize that messages broadcast on Radio Bahá’í reach a broad audience and are held in high esteem by the campesinos.

Training. Training at Radio Bahá’í is usually conducted on the job. Visiting consultants offer short courses in script writing, evaluation methods, and other broadcasting skills, but most of the current staff learned through direct involvement with the station’s activities. A number of indigenous women, for example, produce their own programming, although none had radio experience before coming to the station. In fact, only one of the women had received any formal schooling. Nonetheless, they were teamed with other staff members and served apprenticeships until they felt comfortable operating the equipment on their own. Now they, in turn, are teaching other people to operate the equipment.

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Radio Bahá’í staff members visiting a family in the campesino.

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Radio Bahá’í decided before it went on the air to emphasize broadcasting in Quichua and to avoid using professional-sounding announcers. Organizers felt that typical Western announcing styles—slick, fast-paced, urbane, witty, frenetic, polished—were unsuited to the target audience. Instead, Radio Bahá’í selected announcers who were themselves rural campesinos. The staff taught them how to address a microphone, how to be articulate, and how to be clear but also told them to use their own delivery style with pacing, inflections, intonations, and idioms natural to them. This “sound” of Radio Bahá’í is frequently cited as a main source of attraction for the rural listener. Subsequently, the indigenous announcers have initiated classes in Quichua at the station, for they recognize that [Page 48] they have become models for their audience, and they want to improve their command of their own language.

Participatory Research. While the basic objectives and operating principles of Radio Bahá’í are drawn directly from the universal social, spiritual, and moral teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, their practical application is dependent upon a thorough knowledge of the local community in which the station is based. This knowledge is derived from two principal sources: the staff and the audience.

Indigenous staff members serve as invaluable advisors. They orient nonindigenous staff to local culture and provide insights into rural customs and traditions. They help staff members behave appropriately in the campo, and they help establish the rapport necessary for gaining access to the community and to individual homes. They assist in conducting interviews and making tape recordings, not only through their knowledge of Quichua but also by helping put their fellow campesinos at ease. Because of the popularity of the station and the pleasure derived from meeting the indigenous staff, the rural people are especially pleased when they receive visits from Radio Bahá’í staff.

All staff members regularly participate in surveys of the campesino audience. To determine listener needs the staff interviews approximately 150 rural villagers. The content of these surveys is determined in three steps. First, a consultant meets with the Radio Commission to determine the general focus of the research. That expert then works with staff members to draft an appropriate questionnaire, paying particular attention to guidance offered by indigenous members of the staff. Finally, the staff pretests the survey in a few villages. After the draft questionnaire is approved, the staff receives training in how to administer it. Each person usually participates in about ten such interviews, which are conducted in selected villages over several consecutive days. The staff have found the villagers to be extremely receptive, primarily because they appreciate the station’s commitment to Indian culture. Information from the surveys—about the nature, extent, and interests of the audience—is used to guide station programming and operations.

Radio Bahá’í staff also participate in informal, “formative” evaluations as a way of improving programs. When a producer is developing a new program, part of the process usually includes taking sample tapes out to a village and playing them for a group of people. By producing in the field and by interacting with the audience, staff members receive regular feedback about what the listeners consider appropriate and comprehensible content, about the popularity and effectiveness of the programs, and about other topics of interest to the listeners.

Self-Reliance. Radio Bahá’í is structured to identify and use the strengths of the indigenous communities. The station’s assumptions about its audience include the following:

— Preserving and strengthening indigenous cultures is vital to the life of a nation.

— An indigenous community’s greatest resource is its people.

— The most effective development is that which evolves out of the community and is based upon the capacities and self-reliance of the members of the community.

— While technical expertise, literacy, and material resources are invaluable, unity and cooperation among community members are the essential prerequisites to community development.

— Indigenous communities understand the nature of their problems, are able to articulate them and give them priorities, and are eager to resolve them.

— All of the elements essential to effective decision making already exist or are latent within indigenous communities, including leadership capacities, analytical skills, motivation, creative thinking, and problem-solving abilities.

Radio Bahá’í regards its primary function as assisting in the release of the potential within indigenous communities and individuals. [Page 49] It attempts to do so by maintaining and strengthening indigenous culture, by promoting individual dignity and self-reliance, by strengthening the local community as the primary agent of development, and by disseminating information in support of these functions.

A significant factor in Radio Bahá’í’s success has been the high level of trust that the station has engendered in the audience. This trust has been established through the station’s obvious commitment to the campesinos, as demonstrated by the extensive use of Quichua, traditional music, indigenous announcers, visits to the campo, and programming based on audience needs and preferences.

Constraints. Any limitations in participation in Radio Bahá’í seem to be caused by pervasive cultural and economic barriers rather than by limitations of the radio station itself. For example, historical economic and social discrimination against campesinos, which has created ignorance, fear, and suspicion of modern institutions among them, is probably the strongest contributing factor in whatever reluctance to participate they show. Certainly their lack of education, to cite one product of such discrimination, contributes to their inability to seize new opportunities, such as the chance to work at a radio station.

At least two additional conditions may inhibit participation at Radio Bahá’í. First, a radio station is technically “mysterious” to the majority of the audience (all over the world). Radio is, by nature, a “vertical” medium, controlled by a small number of people “at the top” while directed to large masses “at the bottom.” As a result it tends to remain a remote institution, neither easily understood nor easily accessible. Second, full participation requires substantial expenditures of energy and time. Because the economic resources of the station are extremely limited, serving at the station requires an exceptionally high level of motivation because a staff member must be willing to make sacrifices. Given the constraints they face at home, sacrificial service of this nature is not something that the campesinos can easily offer.

