“The whole world must be looked upon as one single country.[1]”
‘Abdu’l-Baha
Certainly, global crises have affected our sense of who we are as inhabitants of one single planet. Nonetheless, as distressing as news of environmental disasters, climate change, wars, and the upsurge of millions of refugees around the world can be, their effects can be denied and ignored in places more geographically and materially remote from the actual emergency sites. Until recently, we have been able to justify apathy and inaction in the face of human suffering because we do not feel directly affected by something that happens even a few hours away from us, let alone on the other side of the planet. So, life goes on despite the alarming number of worldwide crises that bombard the news at every moment.
But now we have coronavirus. Everywhere. The result of a pandemic that has spread to every corner of the earth except Antarctica, brings into sharp relief the weaknesses and strengths of each individual country’s ability to respond to international emergencies. It highlights even more the absolute necessity of governments to put aside agendas of self-interest and work together to solve this problem.
Dr. Andy Knight, Professor at the University of Alberta and a member of the Edmonton Baha’i community wrote:
“We are living in an intermestic world. The spread of the COVID-19 virus has made this fact even more evident than ever before. The lines between the “international” and the “domestic” are so blurred that we can no longer ignore the reality that we are one people and what happens to one of us in any part of the globe has implications for all of us wherever we happen to be.”
Frederick Kempe explains in his excellent international analysis of the spread of coronavirus,
“Proactive countries, societies and individuals are performing far better than reactive ones. Governments that engage in truth-telling are heading off dangers faster than those that obfuscate or delay[2].”
And:
“… we were also reminded of the benefits of international collaboration and trust – and the dangers where it doesn’t exist – both in addressing health emergencies and their global financial implications[3].”
Baha’is believe that all of life is governed by spiritual principle, that we are spiritual beings and that the problems of the world can only be solved when we address them collaboratively based on the North Star of our spiritual common heritage, as outlined by Baha’u’llah in His Teachings. One of these teachings is the principle of unity through three strata of human experience: the individual, the community and the institution. To have a safe and healthy world, each component must play its necessary part. Since we are all individuals, all belong to communities and are engaged with institutions, the effect of action in one sphere will certainly affect the whole.
Perhaps unwittingly, Kempe uses the language of spiritual principle in the above statements when he calls on governments to be “proactive”, “truth-telling”, and to engage in “collaboration” and building “trust”.
Let’s start with truth. According to Baha’u’llah, “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues[4].” When individuals are truthful, they are not likely to engage in lack of transparency as community members, or as elected officials. Truthfulness then brings trust and a sense of safety to our relationships with each other. I can trust someone who is consistently truthful, and I can have confidence in an institution that responds to emergencies truthfully. Institutions can have confidence in their communities when truthfulness is the foundation of their interactions with each other and problems can be solved quickly when truthfulness brings necessary facts to light from the beginning and throughout the process.
When adults have been trained and educated since childhood to be empathetic and altruistic, they will not then as members of government, be deluded into thinking that protecting a false veneer of their own public image matters more than the lives of their people. Instead they will focus on being proactive to care for the people for whom they are the trustees.
When the principle of the oneness of humanity becomes the foundation
for all our decisions, we will think and act collaboratively to create
an environment where all can live in health, access medical care and
where the prevention and early treatment of disease is the norm rather
than the exception. This is the vision of the Baha’i Faith for a world
where we work together fueled by love and equipped with virtues to bring
ideas into reality. It starts first with a focus on spiritual principle
and the living of those principles in the lives of individuals, who
have the power to act; communities, who have the power to support; and
institutions, who have the power to affect the life chances of all by
galvanizing resources towards a common goal.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá helps imagine this reality by asking:
“… if every clan, tribe, community, every nation, country, territory
on earth should come together under the single-hued pavilion of the
oneness of mankind, and by the dazzling rays of the Sun of Truth should
proclaim the universality of man; if they should cause all nations and
all creeds to open wide their arms to one another, establish a World
Council, and proceed to bind the members of society one to another by
strong mutual ties, what would happen then?[5]”
Envisioning a world where universal brother and sisterhood is the
norm is the first step, since you can’t create something you can’t even
imagine. Yet as we struggle to find real answers to the spread of
coronavirus, it is not difficult to see how the spiritual and the
practical work together. Let’s see what our response to the Ebola
outbreak taught us in that regard.
The West African response to the Ebola crisis showed that four critical behaviours were necessary for stopping the spread of the virus. The first two are practical concerning handwashing in water-deprived areas and training frontline workers. But it is the third and fourth behaviours that show most profoundly how everything we experience is within both the material and the spiritual realms:
- Ongoing building of community trust by spreading correct information to mitigate rumour mills, panic and superstition. Allowing family members to have nonphysical communication with infected members to mitigate the effects of being isolated and infected. Consideration of culturally appropriate and safe burial of people who died from the virus.
- Acting early, acting together and devoting necessary resources to finding, producing and administering the remedy.
In all four Ebola retrospect lessons, we can see spiritual principles at work. Cleanliness. Training and education. Trust building. Nurturing family ties. Cultural respect. Responsiveness. Decisiveness. Unity. They are all intimately connected to emergency responsiveness.
There is no getting around the fact that we are completely interdependent. To solve our problems, we already have all the necessary tools and means, until now held hostage by lack of political will. Baha’is believe that this paralysis is the result of persistent dismissal of our common spiritual heritage and essential unity. Coronavirus is a warning to remind us of our essential oneness, just as SARS and Ebola were – each one increasing in reach and severity until we learn the lesson of seeing every human being as one of our family members. It is forcing us to move beyond our petty concerns to create regional, national and global response systems for disease. Perhaps we will do this initially as a grudging recognition that we are one human race. But as we experience the fruits of the outcomes, the joy of family reunion will take root. Since we have until now not been able to summon the collective moral maturity to solve problems that did not affect us personally or locally, we have been forced through the spread of coronavirus into the recognition of our oneness. We must act with unity of thought to stop the spread of a pandemic.
Indeed, the Coronavirus has changed the world – but only if we wake up to the spiritual realities it points us towards, and quantum leap into recognition of the spiritual. According to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “all the sorrow and the grief that exist come from the world of matter—the spiritual world bestows only joy.[6]”
[1] ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p 131. Online: https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/paris-talks/2#734316706
[2]Kempe, Frederick. (March 7, 2020). Op-Ed: The coronavirus outbreak is already changing the world. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/07/op-ed-the-coronavirus-outbreak-is-already-changing-the-world.html. Correct on March 7, 2020.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Baha’u’lláh, cited by Shoghi Effendi in The Advent of Divine Justice, 1938. Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1990.
[5] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1982). Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. Baha’i World Centre, p 280.
[6] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1972). Paris Talks, UK Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1972 eleventh edition, p 109.