Dearly loved Friends,
1 Our hearts are aglow with hope as we survey what has been accomplished
in the year preceding the fateful, final stretch toward the consummation of
the Four Year Plan. From the year's momentous beginning with the Eighth
International Bahá'í Convention, the Bahá'í world has sustained a rising
pace of activity that has significantly advanced the process of entry by
troops. Our community has grown appreciably, its human resources have been
richly enhanced. From projects of expansion to endeavours at consolidation,
from social and economic development to external affairs, from services of
the youth to expressions in the arts, from the World Centre of the Faith to
remote villages and towns -- in fact, from whatever angle the community is
viewed -- progress has been made. The prospects for the Plan are impelling.
2 The momentum generated at the International Convention pervaded the
Counsellors' Conference that immediately followed it, further galvanizing
the indefatigable participants; and it charged the proceedings of the
National Conventions held in May, including those of Sabah, Sarawak, and
Slovakia which met for the first time to form their National Spiritual
Assemblies. That same energy infused the International Teaching Centre,
which has been displaying a remarkable potency in the short time since its
sixth term began on the anniversary of the Declaration of the Bab.
Concentrating on refining and consolidating their organization, the
Counsellor members have refrained from their usual travels during this first
year, but they can be expected after this to resume their visits to various
parts of the world, so as to reinforce their vitalizing influence on the
successful conclusion of the Four Year Plan.
3 Further to these happenings in the Holy Land, the construction projects
on Mount Carmel, beheld with such thrilling astonishment by the delegates to
the International Convention, press onward towards their scheduled
completion at the end of the century. With the opening since last Ridvan of
all remaining areas of construction, the speed of work has reached a new
peak. The Centre for the Study of the Texts and the Extension to the
Archives Building are being readied for occupancy within a few weeks; the
exterior of the International Teaching Centre building is fully clad in
marble, while finishing work at all levels of its interior is proceeding.
The lowering of Hatzionut Avenue, to accommodate the bridge which now
connects the Terraces of the Shrine of the Bab on both sides of the road,
has been completed and normal traffic restored. The unfolding magnificence
of the Terraces has so captured public attention that the nineteenth terrace
at the top of the mountain has already been opened to visitors on a daily
schedule, evoking the enthusiastic response of a grateful populace. As part
of a campaign to attract international attention to the city, the
Municipality of Haifa has published a pictorial brochure on the Shrine of
the Bab and the Terraces, available in five major languages besides Hebrew.
4 We feel compelled to mention at least two other developments at the
World Centre of a wholly different order: First, the decision to raise the
number of pilgrims in each group to 150 from 100 -- this to take effect when
the revamping, now in progress, of the newly acquired building, situated
across
the way from the resting place of the Greatest Holy Leaf, has been completed
and use can be made of its provision of a pilgrim hall and other facilities
for the administration of an expanded pilgrimage programme. Second is the
notable headway being made, despite the inevitable slowness of the process,
in the plan to translate texts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh with a view
to publishing a new English volume of His works. Effort is being devoted to
providing full versions of such major Tablets as the Suriy-i-Mulúk and the
Suriy-i-Haykal, as well as complete texts of Tablets addressed to individual
kings and rulers. Also scheduled for inclusion are the Suriy-i-Ra'ís, the
Lawh-i-Ra'ís and the Lawh-i-Fu'ád.
5 The Cause of Bahá'u'lláh marches on resistlessly, quickened by the
increasing application of an approach to the development and use of human
resources that is systematic. The further creation of national and regional
training institutes, now numbering 344, has pressed this development
forward, with the result that, apart from North America and Iran where
numerous courses have been given, some 70,000 individuals have already
completed at least one institute course. All of this is contributing to a
growing body of confirmed, active supporters of the Cause. The untold
potential of this progression is illustrated in such reports as the one
received from Chad, where in an area served by an institute more than 1,000
people embraced the Faith through the individual efforts of those who had
received training. Understanding of the necessity for systematization in
the development of human resources is everywhere taking hold.
