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Racial prejudice is one of the most destructive and persistent evils afflicting humankind. Racism, the ideology that one race is superior or inferior to another, flies in the face of all our knowledge of human biology. Old racial categories, many of them notions from 19th Century colonial attitudes, now seem increasingly arbitrary: more genetic variance occurs within racial groupings than between them. Racism is nourished by unbridled nationalism, religious division and economic deprivation. It blights human progress - corrupting its credulous promoters, and driving its victims from the mainstream of society. Racism violates the dignity of the human race. Such doctrines and practices are completely contrary to Bahá'í teachings and beliefs.
Racialism, the practice of discrimination and unequal treatment against particular racial groups, holds back its victims' development and is a major barrier to peace. Whether expressed in open hostility or in indifference, racialism divides society into mutually suspicious and antagonistic groupings. Such groups, whether victims or oppressors, find themselves clinging to ethnic identities to maintain feelings of self-worth.
Reaction to the horrors of war and human suffering led, in December 1948, to the United Nations adopting the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", which gave international recognition to "... the inherent dignity and ... equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family .... without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion ....". This Declaration was elaborated in two international covenants, on Civil and Political Rights, and Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. Two subsequent Conventions reinforced international sentiment, a Convention against Genocide (1948) and another specifically against Racial Discrimination (1965).
Although the ideals of the Declaration of Human Rights and associated Covenants are yet to be fully adopted or realised, their existence is a major step forward in international affairs. The need for such international agreements as a foundation for peace and equity in human affairs, are clearly laid down in the Bahá'í writings.
In February 1947, while the Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted, the international Bahá'í community submitted, "A Bahá'í Declaration of Human Obligations and Rights". It stated, "The source of human rights is the endowment of qualities, virtues and powers which God has bestowed upon mankind without discrimination of sex, race, creed or nation," and established the link between individual rights and obligations, "Human rights can be established ... when members of the community realise that the gift of life and conscious being obligates them to meet responsibilities owed to God, to society and to self ....".
For Bahá'ís accepting that human rights derive from God, means accepting a spiritual dimension to human nature. There can be no lasting improvement in human material well-being unless this spiritual element receives equal attention. Adding depth to this perception is the Bahá'í perspective of the human condition not as static, but in a continuing process of evolution - biologically, socially and spiritually.
This dynamic view of human development means the problem of racial prejudice is similarly not static, but becomes more complex as society develops, and is interwoven with other social problems. The time is long past when different races met only in distant and infrequent contact: as conquerors and enslaved, as traders, missionaries or as colonists. Today, contact is commonplace. A greater maturity of understanding than was imaginable in past ages, is now both possible and necessary.
In the start of His ministry, Bahá'u'lláh1 addressed humanity, "O Children of Men! Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other."2 From its early days, the Bahá'í Faith has set out to prove its commitment to that principle through systematic efforts to share its message with members of all races, creeds, tribes and classes, achieving an unparalleled level of inter-racial fellowship throughout the world.
The suffering and alienation of the world's indigenous peoples over the last hundred years has been intense, and enrollment of so many of these disenfranchised peoples3 into the Bahá'í community and their active participation in its affairs is a matter of pride to Bahá'ís. This participation includes a consultative form of administration based at the grass roots of the community.
Bahá'ís recognise that the evolution of present-day society into one free from prejudice, will be a lengthy task requiring a degree of prolonged and sustained effort. World-wide, Bahá'ís have sponsored and been involved in many movements for social justice and programmes to tackle racial prejudice. Examples include the race amity programmes in the United States dating from the 1920s and recently strengthened to help counter the tensions growing in that country, and a network of Bahá'í-inspired Institutes for the Healing of Racism.
Such efforts require vision and wisdom. Protesting too vehemently against injustice can be counter-productive and can result in hardening of the very attitudes which protesters seek to change. Protest on its own and for its own sake without a clearly-enunciated vision of harmony can only add to social strife and alienation. Opposition will not eliminate divisiveness.
While the foundation of any change in society is undoubtedly a change in the human heart and appreciation of the oneness of humankind - "If you desire with all your heart friendship with every race on earth," said 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1912, "your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men"2 - on its own, this is not enough. The Bahá'í teachings make clear that achieving racial harmony involves practical matters as well.
Racial attitudes are not innate, they are learned in the process of socialisation by contact with 'attitude holders' rather than from the objects of the attitude. Poor inter-personal relationships between individuals, within families, and between larger social groups is a facet of modern-day life that indicates maladjustment between the material and spiritual aspects of human nature. This imbalance fans cynicism, fear, suspicion and aggression across social boundaries, including those of race. Changing the hearts of individuals needs to be reinforced by commonly promulgated standards of behaviour and social skills.
