Conference taveng::bagels

			 The Promise of World Peace




			    A Statement of the
			Universal House of Justice
			to the Peoples of the World

				October 1985




	To the Peoples of the World:

 	The Great Peace towards which people of goodwill throughout the
	centuries have inclined their hearts, of which seers and poets for
	countless generations have expressed their vision, and for which
	from age to age the sacred scriptures of mankind have constantly
	held the promise, is now at long last within the reach of the
	nations.  For the first time in history it is possible for everyone
	to view the entire planet, with all its myriad diversified peoples,
	in one perspective. World peace is not only possible but inevitable.
	It is the next stage in the evolution of this planet--in the words
	of one great thinker, "the planetization of mankind." 

 	Whether peace is to be reached only after unimaginable horrors
	precipitated by humanity's stubborn clinging to old patterns of
	behavior, or is to be embraced now by an act of consultative will,
	is the choice before all who inhabit the earth.  At this critical
	juncture when the intractable problems confronting nations have been
	fused into one common concern for the whole world, failure to stem
	the tide of conflict and disorder would be unconscionably
	irresponsible. 

	Among the favorable signs are the steadily growing strength of
	the steps towards world order taken initially near the beginning of
	this century in the creation of the League of Nations, succeeded by
	the more broadly based United Nations organization; the achievement
	since the Second World War of independence by the majority of all
	the nations on earth, indicating the completion of the process of
	nation building, and the involvement of these fledgling nations with
	older ones in matters of mutual concern; the consequent vast
	increase in cooperation among hitherto isolated and antagonistic
	peoples and groups in international undertakings in the scientific,
	educational, legal, economic and cultural fields; the rise in recent
	decades of an unprecedented number of international humanitarian
	organizations; the spread of women's and youth movements calling for
	an end to war; and the spontaneous spawning of widening networks of
	ordinary people seeking understanding through personal
	communication. 

  	The scientific and technological advance occurring in this
	unusually blessed century portend a great surge forward in the
	social evolution of the planet, and indicate the means by which the
	practical problems of humanity may be solved.  They provide, indeed,
	the very means for the administration of the complex life of a
	united world.  Yet barriers persist.  Doubts, misconceptions,
	prejudices, suspicions and narrow self-interest beset nations and
	peoples in their relations one to another. 

	It is out of a deep sense of spiritual and moral duty that we
	are impelled at this opportune moment to invite your attention to
	the penetrating insights first communicated to the rulers of mankind
	more than a century ago by Baha'u'llah, Founder of the Baha'i Faith,
	of which we are the Trustees. 

	"The winds of despair," Baha'u'llah wrote, "are, alas, blowing
	from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the
	human race is daily increasing.  The signs of impending convulsions
	and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order
	appears to be lamentably defective."  This prophetic judgment has
	been amply confirmed by the common experience of humanity.  Flaws in
	the prevailing order are conspicuous in the inability of sovereign
	states organized as United Nations to exorcise the specter of war,
	the threatened collapse of the international economic order, the
	spread of anarchy and terrorism, and the intense suffering which
	these and other afflictions are causing to increasing millions. 
	Indeed, so much have aggression and conflict come to characterize
	our social, economic and religious systems, that many have succumbed
	to the view that such behavior is intrinsic to human nature and
	therefore ineradicable. 

	With the entrenchment of this view, a paralyzing contradiction
	has developed in human affairs.  On the one hand, people of all
	nations proclaim not only their readiness but their longing for
	peace and harmony, for an end to the harrowing apprehensions
	tormenting their daily lives.  On the other, uncritical assent is
	given to the proposition that human beings are incorrigibly selfish
	and aggressive and thus incapable of erecting a social system giving
	free play to individual creativity and initiative but base on
	cooperation and reciprocity. 

	As the need for peace becomes more urgent, this fundamental
	contradiction, which hinders its realization, demands a reassessment
	of the assumptions upon which the commonly held view of mankind's
	historical predicament is based. Dispassionately examined, the
	evidence reveals that such conduct, far from expressing man's true
	self, represents a distortion of the human spirit. Satisfaction on
	this point will enable all people to set in motion constructive
	social forces which, because they are consistent with human nature,
	will encourage harmony and cooperation instead of war and conflict. 

