reply to post by brice
I'm a Bahai.
The Bahai administrative order is an interesting model of governance, but it is a way of running a religious community, without clergy: it is not a
form of government in the narrow sense. The details of this administrative order are not made up ad hoc; all the main institutions and details are
given in Bahai scriptures.
However the Bahai scriptures, written by Baha'u'llah and his son Abdu'l-Baha, and authoritatively interpreted by Shoghi Effendi, also speak a great
deal about the need for world peace, and the international treaties and institutions needed to achieve it.
It's important to be clear that these are two different things, otherwise the Bahai scriptures look like a mass of contradictions because the way the
Bahai administration works -- with the goal of governing the community and preventing schism and the corruption of the religion -- is not the same as
the Bahai vision on how international secular government should work, to guarantee peace and progress for all humanity. These are in Abdu'l-Baha's
words "two calls" - which are complementary. Nevertheless, there are a lot of ethics and attitudes that are common to both, and the mere fact that
Bahais from many cultures and countries are able to govern their global religious community without professional clerics or other religious experts in
charge, suggests that humanity could do something analogous in rethinking global governing systems world-wide, and at the national and local levels.
What the Bahai writings envisage for the global political order is an international pact, formed by the great powers and approved by all the peoples
of the world, leading to the formation of a world commonwealth of nations, formed by the national governments, with a code of law, a judiciary and
legislature, and an executive with the ability to enforce decisions. Shoghi Effendi summarises it:
Some form of a world super-state must needs be evolved, in whose favor all the nations of the world will have willingly ceded every claim to
make war, certain rights to impose taxation and all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within their
respective dominions. Such a state will have to include within its orbit an international executive adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable
authority on every recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a world parliament whose members shall be elected by the people in their respective
countries and whose election shall be confirmed by their respective governments; and a supreme tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even
in such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration. A world community in which all economic
barriers will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of Capital and Labor definitely recognized; in which the clamor of religious
fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single
code of international law—the product of the considered judgment of the world’s federated representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant
and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated units; and finally a world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant
nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order
anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh,
see
reference.bahai.org...
and a similar but more detailed outline from Shoghi Effendi here:
reference.bahai.org...
Abdu'l-Baha describes the formation of this commonwealth of nations in "The Secret of Divine Civilization":
True civilization will unfurl its banner ... whenever a certain number of its distinguished and high-minded sovereigns ... shall, ... make the
Cause of Peace the object of general consultation, and seek ... to establish a Union of the nations of the world. They must conclude a binding treaty
and establish a covenant, the provisions of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to all the world and obtain for it
the sanction of all the human race. This supreme and noble undertaking ... should be regarded as sacred by all that dwell on earth. ... In this
all-embracing Pact the limits and frontiers of each and every nation should be clearly fixed, the principles underlying the relations of governments
towards one another definitely laid down, and all international agreements and obligations ascertained. In like manner, the size of the armaments of
every government should be strictly limited, ....
reference.bahai.org...