Such standards and skills find a practical opportunity for development within the Bahá'í community in its application of the principle of community consultation: all Bahá'ís are encouraged and have equal right to put forth their views - and have them treated with respect and consideration.
Overcoming prejudice is not the responsibility of one section of society alone. Bahá'í writings make it clear that effort is required from all parties, and that no race or other social group has a right or claim to be excused from making that effort. At the same time, if a minority is obviously disadvantaged, Bahá'í teachings advise that "... If any discrimination is at all to be tolerated, it should be a discrimination not against, but rather in favour of the minority, be it racial or otherwise."2
Racial prejudice cannot be dealt with simply as a problem to be combatted, nor can it be approached as though hostility is an unavoidable, innate quality of race relations. Neither is seeking "racial blindness", - a pretence that differences do not exist and that "everyone is the same" - a solution: it ignores the self-evident:. By contrast, Bahá'í teachings encourage a sane pride in one's race, culture and nationality within a wider loyalty to the single human family.
From its earliest days, the Bahá'í community in the United Kingdom has upheld and demonstrated in the diversity of its membership, the principles of the unity of mankind. Early British Bahá'ís, while unfamiliar with some details of their newly-embraced faith, were clear on fundamentals such as racial unity. British Bahá'ís participated in the Universal Races Congress held in July 1911, to which 'Abdu'l-Bahá4 sent a message:
"... Consider the variety of flowers in a garden. They seem but to enhance the loveliness of each other. When differences of colour, ideas, and character are found in the human Kingdom, and come under the control of the power of unity, they too show their essential beauty and perfection ... the world is in a warlike condition, and its races are hostile one to the other ... The call to arbitration, to peace, to love, and to loyalty is the call of Bahá'u'lláh ... summoning all of whatever race and creed." He concluded: "This Congress is one of the greatest of events. It will be forever to the glory of England that it was established at her capital," but, he warned, "Some congresses, are held only to increase differences. Let it not be so with you. Let your effort be to find harmony ...".2
The Congress "Record of the Proceedings" devoted six paragraphs to a summary of the Bahá'í Faith, saying its record would otherwise be incomplete. Paraphrasing Bahá'í principles, it wrote, "... God had made all men as the drops of one sea and the leaves of one tree, that all races of mankind were pure, and should work in harmony together."
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá visited Britain a few months later, on his historic journey through Europe and North America, his many talks on the unity of humankind, in which he often compared humanity to different coloured flowers or jewels, stood in vivid contrast to the racial images and stereotypes so commonly preached at the time.
An English Bahá'í, Louisa Mathews, was in the party accompanying 'Abdu'l-Bahá to America in 1912. Her subsequent marriage to Louis Gregory, a black American Bahá'í, at a time when over half the States in America prohibited or did not recognise inter-racial marriage, was hailed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá as "an introduction to the accomplishment of good fellowship between blacks and whites"2. Despite attacks on 'Abdu'l-Bahá by some American clergy, for encouraging "mixing of the races" through inter-marriage, the Gregory's marriage was an example of harmony which Bahá'ís still hold dear today.
Forty years later, when British Bahá'ís played a major role in taking the Bahá'í Faith to countries and then-colonies in Africa where their Faith was not yet established, their lack of racial prejudice soon set them apart and at times provoked hostility in colonial officials and settlers.
Today, the British Bahá'í community still works to promote the oneness of humankind and the overcoming of racialism. Examples include a response by Northern Ireland Bahá'ís to a Government Consultation Document on Race Relations in 1993, which, within a range of topics, upheld the rights of Irish Travellers; and the promotion of school World Citizenship programmes by dozens of local Bahá'í communities and programmes of action designed to foster education on equality and peace issues. These efforts typify positive Bahá'í responses to the negativism of racial prejudice.
Present-day British society reflects the ethnic diversity of the human race to a degree unimaginable a century ago. From its beginnings the British Bahá'í community, reflecting a diversity now apparent in the wider community, has demonstrated that such diversity can be a source of strength, not stress. As the wider British community comes to terms with its multi-cultural nature, it is encouraging to recollect the words of Baháµuµlláh to the Cambridge scholar, E.G. Browne5:
"... that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that differences of race be annulled - what harm is there in this? ... Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away ... this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family . . . Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind . . ."2
1 Baháµuµlláh (1817 - 1892) Prophet Founder of the Bahá'í Faith.
2 Quotations from Bahá'í scriptures.
3 There are now some 2000 ethnic and tribal groups within the Bahá'í community.
4 Sir 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas (1844 -1921) son of the Founder of the Bahá'í Faith, and its head 1892 -1921.
5 Prof E, G. Browne (1862 - 1926), Middle East scholar and orientalist, the only Westerner to leave a detailed record of his meeting with Bahá'u'llá and an account of His words.
Written by Andrew Gash for the U.K. Bahá'í Centenary.
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