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20-20 Remembrance

Posted by :James Howden On : November 13, 2020
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Category: At First Glance

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Touching the past. Poppies are sacred here. (Image from TV Ontario.)

[November 11 is Remembrance Day in Canada, and it’s not so far behind me that I’ve forgotten it already. Hurray for me!  This being Covid Year and all, it was a slightly oddball experience but I cherished it all the same. Here’s a quick look-back.]     [4-minute read]
[Oh, and over THERE in the “He Said/She Said” section is a short piece setting up a related quotation from the mighty Kurt Vonnegut, on why Armistice Day is just a better name for what his countrymen call “Veterans’ Day”. It’s a companion to this piece.]

 

She dragged me outside again on the 11th. (Let’s be dramatic – Bruce Cockburn sang it this way: You tore me out of myself, alive!) It was, to be precise, about ten minutes to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this old year.¹ In Canada we call it Remembrance Day. Once upon a time, it was Armistice Day, honouring the moment when the guns of the Great War (when ‘great’ meant ‘ginormously large’ rather than ‘famously supercool’) stopped blasting in November of 1918. I was going to stay home, listen to CBC Radio’s Remembrance broadcast, but instead I went Outside. And, of course, my lovely Accompanist was right again.

                         ¹  Yes, ‘Oct-‘ refers to ‘8’ and ‘Dec-‘ to ‘10’ and November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar. And in 2020, it is the ninth month (at least in my part  of the world) of what seems several years of Covid-19.

It doesn’t take me long to remember, Ah, right, moving. That’s a good thing. I like this body-working hypothesis. We walked, my bride and I, who tends to think that sacred acts are better done with other humans. It was only a few blocks to a little patch of green, a corner lot that developers didn’t get; it’s been preserved not only for kids to swing and play, or for elders and others to perch on a maple-leafy bench and watch the world go by for awhile (or to monitor their likes). No, the Riverside Memorial Park, though tiny, is a local monument to the neighbourhood fallen and to all the veterans from our corner of the capital.

We were around 20 souls, two city councillors and a greying crew of neighbourhoodies. It turned out that for the ceremony, we listened, around a memorial stone be-wreathed and poppified, to a Bluetooth speaker that transmitted the CBC Radio broadcast. Public radio, indeed! It felt odd and tinny at first but then suddenly was Actually Just Fine, Thank You! And I remembered these things, all in a serried line:

  • How grateful I am for a solo bugle and the Last Post. I loved hearing it live, some years, during my high school’s 11 am Remembrance Day program. It was often some old fella in an ill-fitting uniform that probably brought bemusement to some students, eye-rolls for a few, until he started blowing that horn. Chokes me up without fail, even via Bluetooth at the corner of Queen Mary and North River as the bus goes by.
  • That repeated short last line of a poetic verse that most of us – the older ones, anyway – have more or less to heart in Canada; it’s so powerful. There’s not much militarism here on November 11, but rather a widespread attitude of “never again!” and “consider what we’ve lost” and “let’s pray for peace”. I fiercely muttered, along with my handful of fellow Rememberers, the fervent echo, “We will remember them.” They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.

(Every Remembrance Day ceremony in “America’s attic” now includes this fourth verse of seven in Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen”, written in 1914. It’s called “the act of Remembrance”, and is a reminder that there are also some fine things about the post-colonial British heritage in this here Canada. We will remember them. “Nous nous souviendrons d’eux.” And I remembered other things, too, as the prayers and tributes went on:)

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A View From the Mountain: Covid-19 and the Condition of the World. (Or: The Universal *WHAT*?)   

Posted by :James Howden On : September 14, 2020
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Category: On Second Thought

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Big hands, small world.

