The Elders

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In 1992, British rock musician Peter Gabriel founded Witness, an organization that uses video to advance human rights. In 1999, he began a conversation with media mogul Richard Branson about The Elders, a new gathering of world leaders who would pool their wisdom to guide and support our global village. For their model they looked to traditional village elders, trusted by people for millennia around the world to resolve conflict within their communities. In 2001 Gabriel and Branson took their idea to Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel, who were enthused and assembled Ella Bhatt, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu, Gro Bruntland, Fernando Cardoso, Aung Saan Suu Kyi, Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahmini, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, and Muhammad Yunus.

Nelson Mandela: “This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken. Together we will work together to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.”

Desmond Tutu: “Despite all the ghastliness that is around, human beings are made for goodness. The ones that ought to be held in high regard are not the ones who are militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They are the ones who have a commitment to try and make the world a better place. We- The Elders – will endeavour to support these people and do our best for humanity.”

Their very first mission was to Sudan to intervene in the Darfur conflict. From September 30-October 4, 2007, they met with as many officials and groups represented in the conflict, down to the powerless and displaced villagers. Their mandate, in their own words, was: “We act only as individuals and a group of men and women who have lived long, learned much, and are united in the belief that we must do everything in our power to contribute to bring peace where it is absent, justice where it has been denied, and dignity where it is under attack. We want to amplify the voices of people who are not heard and give hope to the marginalized and help to the peacemakers.”

They released their report in November 2007, which described the fragile peace as on a “knife edge.” Their recommendations included an immediate ceasefire, inclusive peace, a peacekeeping force, freedom of humanitarian agencies, and of course, democracy.

Laudable as this initiative has been, I am disappointed and unimpressed by this initial salvo. Any reasonable commission could have come up with these conclusions, even before going there. Since the departure of The Elders, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 has continued to be violated, and the brutal inhumanity of war continues. It might lead one to the painful realization that not only are the temporal and religious leaders of the world impotent to stem the cascading torrent of the age, but even such a collective of the wise are chaff in the wind – it’s too big even for them. So shall we throw up our hands in despair and submit to our gloomy fates? Bahá’ís are not so inclined. In the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “Religious fanaticism and hatred are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction.” (pg. 13)

And what did the Hand of Divine power ordain? “O ye the elected representatives of the people in every land! Take ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind, and bettereth the condition thereof . . . Regard the world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect, hath been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their personal desires, and have erred grievously. And if, at one time, through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was healed, the rest remained afflicted as before . . . We behold it, in this day, at the mercy of rulers so drunk with pride that they cannot discern clearly their own best advantage . . . And whenever any one of them hath striven to improve its condition, his motive hath been his own gain, whether confessedly so or not; and the unworthiness of this motive hath limited his power to heal or cure.

“That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pg. 254-255)

Not only did He ordain it, but gave instructions on how it was to be accomplished: “The Great Being, wishing to reveal the prerequisites of the peace and tranquillity of the world and the advancement of its peoples, hath written: The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him. If this be done, the nations of the world will no longer require any armaments, except for the purpose of preserving the security of their realms and of maintaining internal order within their territories. This will ensure the peace and composure of every people, government and nation . . . The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home. These things are obligatory and absolutely essential. It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action . . . That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race . . . It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pg. 249-250)

And since He ordained it and told us how to do it, will it happen? "Once . . . asked Bahá’u’lláh, 'How will the Cause of God be universally adopted by mankind?' Bahá'u'lláh said that first, the nations of the world would arm themselves with infernal engines of war, and when fully armed would attack each other like bloodthirsty beasts. As a result, there would be enormous bloodshed throughout the world. Then the wise from all nations would gather together to investigate the cause of such bloodshed. They would come to the conclusion that prejudices were the cause, a major form being religious prejudice. They would therefore try to eliminate religion so as to eliminate prejudice. Later they would realize that man cannot live without religion. Then they would study the teachings of all religions to see which of the religions conformed to the prevailing conditions of the time. It is then that the Cause of God would become universal." (Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, Volume 4, pg. 56)

The one criticism of the Faith I hear with any consistency is the cynical one that its ideals are too high, they’ll never work. For over a century now, Bahá’ís around the world have been working to establish these realities, and have been building up institutions to implement these ideals that will be in place as the old world order crumbles. They are doing so at every level, mostly at the grassroots, but on high diplomatic levels as well. Anyone who wishes to investigate the chronicle of this amazing process is referred to the document Century of Light, online at http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/bic/COL/col-2.html, which will explain the astonishing happiness and purposefulness of the Bahá’ís in the face of the world caught whirling in a maelstrom.

