“The well-being of mankind, its peace and security…”

 

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.