Because the station is sponsored by a religious body, the Frequencies Office (the radio licensing body) was concerned that Radio Bahá’í might be intended as a tool for evangelizing and proselytizing. The Office did nor want the station used for political propagandizing either, as had happened with another station sponsored by a religious organization. When the Bahá’ís explained that both proselytizing and involvement in partisan politics are expressly forbidden in the Bahá’í Faith and that the primary purpose of the station was to promote the social and economic wellbeing of the entire indigenous population of the region, the proposal was accepted. Since its approval, there has been no overt political opposition to the station; regional authorities have been supportive and have, themselves, participated in programming.

There has been marginal opposition from a small number of clergy in the region, who have warned their parishioners against participating in a station owned by what they regard as a “heretical” (that is, non-Christian) faith; but that opposition has not inhibited participation by most campesinos.

Conclusions

CLEARLY a radio station cannot provide all the elements necessary to achieve true community participation. It can, however, nurture that participation. The station is primarily an educational tool that can be used to promote self-awareness, self-reliance, and interdependence within the community it serves. As an agency of community participation, Radio Bahá’í incorporates principles of participation into its administration, staffing, programming, and production. As an agency for participation, Radio Bahá’í programming shares, maintains, and encourages the values of the community. Some programs promote the development of community-based institutions that encourage and provide for participation by all community members, while others convey information enabling members to participate in decisions affecting their lives.

One of the positive results of Radio Bahá’í’s [Page 50] efforts has been the degree to which the station has been accepted by the people of the Otavalo region. In a radio market shared by over thirty stations, Radio Bahá’í has achieved a 94 percent listenership. Even more remarkable is the fact that the station appeals to men and women, youth and elders, city and rural residents, farmers and civil authorities. That other stations in the region now imitate Radio Bahá’í is further evidence of its popularity.

Although the licensee, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Ecuador, was completely committed to the station and was convinced of its likelihood of success, no one knew at the outset if the station could succeed or if it could serve as a replicable model. As with any innovation the station has undergone diverse trials and errors during its early years. Certainly, it could have benefited from more financial support—although, following Peace Corps logic, it could be argued that the economic stringencies have served as one way to ensure that those working at the station are truly committed to its objectives. Nonetheless, commitment to the station’s purpose and participatory administration has enabled management and staff to resolve, or endure, problems encountered so far.

Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador has inspired the Bahá’í communities of Peru, Bolivia, the United States, Panama, Liberia, and Chile to initiate similar projects during the past five years. Radio stations based on the Otavalo model are being developed or seriously considered by Bahá’í communities in several other countries as well. In addition, aspects of the model are being adapted to government-run community stations in several countries around the world.

The popularity achieved by the newer Bahá’í radio stations has demonstrated that the model can be adapted to other locales. However, it should be noted that each of the stations developed to date has been placed in an area where there is an existing network of local Bahá’í communities. In addition, the stations are located in countries where nongovernmental organizations can own and operate broadcast facilities. In addition, the political climates of the countries where the stations are located are receptive to the type of station operated by the (nonpartisan) Bahá’í communities.

Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador is significant because it demonstrates a process by which problems of rural development can be addressed by rural people themselves. It would appear that the success of Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador is due primarily to its two unique resources. First is the broadly based and clearly articulated set of universal social, spiritual, economic, and administrative principles found in the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. These principles, such as the oneness of mankind, elimination of prejudice, equality of men and women, and universal participation are the basis of the approach used by the Bahá’í community in founding and operating the station.

The station’s second unique resource is the individuals who, motivated by the spiritual potency of the Bahá’í teachings and inspired by the vision they contain, have arisen—sacrificially and without prejudice—to serve their native or adopted community, the valleys of Otavalo and Cayambe. It is chiefly their attempt to apply Bahá’í spiritual principles, to conduct themselves according to high standards of rectitude, and to practice Bahá’í consultation that has made Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador a model worthy of replication.

Opposite: Antenna of Radio Bahá’í that reaches the Otavalo and Cayambe valleys of Ecuador.

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[Page 53]

World Education in Quest
of a Paradigm

BY S. PATTABI RAMAN

Copyright © 1987 by S. Pattabi Raman. This essay is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Daniel C. Jordan, Dean of the School of Education at National University, San Diego, California.

Introduction

THE MOST common battle cry of reform movements in education throughout history has centered around the irrelevance of educational goals and practices to the needs and exigencies of the day. Never before has the cry been more desperate and heartrending than it is today.

Humankind stands poised with a feeling of impotent perplexity at the “Great Divide” where it can make a conscious choice to turn in the right direction and enter a new world of justice, peace, and tranquillity or to continue downward along the old way of injustice, war, and turmoil, a course that leads inescapably to the extinction of the human race.

Two generations ago H. G. Wells, acutely conscious of the potentially calamitous fissures in our culture, wrote that humanity was engaged in a race between education and catastrophe. The race was almost lost in the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But in the aftermath of that nuclear holocaust the idea took shape in the minds of some farsighted persons that it would be possible to prevent a repetition of a similar catastrophe by working together for the emergence of a new and universal fraternity of humankind through education. This was to be achieved by acting on men and women themselves, the cause of the catastrophe, by appealing to what is most noble in them.

