Shoghi Effendi: Guide for a New Millennium, Part II

In the context of the goal of world unity, the twentieth century must be viewed as a critical part of a period of transition to a wholly new state of society, a period in which the ground is being laid for a coming Golden Age for the entire planet. The tumultuous dynamics of this transition are being played out through a twofold process, "each tending, in its own way and with an accelerated momentum," Shoghi Effendi writes, "to bring to a climax the forces that are transforming the face of the planet. The first is essentially an integrating process, while the second is fundamentally disruptive." ²⁸ The integrating process itself comprises two parts which though basically related are outwardly separate, both leading to the same bright prospect: world peace. One is to lead to a preliminary stage, the other is to consummate the peace in which a new civilization will emerge and flourish.

The final portrait of the Guardian, taken a few months before his passing in 1957.

Bahá'í literature refers to the two parts of this integrating process as the "Lesser Peace" and the "Most Great Peace." The former is to be achieved through the reaction of political leaders to the painful consequences of a twentieth century world shrunken into a neighborhood by the advances of science but morally and socially deranged by its spiritual disorientation. The actions of world leaders that brought about the League of Nations and subsequently the United Nations offer hints as to the nature of the course to be taken. The latter, the Most Great Peace, is to be attained through the eventual spiritualization of the planet, a much more protracted and profound undertaking involving the inner transformation of the individual inhabitants of the earth through their voluntary acceptance of the principles enunciated by the latest divine Messenger. The progress of the Bahá'ís in spreading their message to millions in all parts of the world who are committed to the way of Bahá'u'lláh is indicative of the possibilities for this ultimate goal.

For Bahá'ís this transition, with all its accompanying horrors and frustrations, is the natural consequence on a global scale of evolving to adulthood from adolescence--a period when the struggle and rebelliousness of youth must, with the onset of maturity, eventually yield to a resolution of conflicting tendencies or else the individual will suffer the recurrent crises of a disoriented personality. The processes involved in the experience of the individual are reflected in those of a society at the threshold of its coming of age. Humanity as a whole is as yet reluctant to yield to the new situation; hence, it remains ill-prepared to extricate itself from the strife and confusion in which it is enmeshed.

Referring to the revolutionary dimensions of the transition in train, Shoghi Effendi remarked on the improbability of its being achieved through the ordinary processes of diplomacy and education. "We have but to turn our gaze to humanity's blood-stained history to realize that nothing short of intense mental as well as physical agony has been able to precipitate those epoch-making changes that constitute the greatest landmarks in the history of human civilization." ²⁹ The second World War had yet to be fought when he made this observation. He devoted much attention to explaining the paradoxes of the "simultaneous processes of rise and of fall, of integration and of disintegration, of order and chaos, with their continuous and reciprocal reactions on each other" ³⁰ --paradoxes that characterize a time of transition when the death pangs of the old order and the birth pangs of the new embrace. The concurrently destructive and constructive manifestations of this historic phenomenon have been conspicuous in the world-shaking happenings of the twentieth century. In an Age of Transition precedent to the new civilization promised by the advent of the Bahá'í dispensation, this century could be seen as the paramount century of that Age. A Bahá'í view of it may well find expression in a Dickensian description: it has been the worst of centuries and the best of centuries.

So much attention has been focused on the ills of a century regarded, in the words of Isaiah Berlin, as "the most terrible century in Western history," that it is not necessary here to enumerate them. Suffice it to acknowledge that its excesses in acts of perversity and destruction have given rise to the gravest crises in the history of the race, and to a state of cynicism, confusion, and pessimism that casts doubt as to the future of civilization. Shoghi Effendi commented extensively on what he described in 1941 as the "triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at whose altars governments and peoples, whether democratic or totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshiping." ³¹ His indictment of those who followed such theories and policies was thunderous. These, he said, are "the dark, the false, and crooked doctrines for which any man or people who believes in them, or acts upon them, must, sooner or later, incur the wrath and chastisement of God." ³² He saw this "triple curse that oppresses the soul of mankind in this day" as the offspring of irreligion; he attributed "other evils and vices" to the "weakening of the pillars of religion." Even so, he unfailingly held out a vision of hope.

