World Order/Series2/Volume 7/Issue 3/Text

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World Order

SPRING 1973


NINE YEARS TOWARD WORLD ORDER
An Editorial Statement


OBEDIENCE AND THE UNIVERSAL LAW
James F. Nelson


NUTRITION AND EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
S. P. Raman


YOUTH SERVICE AND THE UNITED NATIONS
James Avery Joyce




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World Order

A BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE • VOLUME 7 NUMBER 3 • 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 FISHER
HOWARD GAREY
ROBERT HAYDEN
GLENFORD E. MITCHELL


WORLD ORDER is published quarterly, October, January, April, and July, at 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091. Subscriber and business correspondence and changes of address should be sent to this address. Manuscripts and other editorial correspondence should be addressed to 2011 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

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 should be typewritten and double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should keep a carbon copy. Return postage should be included.

Subscription: Regular mail USA, $4.50; Domestic student rate, $3.50; Foreign, $5.00. Domestic single copy, $1.25; Foreign single copy, $1.35.

Copyright © 1973, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, World Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.


IN THIS ISSUE

2 Nine Years Toward World Order
Editorial
14 Interchange: Letters to and from the Editor
20 Obedience and the Universal Law
by James F. Nelson
27 Nutrition and Educational Planning
by S P. Raman
36 John Trover: A Group of Poems
by Rowell Hoff
40 Youth Service and the United Nations
by James Avery Joyce
45 The Reconstruction of Civilizations
a book review by Daniel Conner
48 Authors and Artists in This Issue




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Nine Years Toward World Order

IN APRIL 1964 the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing body of the Bahá’í world community, unveiled a Nine Year Plan of growth and expansion. The call to action, contained in its message to the Bahá’í world, had been eagerly anticipated and therefore did not come as a surprise. Moreover the Bahá’ís already had a century-old tradition of propagating their Faith. The latest plan, they knew, was to be only one of a series of world-circling enterprises that would eventually lead to the establishment of a peaceful society, a World Order, and a world civilization.

Yet as they read the text of the April 1964 message, the Bahá’ís were staggered by the magnitude of the task placed before them. In the short span of nine years they were to triple the numbers of localities where Bahá’ís reside; build houses of worship; acquire a large number of temple sites, national centers, local centers, and teacher-training institutes; translate Bahá’í literature into a hundred languages; establish several new publishing trusts; increase the financial resources of the Cause; and achieve a great number of other significant objectives.


FROM ITS VERY INCEPTION the Bahá’í Faith imposed upon its adherents the obligation to spread the Teachings and promote the Cause of God. The belief that the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh had initiated a new cycle in the religious history of mankind and inaugurated the era of universal brotherhood was in itself a compelling reason for sharing the knowledge of the new Revelation with the rest of mankind.

Soon after the Báb proclaimed His mission in Shíráz in 1844, He gathered His early followers and urged them to “Ponder the words of Jesus addressed to His disciples, as He sent them forth to propagate the Cause of God. In words such as these, He bade them arise and fulfil their mission: ‘Ye are even as the fire which in the darkness of the night has been kindled upon the mountaintop. Let your light shine before the eyes of rnen.’” Like Jesus before Him, the Báb asked His followers to pray that “no earthly entanglements, no worldly affections, no ephemeral pursuits, may tarnish the purity, or embitter the sweetness” that flowed into the world through them.

I am preparing you for the advent of a mighty Day. Exert your utmost endeavour that, in the world to come, I, who am now instructing you, may, before the mercy-seat of God, rejoice in your deeds and glory in your achievements. The secret of the Day that is to come is now concealed. . . . Scatter throughout the length and breadth of this land, and, with steadfast feet and sanctified hearts, prepare the way for His coming. Heed not your weaknesses and frailty; fix your gaze upon the invincible power of the Lord, your God, the Almighty. . . . Arise in His name, put your trust wholly in Him, and be assured of ultimate victory.

[Page 3] The eighteen initial disciples of the Báb, called Letters of the Living, traveled through Persia and ‘Iráq, bringing the Báb’s Message to hundreds who, in turn, took it to thousands more. When the Báb was martyred in 1850, the Faith had been firmly established in two countries: Irán and ‘Iráq.

Bahá’u’lláh, like the Báb, urged the believers to teach the Faith:

It is incumbent, in this Day, upon every man to place his whole trust in the manifold bounties of God, and arise to disseminate, with the utmost wisdom, the verities of His Cause. . . .
Say: Teach ye the Cause of God, O people of Bahá, for Goal hath prescribed unto every one the duty of proclaiming His Message, and regardeth it at the most meritorious of all deeds. . . .
God hath prescribed unto every one the duty of teaching His Cause. Whoever ariseth to discharge this duty, must needs, ere he proclaimeth His Message, adorn himself with the ornament of an upright and praiseworthy character, to that his words may attract the hearts of such as are receptive . . .

The Bábí veterans were now joined by thousands of new converts who, during the forty years of Bahá’u’lláh’s Ministry, took the Faith to Turkey, Egypt and the Sudan, India and Burma, the Caucasus and Turkestan. When Bahá’u’lláh passed on in 1892, Bahá’í communities existed in at least thirteen countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

It was during the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, however, that the Faith first received worldwide attention. His American and European travels in 1911-1912, during which He visited France, Germany, Britain, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, provided the Bahá’ís with a model of love, dedication, determination, wisdom, and sacrifice that set the example for all their subsequent teaching activities. By the time ‘Abdu’l-Bahá left this world, thirty-five countries had been opened to the Faith.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá constantly urged the Bahá’ís to perfect their individual character and teach the Cause:

Consort with all the peoples, kindreds and religions of the world with the utmost truthfulness, uprightness, faithfulness, kindliness, goodwill and friendliness, that all the world of being may he filled with the holy ecstasy of the grace of Bahá, that ignorance, enmity, hate and rancor may vanish from the world and the darkness of estrangement amidst the peoples and kindreds of the world may give way to the Light of Unity. Should other peoples and nations be unfaithful to you, show your fidelity unto them; should they be unjust toward you, show justice towards them; should they keep aloof from you, attract them to yourself; should they show their enmity, be friendly towards them; should they poison your lives, sweeten their souls; should they inflict a wound upon you, be a salve to their sores. Such are the attributes of the sincere! Such are the attributes of the truthful. . . .

During World War I ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed to the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada a series of epistles, or tablets (alváḥ), in which He invited [Page 4] every one of them to spread the Faith on the American continent and beyond. In the first message, dated April 8, 1916, He called for Alaska, Mexico, the Central American republics, the West Indies, and all of South America to be opened to the Cause. The second message, dated April 11, 1916, directed the attention of His North American followers to the Pacific with its thousands of islands, to Asia, Africa, and Europe. In these and subsequent messages, the last one dated February 15, 1917, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave the North American Bahá’ís a comprehensive plan for the propagation of the Faith throughout most of the world. The epistles, immediately named Tablets of the Divine Plan, became the charter of teaching activity for the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada and, ultimately, of the entire world.

The implementation of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s design necessitated long and thorough preparation. Before they could embark on worldwide teaching campaigns, the Bahá’ís had to create the institutions that would mobilize, sustain, unify, and lead the community. Thus the building of the Administrative Order became the main concern of the Bahá’í community after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá passed away in 1921. During this period of building the rate of the expansion of the Cause slowed down appreciably; and a casual observer could very well have concluded, with the British Orientalist, Sir Denison Ross, that the Faith had proved a transitory phenomenon which had reached the natural limits of its growth in the early years of the twentieth century. Such observers, of course, were totally unaware of the achievements of the Bahá’í community in the years between 1922 and 1937.


UNDER THE LEADERSHIP of Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Cause of God and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s successor as Head of the Bahá’í community, the Bahá’ís built the institutions ordained by Bahá’u’lláh. These consisted of Local Spiritual Assemblies in every locality where the number of adult adherents reached nine, National Spiritual Assemblies, and a complex of ancillary bodies charged with the performance of hundreds of services needed by the community.

The rate at which these institutions were built varied from country to country. In the United States and Canada the initial phase of the process was completed by 1936. American and Canadian Bahá’ís were now ready to begin carrying out the task assigned them in the Tablets of the Divine Plan. That same year Shoghi Effendi called upon them to initiate their first systematic teaching campaign and thus to begin discharging the sacred duty imposed upon them by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá twenty years earlier:

A systematic, carefully conceived, and well-established plan should be devised, rigorously pursued and continuously extended. Initiated by the National representatives of the American believers, the vanguard and standard-bearers of the radiant army of Bahá’u’lláh, this plan should receive the wholehearted, the sustained and ever—increasing support, both moral and financial, of the entire body of His followers in that continent. Its supreme immediate objective should be the permanent establishment of at least one center in every state of the American Republic and in every Republic of the American continent not yet enlisted under the banner of His Faith. . . . The American community must muster all its force, concentrate its resources, [Page 5] summon to its aid all the faith, the determination and energies of which it is capable, and set out, single-minded and undaunted, to attain still greater heights in its mighty exertions for the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.

The goals set by Shoghi Effendi struck the American Bahá’ís as daring and difficult. Was he not himself to characterize their community as “relatively negligible in its numerical strength; . . . bereft in the main of material resources and lacking in experience and in prominence; . . . having to contend, ever since its inception, and in an ever-increasing measure, with the forces of corruption, of moral laxity, and ingrained prejudice . . . ”? Indeed, their numbers were few, their abilities limited, their financial resources small. Yet they had already compiled a brilliant record of achievement.

What other community [Shoghi Effendi asked] . . . has been instrumental in fixing the pattern, and in imparting the original impulse, to the administrative institutions that constitute the vanguard of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh? What other community has been capable of demonstrating, with such consistency, the resourcefulness, the discipline, the iron determination, the zeal and perseverance, the devotion and fidelity, so indispensable to the erection and the continued extension of the framework within which those nascent institutions can alone multiply and mature? . . . What other community has produced pioneers combining to such a degree the essential qualities of audacity, of consecration, of tenacity, of self-renunciation, and unstinted devotion, that have prompted them to abandon their homes, and forsake their all, and scatter over the surface of the globe, and hoist in its uttermost corners the triumphant banner of Bahá’u’lláh?

Thus their material weakness was outweighed by a spiritual strength that permitted them to transcend their limitations and win magnificent victories. The same spiritual characteristics would now assure the fulfillment of the first Seven Year Plan.

The termination of the first Seven Year Plan coincided with the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the Faith in May 1944. Two years later Shoghi Effendi inaugurated the second Seven Year Plan. In addition to domestic objectives, American Bahá’ís were charged with the establishment of National Spiritual Assemblies in Canada, Central America, and South America. However, their most pressing objective was “the initiation of systematic teaching activity in war-torn, spiritually famished European continent, cradle of world-famed civilizations, twice-blest by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visits, whose rulers Bahá’u’lláh specifically and collectively addressed, aiming at establishment of Assemblies in the Iberian Peninsula, the Low Countries, the Scandinavian states, and Italy.”

No sooner had the objectives of this Plan been achieved than the Bahá’í world community, now established in no less than 125 countries and dependencies on every continent of the globe, was propelled into a new and even mightier enterprise: the Ten Year International Teaching and Consolidation Plan, calling for the doubling of countries and territories open to the Faith, the quadrupling of National Spiritual Assemblies, the seven-fold multiplication of national administrative headquarters (Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds), the establishment of six national Bahá’í publishing trusts, the translation of Bahá’í literature into [Page 6] ninety-one additional languages, the acquisition of land for eleven future temples (three in America, three in Africa, two in Asia, two in Europe, and one in Australia), and the accomplishment of hundreds of various goals on every continent.

The distinctive characteristic of the Ten Year Crusade, as this Plan became known, was its completely international nature. Though its principal executors were to be the twelve then existing National Spiritual Assemblies, the achievement of the goals assigned to each required constant cooperation among them. Joint activity could not fail to produce a greater sense of international commitment and of membership in a multinational, varied, yet united, world community. The hundreds of pioneers (teachers privileged to open virgin territories or to establish Bahá’í administrative institutions in newly opened areas), who immediately responded to Shoghi Effendi’s call, came from every part of the world, spoke dozens of languages, and represented dozens of ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds.