As an embodiment of the idea of using educational, scientific, and cultural instruments for humanitarian ends on an international scale, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) took shape in 1946 under the auspices of the United Nations. It was the first attempt to create a public institution in which ideas, rather than individual or political power, were to be the acknowledged instruments for achieving the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind. With a clear mandate to revamp education and educate the human race for a world community, UNESCO, with its specialized agencies and committees and all the financial and intellectual resources it could muster, began its work under its first director general, Julian Huxley, who brought to the task his great intellectual and cultural prestige, his energy, and his humor. This unprecedentedly gigantic international undertaking in educational planning and reform created a new awareness, triggered a spectacular educational explosion, and ushered in a highly dynamic decade for education [Page 54] all over the world. Long-muted human rights came to be openly declared and vigorously pursued, including the right to education. Education became accepted by economic policymakers not merely as a desirable social service but as an essential component of national development. UNESCO declared educational planning one of its top priorities, established regional and international training and research centers, and supplied educational planning experts to more than eighty countries. What, then, have been the results of the unprecedented educational experiment—both in the world at large and in the United States? And what are the implications and prospects for the future?

World Crisis in Education

DESPITE the initial spectacular educational expansion fostered by the UNESCO projects, there were many disappointments worldwide. A 1970 survey by UNESCO itself of problems and prospects in educational planning reports:

There was as it remains today, a great gap between words and deeds—between policies proclaimed by ministers attending conferences and the actions taken in their countries, between methodologies prepared by theoreticians and their application in the actual planning process. The many educational planning units often remained understaffed without effective links—isolated from the main stream of educational decision making. Meanwhile, in the absence of overall integrated planning, basic educational priorities vacillated—jumping from primary education at first to vocational training, teacher training, secondary general education, higher education and finally to adult literacy training. The inevitable result was the emergence of wasteful imbalances both within the education system and its environment. (emphasis mine)

Recognizing the inadequacies of earlier piecemeal, short-range, and unintegrated educational planning, many countries, the UNESCO survey reported, had begun to write new prescriptions demanding, among other things, that educational planning should have “a comprehensive coverage, embracing all levels and parts of the educational system in a single view including qualitative and quantitative aspects.” For if one sought dispassionately for reasons why education was not more successfully planned and implemented to meet the immediate and future needs of the world’s peoples, the explanation could be found in a combination of external and internal constraints of the planning operation. It had become evident to the UNESCO planners that

without a clear idea of its objectives, an educational system is as a ship at sea with no destination; it cannot plan its course and can end up simply turning circles. A nation’s educational objectives, reflecting society’s idea of its own future, must be decided by the society as a whole and its chosen leaders. The idea of the future should embrace basic human values, ethical, cultural and aesthetic, and also the various roles the individual will be required [Page 55] to play in society, as a citizen, worker and member of a family. In translating these overall goals into educational objectives those responsible for educational planning can help by insisting that there be reasonable consistency and an order of priority among various objectives, since not all of them can be pursued at full speed simultaneously. They must make sure that the definition of objectives and their priority rating is understood as a continuing process that should be periodically reviewed.

Education in the United States

UNESCO’S evaluation of its own efforts to meet the educational needs of a global community underscores the disparity between expectation and achievement in the international sphere. In the United States one can see the same disparity and the same lack of objectives as education passes from crisis to disaster in its quest for relevance. “Until now,” remarks Paul Copperman, a noted analyst, “each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents.”

Indeed, few undertakings in contemporary American life have provoked such continuing controversy as education and its institutional operations. A plethora of articles, countless speeches and books, and numerous conference reports lament, with endless variations, the built-in inertia of the educational system that insulates it from change and self-renewal. The tone of this lament is reflected in the following analysis:

At every level of the education professions the pressure is felt and the complaints registered. Jacques Barzun documents how “drudgery, discipline, and conformity” constitute the basic syndrome of traditional education. George Leonard condenses a complex diagnosis into one simple statement: “The ecstasy has gone out of education.” Paul Goodman, in Compulsory Miseducation, describes education as a system of brainwashing which leads to “spititual destruction.” Carl Rogers views the educational system as a kind of prison where the person is not free to learn; John Holt describes the many ways in which the system programs a guaranteed failure for significant numbers of children. Kozol details how education mediates “death at an early age.” Weinstein and those interested in humanistic education view the current system as one which often punishes an expression of feeling and renders the process of acquiring knowledge a sterile, mostly irrelevant, and even destructive experience. Silberman’s efforts at diagnosis indicate that education is in a period of serious crises. As a system, it does not address the development of the whole person; rather it fragments, compartmentalizes, and precipitates self-alienation. Herbert Kohl points to the authoritarian atmosphere of the traditional school and how it snuffs out the life of learning. [Page 56] Caleb Gattegno argues that learning is the life of education and in order to sustain that life, teaching must be “subordinated to learning.” Yet, in many schools learning is subordinate to everything else. William Glasser, in Schools Without Failure, illustrates how education’s ill health is directly correlated with “a philosophy of noninvolvement, non-relevance, and a limited emphasis on thinking.”

Leaders on every level of American society, from the president of the United States to the president of the local Parent-Teacher Association, concur on the desperate need for educational reform.

From the vantage point of the year 2000, if not sooner, the last decade of this century will undoubtedly appear the most bizarre decade in terms of the educational methods used in the United States when compared to other human intellectual endeavors. Education is passing from crisis to crisis because as a discipline it neither begins its endeavors with tested principles nor proposes any plan to test the principles on which the endeavors might be launched. There is a great deal of what is called “experimentation” going on in American education, but most of it can hardly be called experimentation in the scientific sense, since it is not conducted with any set of controls. The fact that something is simply new does not make it experimental. Those concerned with education are confronted today with a body of beliefs and attitudes about education, which, although they are the determining influence in our educational system, have not been subjected to careful analysis. The American Educational Research Association has identified two significant characteristics of the condition of research in education: disorganization and lack of orientation to other behavioral sciences. It goes on to say that “by disorganization we mean the condition in which, at present, research too often proceeds without explicit theoretical framework, in intellectual disarray, to the testing of myriads of arbitrary, unrationalized hypotheses.” Educational research must eventually come to mean more than an endless testing of hypotheses that are unconnected and trivial. It must include an inquiry into educational objectives and a questioning of assumptions underlying them in an attempt to find a unifying frame of reference from which explicit criteria for determining the relevance of objectives and their priority can be formulated.