	To choose such a course is not to deny humanity's past but to
	understand it.  The Baha'i Faith regards the current world confusion
	and calamitous condition in human affairs as a natural phase in an
	organic process leading ultimately and irresistibly to the
	unification of the human race in a single social order whose
	boundaries are those of the planet.  The human race, as a distinct,
	organic unit, has passed through evolutionary stages analogous to
	the stages of infancy and childhood in the lives of its individual
	members, and is now in the culminating period of its turbulent
	adolescence approaching its long-awaited coming of age. 

	A candid acknowledgment that prejudice, war and exploitation
	have been the expression of immature stages in a vast historical
	process and that the human race is today experiencing the
	unavoidable  tumult which marks its collective coming of age is not
	a reason for despair but a prerequisite to undertaking the
	stupendous enterprise of building a peaceful world.  That such an
	enterprise is possible, that the necessary constructive forces do
	exist, that unifying social structures can be erected, is the theme
	we urge you to examine. 

	Whatever suffering and turmoil the years immediately ahead may
	hold, however dark the immediate circumstances, the Baha'i community
	believes that humanity can confront this supreme trial with
	confidence in its ultimate outcome.  Far from signalizing the end of
	civilization, the convulsive changes towards which humanity is being
	ever more rapidly impelled will serve to release the "potentialities
	inherent in the station of man" and reveal "the full measure of his
	destiny on earth, the innate excellence of his reality." 

				      I

	The endowments which distinguish the human race from all other
	forms of life are summed up in what is known as the human spirit;
	the mind is its essential quality.  These endowments have enabled
	humanity to build civilizations and to prosper materially.  But such
	accomplishments alone have never satisfied the human spirit, whose
	mysterious nature inclines it towards transcendence, a reaching
	towards an invisible realm, towards the ultimate\ reality, that
	unknowable essence of essences called God.  The religions brought to
	mankind by a succession of spiritual luminaries have been the
	primary link between humanity and that ultimate reality, and have
	galvanized and refined mankind's capacity to achieve spiritual
	success together with social progress. 

	No serious attempt to set human affairs aright, to achieve
	world peace, can ignore religion.  Man's perception and practice of
	it are largely the stuff of history.  An eminent historian described
	religion as a "faculty of human nature."  That the "perversion of
	this faculty has contributed to much of the confusion in society 
	and the conflicts in and between individuals can hardly be denied. 
	But neither can any fair-minded observer discount the preponderating
	influence exerted by religion on the vital expressions of
	civilization.  Furthermore, its indispensability to social order has
	repeatedly been demonstrated by its direct effect on laws and
	morality. 

	Writing of religion as a social force, Baha'u'llah said: 
	"Religion is the greatest of all means for the establishment of
	order in the world and for the peaceful contentment of all that
	dwell therein."  Referring to the eclipse or corruption of religion,
	he wrote:  "Should the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and
	confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness, of justice, of
	tranquillity and peace cease to shine."  In an enumeration of such
	consequences the Baha'i writings point out that the "perversion of
	human nature, the degradation of human conduct, the corruption and
	dissolution of human institutions, reveal themselves, under such
	circumstances, in their worst and most revolting aspects.  Human
	character is debased, confidence is shaken, the nerves of discipline
	are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is stilled, the sense of
	decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of duty of solidarity, of
	reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the very feeling of
	peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually extinguished." 

	If, therefore, humanity has come to a point of paralyzing
	conflict it must look to itself, to its own negligence, to the siren
	voices to which it has listened, for the source of the
	misunderstandings and confusion perpetrated in the name of religion.
	Those who have held blindly and selfishly to their particular
	orthodoxies, who have imposed on their votaries erroneous and
	conflicting interpretations of the pronouncements of the prophets of
	God, bear heavy responsibility for this confusion--a confusion
	compounded by the artificial barriers erected between faith and
	reason, science and religion. For from a fair-minded examination of
	the actual utterances of the Founders of the great religions, and of
	the social milieus in which they were obliged to carry out their
	missions, there is nothing to support the contentions and prejudices
	deranging the religious communities of mankind and therefore all
	human affairs. 