 

 [18-minute read]

Imagine: what if the world had a governing council, democratically elected, whose only mandate was to guide humanity towards oneness and global renewal? What if such a body were commissioned to rise above partisanship, indeed above the limited advantages of individual nation states, to consider thoughtfully the needs of all the world’s peoples? And while we’re in full-on fantasy, let’s imagine that this council’s members were chosen exclusively because of their capacity to serve, and not due to their power or fame or their desire for either. Wait, how about this? Let’s dispense with nominations, any sort of advantage for the rich (fundraising of any sort), narrowly based constituencies a candidate must favour, and the whole road-show of promises, slandered opponents and vote for me! What do you think? Which is stronger in your mind – the appeal of this flight of utopian fancy, or its impossibility?

 

Well, I have news. In truth, there’s no need for imagination. Such an institution is no mere dream. Did you know that there is a Universal House of Justice in the world? It was conceived in the writings of Baha’u’llah, the 19th-century Persian nobleman who was stripped of his social position and exiled far from his homeland, and why? For championing the renewal of religion, a new age of human prosperity, and the oneness of humankind. (If you have heard of the Baha’i Faith and its principles, Baha’u’llah is their author.) After steady growth in its numbers and capacity, the Baha’i community first elected what is now its supreme institution, the House of Justice, in 1963 in a remarkable process, completely free of campaigning or ambition. The electors, themselves chosen in a series of prayerful, conscientious procedures, privately vote every five years for those whom they feel have the best capacity to serve. This selection is based on assessments of the maturity, cooperative ability, mental strength, loyalty and selflessness of an individual. Not fame. Not good hair. Not vaulting ambition. Not wealth or privilege or lobbying or a telegenic smile. The difference between this process and the national elections we’re most familiar with – Baha’u’llah might have described them as “lamentably defective” – is as wide as your favourite ocean. Two particular qualities mark the distinctness of the Universal House of Justice from any other prominent governing body in the world. One is that most Baha’is in the world, I suspect, couldn’t even name a member of the House, such is its character and the nature of its elections. (A fame-watcher like me? I think I could name three, tops.) Second, and perhaps most important, not only are Baha’i communities everywhere in the world amazingly responsive to its requests, but they also love the institution of the House of Justice! Bizarre but true.

So now you know a little about this unparalleled system of governance, one that I’ve been mildly obsessing over and immoderately enthusing about for most of my life. Now, if you’ve never even heard of the Universal House of Justice, or barely have, don’t feel badly. This is a governing body that doesn’t send out press releases or trumpet its accomplishments, at all. Besides, with some astounding exceptions (such as the “Peace Message”, its 1985 letter to the peoples of the world), most of its communications are addressed to the Baha’i community, and in a human sea of over seven billion, Baha’is constitute only about one human in a thousand. I guess you could call this a minority report.

The seat of the Universal House of Justice, part of the Baha’i World Centre on the side of Mt. Carmel.

Dear reader, this has also been your preamble to a longer discussion of a superb talk I heard recently. The above introduction will help make sense of what follows, and explain why a group of us were so compelled to hear from a gentleman agricultural scientist we had previously known almost nothing about. (It’s a Baha’i Thing.)

*****

For the second time in a year, the Ottawa Baha’is and their like-minded friends recently benefited from the insights of a former member of this institution, Dr. Firaydoun Javaheri, on current conditions in the world. The first was in a sweltering lecture theatre at the University of Ottawa – we shook hands! hugged! listened and perspired, packed shoulder to shoulder! – and, the times being what they are, the most recent talk was on Zoom.

Originally from Iran, Dr. Javaheri trained as an agronomist, then made a pioneering move to Africa where he worked in several nations, primarily The Gambia and Zambia, finally as technical director for the Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations. As a volunteer activist, he was in the forefront of the Baha’i community’s growing efforts in social and economic development and served on elected local and national councils – Baha’is call them “spiritual assemblies” – and subsequently as an appointed “Counsellor” for the African continent.¹ In his 50s, he was then elected to serve as a member of the Universal House of Justice, and did so for three 5-year terms, living and working on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel, where the Baha’i World Centre is located.² He is now retired and living in southern Ontario, Canada, where he has family ties..