Compounding the shortcomings in educational research methodology is the knowledge explosion of this century. Until recently the main task of education has been the transmission of traditions and information to new generations. In a relatively static state this has meant that teachers have but to communicate their own knowledge and experience acquired in turn from their own teachers. In a world dominated by change, with the reservoir of human knowledge spectacularly swelling beyond imagination within the lifetime of the teacher, nay, even within the educational cycle of the student, and with the growing aspirations of societies in the light of modern technology, much of the knowledge and many of the methods and attitudes of the past have become obsolete.

[Page 57] Need for New Directions

WITHOUT belaboring the obvious it will suffice to say that there is an imperative need for new goals, new purposes, new methods, and new directions in education on all levels: local, national, and international. There is a growing recognition of the need for a distillation of the thinking of the past half century and for an understanding of the direction being taken by education. To chart a rational course to achieve new educational objectives, educators need to know how the present educational system originated and what discernible forces in the past and present are likely to affect its future. For such a diagnosis they must use all the instruments at their disposal, for lack of information about the educational system will seriously impede plotting a reliable future course.

The conclusion seems inescapable that, if education is to make its proper contribution to the growth of the individual and to the development of society, educational systems everywhere must apply the methods of science and undergo revolutionary changes, as medicine, engineering, technology, and the hard sciences have already done and are still doing. A dynamic transformation of the educational system that will enable it to cultivate adjustment to change and make innovation fruitful can come only when education adopts the methods of science, which has opened to modern man worlds of inconceivable dimensions —submicroscopic to supergalactic.

To apply scientific methods to education requires the articulation of a comprehensive body of theory that will address the fundamental problems and issues facing education and, at the same time, serve as a definitive guide to practice. The effectiveness of the application can and should then be tested over long periods of time and in many different environments. Theories enable one to subsume under a few principles a vast array of what may at first appear to be unrelated facts. René Dubos, the well-known microbiologist at the Rockefeller Institute, once wrote that after a review of all the important scientific discoveries of the last two centuries—such as those of Darwin, Freud, and Einstein —he found that not one of them was a result of piling fact upon fact. The discoveries resulted from the scientist’s perception of the significance of the relationships and the meaningful pattern among facts, which then gave rise to the theories. Education has yet to find a way of becoming a scientific enterprise carried on by a self-governing community of inquirers who conduct themselves in accordance with an unwritten but binding code, bowing to the constraints of theory and yet having infinite scope for original and innovative research to refine the theory. In such an enterprise theory must build in as a basic element a self-correcting device or internal guardianship. Unless education has such a corrective instrument, it can never emerge as a science in its own right.

The need to establish a science of education is confirmed by the following statement of Leon M. Lessinger, a former Associate U.S. Commissioner of Education:

In principle, the American educational commitment has always been that every child should be educated to his full potential, but this commitment [Page 58] has been voiced in terms of resources such as teachers, books, space, and equipment. When a child has failed to learn, school personnel have assigned him a label—slow, or unmotivated, or retarded. Our schools must assume a revised commitment that every child shall learn. Such a commitment must include a willingness to change a system which does not work and define one which does, to seek causes of failure in a system and its personnel instead of focusing solely on students.

The history of American educational practices during the past fifty years shows the repeated attempts made to formulate a theory of education. But what seems to be lacking is a “science of man” on which to build a theory, a science initially sought from psychology. Because of the characteristic relationship between psychology and education—both applied sciences—psychological theories have always intrigued educators; indeed, most educational theories are spin-offs of major theoretical developments in psychology. For example, Gestalt psychology, field theory, psychoanalytic theory, and stimulus-response theory, which were formulated to explain some aspects of behavior and learning, have been tried out in educational contexts and continue to be explored by educators. Moreover, the contributions of James, Watson, Dewey, Thorndyke, Freud, Piaget, and Skinner have conferred an air of scientific respectability on educational practice. Joseph J. Schwab, a curriculum specialist at the University of Chicago, observes that the weaknesses of the theories

arise from two sources: the inevitable incompleteness of the subject matters of theories and the partiality of the view each takes of its already incomplete subject. Incompleteness of the subject is easily seen in the entirely cognitive theory which takes no account of the emotional needs and satisfactions. . . . Incompleteness of the subject is also visible in personality theories which reduce the whole society to an appendage of personality and in sociological theories which reduce personality to an artifact of society. Partiality of view is exemplified by the Freudian treatment of personality after the analogue of a developing, differentiating organism, a treatment which makes it extremely difficult to deal directly with problems of interpersonal relations.

In his search for a relevant educational theory; F. J. McDonald, an educational theorist and developmental psychologist, has enumerated the kinds of characteristics any psychological theory must have to win a significant place as an educational theory and practice:

In the first place, its scientific character must be impeccable.

Secondly, since education is a social enterprise, the theory must be social in character or must treat social problems in a significant way.

Third, the theory must account for developmental phenomena.