Though an enterprise of such magnitude could not possibly have been carried out without some revisions of the original objectives due to unforeseen changes in circumstances, the Ten Year Plan was a resounding success. The degree of maturity and strength achieved by the Bahá’í community was dramatically demonstrated in 1957 when Shoghi Effendi, its beloved leader for thirty-six years, passed away. The staggering loss did not cause disarray in Bahá’í ranks, and the unity of the Cause was not breached by a few who tried to sow confusion and advance their own interests and ambitions. The great Crusade was pursued with redoubled determination under the stewardship of the Hands of the Cause of God, outstanding individuals appointed by Shoghi Effendi in his lifetime to protect and propagate the Faith. Like the healthy young organism that it was, the Bahá’í community quickly recovered from the blow and proceeded to win the goals set for it by its departed Guardian, Shoghi Effendi.

The accomplishments of the Ten Year International Bahá’í Teaching and Consolidation Plan are too numerous to be summarized here. However a few highlights must be mentioned. Preliminary measures had been taken for the future construction of Bahá’u’lláh’s Sepulchre in the Holy Land. The number of countries and territories penetrated by the Faith had been more than doubled, with forty-three having been opened in Asia, thirty-seven in Africa, twenty-one in Europe, and thirty in the Americas. Bahá’í literature had been translated into 220 additional languages. Two more Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs (houses of worship) had been built—one in Africa and one in Australia. The original goal of eleven sites for future temples had been surpassed with the purchase of no less than forty-six such sites. Twenty-two National Spiritual Assemblies had been formed in the Americas, thirteen in Europe, eight in Asia, three in Africa, and one in Australasia. Seven new publishing trusts had been established. The Crusade came to a triumphal conclusion in the spring of 1963 with the election of the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing body of the Bahá’í Faith.


SURVEYING THE GAINS of the preceding ten years, few could have even imagined the tremendous further acceleration in the spread of the Faith. The very existence of the Universal House of Justice, it seems, poured fresh energy [Page 7] into the rapidly growing body of believers everywhere. Allowing the Bahá’ís only a year’s respite, the Universal House of Justice launched the first of its own plans of worldwide expansion of the Cause. Among the objectives of the first Nine Year Plan were: The development of the relationship between the Bahá’í International Community and the United Nations; the holding of Oceanic and Intercontinental Conferences; the opening of seventy virgin territories; the raising of forty-six new National Spiritual Assemblies; the acquisition of fifty-two national Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds and sixty-two temple sites; the translation of Bahá’í literature into one hundred and thirty-three more languages; the establishment of four more national publishing trusts, four more summer/winter schools, and thirty-two teaching institutes; raising the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies to 13,737, and of localities where Bahá’ís reside to 54,102.

So numerous and varied were the goals of the Nine Year Plan that a simple breakdown and analysis required a thirty-eight page pamphlet, while five years later a statistical booklet that included information on the then current status of the Plan ran to 104 pages.

The American Bahá’í Community was once again entrusted with the major share of the goals. The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States was to help finance the construction of the House of Worship in Panama; establish a National Spiritual Assembly in the Leeward, Windward, and Virgin Islands, and assist in establishing one in Taiwan; acquire a Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds in the Leeward, Windward, and Virgin Islands and assist in the acquisition of five others in Africa; open new territories in America (Barbuda, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Martin, St. Vincent, Turks and Caicos Islands); assist the Bahá’í communities of the Congo, Senegal, Liberia, Togo, Ghana, the Netherlands, Portugal, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, Bolivia, and others, in teaching and consolidation work, as well as in the acquisition of temple sites and national headquarters.

In addition to these and other international goals the American Bahá’í Community was to raise the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies in the continental United States from 300 to 600 and the number of localities where Bahá’ís reside to three thousand; to obtain from civil authorities in every state the recognition of the legal validity of Bahá’í marriage; to increase efforts to enroll in the Cause substantial numbers of believers from minority groups, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Chicanos, as well as Indians and Blacks. The message of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States enumerating the objectives of the Nine Year Plan, ended in these inspiring words:

Setting aside all other considerations, may this community arise at once to grasp its share—the lion’s share—of the new tasks, set its face towards leadership of the world community with all that leadership entails of sacrifice at home and sustaining less fortunate communities abroad, and as one soul move nearer, along its destined path, to that glorious day when, as declared by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself, “. . . all the people of the world witness that this community is spiritually illumined and divinely guided. Then will the whole earth resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness.”

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HOLY LAND: Aerial view of Bahjí showing extension of the gardens surrounding the Mansion and Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, which is regarded by Bahá’ís as the most sacred spot on earth.


CENTRAL AMERICA: The Bahá’í House of Worship erected during the Nine Year Plan atop a 738-foot hill, Cerro Sonsonate, overlooking Panama City, Republic of Panama. This “Mother Temple of Latin America” was dedicated and opened to the public in April 1972.




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AFRICA: Bahá’ís from the Basuto, Swazi, and Shironga peoples as they appeared at the National Convention held in Swaziland in 1969.


EUROPE: Youth conference attendees in Fiesch, Switzerland, 1971.




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SOUTH AMERICA: Indian representatives of various South American countries, including Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, who participated in the continental Bahá’í conference held in La Paz, Bolivia, September 1970.

The next nine years saw the worldwide Bahá’í community transformed almost beyond recognition. Hundreds of thousands of new believers were enrolled in India, on the islands of the Pacific, in the mountain fastnesses of South America. While only a generation ago it was possible for any interested person to memorize the list of all the places where Bahá’ís were to be found, it now became difficult to remember even the countries, territories, and principal islands opened to the Faith. While new Bahá’ís tended to take this progress for granted, or even expressed impatience with its “slow” pace, older believers could hardly recognize the community whose growth made all statistical materials obsolete as soon as they were published.

In the United States the Bahá’í community grew at least six-fold in nine years. In January 1972, a year and a half before the termination of the Plan, the number of localities where Bahá’ís resided surpassed the goal by 1,761 and stood at 4,761, while the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies reached 800, surpassing the goal by 200. Thousands of Blacks joined the Cause, particularly in South Carolina which in 1972 had more Bahá’ís than there were in all of the United States in 1937. The influx of minorities changed the character of the Bahá’í community, making it even more diverse and dynamic. Simultaneously, the unprecedentedly large proportion of youth among the new converts, radically changed the age distribution and brought additional vigor to the community.

Rapid expansion created problems, especially since it coincided with the catastrophic acceleration of the decline of contemporary civilization. Thirty-seven years ago Shoghi Effendi outlined the main features of that decline:

The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of

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ASIA: Members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Thailand presenting the book “The Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh” to His Majesty King Phumipon Adulyadet.

patriotic arrogance; the increasing evidences of selfishness, of suspicion, of fear and of fraud; the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness, of drunkenness and of crime; the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures; the weakening of family solidarity; the laxity in parental control; the lapse into luxurious indulgence; the irresponsible attitude rewards marriage and the consequent rising tide of divorce; the degeneracy of art and music, the infection of literature, and the corruption of the press; the extension of the influence and activities of those “prophets of decadence” who advocate companionate marriage, who preach the philosophy of nudism, who call modesty an intellectual fiction, who refuse to regard the procreation of children as the sacred and primary purpose of marriage, who denounce religion as an opiate of the people, who would, if given free rein, lead back the human race to barbarism, chaos, and ultimate [Page 12] extinction—these appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society . . .

Now that the Bahá’í community began rapidly to absorb relatively large numbers of personalities deeply affected by the decaying society in which they were born and bred, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual promiscuity, indeed the lack of any well-defined moral standards, had to be remedied within the still small, inexperienced, and materially weak community. This could not take place without producing considerable stress and strain. However, the emphasis placed in the Bahá’í Sacred Writings on individual morality and the shining example of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá served as potent instruments for the refashioning of personalities along lines prescribed by Bahá’u’lláh. The Universal House of Justice repeatedly stressed the claims of man’s spiritual life and called upon the believers to fight their own spiritual battles. In the very message that launched the Nine Year Plan the Universal House of Justice spoke of the requirement of moral development, quoting the words of Shoghi Effendi that “One thing and only one thing will unfailingly and alone secure the undoubted triumph of this sacred Cause, namely, the extent to which our own inner life and private character mirror forth in their manifold aspects the splendor of those eternal principles proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh.”

The absorption into the Bahá’í administrative institutions of large numbers of individuals who had previously lacked a sense of community, distrusted collectivity, emphasized personal leadership, did not believe that religion could have social consequences, presented another challenge. In hundreds of localities Spiritual Assemblies were formed, most or all of whose members had been enrolled in the Faith literally a few days before their election to these governing bodies. They had no knowledge of Bahá’í administrative principles, no understanding of the functions of an Assembly, no experience of consultation. To ensure that under such circumstances the Assemblies would meet regularly and function properly was in itself a task of major proportions. It is too early to see the full result of the heavy consolidation activity that has accompanied all teaching efforts. However, in most cases clear signs of success are already apparent.

Behind the impressive statistics of territories opened to the Faith, Local and National Assemblies formed, temple sites and Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds acquired, literature translated, there lay the even more impressive substance of love, devotion, and enthusiasm. Personal experience and spiritual growth, however, are elusive entities, hard to capture on paper and impossible to quantify. Only the future will reveal the full measure of sacrifice made by the thousands of pioneers, itinerant teachers, and humble workers in the administrative institutions of the Cause, without whom neither this nor any other plan could have been achieved.

Responding to the appeal of the Universal House of Justice, hundreds of Americans, representing every social and economic stratum, every ethnic strain, every level of education, volunteered for service abroad and at home. Since the Bahá’í Faith has no clergy nor professional missionaries, the overwhelming majority of the pioneers paid their own way. Save under exceptional circumstances, they found jobs in the countries where they settled and became [Page 13] productive members of societies that opened to them their doors.

College Students, doctors, nurses, mechanics and technicians, teachers, farmers, alone and in families, the pioneers made their way to tropical islands, to mountain villages, to the frozen expanses of the Arctic, to teeming cities in distant lands. Some were struck with disease, some died at their posts, all suffered from loneliness, a few had to return, but a vast majority are still in the field.

For most of them pioneering has become the central experience of their lives. Having obeyed Bahá’u’lláh’s command to arise and teach the Faith, they have of necessity deepened their own knowledge of the Writings. Having given up the security of home for the unknown trials in foreign lands, they have experienced self-denial and renunciation which could not fail to affect their spiritual development. Thrown upon their own resources, they could not do other than rely on God’s assistance and protection, deriving strength and assurance from the Source of all strength. While a very few proved unable to withstand the strain, most grew in stature and achieved inner confidence and peace.

As this issue of WORLD ORDER goes to press, the final statistics on the goals of the Nine Year Plan have not been announced. Yet we know that all the significant objectives have been met and most have been far outdistanced. For instance, on February 7, 1973, the National Teaching Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States reported that there existed in this country 876 Local Spiritual Assemblies and that Bahá’ís resided in some 5,700 localities. There is no doubt that other National Spiritual Assemblies have been receiving equally joyful reports.


AT THE CONCLUSION of the Nine Year Plan the Bahá’í community, proud of its accomplishments, cannot forget the magnitude of the tasks that lie ahead. The Plan whose triumphant fulfillment we now celebrate is only one of a long series of crusades destined to bring Bahá’u’lláh’s healing message to mankind. At a comparable moment twenty-one years ago, Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Cause, addressed to the Bahá’ís of the world these impassioned and immortal words:

No matter how long the period that separates them from ultimate victory; however arduous the task; however formidable the exertions demanded of them; however dark the days which mankind, perplexed and sorely-tried, must, in its hour of travail, traverse; however severe the tests with which they who are to redeem its fortunes will be confronted; however afflictive the darts which their present enemies, as well as those whom Providence, will, through His mysterious dispensations raise up from within or from without, may rain upon them . . . I adjure them, by the precious blood that flowed in such great profusion, by the lives of the unnumbered saints and heroes who were immolated, by the supreme, the glorious sacrifice of the Prophet-Herald of our Faith, by the tribulations which its Founder Himself, willingly underwent, so that His Cause might live, His Order might redeem a shattered world and its glory might suffuse the entire planet—I adjure them, as this solemn hour draws nigh, to resolve never to flinch, never to hesitate, never to relax, until each and every objective in the Plans to be proclaimed, at a later date, has been fully consummated.