	The teaching that we should treat others as we ourselves would
	wish to be treated, an ethic variously repeated in all the great
	religions, lends force to this latter observation in two particular
	respects:  it sums up the moral attitude, the peace-inducing aspect,
	extending through these religions irrespective of their place or
	time of origin; it also signifies an aspect of unity which is their
	essential virtue, a virtue mankind in its disjointed view of history
	has failed to appreciate. 

	Had humanity seen the Educators of its collective childhood in
	their true character, as agents of one civilizing process, it would
	no doubt have reaped incalculably greater benefits from the
	cumulative effects of their successive missions.  This, alas, it
	failed to do. 

	The resurgence of fanatical religious fervor occurring in many
	lands cannot be regarded as more than a dying convulsion.  The very
	nature of the violent and disruptive phenomena associated with it
	testifies to the spiritual bankruptcy it represents. Indeed, one of
	the strangest and saddest features of the current outbreak of
	religious fanaticism is the extent to which, in each case, it is
	undermining not only the spiritual values which are conducive to the
	unity of mankind but also those unique moral victories won by the
	particular religion it purports to serve. 

	However vital a force religion has been in the history of
	mankind, and however dramatic the current resurgence of militant
	religious fanaticism, religion and religious institutions have, for
	many decades, been viewed by increasing numbers of people as
	irrelevant to the major concerns of the modern world.  In its place
	they have turned either to the hedonistic pursuit of material
	satisfactions or to the following of man-made ideologies designed to
	rescue society from the evident evils under which it groans.  All
	too many of these ideologies, alas, instead of embracing the concept
	of the oneness of mankind and promoting the increase of concord
	among different peoples, have tended to deify the state, to
	subordinate the rest of mankind to one nation, race or class, to
	attempt to suppress all discussion and interchange of ideas, or to
	callously abandon starving millions to the operations of a market
	system that all too clearly is aggravating the plight of the
	majority of mankind, while enabling small sections to live in a
	condition of affluence scarcely dreamed of by our forebears. 

	How tragic is the record of the substitute faiths that the
	worldly-wise of our age have created.  In the massive disillusionment
	of entire populations who have been taught to worship at their
	altars can be read history's irreversible verdict on their value. 
	The fruits these doctrines have produced after decades of an
	increasingly unrestrained exercise of power by those who owe their
	ascendancy in human affairs to them, are the social and economic
	ills that blight every region of our world in the closing years of
	the twentieth century.  Underlying all these outward afflictions is
	the spiritual damage reflected in the apathy that has gripped the
	mass of the peoples of all nations and by the extinction of hope in
	the hearts of deprived and anguished millions. 

	The time has come when those who preach the dogmas of
	materialism, whether of the east or the west, whether of capitalism
	or socialism, must give account of the moral stewardship they have
	presumed to exercise.  Where is the "new world" promised by these
	ideologies?  Where is the international peace to whose ideals they
	proclaim their devotion?  Where are the breakthroughs into new
	realms of cultural achievement produced by the aggrandizement of
	this race, of that nation or of a particular class?  Why is the vast
	majority of the world's peoples sinking ever deeper into hunger and
	wretchedness when wealth on a scale undreamed of by the Pharaohs,
	the Caesars, or even the imperialist powers of the nineteenth
	century is at the disposal of the present arbiters of human affairs?

	Most particularly, it is in the glorification of material
	pursuits, at once the progenitor and common feature of all such
	ideologies, that we find the roots which nourish the falsehood that
	human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive.  It is here
	that the ground must be cleared for the building of a new world fit
	for our descendants. 

	That materialistic ideals have, in the light of experience,
	failed to satisfy the needs of mankind calls for an honest
	acknowledgment that a fresh effort must now be made to find the
	solutions to the agonizing problems of the planet.  The intolerable
	conditions pervading society bespeak a common failure of all, a
	circumstance which tends to incite rather than relieve the
	entrenchment on every side.  Clearly, a common remedial effort is
	urgently required.  It is primarily a matter of attitude.  Will
	humanity continue in its waywardness, holding to outworn concepts an
	unworkable assumptions?  Or will its leaders, regardless of
	ideology, step forth and, with a resolute will, consult together in
	a united search for appropriate solutions? 

	Those who care for the future of the human race may well ponder
	this advice.  "If long-cherished ideals and time-honored
	institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae
	have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if
	they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving
	humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of
	obsolescent and forgotten doctrines.  Why should these, in a world
	subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the
	deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution?  For
	legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed
	to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity
	to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any
	particular law or doctrine." 