Fourth, the theory must promise some form of control, i.e., it has systems that lead to procedures with predictable effects.

Fifth, the theory must somehow evidence its concern for the individual.

[Page 59] McDonald goes on to argue that “There seems to be no good reason for educational theory to be committed to any single theory short of a comprehensive science of man.”

It is evident that the coherence and efficacy of any educational program designed to promote the total development of man lies in the comprehensiveness of its theory of the development of man—how he comes to be what he should be. Philip Phenix, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College, states succinctly that

The problem of man and his becoming is particularly urgent for parents, teachers, school officials and citizens concerned with the conduct of education. To choose soundly what to teach and how to teach it, to judge what educational goals are practicable and what ones are not—such wisdom requires the best possible understanding of human nature and its transformation.

Marc Belth, a famous educator and author of Education as a Discipline, adds that

The level of cultural maturity of a society can be determined by the theory it holds about education of its rising generations. For any educational theory entails a concept of the relationship between man and the world he must cope with and learn to organize and direct. It contains, too, an interpretation of the effect which one has upon the potentialities of the other and explains how this effect comes about. Such interpretative concepts suggest the procedures which should accomplish the goals implicit in a particular theory of education.

In short, any new conceptualization articulating a broad-based theory of development —man’s being and becoming—will have to be the first order of business.

But where is this knowledge of man and his becoming to be obtained? More than twenty-five years ago Julian Huxley, a distinguished biologist and the first director of UNESCO, wrote: “I would go so far as to say that the lack of a common frame of reference, the absence of any unifying set of concepts and principles, is now, if not the world’s major disease, at least its most serious symptom.” More than thirty years ago Alexis Carrel, a biologist, wrote that man has been unable to organize himself because he does not understand his own nature. Unfortunately, there is no single brand of specialists to whom one can turn for authoritative answers about man as a total entity. As Archie J. Bahm, a noted scholar specializing in religious philosophy, observes, each science or other area of specialty discovers something essential to the nature of man and then tries to reduce the significance of other essentials to its own. A chemist may depict the reality of human beings as the replication of macromolecules.

[Page 60] A physicist may explain them primarily as complicated electrical mechanisms. A biologist may claim them as solely creatures of evolution. A physiologist may view them entirely as products of their organs, glands, diets, diseases, and development. An anthropologist may depict them as only a product of their culture. A social psychologist may describe them as victims of their social environment. A linguist may believe them to be completely molded by their language. An artist or musician may see them as primarily aesthetic beings. Each of these specialists has a contribution to make to human beings’ understanding of themselves, Bahm concludes, “But whenever a specialist of any kind tries to reduce the whole of man to any one part of him he makes him somewhat antihumanistic.”

A New Paradigm Based on a Science of Reality

SORTING OUT the problem of articulating a broad-based theory of development requires a conceptual framework large enough to integrate purposefully all that is known about human growth and development. This framework is to be found in a concept of reality that contains a comprehensive view of the world and the nature of human beings. To be comprehensive in scope a theory of development must emerge from a science of reality that explicates the nature of human beings, their purpose and potentialities, and how they come to know, feel, and act.

One thing that has become obvious is that human beings do not live in a world of brute facts; they live in a world of interpretation. They see the world (including themselves and their ways of knowing) as they construe it. Hence it is imperative that a unified view of the world and all that is therein, no matter how arbitrary it may be, be an essential prerequisite for organized thinking, planning, and action in any human enterprise. It is the purpose of educational philosophy to provide such a unified view that will serve to interpret in a coherent and logical way every facet of educational experience.

Even though present-day education is generally based on the concept of analytic isolation, which has led to the present era of incredible specialization, there are indications of a move toward integration. All empirical scientists share two basic presuppositions—(1) that the world exists and (2) that the world is, at least in some respects, ordered intelligibly, and that order is open to rational inquiry. The Cartesian axiom contributes to a secondary presupposition or corollary: “that the world is intelligibly ordered in special domains.” Now a contemporary field of philosophical inquiry, as exemplified in Ervin Laszlo’s “systems view of the world,” has ushered in yet another secondary presupposition— namely, that “the world is also intelligibly ordered as a whole”—thus returning philosophy from its analytical isolation to an integrative dialogue with the empirical sciences.

The new conception of the world, which is holistic rather than analytic, has [Page 61] launched a new era in the physical, biological, and social sciences. Einstein’s contributions to physics, C. H. Waddington’s work in biology, Laszlo’s work in systems theory applied to social phenomena, and Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy are expressions of the holistic conception in these sciences. Holism, which represents the very antithesis of the analytic reductionism characterized in the methods of present-day hard sciences, is a way of comprehending whole organisms and systems as entities greater than and different from the sum of their parts. The power of holistic thinking in educational planning lies in the perspective it brings to men’s and women’s conception of who they are as human beings. The current shift in contemporary philosophical and scientific thinking toward holism is virtually irreversible, for the shift is a part of a much larger and wider change in how human beings view themselves. As Rupert Sheldrake, a controversial biologist, succinctly observes:

the organismic or holistic philosophy provides a context for what could be a yet more radical revision of the mechanistic theory. This philosophy denies that everything in the universe can be explained from the bottom up, as it were, in terms of the properties of atoms, or indeed of any hypothetical ultimate particles of matter. Rather, it recognizes the existence of hierarchically organized systems which, at each level of complexity, possess properties which cannot be fully understood in terms of the properties exhibited by their parts in isolation from each other; at each level the whole is more than the sum of its parts. These wholes can be thought of as organisms, using this term in a deliberately wide sense to include not only animals and plants, organs, tissues and cells, but also crystals, molecules, atoms and subatomic particles. In effect this philosophy proposes a change from the paradigm of the machine to the paradigm of the organism in the biological and in the physical sciences.

