Bahá'ís from Native American backgrounds perform a traditional dance at an international Bahá'í conference in Montreal in 1982.

Primo Pacsi, center, stands with his pre-school class in the village of Laku Lakuni, high in the Bolivian Andes.

John and Kimiko Schwerin, in the living room of their home in a Tokyo suburb.

Stanlake Kukama has worked since the 1950s as a Bahá'í to promote racial harmony in South Africa. A retired school teacher, he now resides in Bophuthatswana.

For Bahá'ís, the purpose of life is to know and to worship God, and to contribute to an ever-advancing civilization. Teacher Jennifer Fong leads a group of four-year-olds in a dance class at the Schol of the Nations, a Bahá'í school in Macau.

The local Spiritual Assembly of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Unity In Diversity

AROUND THE GLOBE, BAHÁ'ÍS WORK FOR CHANGE, SHARING A COMMON PURPOSE AND A UNIFIED VISION

From the earliest times, communities have been created around religious belief. Bahá'í communities are characterized by a distincitive way of life.

Kimiko Schwerin lives in a suburb of Tokyo with her American husband John, where together they operate a successful language school. Born in Nagasaki, Ms. Schwerin has in many ways broken the mold for a Japanese woman of her generation. Not only did she marry a foreigner--an act for which she was once slapped in the face by a disapproving stranger--she is also active in a variety of activities aimed at promoting the equality of women.

Stanlake Kukama, who as a young man was a regional official for the African National Congress in South Africa, gave up politics in the 1950s to pursue a different path towards ending apartheid in his native land. Although he is now retired, his goal for the last 30 years has been to assist in the building of an integrated community of people that could serve to demonstrate the possibility of harmonious relations between blacks and whites in Southern Africa.

"All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization."-- Bahá'u'lláh

Primo Pacsi lives high in the Andes mountains of Bolivia, where he grows potatoes on steep hillside land that has been in his family for generations. A member of the Aymara people, Mr. Pacsi has only a fourth grade education.

Nevertheless, he has helped to start a pre-school for the children in his village, which provides an important educational boost during their most important developmental years. He has also led the way in bringing a new kind of inexpensive solar-heated greenhouse to his village, a project which has permitted him and his neighbors to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables--items which do not otherwise grow at such altitudes.

Although different in their cultural heritages, educational backgrounds, and national origins, Ms. Schwerin, Mr. Kukama, and Mr. Pacsi are united by a common belief in the Bahá'í Faith--and a commitment to its ideals.

The worldwide Bahá'í community may well be the most diverse and wide-spread body of people on earth. It is also among the world's most unified organizations, a feature that is perhaps its most distinguishing characteristic.

Bahá'ís the world over come from all religious backgrounds: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Zoroastrian, animist, and non-religious. Yet they study a common set of sacred writings, observe a unifying code of religious laws, and look to a single international administrative system for continuing guidance.

"Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own self"-- Bahá'u'lláh

Their sense of unity goes beyond a shared theology. It is expressed in an abiding commitment to a global program for moral, spiritual and social progress that represents many of the finest ideals of civilization.

Promoting equality of women and men is a primary goal, as is ending racial and ethnic strife. Encouraging the concept of economic justice for all peoples is another major objective. So is ensuring access to good education for all. The community eschews all forms of superstition and sets for its followers the goal of meeting the highest moral standard. Worldpeace and the establishment of a united global commonwealth has been and remains a distinguishing concern.

Indeed, no other world organization of similar diversity, whether affiliated along religious, political, or social lines, can claim a membership as committed to a vision that is at once so singular, coherent and universal.

The source of this vision is Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), the Founder of the Bahá'í Faith. A Persian nobleman who spent the last 40 years of His life as a prisoner and an exile, He authored the equivalent of more than 100 volumes--writings which today form the foundation on which the worldwide Bahá'í community stands.

A Way of Life

From the earliest times, religion has been a powerful force for personal and social transformation. In both the lives of individual believers, and in the distinctive communities it has spawned, the Bahá'í Faith is a dramatic illustration of this rule.

The primary purpose of life is to know and to worship God, and to contribute to an ever-advancing global civilization. Bahá'ís seek to fulfill this purpose in a variety of personal, family, and community activities.

The family unit, according to Bahá'u'lláh, is the foundation of human society. Kimiko Schwerin believes, for example, that her marriage can stand as an illustration of the oneness of all peoples. In traditional Japanese society, marriage to a foreigner is an unwritten taboo. Once, for example, when she was riding on a train with her husband in the early 1970s, a middle-aged Japanese man walked up and abruptly slapped her in the face.

"..The peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God."--Bahá'u'lláh

"It was because I was with a 'foreigner'," said Ms. Schwerin, who grew up in Nagasaki and now runs an English language school with her husband in a Tokyo suburb. "In those days, there was a strong prejudice against international marriage. Marriage to a foreigner was not considered decent."

"But I didn't feel embarrassed, not at all," Ms. Schwerin added. "I just felt sorry for the man because of his prejudice. Because I'm a Bahá'í, I feel international marriage is an entirely right thing to do."

