Then They Came for the Bahai

This is very moving article from The Jewish Daily Forward. A graciously candid acknowledgment of the long-suffering of the heavily oppressed Baha'i community in Iran by a member of a religious community which faces its own cruel burden there as elsewhere.

As far as the last sentence of the article, Baha'is do advocate on their own behalf, but as we are to abide by laws of our country which do not compromise serious spiritual principles (e.g., during the Nazi regime in Germany, or apartheid in South Africa, the Baha'i administration disbanded, but Baha'is would not renounce the unity of all races), there is little recourse for the Baha'is in Iran. However, Baha'i institutions abroad and at the United Nations certainly do seek to appeal on behalf of our long-suffering community in Iran, and the efforts have certainly led to the curbing of open violence such as death sentences which occurred at the beginning of the regime.

But it is true Baha'is do not take up arms in retaliation or become involved in religious conflict, for as Baha'u'llah wrote in His Tablet of Bisharat (Glad-Tidings):

The first Glad-Tidings which the Mother Book hath, in this Most Great Revelation, imparted unto all the peoples of the world is that the law of holy war hath been blotted out from the Book