Dear Professor Duncan Charters, Ph.D. President, Universal Esperanto Association
AN IGNOBLE SCANDAL & 1974
16th March 2020
. .
cc: Professor SO Jinsu: UEA representative Asia-Oceania, Information Services, Friends of Esperanto.
Fernando Jorge PEDROSA MAIA Jr: UEA vice-president, External relations, Member organisations.
Rare is the administrator or the framer of ideas in NGOs today, I think you’ll agree Duncan, who initiates consultation on (a) the principle of a universal auxiliary language or (b) Dr. Zamenhof’s international language of world peace. Said negligence or oversight is most apparent in regard to the Baha’i international community: In Esperanto-land’s two flagship events of 2019 we Baha’is failed to put on a presentation even at the Universal Congress of Esperanto in Lahti or during the 9th Asia-Oceania Congress in Da Nang. In the last 3 years, from among a diaspora of 6 million believers in 200 countries, the Bahá'í Esperanto League (BEL) has shrunk from 400 speakers of Esperanto to 200! What a shame, reflected in the fact that in the Baha’i religion between 1989 and 2019 that same statistic of 6,000,000 followers of Baha’u’llah has remained constant, although the world population has doubled in the interim!
The plenipotentiary sole Guardian of the Baha’i faith, Shoghi Effendi, who passed away in 1957 aged 60, stated officially through his secretary: "Shoghi Effendi, as you know, has been invariably encouraging the believers, both in the East and in the West, to make an intensive study of that language, [Esperanto] and to consider it as an important medium for the spread of the Cause in international circles. He has been specially urging the friends to have the Cause well represented in all Esperanto Congresses and associations, and by this means cultivate greater friendship and co-operation between them and the Esperantists.”
Of note is Shoghi Effendi’s interpreting of Abdul Baha’s instructions to all Baha’is that we study and spread Esperanto irrespective of which auxiliary language the parliaments of the world eventually select for every school child in the world: “repeated and emphatic admonitions”.
Rather than to over and over or angrily protest certain policies of BEL I simply resigned from the Baha’i Esperanto League a few years ago. Naturally, we Baha’is retain cordial relations with one another whether as rank and file members or with individual leaders in our institutions. Nevertheless, Baha’is may criticize, even forcibly at times! We may also seek assistance from like-minded organisations vis-a-vis a situation that erudite Esperantists – for example, centenarian Marcel Leereveld who is still active in the Esperanto movement, my fellow Adelaidean and renowned author, Trevor Steele, along with the highly respected school teacher Vera Payne – have publicly described in such very strong terms as "virtually criminal": http://aea.esperanto.org.au/ftp-uploads/ESK-128-sep2017.pdf
p. 24
In May 1974
the Universal House of Justice (the foremost Baha’i institution) advised the then nascent Baha’i Esperanto League based now in Frankfurt as follows: “While individual Bahá'í Esperantists are, of course, free to encourage their fellow Bahá'ís to study Esperanto this should not be an activity of the Bahaa Esperanto-Ligo…”
That BEL as an appointed Baha’i institution remains long term not willing to formally ask the democratically elected Universal House of Justice to reconsider its 1974
instruction that disallows BEL from encouraging Baha’is to study Esperanto is unfathomable. A less serious matter, though worthy of consultation so as to avoid confusion among friends of the Baha’is in Esperanto circles, consists in this that the Baha’i Esperanto League shares the same acronym, BEL, with the Brazil Esperanto League. The South American organization in question, founded in 1907, has among its 400 members quite a few young activists. Sadly, virtually no young Baha’is join BEL, be it the one based in Rio or in Frankfurt. Insofar as entreating individual leaders in the Esperanto movement, such as your good self, to open a personal dialogue with Baha’i Esperantists on BEL’s governing body, or better yet, with influential Baha’i individuals enamoured of the English language in Chicago and New York (or even in Haifa!) so that consultation on language issues raised here may ensue, perhaps this less controversial matter of possibly changing BEL’s name is an appropriate segue.
Though I obey, I fail to comprehend the reasoning of the House’s 1974 guidance given the following instruction penned authoritatively by Abdul Baha, a central figure of the Faith whom all followers of Baha’u’llah promise solemnly to obey on signing the Baha’i Declaration Card as adult neophytes. (Baha’u’llah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%CA%BCu%27ll%C3%A1h)
"Now praise be to God that Dr. Zamenhof has invented the Esperanto language. It has all the potential qualities of becoming the international means of communication. All of us must be grateful and thankful to him for this noble effort for in this way he has served his fellowmen well. With untiring effort and self-sacrifice on the part of its devotees, Esperanto will become universal. Therefore, every one of us must study this language and spread it as far as possible, so that day by day it may receive a broader recognition, be accepted by all governments and nations of the world and become a part of the curriculum in all the public schools.”
Abdul Baha, the only official interpreter of Baha’u’llah’s texts & teachings, Paris, 1913.
A two-page flyer accompanying this letter depicts numerous authoritatively penned directives regarding Esperanto that few rank and file Baha’is even peripherally discern. This appallingly sad situation is best remedied, I feel, by influential friends of the Baha’is diplomatically pointing out to Baha’i administrators in a phone call or in a non-official friendly chat the primacy of the international auxlang principle and Esperanto’s role therein as based on the Baha’i writings they pledge to obey on joining the Faith:
Sincerely.
Paul Desailly. Adelaide. Australia.
Member of Society Zamenhof. Universal Esperanto Association committee member A for Australia. Host of Pasporta Servo. Qualified teacher of the Monsignor Cseh Method. Australian Esperanto Assoc lifetime member. Former member of Baha’i Esperanto League. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Esperanto_Association
FROM BABEL TO BAHÁ’Í (FB2B) --- PART 1
Author: Paul Desailly, Australia. ISBN NO: 978-1-64316-010-8
On the brink of war East and West face the abyss! In the former the source of a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench, is religious fanaticism and hatred. In the latter excessive liberty leads to sedition, whose flames none can quench. Divine power alone can deliver humankind from these inexorable and desolating afflictions:
Now at hand is
“that millennial day, which has been prophesied by the past prophets and seers, that day in which, it is said, the wolf and the lamb will drink from the same fount, the lion and the deer graze in the same meadow. The signification of this Holy Writ is that the contesting races, warring nations, inimical religions, will come to each other in the spirit of love and amity... The unification of language will transform the world of humanity into one world; the unification of language will do away with the misunderstandings between religions, and the unification of language will bring together the East and the West in the spirit of fellowship and love.” Sir Abdu’l-Baha Abbas K.B.E. (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1913.)
Thorough and transparent consultation in and beyond the Bahá’í community, together with much enhanced interaction with the Esperanto movement, are vital steps toward making world peace real and extirpating perceptions of hypocrisy faced by followers of Bahá'u'lláh.
From Babel To Bahá’í (FB2B part 2)
https://gumroad.com/l/TbtCp
Paul Joseph Desailly, Adelaide, Australia March 2020
