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1933-11-18 status, rights and prerogatives of Convention
USBN #81 - February 1934 - page 3
Concerning the status, rights and prerogatives of the Annual Baha'i
Convention, the Guardian wishes to make it quite clear to all the believers that
this annual meeting of the delegates is by no means a continuous consultative body
all through the year; that its twofold function of electing the body of the
National Spiritual Assembly, and of offering any constructive suggestions in
regard to the general administration of the Cause is limited to a definite period;
and that consequently the opinion current among some of the believers that the
delegates are to serve as a consultative body throughout the year is at variance
with the fundamental, though as yet unspecified, principles underlying the
Administration. Shoghi Effendi firmly believes that consultation must be
maintained between the N.S.A. and the entire body of the believers, and that such
consultation, while the Convention is not in session, can best be maintained
through the agency of the local Assemblies, one of whose essential functions is to
act as intermediaries between the local communities and their national
representatives. The main purpose of the Nineteen Day Feasts is to enable
individual believers to offer any suggestion to the local assembly which in its
turn will pass it to the N.S.A. The local Assembly is, therefore, the proper
medium through which local Baha'i communities can communicate with the body of the
national representatives. The Convention should be regarded as a temporary
gathering, having certain specific functions to perform, during a limited period
of time. Its status is thus limited in time to the Convention sessions, the
function of consultation at all other times being vested in the entire body of the
believers through the local Spiritual Assemblies. - To the National Spiritual
Assembly, November 18, 1933.
Dear and precious co-workers:
I wish to affirm without the least hesitation or ambiguity, that the annual
convention is not to be regarded as a body entitled to exercise functions similar
to those which an ordinary parliament possesses under a democratic form of
government. The administrative order which lies embedded in the Teaching of
Baha'u'llah, and which the American believers have championed and are now
establishing, should, under no circumstances, be identified with the principles
underlying present-day democracies. Nor is it identical with any purely
aristocratic or autocratic form of government. The objectionable features inherent
in each of these political systems are entirely avoided. It blends, as no system
of human polity has as yet achieved, those salutary truths and beneficial elements
which constitute the valuable contributions which each of these forms of
government have made to society in the past. Consultation, frank and unfettered,
is the bedrock of this unique order. Authority is concentrated in the hands of the
elected members of the National Assembly. Power and initiative are primarily
vested in the entire body of the believers acting through their local
representatives. To generate those forces which must give birth to the body of
their national administrators, and to confer, freely and fully and at fixed
intervals, with both the incoming and outgoing national Assemblies are the twofold
functions, the supreme responsibility and sole prerogative of the delegates
assembled in Convention. Nothing short of close and constant interaction between
these various organs of Baha'i administration can enable it to fulfill its high
destiny. - To the National Spiritual Assembly, November 18, 1933. (The Guardian's
postscript to the foregoing letter.)
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Response to NSA statement in Nov 1933 USBN
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