Posted by Brett Zamir (12.248.114.98) on May 03, 2002 at 11:11:58:

In Reply to: Why immigration is bad posted by Vincent on May 01, 2002 at 16:48:25:

Dear friends,

I appreciated the candour of all of the comments thus made, and the elements of genuine truth within them. ăSay: O servants!...We fain would hope that the people of Bahá may be guided by the blessed words: `Say: all things are of God.' This exalted utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and enmity which smouldereth within the hearts and breasts of men. By this single utterance contending peoples and kindreds will attain the light of true unity.ä

DESIRABILITY OF INTEGRATION

Ok, it would seem abundantly clear that the Baha'i Faith does aim to educate people to celebrate diversity and create welcoming conditions which could lead to a fully pluralistic society.

To adhere to the idea that unlike groups cannot mix, would be to maintain that our society ought to go back to tribal organization since the successive unificiation brought about by laws and largely by new religions - not only by force of conquest (which the Baháâí Writings actually praise if in the context of uniting a divided state as has happened in virtually all countriesâ histories), but also by challenging these smaller groups to accept a larger identity as Christianity and Islám achieved, for example, and as happened in the secular domain as as visionaries in the U.S. for example, like Benjamin Franklin worked to forge a national identity among divided states before any such identity had existed. Should he and others have listened to extremist statesâ rights proponents (not that all working for decentralization were/are extremist), to say that people who are of like-mind stick together and could not or should not be united? Has the U.S. suffered by the founding states being united one to another? Wasnât the weakness of the Articles of Confederation abundantly proven? Should we go back to each state, or ăbetter yetä city or family, having its own complete autonomy without any coordination whatsoever between them--so that those which are more similar to each other can maintain their distinctiveness from others? If you, to take the U.S. as an example, recognize that Illinoisans are somewhat different in culture from New Mexicans, New Yorkers, etc., do you then think they should disassociate from each other, and not be allowed to transfer their residence to the other states? And if you say that they are already united and sufficiently of like mind, how do you think they became united? It took great struggle to achieve this unity, but it has been well worth it--as it is and will be for world unity. We can now benefit from the coordination of these diverse resources. Diversity as a necessary and desirable element of coordination and beauty can be seen in every single field of human endeavour and natural existence--music, business, architecture, literature, biology, etc..

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