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From: jrcole@umich.edu <jrcole@umich.edu> Subject: Re: What is a Cult? Date: Thursday, January 28, 1999 7:00 PM Dear Brian: You wrote: > I have yet to hear any Assistant or ABM suggest I or anyone else be silent about > any issue. I do hear that I should avoid reading CB material, or entering > discussion with CB, but that is another matter. You no doubt are not aware that it is fairly common for auxiliary board members and counselors to take Baha'is aside and warn them to be silent on certain issues. Of course, you don't hear about these events, because most Baha'is who are browbeaten in this way do fall silent, or else withdraw from the faith. Frequently a dire overtone is adopted by the auxiliary board members and counselors indicating that the person being counselled is in contravention of the covenant and may end up being shunned if he or she continues to speak publicly on these issues. However, the issues concerned do not usually concern what most rational observers would consider 'covenantal'--i.e. they have nothing to do with 17th Guardians & etc. Lots of Baha'is have contacted me privately with their stories of such repression, and I have been carefully archiving these cases. Among the hot button questions that seem to elicit this response are the question of women's service on the Universal House of Justice, the scope of the latter body's infallibility, the ability of Baha'is to dissent publicly from official policy, and even occasionally theological issues such as whether God is a person or an impersonal essence. One Baha'i professor was upbraided by a counselor for simply saying on the internet that Baha'i metaphysics has a background in Neoplatonism. Another man I know was investigated for renting a room to an unrelated woman. In another instance an NSA member threatened an LSA secretary for writing too many letters to National that did not display the proper tone. I have been informed of literally dozens of such incidents over the past three years. It is true that usually such demands for silence are directed at persons int eh community who are felt by the counselors and ABMs to be particularly eloquent exponents of views the latter dislike, who are 'prominent,' or who are felt to be provoking too much discussion by the expression of their views. Lots of ordinary Baha'is are never bothered in this way no matter what they say, and so they take away the impression that no one is ever bothered or silenced, which simply is not true. > > > 2) If a Baha'i body seems to you to be wasting the money you give it or is > > not being fully accountable for how it spends your money, don't give it any > > more. Restrict your donation to your local assembly if you think it is doing > > a good job, or restrict the donation to "charitable purposes" (Baha'i > > institutions are supposed to be doing *way* more charity work than they do). > > Juan - really - this is just what Baha'is have always done, at least in my > experience in 3 continents and a lot more communities. I think it is scandalous that no full budget is published annually by the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, which is thereby in contravention of the expection of the Illinois law on incorporated nonprofit organizations that members of the organization will be apprised if they so desire of how their money is being spent. The salaries of the five NSA members who are paid for their services are also not released, nor the value of the perquisites they receive. Don't you think this lack of candor on budgetary issues is suspicious? The unwillingness of some Baha'i institutions to be candid about budgets allows peculation to occur more easily, as when a member of the Phoenix LSA embezzled some $70,000 in the 1990s before finally being reported by a fellow member of the LSA (the community would never have known about it! And what if the other LSA member had been less upright?). > > 4) If someone suggests to you that you cannot disagree with some policy you > > think is wrong because the author of the policy is infallible, tell that > > person that only God is infallible and all human beings make mistakes, > > including the Baha'i institutions. > > The only infallible one in this dispensation is Baha'u'llah. Has anyone suggested > otherwise? Rightwing Baha'is would like to spread the aura of infallibility over pretty much all the Baha'i institutions, but especially the house of justice. > > So you compare the Baha'i administration with Jones and Deaths Gate?? I have yet > to see anything unethical recommended by any Baha'i body on which I have served > or with which I have worked. I didn't compare anything with anything. I simply said that a wise person does not surrender his or her individual conscience and autonomy to supposedly 'infallible' leaders and then do unquestioningly whatever they command. That way lies Jonestown, however noble the initial pious impulses. I do know Iranian Baha'is who feel that the Universal House of Justice's policy of ordering the Iranian Baha'is to stay in Iran after 1983 was tantamount to commanding them to commit suicide. Certainly, it is shameful that Iranian Baha'is who did manage to escape were often punished administratively for having put 'Muslim' on their application for an exit visa. But if a Jew had managed to escape Hitler by pretending to be a Catholic (isn't this sort of thing implied in the film "The Sound of Music"?) should that Jew have been *punished*? Isn't this pretty monstrous? > Would you perhaps explain to me what scams you have experienced? I do respect > your views and your learnedness, but I wonder at your objectivity. Then again, >I do not know you, and need to hear more about your stance. Perhaps my answer to your previous questions has given you some idea of the sort of thing I mean. cheers Juan Juan Cole History, U of Michigan https://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/bahai.htm -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- https://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own Homepage |