				     II

	Banning nuclear weapons, prohibiting the use of poison gases,
	or outlawing germ warfare will not remove the root causes of war. 
	However important such practical measures obviously are as elements
	of the peace process, they are in themselves too superficial to
	exert enduring influence. Peoples are ingenious enough to invent yet
	other forms of warfare, and to use food, raw materials, finance,
	industrial power, ideology, and terrorism to subvert one another in
	an endless quest for supremacy and dominion.  Nor can the present
	massive dislocation in the affairs of humanity be resolved through
	the settlement of specific conflicts or disagreements among nations.
	A genuine universal framework must be adopted. 

	Certainly, there is no lack of recognition by national leaders
	of the worldwide character of the problem, which is self-evident in
	the mounting issues that confront them daily.  And there are the
	accumulating studies and solutions proposed by many concerned and
	enlightened groups as well as by agencies of the United Nations, to
	remove any possibility of ignorance as to the challenging
	requirements to be met.  There is, however, a paralysis of will; and
	it is this that must be carefully examined and resolutely dealt
	with. This paralysis is rooted, as we have stated, in a deep-seated
	conviction of the inevitable quarrelsomeness of mankind, which has
	led to the reluctance to entertain the possibility of subordinating
	national self-interest to the requirements of world order, and in an
	unwillingness to face courageously the far-reaching implications of
	establishing a united world authority.  It is also traceable to the
	incapacity of largely ignorant and subjugated masses to articulate
	their desire for a new order in which they can live in peace,
	harmony and prosperity with all humanity. 


	The tentative steps towards world order, especially since World War
	II, give hopeful signs. The increasing tendency of groups of nations
	to formalize relationships which enable them to cooperate in matters
	of mutual interest suggests that eventually all nations could
	overcome this paralysis. The Association of South East Asian
	Nations, the Caribbean Community and Common Market, the Central
	American Common Market, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance,
	the European Communities, the League of Arab States, the
	Organization of African Unity, the Organization of American States,
	the South Pacific Forum--all the joint endeavors represented by such
	organizations prepare the path to world order. 

	The increasing attention being focused on some of the most
	deep-rooted problems of the planet is yet another hopeful sign.
	Despite the obvious shortcomings of the United Nations, the more
	than two score declarations and conventions adopted by that
	organization, even where governments have not been enthusiastic in
	their commitment, have given ordinary people a sense of a new lease
	on life. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention
	on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the
	similar measures concerned with eliminating all forms of
	discrimination based on race, sex, or religious belief; upholding
	the rights of the child; protecting all persons against being
	subjected to torture; eradicating hunger and malnutrition; using
	scientific and technological progress in the interest of peace and
	the benefit of mankind--all such measures, if courageously enforced
	and expanded, will advance the day when the specter of war will have
	lost its power to dominate international relations. There is no need
	to stress the significance of the issues addressed by these
	declarations and conventions. However, a few such issues, because of
	their immediate relevance to establishing world peace, deserve
	additional comment. 

	Racism, one of the most baneful and persistent evils, is a major
	barrier to peace. Its practice perpetrates too outrageous a
	violation of the dignity of human beings to be countenanced under
	any pretext. Racism retards the unfoldment of the boundless
	potentialities if its victims, corrupts its perpetrators, and
	blights human progress. Recognition of the oneness of mankind,
	implemented by appropriate legal measures., must be universally
	upheld if this problem is to be overcome. 

	The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute
	suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on
	the brink of war.  Few societies have dealt effectively with this
	situation. The solution calls for the combined application of
	spiritual, moral, and practical approaches. A fresh look at the
	problem is required, entailing consultation with experts from a wide
	spectrum of disciplines, devoid of economic and ideological
	polemics, and involving the people directly affected in the
	decisions that must urgently be made. It is an issue that is bound
	up not only with the necessity for eliminating the extremes of
	wealth and poverty but also with those spiritual verities the
	understanding of which can produce a new universal attitude.
	Fostering such an attitude is itself a major part of the solution. 