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Interchange LETTERS TO AND FROM THE EDITOR

OCCASIONALLY the Editors of WORLD ORDER receive letters from readers who feel that the magazine’s approach or manner is too intellectual, too difficult to read, too complicated. One such reader writes:

. . . Do I detect in your Fall 1972 issue . . . a slight lack of balance?
As far as I can see, this issue is written by University professors and for University professors only. . . . When a rank-and-file Bahá’í (like myself), or a casual reader in the Public Library opens this dignified and beautifully made-up Bahá’í magazine (it is still a Bahá’í magazine?!), expectantly, and hopes to find some inspiration in its pages, he or she will be disappointed.

The reader goes on to make specific complaints about three of the articles on the grounds of their being abstract, heavily documented, lacking in human interest, and devoid of Bahá’í content. Our articles, she implies, should be couched in simpler language and concern matters which would not be unfamiliar to a majority of Bahá’ís or, indeed, of Americans.

Although such letters comprise a marked minority of the letters we receive —letters ranging from simple expressions of opinion to requests for reprints (for example, we have received messages asking for large numbers of reprints of the ANISA articles along with expressions of appreciation of the impact they are having in educational circles)—the Editors have taken these loving criticisms very seriously, in the spirit in which they have been offered. They confirm us in our longstanding intention to state once again and more clearly than ever before the role of WORLD ORDER, for it is important for Bahá’ís, and useful for their friends, to know the orientation of this magazine, the reading public which it envisages, and the impact which it is expected to make on the community of thinking Americans, not to mention the wider, world community to which the English language is accessible.

Every issue of WORLD ORDER has, on the inside cover, the following Statement: “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.”

The first issue of the post-war WORLD ORDER made an explicit statement of its policy:

. . . WORLD ORDER . . . provides a forum for those who are convinced that only through unity can mankind escape destruction and move resolutely toward a world civilization. Our editorial policy may be deduced from the very title of our magazine . . . , but an explicit statement of this policy will be useful.
We are providing an opportunity for the discussion of a vast number of problems which must be solved if the goal of a unified and peaceful humanity is ever to be achieved; whence our interest in the poverty question . . . ; in the social implications of racial and cultural differences, and in the physical and anthropological facts which underlie such differences; in linguistics, as a [Page 15] clue both to the nature of human thought and to cultural differentiation—in short, in the whole range of social and ethical problems.
The past, from which we seek instruction and inspiration, will be dealt with, and we will publish from time to time historical materials . . . The esthetic side of life will not be neglected . . .
Believing that religion is the source of man’s highest aspirations and ultimately the only force capable of leading mankind to peace and unity, we will deal with every aspect of the Bahá’í Faith, as well as with other religions of the world. . . .
Thus our magazine represents a dialogue among those, whether Bahá’í or not, whose efforts to understand and do something about the human condition have brought them to a point at which the exchange of ideas and insights will be of common benefit.

We do not believe that the suggestions made by some of our readers are directed to the modification of these aims; their criticism is, rather, that these aims are implemented in a way that excludes a certain number of potential readers, or alienates some of our present readers. In this connection we must take note of the following statement of the Universal House of Justice (the international governing body of the Bahá’í Faith), dated October 31, 1967, and later published in Wellspring of Guidance, p. 124:

The same presentation of the teachings will not appeal to everybody; the method of expression and the approach must be varied in accordance with the outlook and interests of the hearer. An approach which is designed to appeal to everybody will usually result in attracting the middle section, leaving both extremes untouched. No effort must be spared to ensure that the healing Word of God reaches the rich and the poor, the learned and the illiterate, the old and the young, the devout and the atheist, the dweller in the remote hills and islands, the inhabitant of the teeming cities, the suburban businessman, the laborer in the slums, the nomadic tribesman, the university student . . .

Clearly, the task of any Bahá’í bringing the message of God to the people is to get to know those to whom he brings it, in terms of their “outlook and interests.” It would appear, from the policy statement concerning the content of the magazine, that WORLD ORDER’s reading public might fairly be described as “intellectual.” Now, what is an “intellectual”? In the first place, this is a term which neither praises nor blames. It does not mean ‘intelligent,’ and it does not mean ‘pedantic’; it does not necessarily even mean ‘educated’ or ‘well-read,’ although there is a certain positive correlation between the “intellectual” and the “well-read.” It can conveniently be taken to refer to a social subgroup: “Intellectuals” are to be found in certain professions; they range typically within a certain income group; they have, or claim to have—which from the sociological point of view is just as important—roughly the [Page 16] same tastes (literature, music, art, and so on) and the same social attitudes. Like any other social group, intellectuals are subject to superstitions, taboos, prejudices, blind spots, more or less peculiar to them. Intellectuals are important, from a purely practical point of view, because they represent an influence on our destinies far out of proportion to their numbers. They exert enormous influence in government, in moral attitudes, in popular taste; and they exert this influence quietly, in a way of which the common man is mostly unaware.

If one examines the taboos, the “folk-mores” of the intellectual, what does he see? Primarily, a dedication to objective truth, as it is called. This has the consequence that there are certain cues or clues which arouse the instant suspicion of the well-indoctrinated intellectual. It means that no statement can be confidently asserted without objective proof. It also means that emotion and intuition are not constituents of proof—that is, that proof must carefully exclude appeals to intuition, to faith, to feeling; it must rest solely on objective fact.

The intellectual position described here is defective in that it defeats its stated purpose of seeking truth. The Editors hold that the exclusion of feeling, of faith, of intuition, is an impossibility. Those who claim to be capable of it are simply fooling themselves. They are doing themselves two kinds of harm: First they are repressing the whole world of feeling and love, on which their mental and emotional health depends—they impose on their lives a kind of barrenness which leads to confusion and despair. Second, in hiding from themselves the emotional and intuitive basis of whatever they claim to believe, they are allowing free play to the disguised forces of passion, of the very baneful interferences with truthful insights that they think they are avoiding. Let them discover the richness of an honest emotional and spiritual life, and they will be much fortified in their search for the truth.

Many of those “intellectuals” who indulge the illusion of cold objectivity know, deep down, that they are missing something. They do not, perhaps, realize the gravity of their loss. They have been trained in the ways of repression, not only of the bestial instincts Freud makes so much of, but also in the repression of the best part of themselves, the operation of the spirit which enables them to sense clearly that God exists and that religion is as real as thought, emotion, and esthetic experience. Many intellectuals have been so thoroughly indoctrinated that they react with suspicion to such words as spiritual, divine, God, soul, revelation, prophet; and recently their moral life has become as eroded as their spiritual life—that is, having ruled out the divine as being objectively non-demonstrable, they are beginning to rule out the moral. One of the moral principles left to them is that of tolerance, which is praiseworthy; but tolerance is being extended to the sinful, the immoral, the criminal, and the depraved.

So it is evident that the intellectual to whom one tries to bring the message of Bahá’u’lláh must be approached, like anyone else, with sensitive understanding. He can only be reached by those means, those appeals, to which he has not been trained to react negatively. Once there is introduced a notion or even a method of reasoning of whose intellectual respectability he has not been assured, he is alienated perhaps for good: the bearer of the message has been discredited, and the word Bahá’í is in danger of being, however unjustly, associated with something intellectually unacceptable.

To deal with people, intellectuals or [Page 17] not, one must operate at first within the framework of their preconceptions. One does not want to offend an intellectual any more than one would want to offend, say, a Catholic. One does not start off with a Catholic by telling him everything that is wrong with Catholicism; rather one tells him what is right about the Bahá’í Faith, preferably in terms which correspond to those deep truths which it shares with Catholicism. Given the essential unity of religions, this approach to a Catholic is possible and indeed the only proper one. Given the harmony of science and religion, the duty of free and independent investigation of the truth, the approach to the intellectual is similarly facilitated.

Just as the Bahá’ís have harmony among people of all religions, so that the Bahá’í community numbers among its members former Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists, atheist humanists, and so forth, not through renunciation of what had been true in our previous faiths, but through the addition to those faiths of the precious new insights of Bahá’u’lláh, so the intellectual, too, has the right to share in this ecumenism. Our perhaps unflattering description of some self-styled intellectuals is really no worse than what one might say of a religious bigot. The intellectual, too, insofar as he is privileged to know any truth at all, shares to that degree in the Bahá’í Faith. When we Bahá’ís talk about the harmony of science and religion, we must respect science, genuinely and wholeheartedly, just as we have been enjoined to respect Islám, Judaism, and Christianity. Science is a gift of God. If scientific methods are used in support of spiritual truths, as has happened more than once in our pages, they must be considered with respectful attention. A plain, serious presentation of the sociological and political adaptations of Eskimos to life in this new age, such as appeared in our Fall 1972 issue, tends, in addition to telling the moving story of human beings in transition, to underline the principle of the reconciliation of science and religion. This principle, a primordial article of the Bahá’í Faith for more than a century now, has just been “discovered” in the past decade under the name of “relevance.” In a similar manner, an attempt to place educational principles in their philosophical perspective is of enormous importance to those who feel that an honest stand on any issue must be taken on the ground of a philosophy, an ideology, a set of consciously held principles. The series of articles on ANISA—a project which enjoys the collaboration of Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í educators—explains the philosophical basis of this new approach to education and compares it to essentially defective philosophies of the past, philosophies which continue to have powerful support from intellectuals of our time. What can be more important than bringing to the attention of this community of educators the importance of loving and —this must not be omitted—knowing God and, through God, our fellowman? With regard to WORLD ORDER’s exploration of the past, the unity of mankind and of religion is as striking in the time dimension as in geographical and cultural space. The insights of Joachim of Flora can help us to understand our own relationship to religion and to intellectual pursuits, whether we are Bahá’ís or not.

Membership in the socially defined group of intellectuals is a matter of choice; but if one chooses the role of anti-intellectual, one chooses disunity, division. Prejudice against the intellectual is essentially no different from other kinds of prejudice; if a Bahá’í should find himself suspicious of or hostile to professors, let him try to see through to the man, his brother, underneath the symbolic academic [Page 18] robe.

The Editors of WORLD ORDER are trying to be loyal to the human family, not to any subgroup thereof; but they can best serve the Faith by using their membership in the intellectual community as a means of establishing themselves as pioneers therein.

It is with these considerations in view that the Editorial Board has decided not to make any essential change in the editorial policy of WORLD ORDER. We shall continue to try to make the language of our magazine as clear, as easy to understand, as the subject matter will allow. We will, however, make no compromise with standards of literary quality, of clear, responsible reasoning, or of scrupulous documentation of facts. We will maintain to the best of our ability a standard like that of Shoghi Effendi, of whom Rúḥíyyih Khánum wrote that he “set a standard that educates and raises the cultural level of the reader at the same time that it feeds his mind and soul with thoughts and truth.”

The Bahá’í who does not think of himself as an intellectual must make a decision as to his way of adjusting to his status, largely self-conferred. In a very positive way, every Bahá’í has found his life immeasurably enriched by his feeling —a feeling reinforced by knowledge—of kinship to all peoples: to the nomads, the tribesmen, the people of distant lands and different cultures. When this feeling is translated into action, the Bahá’í finds that he can talk and interact with an enormous variety of people; he can explain the Faith to Catholics and Muslims, to Buddhists and to atheists; his new and intense interest in religion has led him to examine religions of whose existence, very often, he was only dimly aware, before he became an adherent to the Cause of God. Let him, therefore, inform himself about the preoccupations, the ideals, the love of truth which characterize the intellectual at his best, just as he informs himself about the religion of the seeker with whom he is speaking; for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said that the seeker must first be confirmed in his own faith. The Editors feel that it is in the pages of WORLD ORDER that the non-intellectual Bahá’í can learn how best to appeal to his intellectual brother.




[Page 19]




[Page 20]

Obedience and the Universal Law

BY JAMES F. NELSON


O Son of Being!
Walk in My statutes for love of Me and deny thyself that which thou desirest if thou seekest My pleasure.
—Bahá’u’lláh
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh

IN THE MIDDLE of the last century, man was called by these words to cleave to the course of the Law and to forsake personal and provincial interests in the pursuit of a universal standard of human conduct, promulgated by God. That this call has gone largely unheeded is a fact demonstrating the world’s near fatal misconception of law generally and of the Source of Law in particular.

