"While in all past religious books and epistles, the world of
humanity has been divided into two parts; one called the people of the
Book, or the Pure Tree, and the other, the Evil Tree. One half of the
people of the world were looked upon as belonging to the faithful, and
the other as belonging to the irreligious and the infidel; one half of
the people were consigned to the mercy of the Creator, and the other
half were considered as objects of the wrath of their Maker. But
Baha'u'llah proclaimed the Oneness of the World of humanity--He
submerged all mankind in the Sea of Divine Generosity." --Abdul-Baha
Moojan Momen’s attempt to label people as “apostates” entirely misses
what is truly the issue: The corruption and decline of the Baha’i Faith
under an oppressive administration founded upon the spurious, fraudulent
will and testament of Abdu’l-Baha. A denomination based upon an act of
forgery cannot but produce the many evils that have manifested
themselves increasingly over the last decade in the Baha’i Faith. The
much flaunted “administrative order” constitutes the real cadre of
apostates, not the fictitious "group" he's concocted.
Moojan Momen and the Haifan Baha’i administration, while publicly
hiding behind a facade of liberalism, are essentially practicing Islamic
“takfir,” labeling people “kafir” or infidels, and issuing fatwas,
denying the very existence of other Bahais and denominations, all
indicative of the worst in the Shiite Islamic heritage of the Bahai
Faith—practices Baha’u’llah specifically repudiated, teaching tolerance
of different religious views, largely congruent with modern Western
custom. Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to the modern
democracy of Western civic and legal order than the jihad the Haifan
Baha’is are conducting.
Momen’s paragraph about me, a litany of hate, derision, and
slander, under the guise of "scholarly content" and "factual statements," is so thick with lies and misrepresentations
that I am sure the rest of the "article" must be just as biased,
deceitful, and hypocritical. My response to his various
distortions follow below.
Holding two degrees from the University of Michigan, I studied there
with Robert Hayden, the only American poet of any real ability who thus
far has happened to be a Bahai, an African-American, and appointed
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. I edited both his
Collected Prose (University of Michigan Press) and his
Collected
Poems (Liveright). A man of formidable intellectual integrity,
Hayden loathed fundamentalist Baha’is. It’s important to understand that
Baha’i fanatics have attempted, since Hayden’s death in 1980, to distort
and co-opt his reputation for their propaganda and that I stand in their
way, as with other issues. Sharing his assessment, I discuss Hayden’s actual views on the Baha’i
Faith at length in my essay about him in my recently published The Grove of the Eumenides: Essays on
Literature, Criticism, and Culture (2007). I've also published three
other books of poetry and prose, have a forthcoming volume in Spring
2008, been a Fulbright-Hays scholar to China, and an NEH scholar on
India, but since I’m supposed to be a “marginal” Baha’i “apostate,”
Momen, like all zealous Baha’i apologists, can only treat people with
caricature and slander, as has been done by fundamentalists for over a
decade on talk.religion.bahai and elsewhere online.
Deriding my four years of community college teaching, Momen conveniently
leaves out that I taught English literature and rhetoric for several
years at Gunma University (Japan), Illinois State University, and
Oakland University.
I’ve been a Bahai for 31 years, since 1976, not 25. I was very active in
the Michigan Bahai community, travel taught in the state in youth
groups, attended firesides, summer school, conventions, served on a
number of assemblies and committees, regularly contributed to the Funds, and I pioneered to Japan and on the
Colorado River Indian Reservation in Arizona (3 ½ years). I published an
essay on the poet Robert Hayden and a review in World Order in
the early 1980s.
https://fglaysher.com/Recentering.htm
“Personal clashes with Iranian Baha’is.” Apparently they thought so and
reported something to someone. What is the accusation and who is my
accuser? This type of libel is characteristic of fascist states and
organizations.
Similar to the many Bahais whose messages were censored, my posts to
soc.religion.bahai were also censored, by fundamentalist
apparatchiks who opposed the creation of an unmoderated news
group,
talk.religion.bahai for over two years, organizing and
massively voting against a free and open forum they couldn’t manipulate. It took
three rounds of voting to pass. Even after a decade, talk.religion.bahai
remains quite possibly THE ONLY Bahai FORUM that cannot be censored by anyone,
fundamentalist or liberal, and I am definitely proud of that fact. Talk.religion.bahai > Menu:
https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/trbmenu.htm At
times, as stormy as the British Parliament, say what one will, it’s a
free and open forum, where all voices may be heard, more than one can
find in the Shiite-like world order the ao would impose, imitating the
anti-Western prejudices of that decadent, depraved, and backward excuse
for a culture and civilization, and unlike the Teachings of Baha’u’llah,
who loathed the tyranny of His homeland.
Online now for over a decade, talk.religion.bahai participants soon
began to realize there was a "Bahai Technique" to fundamentalist
behavior, based primarily on slander, character assassination, and such
reprehensible tactics. That Momen has practiced such "techniques" in the
pages of a reputable academic journal should give intelligent minds
reason for pause and concern:
https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/technique.htm
“Withdrawn from active participation” on talk.religion.bahai: completely
false, as is the spam allegation. I withdrew from allowing myself to be
pummeled by bullies and fanatics who refuse to engage and discuss people’s
legitimate concerns. I’ve found ways to reveal how utterly corrupt the ao is. The ao actually spams the
group with the same ignorant party line, year after year, never
discussing anything that doesn’t align with it. That’s not discussion
nor an exchange of ideas, even though they pretend otherwise. A free society and free speech require give
and take. They’re only interested in takfir and branding people as kafir.