Search for feasible instruments of global governance is among the stirrings that excite expectations in a world rapidly approaching the end of the twentieth century. The system of World Order adumbrated by Bahá'u'lláh and amplified by Shoghi Effendi offers a concept of governance unique to human experience. While validating salutary features of established forms of government, it at the same time excludes objectionable aspects without being a mere synthesis of these forms or becoming simply a replica of any one of them. "The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order," ³³ is Bahá'u'lláh's own pronouncement on the system He has introduced. He adds in a further reference to it: "Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System--the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed." ³⁴ The disequilibrium in world affairs appears in this sense, then, to be simultaneously negative and positive manifestations of a deeper truth than mere historical analysis can uncover.

Conclusion

Historians and social scientists pondering the twentieth century might well pause to examine Shoghi Effendi's commentaries on the ills and portents of this "Age of Extremes," as one historian has called the period. ³⁵ Thinkers interested in sorting out the questions posed by the bewildered state of so-called "post-Communist" or "post-Capitalist" society will encounter much in his writings to stimulate and challenge their outlook. They will be treated to unusual perspectives in his explanations of `Abdu'l-Bahá's thought-awakening metaphors that designate the twentieth century as the "century of the revelation of reality and, therefore, the greatest of all centuries," ³⁶ as the "sun of previous centuries, the effulgence of which shall last forever," ³⁷ and as the "century of light." ³⁸

They will discover, too, in his majestic and evocative prose a source of intellectual and spiritual refreshment. For he was, indeed, a master writer who succeeded in distilling the virtues of language, making it reflect the spirit and wholesomeness of truth. But he went beyond this. He achieved far more than his wish to translate from the language of Revelation into English. As appointed interpreter and guide, he also translated words into deeds. Galvanized by the energy of his messages and the vision they inspired, the Bahá'ís embarked successfully on the vast enterprise of erecting the banner of Bahá'u'lláh's Faith in countries throughout the world. This engaged people from the widest range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds in efforts by which a renewal of civilization might be effected.

This was, and continues to be so, because the effects of these efforts by Bahá'ís go beyond the internal objectives of the Bahá'í community to provide vital benefits to society as a whole. For one thing, Bahá'í principles and practices aim at strengthening the social fabric by instilling a high sense of civic responsibility. In a world inclined increasingly towards democratic ways of conducting its affairs, it is significant that the rank and file of the Bahá'ís everywhere are required to participate in the administration of their community at all levels. For instance, they are continually learning and applying the art of consultation as the means of problem-solving and decision-making for individuals, groups and institutions; they also engage in a method of electing their institutions by secret ballot without electioneering or nominations. An outstanding fact in the latter regard is that in scores of countries Bahá'ís, lettered and unlettered, were the first among native populations to experience, through the operation of their communities, any form of election.

An emergent community has sprung up. It claims members in every country and dependent territory, drawn from some 2,000 ethnic groups; and selections from its literature have been translated into more than 800 languages. At the same time that the Bahá'ís benefited practically from the community-building instructions Shoghi Effendi's writings offered, they were enabled to see through his inspired views beyond the topsy-turvy state of society to the peace-fashioning goal of their Faith. They were invited into a realm of thought by which they could achieve a soul-satisfying transcendence while attending to the practical circumstances of life in a time of cataclysmic disturbances. The Bahá'í community is a global laboratory in which an unprecedented transformation in individual and collective behavior is progressing towards the realization of that world-shaping principle around which it revolves. In such a community can be discerned, thanks to the indispensable ministry of Shoghi Effendi, the glimmerings of a new World Order.

That such a figure as Shoghi Effendi lived in the twentieth century ensures to the annals of the period a dimension that cannot long be ignored. Two points become clear. The first is that Shoghi Effendi's Guardianship was not merely a significant transitional episode in the development of a religious community. The second is that any interpretation of contemporary events that overlooks the emergence of the world-embracing community he raised up, and which fails to appreciate the central principle that motivates and sustains its existence, lacks a guide to the future. If the claims of Bahá'u'lláh are to be understood aright, Shoghi Effendi's legacy bodes well to be increasingly regarded as a wellspring of authentic guidance from which the forces of civilization will draw renewed virtue for at least a full millennium.