	Unbridled nationalism, as distinguished from a sane and legitimate
	patriotism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to the love of
	humanity as a whole. Baha'u'llah 's statement is: ``the earth is but
	one country and mankind its citizens." The concept of world
	citizenship is a direct result of the contraction of the world into
	a single neighborhood through scientific advances and of the
	indisputable interdependence of nations. Love of all the world's
	peoples does not exclude love of one's country. The advantage of the
	part in a world society is best served by promoting the advantage of
	the whole. Current international activities in various fields which
	nurture mutual affection and a sense of solidarity among peoples
	need greatly to be increased. 

	Religious strife, throughout history, has been the cause of
	innumerable wars and conflicts, a major blight to progress, and is
	increasingly abhorrent to the people of all faiths and no faith.
	Followers of all religions must be willing to face the basic
	questions which this strife raises, and to arrive at clear answers.
	How are the differences between them to be resolved, both in theory
	and in practice? The challenge facing the religious leaders of
	mankind is to contemplate, with hearts filled with the spirit of
	compassion and a desire for truth, the plight of humanity, and to
	ask themselves whether they cannot, in humility before their
	Almighty Creator, submerge their theological differences in a great
	spirit of mutual forbearance that will enable them to work together
	for the advancement of human understanding and peace. 

	The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between
	the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged
	prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an
	injustice against one half of the world's population and promotes in
	men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to
	the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international
	relations. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological,
	upon which such denial can be justified. Only as women are welcomed
	into full partnership in all fields of human endeavor will the moral
	and psychological climate be created in which international peace
	can emerge. 

	The cause of universal education, which has already enlisted in its
	service an army of dedicated people from every faith and nation,
	deserves the utmost support that the governments of the world can
	lend it. For ignorance is indisputably the principal reason for the
	decline and fall of peoples and the perpetration of prejudice. No
	nation can achieve success unless education is accorded to all its
	citizens. Lack of resources limits the ability of many nations to
	fulfill this necessity, imposing a certain ordering of priorities.
	The decision-making agencies involved would do well to consider
	giving first priority to the education of women and girls, since it
	is through educated mothers that the benefits of knowledge can be
	most effectively and rapidly diffused throughout society. In keeping
	with the requirements of the times, consideration should also be
	given to teaching the concept of world citizenship as part of the
	standard education of every child. 

	A fundamental lack of communication between peoples seriously
	undermines efforts towards world peace. Adopting an international
	auxiliary language would go far to resolving this problem and
	necessitates the most urgent attention. 

	Two points bear emphasizing in all these issues. One is that the
	abolition of war is not simply a matter of signing treaties and
	protocols; it is a complex task requiring a new level of commitment
	to resolving issues not customarily associated with the pursuit of
	peace. Based on political agreements alone, the idea of collective
	security is a chimera. The other point is that the primary challenge
	in dealing with issues of peace is to raise the context to the level
	of principle, as distinct from pure pragmatism. For, in essence,
	peace stems from an inner state supported by a spiritual or moral
	attitude, and it is chiefly in evoking this attitude that the
	possibility of enduring solutions can be found. 

	There are spiritual principles, or what some people call human
	values, by which solutions can be found for every social problem.
	Any well-intentioned group can in a general sense devise practical
	solutions to its problems, but good intentions and practical
	knowledge are usually not enough. The essential merit of spiritual
	principle is that it not only presents a perspective which
	harmonizes with that which is immanent in human nature, it also
	induces an attitude, a dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which
	facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures.
	Leaders of governments and all in authority would be well served in
	their efforts to solve problems if they would first seek to identify
	the principles involved and then be guided by them. 

				     III

	The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with
	its entrenched pattern of conflict, can change to a world in which
	harmony and cooperation will prevail. 

	World order can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of
	the oneness of mankind, a spiritual truth which all the human
	sciences confirm. Anthropology, physiology, psychology, recognize
	only one human species, albeit infinitely varied in the secondary
	aspects of life. Recognition of this truth requires abandonment of
	prejudice--prejudice of every kind--race, class, color, creed,
	nation, sex, degree of material civilization, everything which
	enables people to consider themselves superior to others. 

	Acceptance of the oneness of mankind is the first fundamental
	prerequisite for reorganization and administration of the world as
	one country, the home of humankind. Universal acceptance of this
	spiritual principle is essential to any successful attempt to
	establish world peace. It should therefore be universally
	proclaimed, taught in schools, and constantly asserted in every
	nation as preparation for the organic change in the structure of
	society which it implies. 

