Baha'i response to persecution in education in Iran

[2xx1xy1JD]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-de ... e23187496/

 

In some ways, this story is a flip of the usual fundie homeschooler vs. ebil liberal government threads that we have here.

 

The Baha'i are the largest religious minority in Iran. Many of their basic principles are far from fundie: they believe in gender equality, the common origin of all the world's religions, the oneness of humanity, essential harmony of science and religion, elimination of prejudice, world peace, and universal education. So, what happens when you are a totally peaceful religious minority embracing beliefs that are actually quite nice and don't hurt anyone? If you are in Iran, you face massive religious persecution, of course, and get banned from higher education.

 

The Baha'i response was quite awesome. They established their own underground university, much of it online. Picture College Minus but with actual academics. http://www.bihe.org/ The Iranian government response to this is to create a new crime: committing education.

[Rachel333]

The Baha'i faith is also anti-homosexuality and officially "does not recognize homosexuality as a 'natural' or permanent phenomenon."

They absolutely do not deserve the way they have been treated in Iran, but despite their reputation they have some problematic beliefs. I've known a few people who were very liberal and social justice oriented and joined Baha'i because they thought it matched their goals, but quit when they found out what the Baha'i faith actually teaches.

[mstee]

My good friend is Baha'i and she came from what I would consider a conservative household. No cursing, no going to other homes for sleepovers, mom was a stay at home mom while dad was breadwinner. Very family oriented- lots of game nights and PG movies. She always had to be home for family dinner. And the gender roles in the family were obvious. She wasn't allowed to date a whole lot, and waited for marriage to have sex. (My friend and her family friends are all Iranian).

While there are a lot of similarities to conservative Christianity, her family very much believes in waging peace. They won't speak about politics often and do not vote. The family and friends of hers that I met over the years that were Baha'i all had very similar family rules and standards. And they very much valued education. My friend and her siblings were encouraged to get straight A's and go to college.They also seemed to refrain from any outward judgement. Though there were some gay people in the community and it wasn't realy spoken about.

Just figured id throw in my experience with the religion.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I looked it up - there are some conservative views of marriage/sex (marriage = one man and one woman, family should approve of marriage, sex should be within marriage), no question.

Those views aren't promoted as the basic principles of the faith. The distinction that I see with other "fundie" religions is that there isn't this obsessive focus on fighting gay rights, and they are pretty clear that people show pay attention to their own behavior and not go around judging others or prying into things that aren't their business. They seem to avoid in general imposing their religious values on others.

So - not gay-positive, but not into anti-gay persecution either.

The Baha'is that I know personally are doctors, so it might be a skewed sample, but I do know female Baha'i doctors who were originally from Iran.

[shedemei]

From the article:

Hard-liners in the government see them and their ideas as a threat to their rigid orthodoxy, which can only be neutralized by removing Baha’is from public life.

The reason for Baha'i faith being banned in Iran is that it is considered apostasy because they do not believe Mohammed was the final prophet and have later ones.

I'm sure it may also be a threat because of the emphasis on social justice, but the author is at the very least omitting facts here.

 

[2xx1xy1JD]

From the article:

The reason for Baha'i faith being banned in Iran is that it is considered apostasy because they do not believe Mohammed was the final prophet and have later ones.

I'm sure it may also be a threat because of the emphasis on social justice, but the author is at the very least omitting facts here.

 

Well, persecuting people and seeing them as a mortal threat to your country, despite the fact that they are totally non-violent and actually pretty committed to doing good things, simply because they share some of your beliefs but also have some other beliefs, IS a sign of rigid Orthodoxy. It's exactly the same mindset that drove the Inquisition: heresy = threat.

[RachelB]

The Baha'i faith is also anti-homosexuality and officially "does not recognize homosexuality as a 'natural' or permanent phenomenon."

Interesting. The first Baha'i person I ever met, I met in an LGBT choir. She wasn't lesbian, bi, or trans, but joined because she had friends in the LGBT community, wanted to use her awesome voice in solidarity and support, and wasn't afraid to have people assume she was a gender or sexual minority. I guess I assumed that she was more representative of her faith tradition than she appears to have been.

[shedemei]

Well, persecuting people and seeing them as a mortal threat to your country, despite the fact that they are totally non-violent and actually pretty committed to doing good things, simply because they share some of your beliefs but also have some other beliefs, IS a sign of rigid Orthodoxy. It's exactly the same mindset that drove the Inquisition: heresy = threat.

But that is NOT why they are persecuted. It's an important point, because it is about RELIGIOUS persecution based on matters of dogma and not with their ideas and tolerance making the government feel threatened.

It's an important distinction when trying to understand the plight of the Baha'i in Iran.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Ok. To clarify, the Iranian regime views Baha'i as heretics/apostates, because the Baha'i religion blends multiple religions together, including Islam, and teaches that there were prophets after Mohammed. For this reason, they are seen as a serious threat and subject to serious persecution.

Iran recognizes some religious minorities where the religion existed prior to Islam, so Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians have more protection.

So, even though they are totally peaceful, do good things and pose absolutely no threat to other Iranians, they are subject to some pretty extreme persecution by Iranian authorities for the "crime" of having deviant religious beliefs. It's actually quite similar to the Inquisition, which technically persecuted those who professed to be Christian in order to root out heresy. The beliefs themselves are the threat to "rigid orthodoxy", not the fact that they are peaceful per se.

Their persecution had a number of similarities to the persecution of Ahmaddiyah Muslims. Both spring from Muslim origins, and believe that there were later revelations that stressed peace. Both have been subject to persecution - the Ahmadi persecution is primarily in Pakistan.