The United States of America, bastion of the rule of law as a means of government, stands as perhaps the most outstanding example of the bewildering effect of this basic misconception upon government and people alike. The generations of Americans since the First World War have increasingly allowed the mutation of constitutional rights of free speech, peaceable assembly, and petition for redress of grievances into what has acquired the almost dignified title of “civil disobedience.”

The concept of civil disobedience—that a man has the right to violate a law because he believes it to be a bad law—is the antithesis of the rule of law. It is the thesis of anarchy.

In the political sense, each law which forms a part of the complex of rules by which we consent to be governed should be a good law—morally, ethically, operationally. But the decision as to whether any law is good or bad can be made only by society acting through its constitutionally authorized representatives. Thus it is fundamental that no individual member of society has the power to obey or not to obey a law on the basis of his belief that it is right or wrong.

It is comparatively easy to demonstrate that, in the absence of a universally accepted standard, mankind is totally incapable of devising a code of conduct which does not foster dissent, antagonism, or even revolt in some segment of the population. Even where political means are abandoned and resort is had to so-called “natural law” postulates, there has been no effective agreement upon the means of achieving social order even if there was agreement upon the goal. So long as opinions differ widely as to the rules necessary to produce a commonly desired result, such rules as are promulgated will invite selective obedience and selective enforcement. Those who practice direct disobedience, far from considering themselves outlaws, may see their action as a kind of martyrdom through which others may be inspired to similar protest. Indeed, their very purpose is, in most cases, to urge others to rise up against the stated law.

Government itself often becomes the unwitting abettor of civil disobedience. It is difficult for a government which is itself behaving in gross disregard for established law to provide a credible defense for its indignation focused upon other violators. “The law is for thee, but never for me” is the trite common denominator for governor and governed alike. This idea, this feeling, this escape mechanism, this never-spoken “thee but not me” doctrine is the misconception of which we speak.


The Letter and the Spirit

IN ORDER to view with understanding the cause and effect of dissatisfaction with the present secular law, we must grasp generally the genesis of law and its mode of action upon human behavior. The law is most often written about as if it were a two-faced [Page 21] god—one face “letter” and the other face “spirit.” When the letter and the spirit seem to agree, there is peace; but when the two are not in harmony, followers of the law may be compelled to sacrifice one to propitiate the other. Legal journals are replete with tragicomic tales of attempts to ignore the letter of the law in order to comply with the spirit, and vice versa. It must be conceded, however, that such distinction between letter and spirit is at least partly real.

Every legislative enactment, every administrative rule, and all judicial decisions and opinions consist not only of the mechanical application of legal rules intended to solve particular problems by formal logic, but also of an element often referred to as “policy.” Policy is often not even specifically mentioned or discussed as a factor in the law or decision. It is something brought into the positive statement of the law from the outside. It is a standard whereby we gauge the effect of the application of rules of positive law. Often, policy is a reflection of the personal philosophy of the author of a legislative enactment, the personality of a judge, or the idealistic or prejudiced state of mind of the promulgator of the rule. It is not only where the application of a rule seems to produce a drastic and inequitable result that some outside principle of policy must be utilized to do apparent justice. Situations not governed by any one particular rule of law may be susceptible to determination by any one of several rules. The determination as to which rule will be applied is likely to be made by considerations related to the element of policy. Most discussions of policy turn eventually to reliance upon some “higher law” or natural law as a common denominator for the civilizations and cultures of mankind.

Theories of natural law are among the most important elements in the history of human thought and constitute a continual recognition of the dependence of man upon an extrahuman source of governing principle. However, a simple mutual recognition of the existence of natural law or immutable principle has not led to agreement among natural law adherents as to the scope or direction of such principle. Furthermore, dissent and disobedience are inevitable until there is a unifying reliance upon a single source of divine law.

There is a broad general feeling of need for universal moral standards. Reliance upon classical theories of natural law does not fulfill this need. Without attempting any extensive evaluation of the generally recognized schools of natural law and in order to point out an effective successor to them all, some small attempt will be made here to set forth the differences which separate the schools and have made them, in effect, three distinct approaches to natural law. These are the classical philosophical school, the relativist school, and the theological school.

The classical philosophical school professes generally that valid knowledge of moral rights and obligations is obtained by the use of reason. Since this knowledge is based on the unchanging nature of man and the universe, it is absolute and furnishes standards by which laws must be judged. This school emphasizes a commonality of “human nature” among all men of all time. It recognizes man as a certain kind of animal, specifically a thinking, choosing, and social animal. Because man is a thinking animal, he can understand what kind of relationship he has with the rest of creation and therefore should draw from this knowledge principles of action. From this view results the classical philosophical school’s guiding principle, its “policy” that man should follow his nature, his rational inclinations: do good, and avoid evil. The definitional problems raised by this philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and his followers were manifold enough to occupy the major portion of the time of Thomist lawyers for all the ensuing centuries.

The relativist school of natural law departs from the theories of St. Thomas Aquinas and abandons all reliance upon metaphysic schemes. It basically views the [Page 22] condition of society in terms of what it is and what it ought to be. Good and bad laws are defined in the same manner as a good automobile or a bad automobile—that is to say, according to whether the object of the adjective fulfills or does not fulfill its designed purpose. This school basically relies upon man’s ability to recognize what he ought to be and thus to devise means of attaining this condition. In a grossly simplified way the relativist school is sometimes defined as a philosophy of “the end justifies the means.”

Set against these two basically humanistic theories of natural law stands the theological school which accepts as its basic precept a divinely revealed moral code. It is clear, however, that the theological natural lawyers have had difficulty in resolving conflicts in moral codes among those who are followers of differing systems of theology or religion.

Dispute and dissent, moreover, are often directed not only against the stated principle but against the policy which underlies the written rule. Where this policy is clear and bears the support of great popular acceptance, dissent is unlikely to take the form of overt disobedience. For this reason, pronouncements of Divine Law as accepted by the followers of a Manifestation of God are not frequently disobeyed; and when they are, it is because the policy underlying the pronouncement has become obscured by antiquity, was not adequately understood in the first instance, or has been superseded by a new policy pronouncement.


The Functions of Law

HOWEVER SERIOUS may be the disagreement between lawyers as to the source of law, all are in agreement that, in order for man to internalize the concept of a Universal Law to which he must be obedient, such law must be presented in such explicit terms as limit opportunities for interpretation. It should be all-inclusive in order to provide guidance before the need for guidance arises. Where it is not explicit, it should provide a pervasive policy on the basis of which any major life decision involving moral consequences can be made with confidence.

Positive law represented by myriad statutes, rules, processes, and judicial decisions by which the activities of men are regulated has three discrete but complementary functions —those of organization, regulation, and protection.

The organizational function concerns itself with the allocation of governmental power and limitations placed upon such power. It provides the structure for the implementation of the two other functions of law.

The regulatory function is concerned with stabilizing the affairs of the community. It must provide predictability in matters of commerce and private contract and give standards by which conflicts in interest can be settled.

The protective function is that of providing security to the community against violations of its peace and dignity. This is the criminal law function.

Disobedience to the law, insofar as the organizational function of law is concerned, is comparatively rare. When such disobedience does occur, however, it is so visible that it creates the impression of omnipresence. The name for this highly visible state is revolution.

In regulatory matters, disobedience to the law is most often furtive and done for pecuniary gain, not for demonstrative purposes. The violator can succeed in his purpose only if the violation remains undetected. Even in matters of strike, boycott, and general protest against economic inequities, the violations of law which can occur are usually of statutes not directly related to the source of protest.

Any discourse upon the subject of civil disobedience must thus concern itself in the main with the violation of those standards which the community has adopted to protect itself against trespass. Protest behavior in violation of these standards can therefore more accurately be labeled “criminal” disobedience. [Page 23] For society to look upon such behavior as non-criminal is hypocritical.


Law Without Policy

IN THE NOT TOO RARE instances where events in human history are, at best, inadequately covered by a generally accepted moral policy, problems can have no common or abiding solution. To control or predict human behavior where no overriding policy is discernible is impossible. In order to demonstrate this impossibility, the following hypothetical situation was presented to classes of lay and law students. The classes were separated into three sections, each of which was to apply natural law principles representative of one of the three schools of natural law heretofore described; In these initial discussions, no presentation of the Bahá’í ethic was permitted. However, members of the various classes were permitted to rely upon whatever moral guidance may have been obtained from a religious expression or philosophy other than the Bahá’í Faith. The various sections were encouraged to come to conclusions with respect to matters of organization, regulation, and protection, and to present those conclusions to the entire class when it was reassembled. The hypothetical situation was as follows:

You are in a group of approximately twenty vacationers viewing the wonders of a vast underground cavern. A great earthquake has sealed you off in an immense vault of limestone. Your only guide has disappeared in the quake. The cavern has an unlimited supply of water and a telephone line to the surface. There is no animal or vegetable matter within the cave. Lighting and heating are adequate, the main electrical line having not been severed.
On the twentieth day after the earthquake, you discover the phone line to the surface and establish for the first time communications with the outside. You learn then that at least an additional ten days will be required for the rescue shaft to be drilled, and you have been advised that there is little likelihood that any of you can survive an additional ten days without food. One of your number suggests that by consuming the flesh of one of you, the rest may survive. In speaking with physicians on the phone line, this opinion is confirmed.
You have with you in the group several children, ages six to thirteen, a judge, a pharmacist who happens to be carrying samples of sleeping pills, a research chemist world renowned for his quest for a cure for cancer, and one of the parents for each of the children in the party. Three members of the group are already suffering from starvation to the extent that they cannot maintain consciousness for an appreciable period. One of them is an ex-Marine who has lost an eye, an arm, and a leg in battle. By coincidence, another member of your group is that soldier’s Commanding General.
The law of the state in which the cavern lies provides that the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought is murder, punishable by death.
You must now formulate rules appropriate to these circumstances.

Once the shock of the subject matter of the foregoing hypothetical case had worn off, the various groups in every instance participated in a vigorous discussion of proposed solutions.

Of general interest was an almost universal disregard for the processes of democracy as each section organized itself for the emergency situation. Each section had little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that some of the party should be eaters and some should be eaten. That this conclusion did not provoke controversy was perhaps the most revealing result of the experiment. True, there was some dissent. But this dissent was generally reflected by an individual’s decision to allow others to participate in the cannibalism while he himself refrained. No widespread protest [Page 24] was mounted against the basic decision.

There was, however, great dispute in all groups both as to manner of selection and the result of the selection of a victim or victims. Although each section arrived at a preferred choice by plurality, the choice of a particular victim varied between sections, and there developed in each group a minority coalition which threatened the use of force to frustrate the choice of the largest bloc. Once this dissent had been voiced, discussion deteriorated into argument over the relative importance of the individual lives represented, an argument which yielded no resolution.

In these sessions, protest, dissent, and incipient disobedience were activated by emotions unrestrained by either positive law statement or natural law policy. Each group treated the homicide law of the location above the cave as irrelevant, and none could find a common policy of decency or morality.


Obedience and the Bahá’í Law

THE REVELATION of Bahá’u’lláh presents to the world an authoritative and complete standard, both as to positive law and its underlying policy. Indeed, a major purpose of the appearance of a Manifestation of God is the establishment of the “Most Great Law.”

The Bahá’í Revelation represents in its organizational character the charter of a world civilization. It provides for reliance upon the statements of positive law in the Writings of the Manifestation and, for further pronouncement on matters not expressly revealed therein, upon institutions ordained by Bahá’u’lláh Himself. Schism and multiplicity of interpretation are avoided by His express appointment of a sole source of reference in the person and station of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Administrative institutions likewise are established in accordance with the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Preeminent among them is the Universal House of Justice, the supreme legislative body with authority extending into all matters not expressly revealed in the written works of Bahá’u’lláh. The organizational simplicity and effectiveness of the system inaugurated by Bahá’u’lláh is a subject beyond the scope of these pages.

The regulatory features of the Bahá’í Revelation constitute the unifying force linking peoples of diverse social, racial, economic, artistic, and cultural heritage. In addition to specified rules of conduct, there is evident therein and in the statements and interpretations of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi a completely pervasive underlying policy to guide every human action.

In matters of protection, the standards pronounced by Bahá’u’lláh and pursuant to His direction through His successors in interpretation and the Universal House of Justice have provided an impregnable system combining fixed and immutable principle with the flexibility necessary for guidance in a changing society.

