From: McKenny Michael <bn872@FreeNet.Carleton.CA>
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: Monday, February 01, 1999 3:07 PM
Greetings, Rick.
You write:
>
> That's an interesting form of "censorship". At what point did the Universal
> House of Justice state that you could not publish the views you held? At
> what point did the Universal House of Justice instruct members of the Baha'i
> community to refrain from reading whatever you write?
The Universal House of Justice insisted that one may not state that
the Baha'i Faith should follow Baha'i principle. One of the non-Baha'i
leaders of thought here, one who had received a copy of the peace message
and attended followup "peace talks" at my place, only to drop Baha'i like
a hot potato, on learning Baha'is do not practise Baha'i principle, on
reading the material connected with the McKenny case said, "What are they
afraid of?"
My assessment is that what was happening was that Michael McKenny was
providing convincing reasoning that the obvious decline of the Baha'i
Faith (one of the more fascinating facts posted to Baha'i e-mail lists
was the number of local spiritual assemblies in the US in 1983, this being
significantly higher than that more than a decade later, this, in spite of
a concentrated campaign of "entry by troops") involved the definition of
the Baha'i Faith from the top in fundamentalist terms contrary to the
essential principles of the Baha'i Faith, and that he was demonstrating
how Baha'i principle could be followed, that it simply was not true that
we were necessarily stuck with a fundamentalist definition of the Baha'i
Faith, that in fact all that was required was for the legitimate leaders
of the Baha'i Faith to act in accordance with the principles of the
religion.
When Michael McKenny refused to fall silent, the members of the
Universal House of Justice wished to implement a method of reasoning
(ad hominem) contrary to both the principles of elementary logic and of
Baha'i consultation by defining the one uttering such reasoning as a
non-Baha'i. In reality reasoning is valid on its own basis, and all
issues of personality, such as the inclusion or exclusion of the one
presenting the reasoning in the Baha'i community, are irrelevant.
Another interpretation of the exclusion of Michael McKenny, especially
since this was done without any command to fall silent, any reminder that
he had said he would fall silent, if indeed he did, was that he was meant
to serve as a warning, and that, as a consequence of such an action, no
one else would seek to express similar views, for fear of being dropped
from the Baha'i roles, without warning.
May things go better in the days to come.
michael
--
"My name's McKenny, Mike McKenny, Warrant Officer, Solar Guard."
(Tom Corbett #1 STAND BY FOR MARS p2)
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