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A World Super-State |
“Take ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that
which profiteth mankind and bettereth the condition thereof….
Regard the world as the human body which, though created whole
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and perfect, has been afflicted, through divers causes, with grave ills
and maladies. Not for one day did it rest, nay its sicknesses waxed
more severe, as it fell under the treatment of unskilled physicians
who have spurred on the steed of their worldly desires and have
erred grievously. And if at one time, through the care of an able
physician, a member of that body was healed, the rest remained
afflicted as before. Thus informeth you the All-Knowing, the All-Wise….
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign
remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is
the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common
Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of
a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This verily is the
truth, and all else naught but error.”
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In a further passage Bahá’u’lláh adds these words:
“We see you adding every year unto your expenditures and laying
the burden thereof on the people whom ye rule; this verily is
naught but grievous injustice. Fear the sighs and tears of this
Wronged One, and burden not your peoples beyond that which they
can endure…. Be reconciled among yourselves, that ye may need
armaments no more save in a measure to safeguard your territories
and dominions. Be united, O concourse of the sovereigns of the
world, for thereby will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst
you and your peoples find rest. Should any one among you take up
arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but
manifest justice.”
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What else could these weighty words signify if they did not
point to the inevitable curtailment of unfettered national sovereignty
as an indispensable preliminary to the formation of the future
Commonwealth of all the nations of the world? 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
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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, an Order that shall come to be
regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age.
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“The Tabernacle of Unity,” Bahá’u’lláh proclaims in His message
to all mankind, “has been raised; regard ye not one another as
strangers…. Of one tree are all ye the fruit and of one bough
the leaves…. The world is but one country and mankind its
citizens…. Let not a man glory in that he loves his country; let
him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”
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