Nothing short of a holistic or organismic view of creation and of the development of human beings as the first organizing principle of an educational philosophy can ever hope to achieve the long-delayed revamping of the present-day educational system. Its application to education is an aspect of a much more comprehensive paradigm shift. Such a shift in the conception of the world, including humankind, helped educational philosophers like William James and John Dewey articulate a holistic, rather than an analytic, conception of reality. Post-Dewey philosophies of education, with their implications for epistemology, axiology, and even school curriculum and discipline, were only expressions of such a gradual change in human beings’ view of the world.

The systems (or organismic) view of the world has emerged as the most plausible theory with the best possible integrative power in the present era of information explosion. It has, therefore, profound implications for the redefinition of education and its role in the social and cultural evolution of civilized life. Whitehead has observed that

Any serious fundamental change in the intellectual outlook of human society must necessarily be followed by an educational revolution. It may be delayed [Page 62] for a generation by vested interests or by the passionate attachment of some leaders of thought to the cycle of ideas within which they received their own mental stimulus at an impressionable age. But the law is inexorable that education to be living and effective must be directed to informing pupils with those ideas, and to creating for them those capacities which will enable them to appreciate the current thought of their epoch.

Such a fundamental change in the premises and such a total transformation in ways of knowing, when viewed from a systems approach, have given education an unsuspected and profound social dimension. It is the most opportune time for educators and philosophers of education to move away from the narrow mechanistic and analytic ways of looking at reality into the broader and more inclusive paradigm of holistic thought. The deep insights present in scientific discovery spring from the same intuitive, nonlinear inspiration at work in art, in poetry, and in the perception of an ethical vision. A fundamental unity joins scientific insight, artistic insight, and moral insight. Herein lies the possibility of a unified cross-fertilizing curriculum that promises to go well beyond the vagaries of so-called interdisciplinary courses without losing the conceptual power of the individual disciplines.

Indeed, current holistic concepts of knowledge and ways of knowing have already significantly altered many hitherto dual relationships, among them

mind vs. body

fact vs. values

reason vs. intuition

being vs. becoming

efficient cause vs. teleological (final) cause

freedom vs. discipline

immanence vs. transcendence

nature vs. nurture

The implications for the educational responsibilities of the media, the family, political groups, business, and a variety of other institutions and agencies are myriad. As the new paradigm that is upon us deepens and grows, its full and detailed educational implications will become even clearer. The potential of this transformation is well expressed by Peter Abbs, a contemporary social analyst, in his reflections:

It would seem that in the Western World we have reached a historic moment of transition from an exhausted paradigm to a new broader paradigm now in the making, with all the confusion and uncertainty and turmoil that attend such making. The new paradigm is, in part, a creative response to all the ethical, existential and ecological dilemmas which have accumulated largely because of the defensive narrowness of the traditional epistemology. We have arrived at that volatile moment when the significant intellectual [Page 63] minority (both in the West and in the Soviet Union—in Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn) cannot only see through limitations of the post-Renaissance world-picture, but can also begin to formulate and defend what has been for so long excluded. What we see, in fact, is not a denial of the previous intellectual commitments (for, yes, we need both inductive and deductive methods) but rather a remarkable expansion of our understanding of the kinds of knowledge open to human beings; an expansion which gives due appreciation to deeper forms of knowing—ethical knowing, aesthetic knowing, personal knowing, imaginable knowing. This sudden reclaiming of lost forms of knowing is on such a momentous scale that it does not merely modify the traditional paradigm, it transforms it. We are taken into new philosophical ground—and the ground is so rich and so prolific it will take decades to harvest the fruit or, to put it conceptually, to explicate for education and society, and not least, our own personal lives, the innumerable implications.

The basic features of the new holistic paradigm, which can be referred to as the science of reality, can be described in some detail. At its core is the principle that reality has two forms: material and nonmaterial (or actual and nonactual). The material form of reality is subject to the various laws of material existence such as those dealing with gravitation, radiation, and chemico-electric phenomena. The immaterial form of reality concerns a category of items not subject to such laws. This category includes such “things” as ideas, ideals, virtues, abstract form, purpose, plans, objectives, the future, and so on. None of these things can be weighed, burned, or propelled through three-dimensional space, because they are nonmaterial. Yet they have consequences or effects in the material world (to be sure, largely through the minds of human beings), but they cannot be explained by the laws of chemistry or physics.

Up to the present time modern science has concentrated entirely on understanding material reality, the assumption being that this is the only reality. Hence scientific attempts to understand man have reflected the same assumption, with limited and catastrophic results. There has arisen in the modern world an increasingly dominant view that we can know only what we can count, measure, weigh, and evaluate. In this view—and it often dominates modern education in primary and secondary schools, in universities, and in the media— feeling, imagination, the will, intuitive insight are all regarded as having little or nothing to do with knowledge and are even disparaged as sources of irrationality. In this view of knowledge and knowing there is no place for purpose, [Page 64] mind, meaning, and values as constituents of reality. Modern western medicine, for example, is now confronting the evidence of successful forms of healing not dependent on the cause-and-effect relationships explicable by the laws of chemistry and physics. It is evident that belief, faith, trust, and hope have an effect on body chemistry, just as the body chemistry can have an effect on them. But until there is a science of reality that rests on the assumption of nonactual as well as actual forms of reality, from which a new medicine can be developed, modern, western medical science will remain out of touch with many of the essential realities of humankind that are immaterial in nature, including many of those directly involved in the promotion of physical health and healing.

