A shared purpose will enable everyone – young, old, women, men, poor as well as rich – to flourish in this new civilisation.
The Bahá’í teachings offer a vision of a united and peaceful world
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All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilisation.... .
— BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
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Humanity is approaching its collective maturity. People are coming to understand that this is one planet with one people. We now have the capacity to create a global society founded on justice.
Universal participation
This will not be an easy task. It won’t be enough for a select few to shoulder the burden. It requires the participation of all the world’s peoples.
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Access to knowledge is the right of every human being, and participation in its generation, application and diffusion a responsibility that all must shoulder in the great enterprise of building a prosperous world civilization - each individual according to his or her talents and abilities. Justice demands universal participation...
— UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
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A shared purpose
Progress will come as we develop a new understanding of human nature as spiritual and unifying, not material and divisive. We all need to learn ways of relating to each other that are supportive and encouraging, which do not create divisions or rely on conflict. In short, we need to identify a shared purpose – something we each feel individually responsible for, and which is common to our communities. This shared purpose will enable everyone – young, old, women, men, poor as well as rich – to flourish in this new civilisation.
Justice, the organising
principle of society
The institutions of society will have to be reshaped to ensure that justice becomes the organising principle of society. Justice in the Bahá’í teachings goes beyond civil law – it is the human faculty of searching for truth and realising that individual and social wellbeing are inextricably linked. The ability to consult, free of ego and agenda, is essential in advancing the cause of justice.
Bahá’ís are working to gradually realise this vision, with their friends, families and colleagues, by sharing sacred writings, studying spiritual teachings, and holding classes for teenagers and children.
Bahá’u’lláh’s vision empowers individuals to take into their own hands the work of building a new civilisation.
A new world civilization
The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh, implies that:
- a world commonwealth in which all nations, peoples, religions and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded;
- a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees of the whole of mankind, ultimately control the entire resources of all the component nations, and will enact such laws as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy the needs and adjust the relationships of all races and peoples;
- a world executive, backed by an international force, will carry out the decisions and apply the laws of the world legislature;
- a world tribunal will adjudicate in all and any disputes that may arise between the various elements constituting this universal system.
- a mechanism of world inter-communication, will embrace the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions;
- a world metropolis will act as the nerve centre of a world civilization;
- a world language will be either invented or chosen from among the existing languages and will be taught in the schools of all the federated nations as an auxiliary to their mother tongue;
- a world script, a world literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of weights and measures, will facilitate understanding among the nations and races of mankind;
- the media will give full scope to the expression of the diverse views and convictions of humankind, will cease to be mischievously manipulated by private or public vested interests, and will be liberated from the influence of contending governments and peoples;
- national rivalries, hatreds, and intrigues will cease, and racial animosity and prejudice will be replaced by racial amity, understanding and cooperation;
- the causes of religious strife will be permanently removed;
- economic barriers and restrictions will be completely abolished;
- destitution and gross accumulation of ownership will disappear.
“A world federal system, ruling the whole earth and exercising unchallengeable authority over its unimaginably vast resources, blending and embodying the ideals of both the East and the West, liberated from the curse of war and its miseries, and bent on the exploitation of all the available sources of energy on the surface of the planet, a system in which Force is made the servant of Justice, whose life is sustained by its universal recognition of one God and by its allegiance to one common Revelation—such is the goal towards which humanity, impelled by the unifying forces of life, is moving.”