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Forward to Part II
The Prosperity Of Humankind
A Statement Prepared by the
Bahá'í International Community's
Office of Public Information
Part I
The bedrock of a strategy that can engage the world's population in
assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the
consciousness of the oneness of humankind. Deceptively simple in
popular discourse, the concept that humanity constitutes a single
people presents fundamental challenges to the way that most of the
institutions of contemporary society carry out their functions.
Whether in the form of the adversarial structure of civil government,
the advocacy principle informing most of civil law, a glorification of
the struggle between classes and other social groups, or the
competitive spirit dominating so much of modern life, conflict is
accepted as the mainspring of human interaction. It represents yet
another expression in social organisation of the materialistic
interpretation of life that has progressively consolidated itself over
the past two centuries.
In a letter addressed to Queen Victoria over a century ago, and
employing an analogy that points to the one model holding convincing
promise for the organisation of a planetary society,
Bahá'u'lláh compared the world to the human body. There
is, indeed, no other model in phenomenal existence to which we can
reasonably look. Human society is composed not of a mass of merely
differentiated cells but of associations of individuals, each one of
whom is endowed with intelligence and will; nevertheless, the modes of
operation that characterise man's biological nature illustrate
fundamental principles of existence. Chief among these is that of
unity in diversity. Paradoxically, it is precisely the wholeness and
complexity of the order constituting the human body -- and the perfect
integration into it of the body's cells -- that permit the full
realisation of the distinctive capacities inherent in each of these
component elements. No cell lives apart from the body, whether in
contributing to its functioning or in deriving its share from the
well-being of the whole. The physical well-being thus achieved finds
its purpose in making possible the expression of human consciousness;
that is to say, the purpose of biological development transcends the
mere existence of the body and its parts.
What is true of the life of the individual has its parallels in human
society. The human species is an organic whole, the leading edge of
the evolutionary process. That human consciousness necessarily
operates through an infinite diversity of individual minds and
motivations detracts in no way from its essential unity. Indeed, it
is precisely an inhering diversity that distinguishes unity from
homogeneity or uniformity. What the peoples of the world are today
experiencing, Bahá'u'lláh said, is their collective
coming-of-age, and it is through this emerging maturity of the race
that the principle of unity in diversity will find full expression.
From its earliest beginnings in the consolidation of family life, the
process of social organisation has successively moved from the simple
structures of clan and tribe, through multitudinous forms of urban
society, to the eventual emergence of the nation-state, each stage
opening up a wealth of new opportunities for the exercise of human
capacity.
Clearly, the advancement of the race has not occurred at the expense
of human individuality. As social organisation has increased, the
scope for the expression of the capacities latent in each human being
has correspondingly expanded. Because the relationship between the
individual and society is a reciprocal one, the transformation now
required must occur simultaneously within human consciousness and the
structure of social institutions. It is in the opportunities afforded
by this twofold process of change that a strategy of global
development will find its purpose. At this crucial stage of history,
that purpose must be to establish enduring foundations on which
planetary civilization can gradually take shape.
Laying the groundwork for global civilization calls for the creation
of laws and institutions that are universal in both character and
authority. The effort can begin only when the concept of the oneness
of humanity has been wholeheartedly embraced by those in whose hands
the responsibility for decision making rests, and when the related
principles are propagated through both educational systems and the
media of mass communication. Once this threshold is crossed, a
process will have been set in motion through which the peoples of the
world can be drawn into the task of formulating common goals and
committing themselves to their attainment. Only so fundamental a
reorientation can protect them, too, from the age-old demons of ethnic
and religious strife. Only through the dawning consciousness that
they constitute a single people will the inhabitants of the planet be
enabled to turn away from the patterns of conflict that have dominated
social organisation in the past and begin to learn the ways of
collaboration and conciliation. "The well-being of mankind,"
Bahá'u'lláh writes, "its peace and security, are
unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established."
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