6 Collateral with the demonstrated efficacy of training institutes is the
pragmatic emergence of Regional Bahá'í Councils in selected countries where
conditions have made the establishment of these institutions necessary and
viable. Where there is close interaction between a Council and a training
institute, the stage is set for a galvanic coherence of the processes
effecting expansion and consolidation in a region, and for the practical
matching of the training services of institutes to the developmental needs
of local communities. Moreover, the operational guidelines whereby the
Continental Counsellors and the Regional Councils have direct access to each
other give rise to a further institutional relationship which, along with
that connecting the Councils to the National and Local Spiritual Assemblies,
effectuates a dynamic integration of functions at the regional level.
7 The ever-expanding work in social and economic development is also
benefiting from the operation of those training institutes that give
attention to such subjects as literacy, primary health care and the
advancement of women. The more widespread efforts of the Office of Social
and Economic Development to promote a global process of learning about
relevant Bahá'í principles are enhanced by the work of these institutes, as
well as by the rise of Bahá'í-inspired organizations scattered throughout
the planet. Clearly, then, the institutional capacity to administer
development programmes is gaining in strength. This is apparent in projects
sponsored by Bahá'í institutions or initiated by individuals through the
inspiration of the Faith. An outstanding example of the latter is Unity
College, which was created by a family in Ethiopia as the first, and since
late 1998, the only private college in the country, with a student body that
swelled to 5,000 during this past year. Another example, on a smaller scale
but of significance nonetheless, is the initiative taken by a family in
Buffalo, New York: here, in their home, they have been assisting tens of
children and youth from the inner city to develop, through Bahá'í spiritual
and moral teachings, patterns of behaviour that will enable them to overcome
self-destructive attitudes bred by poverty and racism.
8 In the area of external affairs, the most energetic actions have been
prompted by two tragic happenings in Iran. The sudden execution in Mashhad
last July of Mr. Ruhu'llah Rawhani, the first such official action in six
years, registered a shock that provoked a worldwide and unprecedented outcry
by governments and United Nations agencies. In late September the
government's intelligence agency launched an organized attack on the Bahá'í
Institute of Higher Education, involving the arrest of 36 members of the
faculty and raids on more than 500 homes across the country. The latter
incident inspired a global campaign of protest, still in progress, in which
academic institutions and associations, educators, and student groups have
been participating, and in which the press has taken a special interest, as
reflected in the appearance of substantial articles in Le Monde, The New
York Times and other major newspapers. The successful passage in the United
Nations General Assembly last December of yet another resolution on Iran, in
which the Bahá'ís are distinctly mentioned, must surely have been influenced
by these two conspicuous manifestations of an unrelenting religious
persecution.
9 But intensive as has been the demand upon the friends in all parts of
the world to defend our beleaguered brethren, much attention was devoted as
well to a wide range of external affairs endeavours. The four-month-long
mission undertaken by an emissary of the House of Justice, Mr. Giovanni
Ballerio, to islands of the Pacific Ocean where he met with 22 heads of
state, 5 heads of government and more than 40 other high-ranking officials;
the efforts pursued by a number of National Assemblies, at the urging of the
Bahá'í International Community's United Nations Office, to promote human
rights education; the participation, by invitation, of representatives of
South Africa's Bahá'í community in the proceedings of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, at which they were able to recount their record
of unflinching support of racial unity throughout the years of apartheid;
the recent success of communities in Australia, Brazil, Finland and Portugal
in obtaining the decision of educational authorities to include courses on
the Bahá'í Faith in the curricula of primary and secondary schools -- these,
not to mention the public information projects that generated publicity
through all forms of the media, are examples of the broadly based
enterprises in external affairs that engaged the energies of the community.
