Tag: Bahai

Reflections from National Baha’i Convention . . .

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National Convention delegate Richard Friend (left) with observers Shohreh and Anthony Fleming

Reflections on a message from the Baha’i Universal House of Justice (the community’s world governing council), provided the focus for more than 700 members of the UK Baha’i Community who gathered at their National Convention in Nottingham earlier this month.

Baha’is from the Thames Valley were amongst 600 observers who joined 95 delegates (elected by Baha’is at local level across the country), who focused on the neighbourhood-level community building that Baha’is the world over are committed to.

Delegates shared their experiences and thinking about how the building of spiritual, social and material capacity is the foundation of community building. They spoke about the way Baha’is work with people of all faiths and none to improve the well-being of all.

Shohreh Fleming, from West Berkshire, was an observer at National Convention. She said: “The Convention encourages all delegates, whether veterans or first-timers, to speak freely. I was touched by the ethos of careful listening and the fact that all contributions are accorded equal respect.”

Challenging the consumer culture

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Baha’is across West Berkshire have welcomed a challenge by the Baha’i International Community to the belief that human beings are slaves to self-interest and consumerism.

The Community issued a statement for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development’s two-week meeting in New York, which finishes on 14 May.

The document, entitled Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism, challenges the view that there is an intractable conflict between what people want – which supposedly is to consume more – and what humanity needs.

It says: “The culture of consumerism … has tended to reduce human beings to competitive, insatiable consumers of goods and to objects of manipulation by the market.

“[But] the human experience is essentially spiritual in nature: it is rooted in the inner reality – or what some call the ’soul’ – that we all share in common.”

West Berkshire Baha’i Shawn Khorassani said: “This document is a welcome and timely reminder about the issue of consumerism. It encourages us to reflect on the question of who we are and what our purpose in life is.”

You can read the statement at http://bic.org/statements-and-reports/bic-statements/10-0503.htm

Or you can read more on the Baha’i World News Service site.