Follow-Ups to Answer from Expert Suzanne Gerstner

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FG wrote at 2010-05-11 00:16:42
Dear David,



You're asking a very good question, one that has often been noted by many people in various Bahai forums. The example you refer to, from here on AllExperts.com, is a case in point.



The views of the people you mention, Juan Cole, myself, Karen Bacquet, “and the many others” may easily be read by anyone interested at

http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship



I agree David that what these people have written, leaving others to decide regarding myself, is “legitimate.”



Here’s an excerpt from Professor Juan Cole’s book “Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha'i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East,” Columbia University Press, 1998, in which, Professor Juan Cole observes that the Baha'i administration has increasingly come under the control of fundamentalists, "stressing scriptural literalism . . . theocracy, censorship, intellectual intolerance, and denying key democratic values" (196).



Here’s an extract from Karen Bacquet’s article “Enemies Within: Conflict and Control in the Baha'i Community”: "The Baha’i Faith, best-known for its liberal social teachings and tolerance towards other religions, has an authoritarian governing structure that has caused a high level of disillusionment among adherents. Because of the religion’s stress on unity, there is considerable insecurity about the expression of dissent and a fear of internal enemies. Conformity is enforced by sanctions, excommunication, and shunning, and information is controlled through a system of censorship.” http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/bigquestions/enemies.html



Again, similar views from “many others” may be read at http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship



My concern with Suzanne Gerstner’s response to David and her posting a link to the fundamentalist UHJ’s letter to Susan Maneck is that it seeks to minimize what is really involved: fanaticism that has no respect for religious freedom and liberty, including freedom of conscience, and uses the most reprehensible tactics towards anyone who does not accept its narrowly conceived doctrines of who is a Bahai.



Finally, presenting Susan Maneck as a reliable academic is utterly ridiculous to anyone who actually knows what her record is and has been. Professor Juan Cole, of the University of Michigan, has written of her, "...she has behaved toward me in an academic setting with dishonesty and deceit in such a way as deprives her  of the right to debate me publicly. She spied on me and lied about it." Prof. Juan Cole: http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Cole20.htm



I suggest to readers of AllExperts.com that Susan Maneck is not a reliable source for anything and has a very long history on the Internet of being a fundamentalist apologist.



Also, depending to what degree you've studied the Bahai writings, the theocratic Bahai denominations, of which there are several, all believe that after Abdul-Bahai's death in 1921, what purports to be his will and testament appointed his grandson Shoghi Effendi as a "guardian" to interpret and run the Bahai Faith. That document was judged fraudulent in 1930 by Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell of the British Museum in London, its chief document expert and one of the most respect forensic researchers of the 20th century. Much of the fanaticism that the theocratic Bahais demonstrate is focussed on defending that fraudulent document and the corrupt, power-hungry organization it and Shoghi Effendi created.



The Reform Bahai Faith follows Abdul-Baha's 1912 Covenant, which he delivered publicly, and which emphasizes the universal Covenant of God with man, since Abraham, not to leave mankind unguided, and teaches a moderate spiritual democracy, not a theocracy.



Hope this helps to answer your question.



Bahai regards,



FG

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