	In the Baha'i view, recognition of the oneness of mankind ``calls
	for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the
	whole civilized world--a world organically unified in all the
	essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its
	spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and
	language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national
	characteristics of its federated units." 

	Elaborating the implications of this pivotal principle, Shoghi
	Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, commented in 1931 that:
	``Far from aiming at the subversion of the of the existing
	foundations of society, it seeks to broaden its basis, to remold its
	institutions in a manner consonant with the needs of an
	ever-changing world. It can conflict with no legitimate allegiances,
	nor can it undermine essential loyalties. Its purpose is neither to
	stifle the flame of a sane and intelligent patriotism in men's
	hearts, nor to abolish the system of national autonomy so essential
	if the evils of excessive centralization are to be avoided. It does
	not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of
	ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of language and tradition,
	of thought and habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of
	the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration
	then any that has animated the human race. It insists upon the
	subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative
	claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive centralization on
	one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other. 
	Its watchword is unity in diversity. . . ." 

	The achievement of such ends requires several stages in the
	adjustment of national political attitudes, which now verge on
	anarchy in the absence of clearly defined laws or universally
	accepted and enforceable principles regulating the relationships
	between nations. The League of Nations, the United Nations, and the
	many organizations and agreements produced by them have
	unquestionably been helpful in attenuating some of the negative
	effects of international conflicts, but they have shown themselves
	incapable of preventing war. Indeed, there have been scores of wars
	since the end of the Second World War; many are yet raging. 

	The predominant aspects of this problem had already emerged in
	the nineteenth century when Baha'u'llah first advanced his proposals
	for the establishment of world peace. The principle of collective
	security was propounded by him in statements addressed to the rulers
	of the world. Shoghi Effendi commented on his meaning: ``What else
	could these weighty words signify", he wrote,  ``if they did not
	point to the inevitable curtailment of unfettered national
	sovereignty as an indispensable preliminary to the formation of the
	future Commonwealth of all the nations of the world? Some form of a
	world superstate must needs be evolved, in whose favor all the 
	nations of the world will have willingly ceded every claim to make
	war, certain rights to impose taxation and all rights to maintain
	armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within
	their respective dominion. Such a state will have to include
	supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member
	of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose members shall be
	elected by the people in their respective governments; and a
	Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even in
	such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to
	submit their case to its consideration.

	"A world community in which all economic barriers will have been
	permanently demolished and the interdependence of capital and labor
	definitely recognized; in which the clamor of religious fanaticism
	and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of
	racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a
	single code of international law--the product of the considered
	judgment of the world's federated representatives--shall have as
	its sanction the instant and coercive intervention of the combined
	forces of the federated units; and finally a world community in
	which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have
	been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizen-
	ship--such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order
	anticipated by Baha'u'llah, an Order that shall come to be regarded
	as the fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age."

	The implementation of these far-reaching measures was indicated by
	Baha'u'llah: "The time must come when the imperative necessity for
	the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be
	universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs
	attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider
	such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's
	Great Peace amongst men."

	The courage, the resolution, the pure motive, the selfless love of
	one people for another--all the spiritual and moral qualities
	required for effecting this momentous step towards peace are fo-
	cused on the will to act. And it is towards arousing the necessary
	volition that earnest consideration must be given to the reality of
	man, namely, his thought. To understand the relevance of this
	potent reality is also to appreciate the social necessity of actu-
	alizing its unique value through candid, dispassionate and cordial
	consultation, and of acting upon the results of this process.
	Baha'u'llah insistently drew attention to the virtues and indispen-
	sability of consultation for ordering human affairs. He said:
	"Consultation bestows greater awareness and transmutes conjecture
	into certitude. It is a shining light which, in a dark world,
	leads the way and guides. For everything there is and will con-
	tinue to be a station of perfection and maturity. The maturity of
	the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation."
	The very attempt to achieve peace through the consultative action
	he proposed can release such a salutary spirit among the peoples of
	the earth that no power could resist the final, triumphal outcome.