Shoghi Effendi says, in speaking of Bahá’u’lláh’s book of laws:

In this Charter of the future world civilization its Author—at once the Judge, the Lawgiver, the Unifier and Redeemer of mankind—announces to the kings of the earth the promulgation of the “Most Great Law”; . . . In it He formally ordains the institution of the “House of Justice” . . .
In this Book He, moreover, prescribes the obligatory prayers; designates the time and period of fasting; prohibits congregational prayer except for the dead; fixes the Qiblih; institutes the Ḥuqúqu’lláh (Right of God); formulates the law of inheritance; ordains the institution of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár; establishes the Nineteen Day Feasts, the Bahá’í festivals and the Intercalary Days; abolishes the institution of priesthood; prohibits slavery, asceticism, mendicancy, monasticism, penance, the use of pulpits and the kissing of hands; prescribes monogamy; condemns cruelty to animals, idleness and sloth, backbiting and calumny; censures divorce; interdicts gambling, the use of opium, wine and other intoxicating drinks; specifies the punishments for murder, arson, [Page 25] adultery and theft; stresses the importance of marriage and lays down its essential conditions; imposes the obligation of engaging in some trade or profession, exalting such occupation to the rank of worship; emphasizes the necessity of providing the means for the education of children; and lays upon every person the duty of writing a testament and of strict obedience to one’s government.[1]

This minute glimpse into the scope of Bahá’í law should bring cheer and consolation to the hearts of all true natural lawyers.

Of paramount importance in the Bahá’í legal system is the spiritual requirement of obedience to law. Bahá’u’lláh has not only required obedience to the stated Bahá’í principle, but also to the rule of constituted civil authority. He presents to man the obligation to apprehend the law and the duty of strict obedience thereto.

The Bahá’í Revelation states justice to be the goal for the society of men. At the same time, it gives man the insight that justice should be determined and measured not by the recipient but by the dispenser. In the Bahá’í process, justice is subject to institutional rather than individual interpretation. Therefore, the individual does not have the privilege of reacting in disobedience to law or principle which he considers to be unjust. Rather he must act with obedience, thus helping to ensure that the correct institutional determination can ultimately be made. It is, however, the obligation of every Bahá’í individually to act according to the precepts and commands of the Bahá’í law. To do so unfailingly would automatically ensure the dispensation of justice to others.

Bahá’u’lláh did not make the obligation of obedience to government dependent upon the quality of that government. He himself remained loyal and obedient to a government which was to all outward appearances undeserving of such obedience. In one of his Writings, He says:

. . . the Minister representing [the] government arrived, whose name Our pen is loth to mention, who was given to wine, who followed his lusts, and committed wickedness, and was corrupt and corrupted ‘Iráq. . . . He . . . wrongfully seized the substance of his fellow-men, . . . forsook all the commandments of God, and perpetrated whatever God had forbidden. Eventually, he, following his desires, rose up against Us, and walked in the ways of the unjust [emphasis added]. . . .
. . . We have, under no circumstances, opposed either him, or others. We observed, under all conditions, the precepts of God, and were never one of those that wrought disorders.[2]


Proof of Divine Law

AS THE QUALITY of the dessert is proved by the taste, so can the quality of law be ultimately tested only by obedience. Obedience in turn must depend in large measure upon the motivation of the subject. Motivation is mostly dependent upon emotion; emotion depends upon the spiritual condition of man; and the proper spiritual condition of man depends upon his knowledge and acceptance of the will of God.

What greater bounty can exist than to have the will of God expressed in concrete and all-embracing terms? What greater security can the world seek than the shelter of an all-embracing Divine Law? How more effectively can the obligations of mankind be stated than in these words of Bahá’u’lláh:

What mankind needeth in this day is obedience unto them that are in authority, and a faithful adherence to the cord of wisdom. The instruments which are essential to the immediate protection, the security and assurance of the human race have been entrusted to the hands, and lie [Page 26] in the grasp, of the governors of human society. This is the wish of God and His decree.[3]
The ordinances of God have been sent down from the heaven of His most august Revelation. All must diligently observe them. Man’s supreme distinction, his real advancement, his final victory, have always depended, and will continue to depend, upon them. Whoso keepeth the commandments of God shall attain everlasting felicity.[4]


  1. ↑ Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1944), p. 214.
  2. ↑ Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952), pp. 229-30.
  3. ↑ Ibid., p. 207.
  4. ↑ Ibid., p. 289.




[Page 27]

Nutrition and Educational Planning

BY S. P. RAMAN

THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS of the ANISA Model, which unequivocally affirms the spiritual nature of man, serves as a powerful integrator of the vast body of information about human growth and development and enables one to generate a coherent body of theory for educational planning.[1] The theory of development derived from this philosophy defines the nature of human potentialities and the processes by which they are translated into actuality. Thus education as defined by the ANISA Model refers to the process of interacting with the environment in a manner which enables the human organism to grow, develop, and function, thereby actualizing its genetic potential.[2] Such actualization depends upon maintaining the biological integrity of the interacting organism and this in turn depends upon its nutritional status. Educational planning, therefore, is incomplete without a full knowledge of the role of nutrition in the release of human potential.

Geneticists constantly remind us that what is inherited is not this or that particular “trait” or “character" but a genotypic potentiality for an organism’s developmental response to its environment. Given a certain genotype and a certain sequence of environmental situations, the development of the organism’s potential follows a certain path. The selection and preparation of the environment and the guiding of the human organism’s interaction with it should no longer be left to chance. In the future, the evolution of man will be directed largely by his knowledge of growth and development and his view of his own destiny. Physical adaptation and natural selection, which generally characterize biological evolution, will be heavily influenced by man’s collective and individual efforts to improve the quality of life by providing for himself a suitable environment and orchestrating the kinds of interactions needed.

Sociologists, developmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists, and behavioral scientists have contributed to modern man’s understanding of the underlying processes of these interactions which enable the child to actualize his genetic potential. Present-day educational systems are beginning to draw upon the vast body of knowledge from many disciplines which will enable them to develop a better understanding of the causes of educational failures sustained by “disadvantaged.” [Page 28] students and to define more clearly the action necessary to assist them. An educational system which merely concentrates on such matters as curriculum innovation, motivation, cultural factors of language acquisition, or enriching preschool experiences, without providing for the maintenance of the biological integrity of the organism, will be inadequate. The actualization of genotypic potential depends upon the biological integrity—both its structure and functioning—of the interacting organism. There is an intimate relationship between the integrity of the child as a biological organism and the characteristics of his mind and personality. In the words of Herbert Birch and Joan Dye Gussow:

As an organism, the child is not only a mind and a personality capable of being unmotivated, unprepared, hostile, frustrated, understimulated, inattentive, distracted, or bored; he is also a body which can be tired, hungry, sick, feverish, parasitized, brain-damaged, or otherwise organically impaired.[3]

Furthermore, there is a close relationship between the quality of the environment and the physical and mental health of the person who lives in it.

The ANISA educational model is based on the synthesis and application of a vast body of scientific research from many disciplines, including extensive information which defines a critical role played by nutrition in the release of the potentialities of the child.

The contributions of biochemistry, human physiology, and other biomedical sciences to our understanding of the growth and functioning of the human organism have been phenomenal during the last two decades. The identification and chemical synthesis of many vitamins and their rational use in the treatment of many nutritional deficiency diseases like scurvy, beri-beri, rickets, pellagra, pernicious anaemia; the identification and mode of action of steroid hormones and other hormones like thyroxine and insulin and their applications to body dysfunctions; the estimation of minimum daily requirement of body building and nutritional biochemicals and essential minerals during all the stages of growth of the human organism; and the study of protein and enzyme functions at cellular level and the knowledge of intermediary metabolism and regulation of amino acids, fats, and carbohydrates are common knowledge in biochemical circles. Further advances have been made in our understanding of the biochemical basis of genes, fetal and neonatal physiology, and morphogenesis of the neuromuscular system. These advances have thrown considerable light on the organizing principles underlying the “molecular logic” of cells connected with human growth, development, and functioning.

The electron microscope, the ultracentrifuge, microchemical techniques, and the use of radioactive isotopes have made it possible to study the metabolism and nutritional needs of the individual cells and even of the subcellular component, or organelles of the cell. At the present time an impressive body of information is accumulating which is leading to a more complete understanding of the intricacies of cell structure and the complex and vital role nutrients play in the growth, [Page 29] development, and function of the cell. Nourishment of the cell is basic to the nourishment of the collection of cells—tissues, and this in turn is basic to the nourishment of the different organs of the body and ultimately the entire body. Thus, a defect in nutrition at cellular level may adversely affect the functioning of the whole body.

Although it has been twenty-three years since the discovery of the last vitamin, new information on nutrition continues to pour in at a phenomenal rate. In 1971 alone over four thousand papers relevant to nutrition were presented at a single scientific meeting. Understanding the complexity of the process of nourishing the body is indeed a challenging frontier of science that is only beginning to be explored in depth. As the biochemist becomes more and more concerned with the fine points of metabolism at the cellular level and less and less with the total organism, it will become the role of nutritionists to integrate the theoretical knowledge from many fields of study and to apply this information to the maintenance of health and the prevention of disease. The fact that scurvy, rickets, beri-beri, pellagra, and kwashiorkor, all nutritional deficiency diseases, can be found in affluent and developing countries alike is stark evidence of our failure to apply the knowledge we already possess. Understanding these advances in the biomedical sciences provides the basis for improving the quality of human life; the knowledge it represents must be incorporated into an educational system that emphasizes the significance of nutrition and its relation to the release of man’s potentialities.

Although articles and reports of all kinds abound concerning the nutritive requirements of the expectant mother and the new-born infant, no one has extracted and integrated the findings as they pertain to education and introduced them into systematic educational planning for schools and communities. It usually takes about a generation for new discoveries and techniques of one science to become a part of the regular working tools of other sciences. It takes considerably longer time for such findings to become familiar to the layman and to exert any significant influence upon his life and way of thinking. Within the ANISA Model, it is the role of educational specialists and related community agencies to bridge the gap between discoveries and their application, especially when these discoveries directly influence child growth and development.

In spite of the rapid advances made in the science of nutrition during the past fifty years, the annual toll taken in human lives due to malnutrition has still to be reckoned in the millions. Above and beyond this mortality, account has to be taken of the vastly greater number of children who, subjected to periods of undernutrition during the early years of their development, survive with physical inadequacy or some form of mental retardation. The damaging effects of malnutrition on the physical development of young children have long been obvious and recognized. Research evidence on the relation of nutritional factors to intellectual performance and learning is fast accumulating and the implications of these findings and challenges for the tota1 educational program are too evident to be ignored. These research findings are of paramount importance because, according to estimates by the consultants of the Food and Agriculture Organization, almost 70% of the world’s population may suffer from sub-chronic undernutrition and an estimated three hundred million children living in underdeveloped areas of the world have low [Page 30] protein diets. Although the significance of these findings is not fully understood in terms of human well-being and the release of the potentialities of man, the evidence is sufficient to demand attention and action on the basis of present knowledge. The absence of a definite, unequivocal, and empirically proven correlation between malnutrition and impaired learning potential, as Birch put it, “does not reflect absence of the problem but only the lack of attention devoted to it.”[4] “To wait till all the answers are in,” says Francis Keppel, “to delay until all negative conditions are identified and solved, to ignore the apparent connection between diet and intellectual development would be only to invite society’s suicide.”[5]

Since malnutrition is always found with poverty and since poverty is associated with a number of other factors which have depressive effects on learning ability, it is difficult, if not impossible, to design studies which would unequivocally establish the precise role of human malnutrition in the impairment of learning competency and useful adaptive behavior. From a purely pragmatic standpoint this probably makes little difference. Learning capacity depends not only on the maturity of the nervous system but also on the nature of the stimulus provided by the environment and on the circumstances that evoke the interaction of the organism with its environment. Birch was right to point out “that there is no human organism existing without a social environment containing a culture, and a background of explicit experience as well as a breast, a bottle and a bowl of porridge.”[6] In addition, he points out that “we must not permit our thinking to be clouded by an inappropriate anxiety about social conditions but rather to have our studies illumined by an awareness of them.”[7] Programs should be carried out now, whether or not we have complete factual data on which they can be based. For educational planners, this is important psychologically and morally; for, if the evidence we have today about the relation between malnutrition and mental development increases and becomes definitively established as the scientific facts of tomorrow, they must face a generation of infants coming into the school system who are ill-equipped mentally for learning, because, through no fault of their own, they were fed improperly.