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Pandemic Darkens the World: What Good Is THAT?*

Posted by :James Howden On : April 18, 2020
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Category: At First Glance

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A little more physical distancing needed now, of course: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres fist-bumps African colleagues. (Wish I knew who they were.) I choose to love this image. (photo courtesy UN)

*(4th in the “Silver Linings”series, which began here in my house, and ends here, on Earth.)   [8-minute read]

In some ways, finding the bright side of the Covid-19 crisis is hardest at the international level. It was easiest inside the four walls of my own home, and required successively more vision and awareness as I moved from civic good news to national bright spots to this challenge: does a global perspective offer much in the way of hopefulness? I must say: I can be a gloomy sort of Gus. I lean in to sadness and uncertainty and so many hands (“on the other other hand…”) in my preferred movies and books and songs. (Dar Williams and Her Deep Well of Sadness¹ pretty dependably make me weepy.) Still, my Thinking Cap has a propeller on it, blowing me ever toward possibility and a belief in the eventual triumph of common decency and basic good sense. So.

                   ¹ This is not the name of her band. She mostly flies solo. (And she’s funny, too.) Back to our regularly scheduled post.

I concluded Part 3, which focussed on Canadian candles in the wind and gloom, with some final thoughts on internationalism. We in the North pride ourselves, at least insulated little pockets of us do, on being a UN-friendly, outward-looking nation. We’ve always tended to be a bit more restrained in our flag-waving than the Americans are, though they’ve rubbed off on us uncomfortably (for me, at any rate) in that way as well. Internationalist visionary and global community-builder Shoghi Effendi – no Canuck, though he did marry one – argued powerfully about the negative side of nationalism. No problem, he wrote, with “a sane and intelligent patriotism”, especially to prevent over-centralization and an overbearing global authority, but between the wars he fingered unrestrained nationalism as one of three “false gods” that threatened human progress and peace. (Communism, of the Soviet flavour at least, and racial-superiority doctrines of every stripe were the other two.) Well, please pardon me for getting all amateurishly philosophical on you. But the brightest of the silver linings behind the darkness of a global pandemic touch on the following: the extent to which we think globally, act cooperatively, and generally show signs that we get that we’re all in this together. Guided by Shoghi Effendi and others, I’ve learned to see humanity as having an extended, collective bar mitzvah. Our maturity as a species grows with our understanding that we are truly citizens of a shared and single planet.  

That’s big and heavy. Never fear. I’ll start with the low-hanging fruit, the most obvious signs of goodness in a bad time for humanity.

  • ALL THE WORLD’S OTHER PROBLEMS HAVE MAGICALLY GONE AWAY! When was the last time you heard about nuclear proliferation, terrorism, hunger, poverty in the Global South, or tensions between North and South Korea, or, like, the Middle East, huh? Am I right or am I — (Oh. Right. That stuff’s all out there even if the news doesn’t have room for it anymore. And is that a silver lining in itself? Not really.)²
                   ² So ends the comedy part of the show! Thanks, you’re a beautiful crowd!

Well, that’s not exactly a silver lining. Let me start over.

  • THE PLANETARY ECO-CATASTROPHE IS OVER! HAS BEEN SLOWED DOWN. A LITTLE BIT. FOR NOW.  Is it just me, or am I breathing better? It’s hard to see it clearly in a small, non-industrial city like Ottawa, but Los Angeles smog is vastly reduced. The canals of Venice haven’t been this clean in forever. Industrialized Chinese cities oppressed by a heavy blanket of thickened air – with a level of particulate air pollution we can barely imagine in the West – are breathing easier and seeing farther than they have in many years. Even scientists studying these changes don’t necessarily want to celebrate – Look, everybody! Pandemics are good for global health! is not a sane position to take, for anybody – but we shouldn’t be afraid to point out that industrial slowdowns aren’t ALL bad. This doesn’t mean that the climate crisis has been brought under control, far otherwise, but it does give us some not-so-subtle hints: first, that “back to normal” clearly isn’t what we should, in the largest sense, be hoping for; second, especially for the environmental nihilists, these improvements remind us that big changes are possible, even when they’re forced on us. Even being compelled to do the humane and right things isn’t all bad!

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