	Concerning the proceedings for this world gathering, 'Abdu'l-Baha,
	the son of Baha'u'llah and authorized interpreter of his teachings,
	offered these insights: "They must make the Cause of Peace the 
	object of general consultation, and seek by every means in their
	power to establish a Union of the nations of the world. They must
	conclude a binding treaty and establish a covenant, the provisions
	of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must pro-
	claim it to all the world and obtain for it the sanction of all the
	human race. This supreme and noble undertaking--the real source of
	the peace and well-being of all the world--should be regarded as
	sacred by all that dwell on earth. All the forces of humanity must
	be mobilized to ensure the stability and permanence of this Most
	Great Covenant. In this all-embracing Pact the limits and fron-
	tiers of each and every nation should be clearly fixed, the princi-
	ples underlying the relations of governments towards one another
	definitely laid down, and all international agreements and obliga-
	tions ascertained. In like manner, the size of the armaments of
	every government should be strictly limited, for if the prepara-
	tions for war and the military forces of any nation should be
	allowed to increase, they will arouse the suspicion of others. The
	fundamental principle underlying this solemn Pact should be so
	fixed that if any government later violate any one of its provi-
	sions, all the governments on earth should arise to reduce it to
	utter submission, nay the human race as a whole should resolve,
	with every power at its disposal, to destroy that government.
	Should this greatest of all remedies be applied to the sick body of
	the world, it will assuredly recover from its ills and will remain
	eternally safe and secure."

	The holding of this mighty convocation is long overdue.

	With all the ardor of our hearts, we appeal to the leaders of all
	nations to seize this opportune moment and take irreversible steps
	to convoke this world meeting. All the forces of history impel the
	human race towards this act which will mark for all time the dawn
	of its long-awaited maturity.

	Will not the United Nations, with the full support of its member-
	ship, rise to the high purposes of such a crowning event?

	Let men and women, youth and children everywhere recognize the
	eternal merit of this imperative action for all peoples and lift up
	their voices in willing assent. Indeed, let it be this generation
	that inaugurates this glorious stage in the evolution of social
	life on the planet.

				     IV

	The source of the optimism we feel is a vision transcending the
	cessation of war and the creation of agencies of international
	cooperation. Permanent peace among nations is an essential stage,
	but not, Baha'u'llah asserts, the ultimate goal of the social
	development of humanity. Beyond the initial armistice forced upon
	the world by the fear of nuclear holocaust, beyond the political
	peace reluctantly entered into by suspicious rival nations, beyond
	pragmatic arrangements for security and coexistence, beyond even
	the many experiments in cooperation which these steps will make
	possible lies the crowning goal: the unification of all the peo-
	ples of the world in one universal family.

	Disunity is a danger that the nations and peoples of the earth can
	no longer endure; the consequences are too terrible to contemplate,
	too obvious to require any demonstration. "The well-being of
	mankind," Baha'u'llah wrote more than a century ago, "its peace
	and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly
	established." In observing that "mankind is groaning, is dying to
	be led to unity, and to terminate its age-long martyrdom," Shoghi
	Effendi further commented that: "Unification of the whole of
	mankind is the hallmark of the stage which human society is now
	approaching. Unity of family, of tribe, of city-state and nation
	have been successively attempted and fully established. World
	unity is the goal towards which a harassed humanity is striving.
	Nation-building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in state
	sovereignty is moving towards a climax. A world, growing to matu-
	rity, must abandon this fetish, recognize the oneness and wholeness
	of human relationships, and establish once for all the machinery
	that can best incarnate this fundamental principle of its life."

	All contemporary forces of change validate this view. The proofs
	can be discerned in the many examples already cited of the favora-
	ble signs towards world peace in current international movements
	and developments. The army of men and women, drawn from virtually
	every culture, race and nation on earth, who serve the multifarious
	agencies of the United Nations, represent a planetary "civil ser-
	vice" whose impressive accomplishments are indicative of the degree
	of cooperation that can be attained even under discouraging condi-
	tions. An urge towards unity, like a spiritual springtime, strug-
	gles to express itself through countless international congresses
	that bring together people from a vast array of disciplines. It
	motivates appeals for international projects involving children and
	youth. Indeed, it is the real source of the remarkable movement
	towards ecumenism by which members of historically antagonistic
	religions and sects seem irresistibly drawn towards one another.
	Together with the opposing tendency to warfare and self-aggrandize-
	ment against which it ceaselessly struggles, the drive towards
	world unity is one of the dominant, pervasive features of life on
	the planet during the closing years of the twentieth century.