OUR INTENT here is to analyze the problem, demonstrate the need for better nutrition and adequate nutrition education in communities throughout the world, and explain the role of nutrition in the ANISA educational system. Our analysis of the problem therefore seeks to define the particular role played by nutritional factors in maintaining the biological integrity of the human organism as it interacts with the social and cultural environments for the optimum release of the genotypic potential. Consideration of the ways in which available research permits us to achieve this objective will be the substance of the rest of this article.

Of all the factors that inhibit or retard the growth, development, and functioning [Page 31] of the human organism as a whole, the most detrimental is malnutrition.[8] It is well known that there are certain periods of vulnerability in the development of organisms during which the presence or the lack of a developmental modifier causes a significant alteration in the course of the normal development. These periods are called “sensitive periods.” If the presence or lack of certain modifiers during a sensitive period results in permanent damage or change, it is called a “critical period.” From the standpoint of release of the genotypic potentialities of the human organism, the periods of rapid growth are periods of special vulnerability to nutritional injury. In fact, there are strong evidences that the critical periods which ultimately determine the full expression of the genotypic potential in the case of humans extend over a time continuum starting at conception and going well beyond preschool years. The effects of inadequate nutrition on growth and mental development depend to a large extent on the point in the continuum at which the deprivation occurs, the severity and duration of the deprivation, and the nutrient of which the organism is deprived.

From a practical standpoint it is important to determine whether the effects of malnutrition are transitory or permanent—i.e., whether there exists a critical period during which the damages are irreparable. Our present knowledge of the nature and growth of organisms at the cellular level sheds some more light on these concerns. Growth occurs by two processes: cell division, or hyperplasia, and cell enlargement, or hypertrophy. For every organ, the process of hyperplasia precedes that of hypertrophy. In other words, cell division characterizes the early stages of growth in any organ and stops before growth in size and weight of the organ is complete. Myron Winick and his collaborators have defined three phases of growth of all organs: cell division alone; cell division and cell enlargement; and cell enlargement alone.[9] The structural component of these cells, their metabolism, and their functional integrity are ultimately connected to their nutritive supply.

Malnutrition interferes with both types of cellular processes. However it appears that when malnutrition occurs after the transition to growth (cell enlargement alone), recovery is possible by refeeding. When malnutrition interferes with the cell division stage of growth, the injury may be irreparable. Thus any developing organism is more vulnerable to deprivation—a reduced supply of building materials —than the one that has attained its full growth. The more rapidly it is growing the more vulnerable it is to deprivation. The more severe the deprivation the greater will be the damage to the ultimate development. Any interference during the critical periods with the normal development, maturation, and function of the organs, be [Page 32] they of the central nervous system or viscera, has a serious effect on the release of the potentialities of the child in later years. In this framework, the mother-to-be, the fetus, the infant, and the preschool child assume central positions in the overall scheme of nutritional programing.

Considerable evidence indicates that women who are malnourished as children are more likely to have disturbed pregnancies and bear children of low birth weight with increased risk of neuro-integrative abnormality. Inadequate or faulty nutrition during pregnancy can affect both the mother and the developing fetus.[10]

Growth and development of the fetus is dependent on a healthy placenta, which acts as the infant’s lungs, kidneys, and liver. During the first few weeks of embryonic life, the cells of the fertilized ovum undergo a high degree of specialization and differentiation and by the eighth week after conception the brain is recognizable as such and a well-formed spinal cord is evident. At the end of the first trimester, embryogenesis is almost complete and most of the further development of the fetus is by growth only. During the rest of the pregnancy, the rate of growth of the human organism is faster than at any time during the rest of its life cycle. It has been estimated that if this rapid growth were to be continued into later life, by fifteen years the child would be seventy-five feet tall and would weigh several tons.

The period when the growth rate is maximum is, therefore, critical from the standpoint of vulnerability to nutritional defects. It has been demonstrated that the brain, which grows and differentiates at a very rapid rate during intrauterine life and the period closely following birth, is one of the organs most vulnerable to malnutrition or subnutrition. Animal investigations carried out by Alan N. Davison and John Dobbing show that myelination (formation of a fatty protective sheath around nerve fibers) may be impaired by reduced cell replication and delayed biochemical maturation when malnutrition coincides with the periods of rapid brain growth.[11] Stephen Zamenhof and his colleagues and Myron Winick have demonstrated that nutritional deprivation is also accompanied by a reduction in brain cell number.[12] This effect has also been demonstrated in human infants who died of severe early malnutrition.[13] In addition defective enzyme organization in the brains of malnutritioned organisms has been well established.[14]

[Page 33] In the human organism, the period of most rapid brain growth extends from about the beginning of the last trimester of pregnancy to about six months after birth. The human brain adds about two milligrams per minute at birth and grows from 25% of its adult weight at birth to 70% of its adult weight at the end of one year; 90% of the total postnatal brain growth occurs in the first three years. The number of neuronal cells is more or less fixed at birth. During the next nine months, cell replication in the brain is that of only the glial cells. Other aspects of growth and differentiation in the nervous system such as myelination, proliferation of the dendrites, and synapse formation, which are critical for neuro-integrative organization, continue to develop at a very rapid rate throughout early childhood. It is safe to conclude that the period of vulnerability extends beyond the first year of life well into the preschool age.

There is unequivocal evidence to show that protein-calorie malnutrition[15] during any of the stages of the formation, growth, and development of the infant’s brain is reflected in retarded growth and smaller head circumference.[16] Severe ptotein-calorie deficiency may not only result in smaller head size but also a disproportion between skull size and brain size. Using skull transillumination techniques it has been shown that there is an increased volume of cerebrospinal fluid in the cranial cavity which can be interpreted as secondary to brain atrophy. Early protein-calorie deprivation may slow the rate of cell differentiation and multiplication whereas restriction at a later stage may only affect cell size (growth). If the degree of deprivation is sufficiently prolonged, changes in function may be permanent. Thus, malnutrition may directly affect intellectual performance or learning capacity by temporarily or permanently damaging the central nervous system.

Studies on various animals have conclusively demonstrated the irreversible effects of early malnutrition on later behavior patterns and learning abilities.[17] Over the past decade longitudinal studies have been carried out in naturally occurring clinical settings in countries where malnutrition is endemic.[18] A critical review of eight such [Page 34] studies reported in the last six years, in which children hospitalized with severe protein-calorie malnutrition were followed after recovery, shows that the greater the degree of malnutrition, the more severe the intellectual handicap.[19] As early as 1960, it was reported that severe nutritional deprivation in the early months led to marked delays in language acquisition. Early malnutrition also has a detrimental effect on the auditory-visual integrative function and on neuro-integrative behavior in general.[20]

Even after an adequate structure of the central nervous system has been established, poor nutrition during the following years can severely impair the neurophysiological bases of learning and behavior. Moreover, an adequate state of nutrition is an essential prerequisite for good attention and for sensitive responses to the environment. One of the most palpable clinical manifestations of serious malnutrition in children is a striking combination of apathy, irritability, extreme nervous tension, and listlessness. This apathy inhibits volitional competence as the child does very little as a result of his own will or intention. Apathy itself is a sign of lack of motivation. Unresponsiveness on the part of the child characterizes his relation to people as well as objects. When his relationship with other people is affected, his development of moral competence may also be inhibited. This ultimately leads to impairment of all other competencies which are then reflected in the child’s attitudes and value systems at a later age. If the child is unresponsive to the surroundings, little or no learning takes place. The ability to integrate visual with tactile, tactile with kinesthetic, and visual with kinesthetic stimuli—all essential for developing learning competence—was relatively lacking in malnourished children studied by Joaquin Cravioto and his colleagues, and the rate of their recovery was appallingly slow.[21]

There is a synergetic relation between infection and malnutrition in humans. Malnutrition has deleterious effects on the body’s nitrogen balance, thus lowering significantly the levels of certain essential serum proteins (complement and circulating gamma globulins), levels which are critical to the organism’s defense mechanisms or immunological response to infection. Malnutrition and infection act synergistically to produce chronically or recurrently sick children who are unresponsive to sensory stimuli.

All these studies support the view that the earliest period of infancy is one of the most critical for the developing brain and central nervous system. If learning competence is the ability to differentiate and integrate experience which is necessarily mediated through the central nervous system, impaired functioning of this system because of malnutrition will impair the development of learning ability.

No doubt a vast array of scientific questions remain unanswered in this area. [Page 35] However, it would be disastrous if the recognition of limitations of scientific understanding were to be used as a cover or excuse for inaction. Science is a fabric of information and theory being continually woven, and both our knowledge and concepts are always limited by the reality of time. It is our function to use science as a tool for the technological, social, and spiritual progress of man; and we can use it effectively to identify our greatest needs at any point in time and to satisfy them by restructuring our priorities, policies, and procedures.


THOUGH MANY QUESTIONS are still to be answered on the relation of malnutrition to mental development, the available body of knowledge makes it abundantly clear that the association between nutrition and physical as well as functional development is very strong. In view of this, we have little choice but to advocate improved nutrition as one essential for the growth and development of healthy and intelligent children.

Simply providing food is not the answer to the problem, since tradition and superstition have convinced many people that the foods nutritional science considers important to child-bearing mothers and young children are harmful to health or taboo on some other account. Where tradition and superstition, rather than proper knowledge, determines dietary habits, the forces behind these traditions must be understood before positive approaches toward re-education in nutrition can be undertaken. If it is to have long-term impact, the intervention must also have as one of its major components a program of instruction for parents, children, and community members as a whole. Clearly, the child is not an independent or isolated agent and a considerable portion of his life takes place in his home with his family. It is obvious that gains, both with respect to food intake and with attitudes and preferences toward food, made while the child is in a school or some similar environment may be undone if the home and the school function at cross purposes with one another.

Consequently, an essential part of any program of child education must be the establishment of the cooperation and positive participation of the parent in the achievement of the goals and objectives which the program sets for itself. This means that a program of parent education with respect to nutrition and the physical needs for children is an essential component of educational planning. The enlistment of cooperation and the education of the parent can have effects which are beneficial not only to the child who is in the educational system but to all children in the families, born and unborn. It is imperative that we acquaint the mother not only with the needs of the child after his birth but also with his needs when he is still in the womb.

For the human organism to house a sound mind it must build and maintain a healthy body. Thus the critical role played by proper nutrition must be understood, appreciated, and supported by the administration, teaching staff, and the community. This can be done only by active parent and community involvement in school planning. The ANISA system envisages beginning work with prospective parents a year before conception so that a superior nutritional status of the mother-to-be can be guaranteed and the best possible environments, both prenatal and postnatal, for producing a healthy organism maintained. Good nutrition is requisite to the full release of the potentialities of the child.


