From: FG <FG@hotmail.com>
To: UHJ <secretariat@bwc.org>
Subject: To UHJ #4 (FWD annonymous remailers)
Date: Friday, December 05, 1997 1:15 PM
Dear Members of the Universal House of Justice:
Please accept this forwarded message as further evidence
of the dire straits to which the Baha'i Faith has come as a result of the
destructive attacks by literal-minded Baha'is on the consciences
of others.... Some of these self-same fundamentalist vices have
been demonstrated in regard to talk.religion.bahai....
Respectfully,
FG
UseNet: alt.religion.bahai
The RFD for talk.religion.bahai can be found on news.groups,
news.announce.newgroups, or at <https://www.baha.demon.co.uk/rfd2.htm>
-----Original Message-----
From: Juan R. I. Cole <jrcole@umich.edu> [to talisman]
Date: Friday, December 05, 1997 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: anonymous remailers
>
>>I said I imagined you believe you are doing some kind of good and I
meant
>>it, but I don't believe you can step back from yourself and see
the harm
>>you are causing.
>
>Dear Richard:
>
>Could you please be more specific about *my* causing any harm? Human
>beings, real, living human beings, are being manipulated, libelled, given
>nightmares, silenced or forced out, and having the most treasured parts of
>their identity torn from them. It happened to me. It happened to
Linda
>Walbridge. It happened to Steve Scholl. It happened to Michael McKenny.
>And it has happened to many others behind the scenes, who decided to handle
>it differently. This is being done to devoted Baha'is. Linda
Walbridge
>pioneered in difficult circumstances in both Lebanon and Jordan, and she
>made enormous sacrifices (including monetary and quality-of-life sacrifices
>with regard to her children) for the faith while her husband was working
for
>it on the Encyclopedia project. She never harmed the faith she loved.
>Unlike the treasurer of the Phoenix LSA, she never embezzled $70,000
from
>the Baha'i faith, yet the treasurer of the Phoenix LSA is still a Baha'i
and
>has not been accused of contravening the covenant. Unlike some high
Baha'i
>officials she was never guilty of any infraction of Baha'i law or of sexual
>harrassment or of lying to the Baha'is. Yet they have cushy offices
and
>make pompous speeches and are being paid out of your donations to the
faith.
>What was her crime? To express her views on email, views which were
>legitimately hers as a Baha'i in good standing (i.e. she was guilty of
doing
>the same thing that Richard Logan and Burl Barer do every day). She
had
the
>right to declare her conscience and express her views, according to Shoghi
>Effendi. That right was withdrawn from her suddenly, by narrow-minded
>elderly men eager to slap down an uppity woman. And she was forced out
of
>the faith she loved, by the very people who should have been nurturing her
>faith and helping her forward. She was betrayed, deeply, treasonously,
>inexcusably.
>
>And this is somehow *my* fault?
>
>>I'm convinced
>>that it was unnecessary for things to have come to this--that you
allowed
>>yourself to be swept into a self-fullfilling prophecy. I could be
very
>>wrong in this but I'm letting know as a brother and a collegial admirer.
>
>Richard, if I wanted revenge there are lots of ways for me to get it far
>more efficacious than sending occasional messages to 80 Baha'is. I was
in
>the religion for nearly quarter of a century. I have lots of
documentation
>of Baha'i leaders' peccadilloes. I'm not interested in that sort of
thing.
>When you set out for revenge you have to be sure to dig *two* graves.
>
>What I am interested in doing is protesting against the *systemic*
>injustices being committed against Baha'is by their own administration.
And
>I have the same interest in this as I do protesting, as a member of Amnesty
>International, violations of human rights in any setting. When the
Baha'i
>administration stops conducting intellectual pogroms and inquisitions that
>are contrary to Baha'i law and contrary to basic Baha'i scriptural
>principle, then all you will hear from me is translations of Baha'u'llah's
>tablets.
>
>>The question of credibility is always at issue when allegations are
made.
>
>I said that I was provided information from a source I trust (who was in
>direct contact with the principal), that an Irfani is currently being
>prosecuted for email messages that include Irfan messages, which the
>prosecutors (i.e. the uhj and the counselors) can only have received
>illicitly and can only use by disregarding the right to privacy and
>confidentiality that should be enjoyed by everyone on irfan. I stand
by
>this statement and I think there are enough others who know the particulars
>such that I need not be seen as the only source for this information, nor
is
>it biased in any way.
>
>As for the possibility that I could have handled things differently, I
>respectfully disagree. While I am glad to say I am all to fallible and
make
>mistakes all the time (something your uhj, out of institutional pride,
would
>never admit about *itself*), I do not believe this was one of them.
>You see, I put up with quite a lot over the years from the Baha'i
>administration, and I never considered leaving the faith. It was not a
>matter, as with Louis Gregory, of my simply being dropped off salary.
I
was
>never on salary, and never sought to be. I endured being buttonholed
and
>hassled about my academic writing (which is no one's business but mine),
and
>I endured being backbitten & so forth. For 24 years.
>
>But when the Baha'i *institutions& *falsely* accused me of contravening
a
>covenant for which I had risked my life on more than one occasion, it
>demonstrated to me that the religion had gone seriously bad, that it had
>become corrupt and cult-like, and that there was no place in it for persons
>like myself except if they should live their lives in silence and in fear
of
>the ignorant and narrow-minded. Since this is demonstrably the
opposite of
>what Baha'u'llah and `Abdul-Baha wanted for the world, it is hard to
escape
>the conclusion that the religion has been betrayed by its leaders, just as
>Islam was betrayed by the ulama and Christianity was betrayed by the popes
>and the priests.
>
>Roman Catholicism has benefitted enormously from the Protestant, secular
and
>other non-Catholic critique it has been submitted to in the past 400 years,
>and is demonstrably a better religion after Vatican II than it was during
>the Inquisition. And in the same way that the non-Catholics have done
so
>much to help the Church right itself after it had gone deeply astray from
>Jesus's principles, so non-Baha'is with an intimate knowledge of the Baha'i
>faith have a duty to try to help that religion return to its scriptural
>roots and principles. This is all the more urgent given that those
Baha'is
>within the administrative order who speak out about the problems they see
>are swiftly silenced or expelled. And just as the Vatican has never
thanked
>Voltaire for helping reform it, I doubt the Baha'i authorities, after they
>finally have their version of Vatican II and release the poor Baha'is from
>intellectual bondage, will thank any of us who helped them achieve that
>reform. So be it. But that is what is desirable: that the Baha'i
>institutions start acting as Baha'u'llah and `Abdul-Baha and Shoghi
Effendi
>would have wanted them to, instead of like Inquisitors and musty
Stalinists.
>
>
>cheers Juan
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