The Bahá’í community has been
working for well over one hundred years towards the creation of a unified world
and a united planet. Many people in the world would like to see this happen but
cannot see how it can ever be achieved. Those who want to bring about change usually
feel it is only possible to concentrate on one problem at a time. Obvious
candidates at present are the problems relating to war and poverty, the
Palestine/Israel problem, the current war in Ukraine, deforestation, reduction
in biodiversity, global warming, etc. Despite people’s best efforts, not enough
progress is being made and recent developments have not been promising.
At the time of writing, at the beginning of 2025, wildfires are destroying
large parts of Los Angeles. 2024 also saw wildfires in Portugal, Turkey, Chile,
Canada and Russia. In addition, there were also droughts in Zambia and Colombia.
At the same time, while dry parts of the world get drier, wet parts are rapidly
becoming wetter. Floods are fresh in the memory of millions of people, having
recently occurred in India, Spain, Dubai, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Central
Europe, Sudan, Nepal, Brazil, the United Kingdom and a number of other
countries. Tropical storms have recently ravaged the south-eastern U.S.A., Mexico,
the Philippines, various islands in the Caribbean, Vietnam, parts of China,
Mauritius, Mayotte and other areas. It is clear to the vast majority of us that
there is a slight, but crucially significant, warming of the world’s climate,
caused by human activity. So, are we successfully changing our behaviour to
reduce the severity of these more extreme weather patterns?
The answer, for most people, would be “No”. Sadly, 2024 was the hottest year on
record, and the first to exceed the target maximum of 1.5 degrees warming. The
recent COP29 climate change conference, held in Azerbaijan, eventually reached
a deal, but the conference was not considered a real success. The countries of
the world were divided on a number of issues, including the amount of money
needed to be allocated by richer countries to help the poorer countries combat
the effects of the climate change. Another crucial question was why the
conference did not discuss the need to phase out the use of fossil fuels, often
seen as among the chief culprits in global warming. Phasing out such fuels was
not even on the agenda!
Another problem facing the world, its creatures and its ecosystems is the
increasing volume of plastic waste finding its way into the world’s rivers and
seas. (I wrote about this issue in a blog post in April 2018, entitled “In need
of plastic surgery”.) According to the Bahá'í Writings: “All created things are
closely related together and each is influenced by the other…” So - is it
actually possible that we can be poisoning the oceans and the creatures there,
and putting plastics into the environment, without affecting ourselves? And
what was the result of the recent conference on plastics in the environment?
The result was a failure to produce any overall agreement at all! Some
countries simply could not see that their role in the production process was
damaging the world – or perhaps they understood it, but did not wish to admit
it, because of their own short term economic interests.
So not enough progress is being made in solving the problems facing humanity. Bahá’ís
do support many of these initiatives, including in our daily lives, but our collective
efforts are mainly concentrated on the solution to what we see as the
fundamental problem, which is a lack of unity. Most people would feel that any
attempt to give mankind a glorious Golden Age has to be relegated well into the
future, and would probably regard as too long term the Bahá’í approach of
trying to work at a simultaneous replacement of the whole system by building up
united communities. But in the nineteenth century, Bahá’u’lláh stated that,
“The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and
until its unity is firmly established.” In other words, the unity of mankind
has to be established before the world can effectively tackle all the issues
which divide it. Any idea of human unity, in the eyes of much of the
population, is a desirable but distant goal, but in Bahá’í eyes it is the
central issue, the one which needs addressing first.
In virtually every country and territory of the world, there are communities of
Bahá’ís, consisting of people of different ages, from different ethnic groups and
of different economic and religious backgrounds. Many other local people join with
the Bahá’ís in working together to build positive communities and to make life
better for everyone. There have been amazing cases of different ethnic groups,
or other groups which had been antagonistic to one another, overcoming
long-standing differences to work together for the good of all. In areas where
these efforts have been the most successful and most widespread, a Bahá’í House
of Worship has been built, which serves as a focal point for the community and its
events. The developing world has been leading the way on this, but the
developed world is starting to catch up. There is always work to be done
everywhere. The goal is to build a new kind of society, based on unity,
equality and service, leading to prosperity for all. The aim is nothing less
than the betterment of the entire world.
Problems will continue all around us, but if we get to know and appreciate one
another, and work together, we can make a difference. Even small communities
united in an enterprise can have a huge effect.
This is an open invitation to every individual to join the Bahá’ís in building
up united communities. Every person who adds themselves to these communities
can (and will) make a difference, and will bring the security and well-being of
mankind that bit closer.