  1. ↑ See Daniel C. Jordan and Donald T. Streets, “The ANISA Model: A New Educational System for Developing Human Potential,” World Order, 6, no. 3 (Spring 1972), 21-30.
  2. ↑ See Daniel C. Jordan and Raymond P. Shepard, “The Philosophy of the ANISA Model,” World Order, 7, no. 1 (Fall 1972), 23-31.
  3. ↑ Herbert G. Birch and Joan Dye Gussow, Disadvantaged Children: Health, Nutrition & School Failure (New York: Harcourt, 1970), p. 7.
  4. ↑ Herbert G. Birch, “Designs and Proposal for Early Childhood Research: A New Look—Malnutrition, Learning and Intelligence,” ed. Edith H. Grotberg, Document from Office of Economic Opportunity, ED 053 811 (Washington, D. C.: Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, 1971), p. 1.
  5. ↑ Francis Keppel, “Food for Thought,” in Malnutrition, Learning and Behavior, ed. Nevin S. Scrimshaw and John E. Gordon (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1968), p. 4.
  6. ↑ Herbert G. Birch, “Field Measurement in Nutrition, Learning and Behavior,” ibid., p. 498.
  7. ↑ Ibid.
  8. ↑ In North America the term malnutrition signifies a “crisis model” with images of potbellied children of Biafra, or the Oxfam commercials showing children of famished Bangladesh, flashing in our mind. As Birch put it (in “Designs and Proposal for Early Childhood Research,” p. 4) these “images reflect only a highly visible tip of a huge iceberg.” We shall confine ourselves to the general definition of malnutrition as a state of acute or chronic undernutrition involving a total or partial lack of a nutrient or nutrients in the food intake of the human organism during its life cycle as a result of which a functional deficiency of the body system occurs. This impairment can be either permanent or temporary.
  9. ↑ Myron Winick, “Nutrition and Cell Growth,” Nutrition Review, 26 (1968), 195-97.
  10. ↑ It has been generally found that there is no better time in which to attempt the education of a community than during the prenatal and postnatal periods of the female members of the community. During these times, especially when it is the first pregnancy, women are vitally interested in knowing what goes on inside their system; and with the excitement at the prospect of reproducing another life they are very receptive to ideas and willing to do what is required for the welfare of the new creation. The need to establish good communication at this juncture is of paramount importance.
  11. ↑ Alan N. Davison and John Dobbing, “Myelination as a Vulnerable Period in Brain Development,” British Medical Bulletin, 22, no. 1 (1966), 40-44.
  12. ↑ Stephen Zamenhof, Edith Van Marthens, and Frank L. Margolis, “DNA (Cell Number) and Protein in Neonatal Brain: Alteration by Maternal Dietary Protein Restriction,” Science, 160 (1968), 322-23; and Myron Winick, “Nutrition and Cell Growth,” pp. 195-97.
  13. ↑ Myron Winick and Pedro Rosso, “The Effect of Severe Early Malnutrition in Cellular Growth of Human Brain,” Pediatric Research, 3 (1969), 181-84.
  14. ↑ H. Peter Chase, James Dorsey, and Guy M. McKhann, “The Effect of Malnutrition on the Synthesis of Myelin Lipid,” Pediatrics, 40 (1967), 551-59; and H. Peter Chase, and Harold P. Martin, “Undernutrition and Child Development,” New England Journal of Medicine, 282 (1970), 933-76.
  15. ↑ We shall examine here only protein-calorie deprivation during this vulnerable period to show as a case in point how this affects the learning competence of the developing child. In fact, any one or a combination of the essential nutrients (e.g., vitamins and minerals) lacking in the diet during this period or later years Will lead to improper functioning of the human organism.
  16. ↑ Mavis B. Stoch and P. M. Smythe, “The Effect of Undernutrition during Infancy on Subsequent Brain Growth and Intellectual Development,” South African Medical Journal, 41 (1967), 1027-32; and Fernando Monckeberg, “Effect of Early Marasmic Malnutrition on Subsequent Physical and Psychological Developments,” in Malnutrition, Learning and Behavior, p. 269.
  17. ↑ Richard H. Barnes, A. Ulric Moore, Ian M. Reid, and Wilson G. Pond, “Effect of Food Deprivation on Behavioural Patterns,” ibid., p. 203.
  18. ↑ In North America malnutrition is a word used only in reference to underdeveloped countries. The affluence of the West may be leading us to a false sense of security about the adequacy of our nutrition and the assumption that everyone is well fed and malnutrition and starvation are not our worries. Recent reports indicate that segments of the population of the United States have demonstrable malnutrition. See, for example, the report of the Council on Foods and Nutrition, American Medical Association, “Malnutrition and Hunger in the United States,” Journal of American Medical Association, 213 (1970), 272. Although differing in nature, severity, and extent, the effect of malnutrition on child development and adult performance is still a critical issue in the United States.
  19. ↑ Ernesto Pollitt, “Behavioral Correlates of Severe Malnutrition in Man,” in Nutrition, Growth and Development of North American Indian Children, ed. W. M. Moore, M. M. Silverberg, and M. S. Read, DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 76-26 (1972), pp. 151-66.
  20. ↑ Joaquin Cravioto, and Elsa R. De Licardie, “Intersensory Development of School-age Children,” in Malnutrition, Learning and Behavior, p. 252.
  21. ↑ Joaquin Cravioto, Elsa R. De Licardie, and Herbert G. Birch, “Nutrition, Growth and Neurointegrative Development: An Experimental and Ecologic Study,” Pediatrics (suppl.), 38 (1966), 319-72.




[Page 36]

John Trover: A Group of Poems

BY ROWELL HOFF


1.
Trover Dies
Citywalking sharp of edge downtown—
It hurts to touch eyes;
if eye-gates were opened would all of us drown,
rushing down-drain to die?
Laserlancet glances, meeting, million their power.
An instant’s too much!
The iron bubble-surface collapses, the sour
selfwomb waters gush.
John Trover, damned to citywalk all his days
unto his death,
came to love beggars and followed them always.
A beggar never neglects
to greet a passing stranger. After a time
the beggars tired of him.
Wordless, they would take his dime,
turning away their eyes.
After Trover’s death of loneliness,
beggars robbed him.
He’d have been glad for such forgiveness.
Streetsweepers found the body.




[Page 37]

2.
The Myth of John Trover
Trover tired of pushing a trash of moments up each day
to crash with him sleeping to bottom of the next,
and stopped. Imagine his dismay
to find himself again at the top of sunset falling down nights alone
over and over. He screamed for mercy.
“You chose to be a stone,”
said Sisyphus. “What rights has a stone?”




3.
John Trover’s Toy
It danced on a string, golden as the sun;
moreover it was an astonishing unique machine,
potentially able to—
But Trover let them prick its skin
in exchange for their sending the loneliness away.
Even then the reduced dream
was privately beautiful and useful in small ways.
He used it to measure the passage of years,
secretly planning to put it right with patches
and sometime to inflate it with his breath.
Contemplating it one day,
he let it slip from his hand
to the hard ground.
It won’t run any more
and cannot be repaired.




[Page 38]

4.
Trover Alone
John Trover was admiring the sunset. He thought
of running to the house to bring the others out.
They wouldn’t come, and it was night already when he returned.
“Very well,” he said angrily, “I’ll be a solipsist.”
Everyone but him disappeared instantly into an odd mist.
He sent a letter about it to a friend.
The letter was returned unwritten.




5.
Trover Blest
Trover cut open his heart
and gazed at the chambers within
to gauge the extent of his hurt.
A hundred dead bodies were there.
They murmured, “It’s we that you love!”
but Trover destroyed them with fire.
In spite of the pain, he probed on.
A mirror was hid in the dark.
He cleaned it and prayed for the sun.
He turned to easts and horizons,
followed winds, drowned in oceans,
searched rivers to the source.
He lay in a desert dying. It was then
his mirror caught the light of noon.
This is how Trover was raised from the dead.




[Page 39]




[Page 40]

Youth Service and the United Nations

BY JAMES AVERY JOYCE

THE UNITED NATIONS has invented not only the language of quiet diplomacy, but also the language of quiet symbolism. This January, in a little-reported ceremony at U.N. Headquarters, Secretary-Genetal Kurt Waldheim dedicated a mural painting commemorating the World Youth Assembly that took place in the summer of 1970.

This allegorical painting, by the American painter, sculptor, and designer Lumen Martin Winter, is called “Titans.” Based on the colors of the light spectrum, representing the basic colors of all nations, it depicts five giants—the five continents—moving the world out of darkness into light. The central figures of a boy and girl express the eagerness of youth to grasp the light, while a family group of young father, mother, and child takes the shape of a triangle and suggests the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of life. The technique is the artist’s own pointillist style—more like the dots and dashes of a television screen than those of Seurat.

The World Youth Assembly, the Secretary-General said in unveiling the oil painting, had formed a significant event in the celebration of the United Nations’ twenty-fifth anniversary. It emphasized the positive contribution that youth could make—and, indeed, must make—towards achieving the goals of the Charter. Those fervent debates had illustrated that youth insisted on being treated as an integral part of society and not as a separate element. Young people had not only the right to be heard but also a duty to themselves and to others to make a practical contribution to the creation of a better world.

Mr. Waldheim pointed out that, three years later, 1973 marks for the United Nations a vital turning-point in its relations with world youth. This was evidenced by the fact that the General Assembly last December took a number of important decisions to improve the U.N.’s relations with youth and with international youth organizations.

An ad hoc group on youth is being convened this year to advise on specific programs and activities to be undertaken by the United Nations to meet the needs and aspirations of youth. The last Assembly had also endorsed a recommendation urging the recruitment of young staff members to the Secretariat. More young students are being admitted to observe and learn at first hand the work of the United Nations through the intern programs. In addition the United Nations University, set up by the same Assembly, will emerge within the next two years as a dynamic network of research and scholarly action on urgent global problems. UNU will also serve as a significant channel of communication with young people.

So the new mural not only commemorates the past World Youth Assembly; it has become a symbol of the future commitment of the United Nations and the world community it represents to a more effective cooperation with world youth, all of whom are younger than the United Nations itself.

One might well ask how the United Nations system can cooperate more effectively with the youth of the world and how it can assist the new generation in acting out its role as catalyst of a new world order. In the first place, the United Nations, working through the U.N. Development Program, has already been recruiting youth to take a personal part in helping in selected projects in some developing countries. The U.N. Volunteers (UNV) began its planning in [Page 41] January 1971 on the basis of a small Fund established by the General Assembly. These volunteers are now engaged to fill specific needs of developing countries. Selection for these assignments are based on the candidate’s competence in technical and- professional skills, on his ability to communicate knowledge to the nationals of the host country, and on his personal qualities, including his desire to be of service, as well as to seek challenging opportunities to learn. So the United Nations now has its own “Peace Corps,” and the two-year initial phase has been rewarding.

Volunteers are assigned to work with national and international experts attached to U.N. development projects, assisted by the United Nations family of agencies. These projects present opportunities for work in a wide variety of economic and social fields— among them, agriculture, industry, transport and communications, health, social welfare, public administration, urban and rural development, education, vocational training, and, more recently, environmental conservation. In all cases, both the volunteer and his work assignment have been approved by the host country before placement was made.

Volunteers are sought from developing, as well as developed, countries and are generally selected from candidates sponsored by national and international organizations, both official and nongovernmental. Unafliliated candidates, however, can contact the International Secretariat for Voluntary Service (ISVS) or the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (C.C.I.V.S.) in Geneva for a list of sponsoring organizations in their country. Applicants must be over twenty-one and be willing to serve for a period of two years.

The “external” costs of UNV are generally borne by the volunteer-sponsoring organizations. They include screening, the basic training candidates need to perform their work, travel to and from country of assignment, and resettlement allowances. The Special Voluntary Fund was sponsored by the General Assembly, and member governments are responding well.

In answer to requests by the governments of Iran and Yemen, for example, UNV initially sent a group of some nineteen volunteers to Yemen and a group of almost thirty to Iran. Additional volunteers were assigned to support U.N. projects in Niger, Jamaica, and the Ivory Coast. Other agreements are being negotiated with a dozen or more further governments. By the end of 1972 this new U.N. venture, enlisting the energies and idealism of youth in effective peace-building, was well on its feet.

This is, however, no fly-by-night operation, for UNV has emphasized that the programming of the Volunteers into the development projects of the United Nations system be undertaken on the basis that the volunteer component possess “a high degree of professional and technical qualifications to meet well-defined and specific manpower requirements within individual projects.”

With the UNV experience behind it the last General Assembly insisted on more and wider “demands of communication” being opened with youth and youth organizations. “For most of the world’s young people,” stated the Secretary-General, “the United Nations is a distant and detached institution —if indeed they are aware of its existence. It is perhaps the nature of this institution, [Page 42] working as it does almost exclusively through and with governments, to be less directly related to people as individuals than are most social institutions. Very few of the world’s young people—in some countries the proportion has been estimated at less than 1 per cent—are aware of the specific activities of the United Nations.” Nevertheless, his report to the Assembly continued: “Channels of communication between young people and the United Nations must be two-way channels. Such communication should be aimed not only at increasing youth support for the United Nations, but also at increasing the sensitivity of the Organization to the problems and issues that youth consider to be important.” In fact, he concluded, “unless communications with young people are improved and their participation in United Nations activities increased, the United Nations, as a vehicle for the development of the international community, is in danger of losing the interest and commitment of the future generation.”