Throughout history human beings have felt compelled to accept what has been intuitively self-evident about themselves—namely, that the phenomenon of life includes far more than a mere collection of chemical compounds. The “far more” part of life has been and is variously referred to as the soul or spirit, and the like. Such acceptance gave rise to religion, philosophy, and the arts. Science, however, having adopted a more limited assumption about the nature of the reality of humankind, has made its major achievement in understanding the lower ontological levels of being that are primarily dominated by the physical laws of physics and chemistry. It is for this reason that human beings have made incredible technological advancements but have made barely discernible progress in moral and social development.

The science of reality, here proposed for a core curriculum in a world educational system for the future, recognizes various ontological levels in creation— mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and, ultimately, unknowable essences—and sets forth the proposition that man is at the pinnacle of material existence and at the beginning of nonmaterial existence or spirituality. Religion and science must in a future age somehow come together, since both presumably are interested in reality and truth. Accomplishing this union will require a reorganization of traditional thought in both religion and science.

To illustrate a point, the science of reality that is suggested here adds to the three dimensions of physical space and the fourth dimension of time a fifth dimension, which is purpose. This is a nonmaterial dimension that nonetheless has effects in the material world. Only such a new paradigm is capable of reconciling permanence with flux, unity with diversity, the internal with the external, the causal with the teleological, process with purpose.

Such a science of reality, so briefly presented here, is not only compatible with the fundamental intuition of historical and contemporary religions; it also has an aesthetic, philosophical, and scientific respectability that has the potential for engaging the interest and support of scholars in the natural sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts, as well as those in applied fields, such as engineering, medicine, law, and government.

If in the decades ahead world education is to be based on an integrated, holistic philosophy of education, it clearly behooves educators to deliberate on such a philosophy. It is suggested that at its core should be a universal curriculum —a science of reality—that will put human beings in touch with all dimensions of existence, including the most elusive yet most fascinating and essential nonmaterial reality of man, his spirituality.

[Page 65]

Restoring the Grammar of Belief

A REVIEW OF ROGER WHITE’S A Sudden Music (OXFORD: GEORGE RONALD, 1983), 191 PAGES

BY ALEX ARONSON

Copyright © 1987 by Alex Aronson.

ROGER White’s A Sudden Music is a work of fiction based on historical events that took place in Paris between the years 1909 and 1912. History here is more than a framework. It encompasses and affects the lives of individuals who were consciously aware of what was happening to them. It is history only insofar as it concerns the human mind. The story that unfolds before the reader’s eye is the development of a spiritual commitment to an ideal that may, but need not, be called religious, for this ideal embraces the moral, social, and aesthetic life of humankind. The reader who expects the drama of violent political upheavals, conflicts leading to military victory or defeat, the slaughter of millions, the intrigues and counterintrigues of scheming politicians will be disappointed. This is, indeed, a most unfashionable book.

A Sudden Music is also unfashionable because Roger White chose the letter form, letters written in the style of the early decades of this century, deliberately avoiding the conscious search for literary innovation, for the experimental and the outrageous. The language is the everyday language as used in the early part of the century by people who— though intelligently aware of their surroundings —were not explorers of new aesthetic horizons. The writer of these letters, a young American woman studying music in Paris, has no intellectual pretensions. The way she is introduced to the reader at the beginning of the story leaves all options open. She might become a gifted, though not far above average, musician; she might get married and found a family; she might choose any of the professions open to women at that time. Actually a chance encounter with another American woman, Mrs. May Maxwell, who founded one of the first centers of the Bahá’í movement in Western Europe and who, as the story opens, had just returned from a visit to Palestine, opens her eyes to possibilities of being that she never envisaged before.

The revelation of the strength of faith in an essentially nonbelieving age is experienced by the writer of these letters as a miracle, a ray of hope not merely for herself but for humanity at large. “Surely one day,” she writes to her friend, “the world which so needs this light will be drawn to its beauty as its effulgence penetrates through the dismal gloom to the remotest corners of the globe.” To her— young, naive, and eager to believe—“these Teachings are true and represent the very spirit of this age.” The commitment to the newly acquired faith embraces “the totality of our human condition,” and she adds that “There is something false about a spiritual life that denies being rooted in our animal existence. . . .” Repeatedly she considers herself an ordinary person, as are all the others who respond to the teachings; even Mrs. Maxwell who brought the Bahá’í Faith from the East to Europe is “an extraordinarily ordinary, humanly human, woman of the kind one would pass on the street without a glance.”

There are many more unfashionable words to be found in the pages of this book—belief, [Page 66] commitment, responsibility, pain, and ecstasy are some of them. They all point in one and the same direction, toward a renewal of faith and the hope “for the perfectibility of humankind.” Seventy years have elapsed since the time frame in which A Sudden Music is set. Today’s readers, having experienced or admitted to consciousness two World Wars, Hiroshima and Auschwitz, and a few less documented holocausts, having been exposed to the daily cynicism of the mass media among which they live and which they can scarcely ignore, and being anxious to survive in a universe where survival seems reserved for the most cynical, the most self-regarding, and the least compassionate, will have to make a very conscious effort at revaluation. They will have to readjust themselves to very different criteria when interpreting human happiness. Rather than seeking the happiness of ownership, they will have to abandon “the sinister barriers of self-interest, [self-admiring] intellect, acquired knowledge, egotism, empty social conventions; the considerations of class and stature and prestige.”