	The experience of the Baha'i community may be seen as an example of
	this enlarging unity. It is a community of some three to four
	million people drawn from many nations, cultures, classes and
	creeds, engaged in a wide range of activities serving the spirit-
	ual, social and economic needs of the peoples of many lands. It is
	a single social organism, representative of the diversity of the
	human family, conducting its affairs through a system of commonly
	accepted consultative principles, and cherishing equally all the
	great outpourings of divine guidance in human history. Its exist-
	ence is yet another convincing proof of the practicality of its
	Founder's vision of a united world, another evidence that humanity
	coming of age may entail. If the Baha'i experience can contribute
	in whatever measure to reinforcing hope in the unity of the human
	race, we are happy to offer it as a model for study.

	In contemplating the supreme importance of the task now challenging
	the entire world, we bow our heads in humility before the awesome
	majesty of the divine Creator, Who out of His infinite love has
	created all humanity from the same stock; exalted the gemlike
	reality of man; honored it with intellect and wisdom, nobility and
	immortality; and conferred upon man the "unique distinction and
	capacity to know Him and to love Him," a capacity that "must needs
	be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose
	underlying the whole of creation."

	We hold firmly the conviction that all human beings have been
	created "to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization"; that "to
	act like the beasts of the field is unworthy of man"; that the
	virtues that befit human dignity are trustworthiness, forbearance,
	mercy, compassion and loving kindness towards all peoples. We
	reaffirm the belief that the "potentialities inherent in the sta-
	tion of man, the full measure of his destiny on earth, the innate
	excellence of his reality, must all be manifested in this promised
	Day of God." These are the motivations for our unshakable faith
	that unity and peace are the attainable goal towards which humanity
	is striving.

	At this writing, the expectant voices of Baha'is can be heard
	despite the persecution they still endure in the land in which
	their Faith was born. By their example of steadfast hope, they
	bear witness to the belief that the imminent realization of this
	age-old dream of peace is now, by virtue of the transforming ef-
	fects of Baha'u'llah's revelation, invested with the force of
	divine authority. Thus we convey to you not only a vision in
	words: we summon the power of deeds of faith and sacrifice; we
	convey the anxious plea of our coreligionists everywhere for peace
	and unity. We join with all who are the victims of aggression, all
	who yearn for an end to conflict and contention, all whose devotion
	to principles of peace and world order promotes the ennobling
	purposes for which humanity was called into being by an all-loving
	Creator.

	In the earnestness of our desire to impart to you the fervor of our
	hope and the depth of our confidence, we cite the emphatic promise
	of Baha'u'llah: "These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall
	pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come."

					     THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

                                 ADDENDUM


	  The  Universal  House  of  Justice  is  the  supreme  governing 
	body of the Baha'i Faith. Elected quinquennially at international
	conventions,  the  Universal  House  of  Justice  gives spiritual
	guidance  to  and  directs  the administrative activities  of the 
	worldwide  Baha'i community  that  numbers between three and four
	million members.

	The  Baha'i Faith is an independent world religion. "It proclaims
	the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind.
	It, moreover,  enjoins  upon its followers the primary duty of an
	unfettered  search  after truth, condemns all manner of prejudice
	and superstition, declares  the  purpose  of  religion  to be the 
	promotion  of amity and concord,  proclaims its essential harmony 
	with science,  and recognizes it  as the foremost  agency for the 
	pacification  and  the  orderly  progress  of  human  society. It 
	unequivocally   maintains   the   principal   of   equal  rights, 
	opportunities  and  privileges  for  men  and  women,  insists on 
	compulsory  education, eliminates extremes of poverty and wealth, 
	abolishes  the  institution  of  priesthood,  prohibits  slavery, 
	asceticism,  mendicancy and monasticism,  prescribes obedience to 
	one's  government,  exalts  any work  performed  in the spirit of 
	service to the level of worship, urges either the creation or the
	selection of an auxiliary international language,  and delineates 
	the  outlines  of  those  institutions  that  must  establish and 
	perpetuate the general peace of mankind. "