Civil Obedience

At a recent talk given at Transitions Bookstore in Chicago, Robert Stockman (pictured here with his family) coined the term Civil Obedience, a model of social change the Bahá’ís have used, and which he wistfully reflected the world in general may not yet be ready for. Bahá’ís are the supporters and well-wishers of every just government and are obedient to their own, and since only the Universal House of Justice has the authority to deem any government unjust and has never exercised this prerogative in the 44 years of its existence, the believers cannot agitate against civil authorities and can only use means within the laws of their lands to seek justice.

He cited a number of examples. In the Iranian city of Yazd, 150 families received a letter from the police, ordering the heads of the household to appear at the station on the morning of a given date. This kind of summons could only mean impending arrests, so the Bahá’ís held a meeting and at the appointed hour 150 women appeared in front of the police, as Bahá’ís maintain complete gender equality. Flummoxed, they let the women go.

In apartheid South Africa blacks were only allowed to enter the rear doors of homes, so the Bahá’ís placed heavy furniture blocking the front doors so everyone would have to enter through the back. When mixed-race meetings in public buildings were banned, members of Bahá’í committees were picked up in cars and the meetings were held while riding about the city, perfectly legal. When mixed-race Assemblies were outlawed, all the white members resigned, and the community was run by all-black Assemblies, a situation perfectly acceptable to the Bahá’ís, but not exactly what the government had in mind.

The Iranian Bahá’í community is rife with many examples. An ongoing dilemma is the systematic deprivation of Bahá’í students to a university education, a cat-and-mouse game in which, although books, computers, and records of a private Bahá’í university have been confiscated by the government, 500 students have obtained degrees and have been accepted into graduate studies in foreign countries. This year 800 students are enrolled, and all are studying English, as their online studies are administered by a computer network in Canada.

Bahá’ís continue to seek justice – never retribution or revenge – by diplomatic and legal means. They support UN Resolutions on human rights violations and encourage the local elected officials in their own countries to ask their national governments to support these resolutions as well by presenting them with unbiased, documented facts. And the students in Iran have garnered the support of campus and online organizations, Bahá’í and non- Bahá’í alike, so they might receive the education whose results will redound to the glory of their own nation.