The last Assembly was also significant because over thirty governments informed it of specific steps they were taking to implement the Declaration (made at the 1965 Assembly) on the “Promotion among Youth of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual Respect, and Understanding between Peoples.” These national approaches differ from each other; but, at random, we may note that Austria’s youth has shown increasing understanding for the aims of development aid, as is evidenced by the existence of the Austrian Youth Council for Development Aid. Among their concrete activities is a public speaking contest (organized by the Austrian United Nations Association) in which, every year, several hundred young people—students from various categories of schools, young workers, members of the organization of rural youth, and soldiers serving in the Austrian Federal Army—participate. Denmark, too, announced a novel arrangement by which Danish youth organizations are allowed one representative on the Danish delegations to the sessions of the General Assembly and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The Holy See considered that the 1965 Declaration had already had wide repercussions in the Catholic world and that “Catholic youth associations are, in fact, endeavoring to make increasingly large numbers of young people aware of the need to commit themselves personally to the promotion of peace, a peace not modeled merely on the pure and simple absence of war, but a peace embodying all the conditions for justice, respect for fundamental human rights and the full development of the human being.”

Many countries reported specific accomplishments across frontiers. The Soviet Union stated that “in October 1970 a large group of young Soviet medical workers returned from Peru. For more than two months these representatives of the Leninist Komsomol had been working in the inaccessible mountainous regions of Peru. The group reached more than sixty towns and villages in the province of Ancash, saw approximately forty-five thousand patients, and vaccinated ten thousand inhabitants.

Italy favored the continental approach, since (the report runs) “in particular, Italy has recently supported the establishment of the European Youth Fund, conceived as an agency capable of awakening and strengthening the European consciousness in young people as well as their sense of responsibility for the realization of a lasting peace in Europe and in the entire world.”

Tied in with these national efforts—which the United Nations has stimulated and encouraged —the U.N.’s own family of agencies have had their special part to play. The list is always growing as funds become available, but two such transnational operations can be referred to, however briefly. Surveying the more juvenile youth programs, UNICEF has been receiving more and more requests for assistance to projects directed at the critical social problems of adolescents. Among approaches being followed are the reorientation [Page 43] of formal school education, young farmers’ clubs, and youth corps. The challenge is not merely to train adolescents in specific skills but rather to modify traditional ways of thinking so that they will be able to adjust to a rapidly modernizing society. Thus in Ghana, 38 middle schools are being converted into practical youth settlements. In Tunisia, 101 such centers have been established, but the relatively high cost of training is a cause of concern. In Cyprus, on the other hand, a vocational education project assisted by UNICEF has had great success and the government has decided to expand it to cover the whole island. Similarly, Sudan is including a number of youth training centers in its program for the regional development of the southern areas.

Turning to the older youth programs, the I.L.O. has, during the last two years, not separated its main activities into a special and artificial “youth” program but has integrated them in the major technical and social programs of the Office dealing with employment, job promotion, human resources development, vocational preparation, conditions of work, and social institutions, including workers’ education. The I.L.O. integrated approach is based on the conviction that young peoples’ problems have to be attacked within the framework of programs affecting all workers. Particular attention has been given, however, to finding solutions to the growing problem of unemployed youth. In developing countries as a whole persons under twenty years constitute more than half the total population, and the high rate of idleness among this sector of the population is a growing disaster for the Third World. So what is to be done?

Regional employment teams composed of I.L.O. specialists in human resources development have been set up in Latin America, and plans have been made to establish two subregional teams in Africa. In Latin America three in-depth studies on the employment situation and the identification of appropriate employment policies have already been carried out in Peru, Chile, and Jamaica and a similar study is now being prepared in Costa Rica. Studies of the same type have been carried out by an Asian Employment Team. Thus the I.L.O. is extending its worldwide technical cooperation on the implementation of special youth employment and training schemes for development purposes.

The United Nation’s quiet diplomacy may not be reflected in the day-to-day press or the mass media which, to the grave detriment of the world’s youth, feed on wars and conflicts. But its consistent, quiet diplomacy in the relaxed fields of economic relations, of education and training, of employment and social justice, is defining a new language of direct communication with youth throughout the world.




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[Page 45]

The Reconstruction of Civilization

A REVIEW OF W. WARREN WAGAR’S Building the City of Man: Outlines of a World Civilization, A WORLD ORDER BOOK (NEW YORK: GROSSMAN, 1971), 180 PAGES.

BY DANIEL CONNER

EACH YEAR there are vast numbers of books published that, though written and published by non-Bahá’ís, are relevant and occasionally central to the Bahá’í experience. Each Bahá’í, of course, will have his own favorites; and one can hardly be expected to keep up with them all. Many such books will be intriguing and valuable speculations on the future of civilization and mankind in general. But only in a very few will the speculations on the nature of the new World Order be of such towering brilliance that Bahá’ís can hardly afford to overlook them. Such a book is Professor W. Warren Wagar’s Building the City of Man.

Bahá’ís are committed to the belief that the prevailing world order is diseased and, in Bahá’u’lláh’s words, “lamentably defective” and that it will in the near future be replaced by a new Order. The Bahá’í Administrative Order which has been evolving over the years is, in the Bahá’í belief, the embryonic form of the new World Order; it is, as yet, inadequate; but it is destined to evolve into a world governing network that will be largely responsible for the construction of a new civilization. If this view is correct, the responsibilities inherent in even the most petty aspects of Bahá’í administration are awe inspiring, and Bahá’ís would do well to pause to reflect on the nature of what they are building. They will, in their concern with the nature of their responsibilities, find great comfort in Professor Wagar’s book.

Most people, I would suppose, by now have a vague sense that something is drastically wrong with the present order, and the number of those who realize that its built-in defects are rapidly approaching crisis proportions increases daily. “The circumstances give us two options,” according to Wagar, “either to preserve the shells of our diseased civilizations as long as possible, or to try consciously and concertedly to build a new world civilization.” Virtually all who are concerned with the rapid decay of the old order have chosen the former; pitifully few (among them the Bahá’ís) have chosen the latter. A Bahá’í will certainly agree with Wagar in his assertion that “proposals to repair the old civilizations, or replace them piece by piece, are madness in reason’s mask.”

But the building of a new world civilization is a stupendous task, and not one to be taken lightly. How are new civilizations built? By religion, according to Wagar, and with this the Bahá’í will wholeheartedly concur. “Sometimes an ideology can do service as a religion,” Wagar writes, “but for mankind as a whole, certainly for a civilization that hopes to minister to every human being on the planet, religion is indispensable. We shall not reach, nor can we sustain, an organic world civilization without the help of a new living religious faith.” Many of the destructive ills of our time can be traced to a single irreducible cause—the loss of transcendent meaning, which is responsible for [Page 46] the nihilism, fatalism, and runaway technocracy that so characterize our age.

What are some of the possible contenders for this distinction? Not, according to Wagar, the traditional and now dying religions of Christianity, Islám, Hinduism, or Buddhism: “But if new faith is on its way, do not doubt that it will be new.” Wagar mentions several contenders, one of which might possibly emerge victorious: the Bahá’í Faith, the Unitarian-Universalist Church, or the Humanist and Ethical Culture. More likely, he feels, it will be a religion not yet born—one that will grow out of the movement for world unity. It will not be an artificial religion, created by a “committee of scholars,” but rather it will spring from the longings and- needs of the people, as all religions of the past have done.

If the new religion is destined to be the midwife of the coming world civilization, how can it accomplish its task? According to Wagar

The new universal religion . . . will grow until it becomes the faith of most of the world’s peoples. Although the world commonwealth will deny liberty of conscience to no man, it will resemble a theocracy more than it resembles the religionless state of modern times. It will draw back from modern impiety, from Western man’s prideful refusal to bind himself to any form of religious discipline, and it will escape from the joyless vacuum into which liberalism has unintendingly plunged the modern spirit. As during the Reformation, liberty of conscience will become an opportunity for faith rather than a refuge for doubt.

A theocracy perhaps, but one with a difference —one without the repressive connotations that the term usually carries. “The consensus of the wise,” he writes, “will replace the authority of sacred texts and churches . . . The ‘wise’ will have no power above and apart from other men. No one will be able to claim absolute knowledge or absolute righteousness.” Wagar is apparently unaware of the similarity between his vision of the “consensus of the wise” and the place of the Universal House of Justice in the Bahá’í Administrative Order.

When will all this occur? Sooner than we might think. “The new world culture,” according to Wagar, “will begin to emerge in the closing years of the twentieth century.”

Wagar is one of the most recent in a long line of utopographers stretching back to Plato. His earlier book, The City of Man, is a summary of earlier ideas on world order. In Building the City of Man his analysis of the defects of the old order is brilliant, and occasionally moving. But his conjectures about the process whereby a new world order might become a reality are, as with his predecessors, less convincing, and perhaps necessarily so; for the study of alternative futures is a treacherous discipline, and many ambitious projects of this nature have proved remarkably shortsighted in their scope. Nevertheless it is fortunate that Wagar has not confined himself to an indictment of the ills of modern civilization, for he is one of the few to have hit upon what will perhaps be the central and most surprising aspect of the near future—the renascence of faith and the rejection of the mechanistic worldview with all its technocratic consequences. All too many futurologists, seemingly unaware that the recent revivals of astrology, witchcraft, and other cheapened forms of faith are anything more than a passing fad, still confine their conjecture to technological innovations and their impact. Wagar successfully avoids this pitfall, and the greater part of his book expresses his views on the nature of the coming world civilization: the changes in education, the equality of the sexes and the changing nature of sexual and family roles, the synthesis of knowledge and of cultures, the reconstruction of the environment, and the future of economics and politics.

The Bahá’í will find Wagar advocating a few ideas that will be unacceptable to him, but little matter. This book is no less than a [Page 47] blueprint in outline for the construction of a global society. It is all too easy to complain about the shortcomings of the present order; it is something else to present viable alternatives. Wagar’s blueprint in many respects parallels and perhaps even borrows from the Bahá’í writings, and the author properly acknowledges his debt to Bahá’u’lláh in his dedication. For the Bahá’í who is concerned with the longer range evolution of the new World Order, this book is indispensable.




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Authors & Artists


DANIEL CONNER is making a second appearance in World Order, his “Buddhism and the Bahá’í Faith” having appeared in the Winter 1971-72 issue. Mr. Conner is a former college teacher of music and anthropology who has taken a few years off to work on a book on the history of prophecy. His interests include music and art, Oriental philosophy, astronomy, and Indian lore.


ROWELL HOFF is Professor of English at the Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Dominican Republic. His poem “America” appeared in the Summer 1968 issue of World Order and “The Ascents” in the Winter 1970-71 issue.


JAMES AVERY JOYCE is an international lawyer, economist, and author. He is a consultant at the United Nations headquarters and Senior Research Associate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Mr. Joyce graduated in political science from the London School of Economics, under Harold Laski, and studied international relations at the Geneva School of International Studies. He has contributed articles to leading journals including The Nation, Saturday Review, and The Christian Century. His nineteen books include Youth Faces the New World, Revolution on East River, World of Promise, and End of an Illusion.


JAMES F. NELSON was educated at Stanford, UCLA, and the Loyola University Law School. He has been Deputy District Attorney of Los Angeles County; has practiced law in Los Angeles; was Referee in the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court and Commissioner of the Los Angeles Superior Court; and, since 1968, has been serving as Judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court. A Bahá’í since 1954, Judge Nelson has served the Faith in many capacities. He is presently Chairman of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Pasadena.


S. P. RAMAN, who holds a degree in organic chemistry from the University of Calcutta, came to North America in 1960 and has spent some twelve years in academic and industrial research laboratories. In 1972 he left his position as Senior Research Chemist of the Division of Biochemistry, Ayerst Laboratories, Montreal, Canada, to join the ANISA staff—a multidisciplinary task force, gathered at the Center for the Study of Human Potential, University of Massachusetts, for planning a comprehensive Early Childhood Education Program. Mr. Raman’s article “My Quest for the Fulfillment of Hinduism” appeared in the Spring 1969 issue of World Order.


ART CREDITS: P. 1, drawing by Tom Kubala; pp. 8, 9, 10, 11, photographs, courtesy Bahá’í News Service; all other drawings by Tom Kubala; back cover, photograph by Jay Conrader.

JAY CONRADER is well known to World Order readers for his nature photographs and his co-authorship of the article “Flowers and Insects” which appeared in the Spring 1969 issue of the magazine. He is a freelance writer and photographer.

TOM KUBALA returns to World Order after having appeared once in the Fall 1970 issue. He is in his fifth year of architectural studies at the University of Illinois and will graduate in June of this year.




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