Old words are clothed in new meanings; Stereotyped religious formulas are redefined. The result is a restored grammar of belief, making use of the words that conventional language has transmitted from generation to generation, yet here infused with a spirit of utter commitment and an awareness that both pain and ecstasy may be part of such a commitment. The idea of sacrifice—the most unfashionable word of all—is always present.

The message implied is clear enough. Yet it is not delivered in prophetic language or in self-righteous indignation. A Sudden Music is a tender book, full of the unrest of youth, searching for love on both the earthly and the divine planes. The young letter writer is indeed “ordinary” in the most human way possible. Inexperienced in the vagaries of the love emotion, she simultaneously experiences two contrary revelations—on the one hand, the inadequacy of human love when it is oriented toward possessiveness and domination and, on the Other, “a higher seriousness that leads to elation and joy and lifts us out of the ordinary mediocrity of living.” These words occur in her letter to the young poet who believes that he is in love with her. She adds, “I see now more clearly than ever the truth that we cannot live our lives in compartments, that divine matters are not a round of duties and obligations separated from life but an element discernible in all circumstances and situations of living—the ignited wick in the candle.” The rest of the letter speaks of her newly acquired happiness which the young poet treats with cynical contempt. According to her, “His soul has gone down before his intellect and is safely imprisoned behind a wall of rationalization.”

Some great contemporaries inhabit this book: the poet Ezra Pound, the Russian Ballet, Isadora Duncan, Enrico Caruso, Paul Valéry, Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt, Claude Debussy. The young woman who is at the center of the book moves among artists and is responsive to new currents in music and painting. The more sophisticated reader may miss Picasso and Schönberg, the greatest innovators at that time. Though the contemporary artistic background is painted in, it is never permitted to dominate the story. The novel progresses on one level only, that of spiritual rebirth. As the story is told, art and artists constitute the raw material out of which the new Faith is born. This may appear to be a contradiction to the “ordinariness” of the people with whom this book is concerned. But in the course of the novel the reader becomes increasingly less conscious of the significance of poetry, music, and painting when measured by the standards of conduct exacted by the new Faith. The arts, in this context of spiritual rebirth, are merely a byproduct of living; they are not at the center of human existence. Their purpose seems to be, at best, to intensify and beautify experience. The true center lies elsewhere, transcending the aesthetic appeal of pattern and design in music, painting, and poetry.

To readers familiar with Roger White’s poetry his concern with the reality of human experience will not come as a surprise. For the story he tells in his novel is as consistently [Page 67] human and nonintellectual as are his poems. His is, indeed, a mind that looks for meaning in the transcendental without ever becoming esoteric, a mind sensitive to the demands made by everyday existence in a age of unbelief and, therefore, more than ever responsive to the commitment exacted by faith and the sacrifice implied in the enactment of that faith.

The “common reader” may find A Sudden Music unpalatable because it speaks of matters that are out of his or her teach. For Roger White—and this is the greatest praise one can bestow on his book—is not a “professional.” He resembles in this those “naive” painters who fill their canvases with a vision of the universe where all human experience takes place on a plane of spontaneity and truth that is, to quote T. S. Eliot,

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything).

Little Gidding

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[Page 69]

Authors & Artists

ALEX ARONSON, who makes a second appearance in WORLD ORDER, is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English, Tel-Aviv University. He resides in Haifa, Israel.

ANNE ROWLEY BRENEMAN holds an Ed.D. degree in social science education from the University of Georgia at Athens. Her doctoral dissertation was an ethnographic study of a desegregated north Georgia county elementary school twelve years post de jure. She has also studied childhood and primary education in Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Japan and has conducted a mini ethnography research on the New Era High School in Panchgani, India.

GREGORY C. DAHL, who holds an M.A. in economics from Harvard University, has been an economist for the International Monetary Fund since 1976. He was the resident representative for the IMF in Haiti for two years and in Sierra Leone for another two years. He is now in the African Department of the IMF in Washington, D.C.

KURT HEIN is the general manager of WLGI-FM, the Bahá’í radio station in Hemingway, South Carolina. He has served as executive producer for the Radio Language Arts Project in Nairobi, Kenya, and as assistant director of the Rural Radio Development Project in Otavalo, Ecuador. He holds a doctorate in development communication from Northwestern University.

S. PATTABI RAMAN has held a number of appointments in several colleges and universities—professor of education at National University in California, assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Hawaii, and assistant professor of education in the Center for the Study of Human Potential at the University of Massachusetts—as well as in a number of public and private schools. One of his chief interests is exploring the role of nutrition in the structure and functioning of the central nervous system and its relation to learning and behavior problems in children.

IAN STEPHEN lives off the coast of Scotland on the Isle of Lewis, where he was born and now works as an auxiliary coast guard. He holds a degree in English literature from Aberdeen University and has published poems in the New Edinburgh Review and other Scottish literary periodicals.

ART CREDITS: Cover design by John Solarz, photograph by Sandra Douglas; p. 1, photograph by J. M. Conrader; p. 3, photograph by David L. Trautmann; p. 9, Photograph by J. M. Conrader; p. 10, phorograph by George O. Miller; p. 22, photograph by George O. Miller; p. 38, illustration by German Pavon; p. 43, top, courtesy Periodicals Office, Bahá’í National Center; p. 43, bottom, courtesy Periodicals Office, Bahá’í National Center; p. 46, courtesy Periodicals Office, Bahá’í National Center; p. 47, courtesy Periodicals Office, Bahá’í National Center; p. 51, courtesy Periodicals Office, Bahá’í National Center; p. 52, photograph by Steve Garrigues; p. 68, photograph by Steve Garrigues.

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