This file contains two messages: "attacks by Bahais"
& "Bahai Bullying":
The non-Bahai will note that a year later, now March 2000,
my fellow Bahais only continue, with renewed ferocity, their
attempts to silence and suppress what they don't want you
to know about:
Incessant Bahai attacks upon my freedom of speech
and liberty, as well as on others, have made it necessary for
me to adopt a persona for my own protection and well being.
Other measures have been taken.
During the late winter and spring of 1999, Bahais twice
flooded
my hotmail account with up to 1000 messages per day
resulting in considerable inconvenience and expenditure
of time and effort to block, and ultimately close, the
offending accounts; they have, by using numerous Bahai
trolls,
especially Gyr Falcon, slandered, maligned, and caricatured
me in a further effort to discredit me and portray me on
talk.religion.bahai and elsewhere as a disturbed and errant
individual; through concerted false charges and allegations
against
me, they have now succeeded in deceiving Hotmail into closing
my email account, which I depended on for a considerable
part of my income and livelihood.
For documentation of many similar incidents of Bahai
oppression
during the last decade, see The Bahai Faith & Religious
Freedom of
Conscience:
-----------------------------------------------------------
BULLYING:
I'm alarmed at the Bahai attempts, during May of 1999,
at character assassination, ridicule, and generally
portraying me and others as disturbed individuals. This
tactic has been used for over three years and continues
to be used against me and other Bahais and non-Bahais
or ex-Bahais on and off talk.religion.bahai.
I have never claimed to be perfect. At times I have
apologized to Bahais, Muslims, and other non-Bahais
when I felt, or was convinced, that I was wrong or had
spoken unfairly. I find the constant technique to portray
me as a megalomanic or paranoid quite offensive.
Similarly, the tactic of accusing me of spam for posting
my opinions is calculated to discredit the validity of my and
others' concerns regarding censorship in Bahai forums and
has also been used on AOL. Such accusations reveal the
frustration that Bahai fundamentalists apparently feel over
my having found ways of enduring and resisting the onslaught
of
their concerted attacks, while preserving a historical record
on
a markedly ephermeral medium for innocent Bahais and
non-Bahais....
Fair-minded Bahai and non-Bahai observers may
judge for themselves whether my and others' allegations of
censorship are valid by reading the record preserved under
"Assorted Controversial Documents" on my website at
As further corroboration that I am not the only person
concerned with the intolerance and censorship that has
overtaken the Bahai Faith, I recommend Professor Juan Cole's
new book Modernity & the Millennium: The Genesis of the
Bahai Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East, available
through Columbia University Press or Amazon.com at
In his conclusion, which would never have passed the
system of Bahai "review" that the UHJ imposes on
all
publications brought out under its tight control, Professor
Cole,
of the Department of History at The University of Michigan,
quite accurately identifies the distortions that have been
wreaked upon Baha'u'llah's Teachings:
"Some contemporary leaders of the Baha'i Faith have
given
answers increasingly similar to those of fundamentalists,
stressing scriptural literalism, patriachy, theocracy,
censorship, intellectual intolerance, and denying key
democratic values. While the values of the nineteenth-
century Baha'i movement, which was far more tolerant,
continue to exist as a minority view, by the late 1990s a
different set of emphases prevailed." (196)
He himself and many others, as evidence under the
"Assorted Controversial Documents," have suffered
at the
hands of the fundamentalists who have taken control of the
religion:
"The rise of academic Baha'i scholarship has caused
tension in the community, whose present-day leadership
tends to be fundamentalist and antiliberal in orientation,
and this has led to pressure on a number of prominent
academics to resign or dissociate themselves from the
movement." (201)
These same forces of fundamentalist orthodoxy are
evident on AOL, talk.religion.bahai, and alt.religion.bahai
for impartial viewers to witness. They will be evident
to all perceptive observers of whatever forum Bahais may
be trying to control and influence.
As a Bahai since 1976, I myself have always
found especially repulsive the manner in which Bahai
fundamentalists attempt to manipulate the institutions and
leaders of government, the United Nations, and public
opinion, while pretending to values they deride in private
or at Bahai-only meetings.
Ultimately, it is the Bahai Universal House of Justice
that
is responsible for the perversion and corruption of such
clear
and elevating teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha as
the following:
"These are effectual and sufficient proofs that the
conscience of man is sacred and to be respected; and that
liberty thereof produces widening of ideas, amendment of
morals, improvement of conduct, disclosure of the secrets
of the contingent world."
Abdul-Baha, A Traveler's Narrative, 91.
The UHJ is also in the end responsible for inciting Bahai
fanatics
and fundamentalists to attack other Bahais and non-Bahais
merely for their views expressed on and off line in free
forums
of public discussion.
I recommend all newcomers to these matters read
"The Baha'i Technique":
On The Bahai Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience:
bahai.htm
Professor Juan Cole, of the University of Michigan,
discusses related issues in his journal article "The
Baha'i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963-1997":
Also see:
Juan Cole, "Commentary" on UHJ's "outburst
of vehement ignorance"
Outburst.htm
Letter of Resignation from Paul Dodenhoff, Assistant to
the Auxiliary
Board
LetterResignationPD.htm
--
Patrick Henry.... "Give me liberty or give me death!"
The Bahai Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience:
bahai.htm
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