The Schwerins see their experience as an example of how international marriage can promote a greater awareness of other cultures. "Because the Bahá'í Faith is inclusive of all races and backgrounds, we avoid many of the conflicts that might come traditionally when a Japanese person marries a foreigner," said Ms. Schwerin.

"For example, John is from a Christian background and I am from a Buddhist background," Ms. Schwerin said. "The question of what faith to raise your children in is often a problem for people in international marriages. Because we believe in the oneness of religions, we have educated our children to appreciate all religions."

A successful businesswoman in her own right, Ms. Schwerin is also active in promoting the concept of women's equality. She travels frequently throughout Japan and surrounding countries to promote this principle and the other ideals of the Bahá'í Faith.

The work that Primo Pacsi and the other Bahá'ís of Laku Lakuni, a remote village on the Bolivian altiplano, have done in helping to establish a small pre-school and to promote solar-heated green-houses offers an example of how Bahá'ís strive to serve the community at large.

The pre-school, which serves all of the children in Laku Lakuni, gives students an important boost in their development. Although a government-run primary school exists in the village, the children in this remote and impoverished high altitude region are often victims of inadequate attention during their pre-school years, considered the most important by many child development specialists. As a result, they sometimes do poorly in primary school, initiating a pattern of failure that casts a shadow over their entire lives.

In the Bahá'í pre-school, group activities are emphasized--activities as simple as singing together--and the result is significant. "There is a difference between the students who have been to pre-school and those who start the government primary school directly," Mr. Pacsi said. "The ones who have gone to pre-school can immediately understand the teacher. And the teacher has noticed that the ones who have been to pre-school learn much faster."

The pre-school is a bare-bones operation. Mr. Pacsi is the main teacher, and, for the most part, he volunteers his time, assisted only by occasional donations from parents. Held in a simple adobe building in the center of the village, its sessions last only a few hours a day.

"At first, the. children were afraid to come," said Mr. Pacsi, who embraced the Bahá'í Faith in the mid- 1980s. "They didn't want to be in a group. But now they love to come and sing together. Now they say, 'Me, Me, Me!' when I teach a number and ask a question. These things are connected in that Bahá'u'lláh teaches that we must educate our children and that we must cooperate and work together."

Mr. Pacsi and his fellow Bahá'ís have also been instrumental in promoting the use of solar-heated greenhouses in their community. Developed by the Dorothy Baker Environmental Studies Center in Cochabamba, a Bahá'í-run environmental research and study center about 200 kilometers away, the greenhouses enable families in Laku Lakuni and other communities on the Andean high plateau to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables which would not ordinarily survive at such altitudes.

"We really like the greenhouse," said Mr. Pacsi, who was the first one in Laku Lakuni to build one. "Without it, we could not have vegetables--we don't have the money to buy them. But with the greenhouse we can have vegetables. Now we can have omelets with tomatoes and onions. My little boy didn't even know vegetables existed. Now he picks the tomatoes off the plant and eats them right there in the greenhouse. Now he knows that if you plant seed and nurture it, the fruit comes up."

"The All-Knowing Physician bath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and rescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem... The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements."
-- Bahá'u'lláh

In composition, Bahá'í communities are quite diffuse. Bahá'ís do not seek to shut out the world. Bahá'u'lláh's writings encourage involvement with the rest of humanity. Most Bahá'ís lead lives that would not seem out of place in their native society--save for a strong commitment to certain spiritual and social principles.

Despite this diffusion, however, Bahá'ís are able to maintain their essential unity through a system of freely elected governing councils, which operate at the local, national, and international levels. At the local level, for example, Bahá'ís each year elect a nine-member administrative council, which is known as the local Spiritual Assembly. [See the article on Administration]

In all activities, Bahá'ís are expected to obey civil law and remain loyal to their respective governments. While they may accept non-partisan government posts or appointments, Bahá'ís are required to refrain from partisan political activity.

At the time he began to look into Bahá'u'lláh's teachings in the 1950s, for example, Stanlake Kukama was the local secretary of the African National Congress. "I hated the white man," said Mr. Kukama, who now lives in Bophuthatswana. "To me, all whites were oppressors."

With that attitude, it was at first difficult for Mr. Kukama to accept the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh, because of His emphasis on the oneness of humanity and the necessity of working to eliminate all racial prejudice--a principle which means that not only must whites accept blacks as equals and friends, but that blacks must learn to live with and, even, to love whites.

Mr. Kukama came to believe that, in the end, this path--and not the confrontational world of politics--will lead to a better world. And so, he has since worked to build a harmonious and diverse community which could, at the proper time, demonstrate to all South Africans that association between people of all races is not only possible--but is in fact joyous and reflective of the reality of human oneness.

The diversity of the South African Bahá'í community today embraces virtually all of the races, ethnic groups, and tribes that reside there. More than 90 percent of the approximately 7,500 Bahá'ís in South Africa are non-white--a ratio that roughly matches the proportions of the population at large. Bahá'ís are spread throughout South Africa, too, with local communities in more than 150 cities and towns.

"The cause of the strife in South Africa is the 40 years of apartheid, which emphasized ethnic separation," said Mr. Kukama who became a school teacher after he became a Bahá'í. "But in the Bahá'í community, even though we come from different tribes or races, we are all one. And one day there will be one world-- that is my vision of man. Togetherness, not separateness."