Stuck in a Cheese Grater?

I love puzzles of all kinds, and am a crossword puzzle addict, er, I mean cruciverbalist – yeah, that’s the word. I solve them by the truckload and am irresistibly drawn when I espy a naked one or someone else solving one, and have often met interesting people that way, though I can’t claim I’ve met my best friend, the love of my life – one can have fantasies, can’t one? -- or had a career break by this form of contact.

I first started doing them in earnest when I would take my daughter to Hungarian school on Saturday mornings and would have over two hours at the library before I picked her up again. At first I did it desultorily and unsuccessfully, but on a trip to Halifax to audition for the Atlantic Symphony, my host’s roommate walked around the house with a copy of the New York Times, vowing that she would solve it before the week was out – did I know a seventeen letter word beginning with ow for when your elbow gets stuck in a cheese grater? Intrigued, I helped her out and found I could do it, and in the process I was initiated into the world of crossword puzzle words, actual words (unlike bogus words in a Scrabble dictionary that start with Q but are not followed by U) though not in common usage, like ort and erne and yegg, and began a lifelong relationship with Estes Kefauver.

So every Saturday for the next 20 years I did the weekend crosswords in the Toronto Star, and once I began to see certain patterns of language peculiar to them, I would complete two of them at a single sitting in under an hour. I never used dictionaries or other aids, but would occasionally ask my wife when I got stuck on a certain clue, and though she had no confidence in her own language skills, surprisingly often supplied a recalcitrant word, a movie title, disease, or colloquialism.

My halcyon days were when the local paper printed the New York Times Sunday puzzle (a week later, so what?), but eventually advertisements ate up its space. In case you don’t know, most large or sophisticated puzzles have themes, or quips from comedians’ one-liners, and part of the fun is cracking the code of the theme. Puns, palindromes, and conundrums are the mainstay of clever clues, and you should know that puns are followed by questions marks in the clues. For instance, from Jan 5/03, entitled Bonus Rounds, you have to add an “O” to a well-known phrase to come up with a new one: the clue “Dentist’s Jazz band?” produces “FineToothCombO,” and “I think, therefore I wrestle?” yields “CogitoErgoSumO.” Ha ha. One of my favourites is a St. Patrick’s Day special in which the centre black square is surrounded by four white ones, or rather green ones, as the colour green completes each of the solutions around it, forming a four-leafed clover. Particularly tricky are those that have more than one letter or even a full word in selected squares. However, what makes difficult crossword puzzles more challenging is usually not the solutions, but the clues, which get more abstruse and deliberately misleading the higher the degree of difficulty. The clue is always in the same tense or part of speech as the solution, but the part of speech itself is not easy to decipher. And it is true that, unlike many other types of word puzzles, you do have to have a fairly wide knowledge base that spans cultures, topics, and generations – if you don’t know who Yma Sumac and Mel Ott were, you’ll have a tough time beyond the moderate level.

Sure, puzzles and games are largely a source of amusement, but I believe all enduring games contain something valuable. Word puzzles and trivia games make your brain’s search engine skitter around your neural pathways like a frightened rodent, lighting up dusty corners, finding alternative routes unimagined by Mapquest, shrieking the wrong way down streets marked One Way, and creating new constellations. I’m told that it’s a prophylactic against Alzheimer’s, and thank God for that. For me, it performed an indispensable service when I was going through a major crisis that consumed my life: once I had said all my prayers, done all my work, and dumped my woes on my good friends, crossword puzzles kept my mind off fretting over sorrows which only time had the power to heal and change. Little could those little men and women fussing in solitude over the construction of these anagrammed squares have imagined.
In my pre-crepuscular years I have become one of those little men, creating puzzles, not professionally but as supplementary learning materials for various courses I teach. One of these is the Ruhi Institute, and the puzzles help the participants return again and again to the Scripture they are studying, expanding their vocabulary and even deepening their insight as they scour the passages again and again.

And I continue to meet interesting people on trains and in cafés who are poring over crosswords, erasing and scratching their heads, but I doubt that I will ever attend any conventions – I presume they exist – or travel thousands of miles to meet Will Shortz, the Grand Imperial Wizard of cruciverbalism. Yeah, that’s the word.