I regularly exchange posts on talk.religion.bahai with people capable of
decent courtesy, listening, and respect for other people’s opinions and
religious convictions, including Bahais who are members of other Bahai
denominations, whose views may differ from mine, but whom I respect as
human beings. Momen, like all fundamentalists and bullies, is incapable
of respecting people who don’t echo back to him his own opinions. A
public school teacher once observed that most bullying occurs in 6th
through 8th grade. That tells us something important about the
administrative order and the people it uses to do its dirty work, like Momen and
Susan Maneck. My interest on talk.religion.bahai is in
reaching those Bahais and people who are uninformed and naive as a
result of the distortion and suppression of information and the deceit
of Baha'i
propaganda. The reactionary
attack and tactics of Momen and others demonstrate that I have been
successful in informing my fellow Bahais and citizens, in the USA
and around the world, of the despicable fanaticism that
purports to represent Baha’u’llah’s Teachings. The
allegations and howling over "spam" is all out of proportion to reality,
revealing their disreputable motives.
The Bahai “institutions” are not above criticism; no one is in this
world, especially any putative institution that purports to be
"infallible." They merit little else than criticism given their disgusting conduct and
lack of ethics.
Not at all acerbic. Here’s the proof: "Please remove my name and address
from your mailing list." Details at
https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/nsa1996.htm That’s
it. That’s all I asked for, and I got insult and fanaticism in return.
I’ve never been officially notified, if I was dropped from the “rolls,”
only online slander claiming it. Some
people have sued the ao, Deborah Buchhorn for fraud and slander, which
they wiggled out of, not at all a proof of their innocence:
https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/NMLawsuit.htm
“Fact and fantasy”: Momen and the ao are so sunk in fantasy that only
fanatics like themselves fail to see it. They share that with Al-Qaeda,
along with many other traits.
The Reform Bahai Faith began August 19, 2004, though its roots go
back to Ruth White, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Julie Chanler, and other early
Bahais who were similarly maligned for not accepting the fundamentalist
Shiite interpretation of Baha’u’llah’s Teachings, based on the
fraudulent will and testament of Abdu’l-Baha, written by the family of
Shoghi Effendi, and pronounced a fraud in 1930 by Dr. C. Ainsworth
Mitchell of the British Museum:
https://www.reformbahai.org/CAMitchell_Report.htm
The Reform Bahai Faith is already much larger than any other Bahai
denomination, including the three combined that the NSA of Wilmette is
currently suing in the US District Court of Northern Illinois.
https://trueseeker.typepad.com/true_seeker/court_case.html
Why
would members of the Reform Bahai Faith want to identify themselves on the Internet to be abused
and harassed by Shiite Baha’is, especially given the way
fundamentalists have caricatured and slander me and other independent
minds? Some hardy souls have
posted and participated in the safe forum of Yahoo Group - ReformBahai,
where fundamentalists may not libel people with impunity:
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReformBahai
My website “The Baha'i Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience” may be
the most comprehensive effort made to document the fanaticism that has
taken over the largest Bahai denomination.
https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship
Blitzkriegs: Ad hominem, slander, and takfir are not an answer to the
profound questions raised by Shoghi Effendi’s corrupting Baha’u’llah’s
Teachings and taking His Faith back into the middle ages. Momen's
defamation has a very long Baha'i history, early instances of which were
noted by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab in his book Broken Silence: The Story of
Today's Struggle for Religious Freedom. New York: Universal
Publishing, 1942. "The writer of the article in Bahai News
reaches the height of his slanderous vilification when he likens
Mr. and Mrs. Chanler and their Bahai friends to those enemies that
preceded them: Subhi-Ezel, Mohamet Ali, Kheirella and their like"
(138).
https://fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/SohrabEx.htm Click “Dangerous
Doctrine.”
Out-of-context allegations of "conspiracy theories" and misrepresentations about the murders of Daniel Jordan and David
Kelley do not address the real issues, nor do they successfully dodge
them, to a thoughtful and critical mind capable of detecting a blatant
attempt to discredit. A call for further investigation is not tantamount
to a conspiracy theory but a highly logical and prudent precaution given
the actual conduct, over so many decades, of such a reprehensible
organization, which at times pretends to be a mere corporation when it
serves its designs, as in its several lawsuits against other Bahai
denominations.
Far from "obsessive hatred" of the Bahai Faith, the people Momen
attempts to label "apostates" have valiantly sought to *defend* the
values of honesty and decency requisite for any civilization worthy of
the name and to *protect* themselves and their fellow citizens from
religious tyranny and exploitation.
Bullies, liars, and fanatics are not scholars worthy of the title, even
when they deceive editors of reputable academic journals into publishing
their screed.
Bahai regards,
FG
www.FG.com