10 A corollary spate of activities involved the use of the arts, of which
the musical and other artistic performances associated with the celebration
in Paris of the centenary of the establishment of the Faith in Europe were
an outstanding instance. The Voices of Bahá Choir, composed of 68 members
drawn from Europe and the Americas, delighted audiences in eight European
cities and introduced the Faith to many. "Light and Fire", the completed
part of an opera/ballet being written by Bahá'í composer Lasse Thoresen of
Norway, was successfully performed last September at the prestigious music
festival in Poland known as the Warsaw Autumn, which was opened by the Queen
of Sweden. The work is based on recent heroic acts of the martyrs in Iran,
a fact that exposed the audience to knowledge of the Faith. Europe's
apparent lead in these particular endeavours was also marked by the occasion
of the Austrian Chamber Music Festival when the Austrian Cross for Sciences
and Arts, the highest award of its kind for Austria, was presented by the
President of the Republic to Mr. Bijan Khadem-Missagh, a Bahá'í violinist
and conductor. A programme at that same Festival featured the recitation of
extracts from Bahá'í and other sacred scriptures. But a word, too, must be
said in recognition of the prominent part being played by youth all over the
world in their employment of the arts in the teaching work; renditions by
their dance workshops, in particular, have acquired renown within and
outside the Bahá'í community.
11 We therefore enter this Ridvan season, as a community in a dynamic
state of transformation, enjoying a coherence of vision and activity
consonant with the aim of advancing the process of entry by troops. And we
begin the final year of the Plan with a boost in administrative strength, as
three countries in Europe -- Latvia, Lithuania and Macedonia -- convoke
their first Conventions to form National Spiritual Assemblies and thus raise
the number of pillars of the Universal House of Justice to 182. But beyond
this festive moment is a chronology of expectations that lists, first and
foremost, the conclusion of the Four Year Plan at Ridvan 2000. This will be
followed by the commencement on the Day of the Covenant of that very year of
a new term of office for the Continental Boards of Counsellors, whose
members will soon thereafter be called to the Bahá'í World Centre for a
conference at which, among other matters, the features of the next global
teaching and consolidation plan will be discussed. The Counsellors'
Conference will mark the occupation by the International Teaching Centre of
its permanent seat, an occasion for which Auxiliary Board members throughout
the world will be invited to join the Counsellors in the Holy Land. The
Mount Carmel projects will have been completed by this time and the
preparations will have been well advanced for dedicatory events, scheduled
to take place on 22 and 23 May 2001, to which a number of representatives
from each national Bahá'í community will be invited. The details concerning
these events are to be announced in due course.
12 This projection of portentous happenings cuts across the divide in
time between the twentieth century and the new millennium, according to the
reckoning of the common era. It is a projection that underscores the
contrast between the confident vision that propels the constructive
endeavours of an illumined community and the tangled fears seizing the
millions upon millions who are as yet unaware of the Day in which they are
living. Bereft of authentic guidance, they dwell on the horrors of the
century, despairing over what these could imply for the future, hardly
appreciating that this very century contains a light that will be shed on
centuries to come. Ill-equipped to interpret the social commotion at play
throughout the planet, they listen to the pundits of error and sink deeper
into a slough of despond. Troubled by forecasts of doom, they do battle with
the phantoms of a wrongly informed imagination. Knowing nothing of the
transformative vision vouchsafed by the Lord of the Age, they stumble ahead,
blind to the peerlessness of the new Day of God.
13 The pitiful conditions implied by such a state of heart and mind cannot
but prompt us all to action, unabating action, to fulfil the intentions of a
Plan whose major aim is to accelerate that process which will make it
possible for growing numbers of the world's people to find the Object of
their quest and thus to build a united, peaceful and prosperous life.
14 Dear Friends: The days pass swiftly as the twinkle of a star. Make
your mark now, at this crucial turning point of a juncture, the like of
which shall never return. Make that mark in deeds that will ensure for you
celestial blessings -- guarantee for you, for the entire race, a future
beyond any earthly reckoning.
The Universal House of Justice
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