Diversity at gatherings shows promise of world peace

FROM HEART TO HEART By Ny Aina Razermera Mamy
For The Register-Guard
11/07/2007

“The Promise of World Peace,” a document released in 1985, demonstrates that “world peace is not only possible but inevitable.” “It is the next stage in the evolution of this planet,” and “can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of the oneness of mankind.” The document claims that the existence of the worldwide Bahá'í community, which is “drawn from many nations, cultures, classes and creeds, engaged in a wide range of activities serving the spiritual, social and economic needs of the peoples of many lands,” “is a convincing proof of the practicality … of a united world,” the vision of Bahá'u'lláh (Founder of the Bahá’í Faith). My own experience attests to the truth of this statement.

When I was investigating the Bahá'í Faith in Madagascar, half a world away, I went from shell-shocked to completely awed by what I was witnessing at Bahá'í gatherings. The first gathering I attended was a youth gathering. There, I saw young Bahá'ís, some from rich families, others from very poor ones, some well educated, others barely so, all from various castes, freely intermingling, with no sense of superiority or inferiority or estrangement. I said to myself, this cannot be possible and is an offense, because social, cultural and traditional norms should prevent such an intermixing of people from happening in a state of so true and tangible a fellowship. The experience was mind-boggling and confusing to me, to say the least.

Then I attended several other Bahá'í gatherings, and in each and every one of them I witnessed the same experience. Some Bahá'ís in those gatherings were completely illiterate, others college-educated; some dirty-clothed, bare-footed villagers, others city-dwellers in nice clothing; some street sweepers barely making ends meet, others occupying high positions at international institutions; some young, others old; some foreigners, some Malagasy – all from ethnic groups hostile to each other. Yet, there was always that genuine unity between them, that perfect harmony and understanding, the lack of prejudice, estrangement, hatred, and hostility. It was so surreal but beautiful that I found myself thinking that this was a community in which the camaraderie, friendship and companionship of the leopard and the lamb, the lion and the calf, the child and the asp – the biblical metaphors and symbols for antagonistic and hostile nations, peoples, sects and races – have become a true reality.

This experience is not unique to the Bahá'ís of Madagascar. I came to Eugene eleven years ago to go to the University of Oregon. I had already become a Bahá'í, as a result of which I was accustomed to the true unity in the Bahá'í community. Yet, I still found myself pleasantly surprised to find that Bahá'ís in Eugene, in Lane County, all over the state of Oregon, were just the same as those in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s just one family. “The earth is but one country,” Bahá'u'lláh said more than a century ago, “and mankind its citizens.”

Ny Aina Razermera Mamy has served on local, regional and national Bahá’í institutions both in the U.S. and in his native Madagascar and has participated at the Interfaith services in Eugene.