The beginning of a New Year is often a time for hope and the making of resolutions to improve on the previous year’s status quo. 2005 began, however, with the world facing the biggest natural disaster in living memory. As the enormity of the devastation caused by the Asian Tsunami began to unfold, the people of the world rallied together as never before to assist their beleaguered fellow human beings. The outpouring of money, aid and prayer for the survivors of the Tsunami demonstrated the extent to which human consciousness has shifted to the global level. As John Donne wrote almost 400 years ago, ‘every man is… a part of the main’. Regardless of the race, religious or political convictions of the victims, humanity’s help was instant and overwhelming.

As the fund-raising efforts multiplied, nations paused to reflect on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The contrast was striking. Now, mass communication can inform us in an instant of another’s suffering anywhere in the planet. Then, prisoners, stripped of their humanity, emerged from a horrific existence into a world that for many years did not want to know. As our leaders gathered at Holocaust memorials to acknowledge the memory of the dead, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair observed that the Holocaust did not begin with the death camps, but with stones being thrown through the windows of Jewish businesses.

This spring, as the Bahá’ís celebrate their new year, they remember that their own community has been subjected to organized campaigns of oppression and extermination since the faith’s earliest years. Sanc­tions against, and harassment of, the Bahá’ís in 21st century Iran continues to this day.

The response to the Tsunami has shown humani­ty’s willingness to respond when ordinary people’s lives are devastated by ‘acts of God’. A real test of our emerging global consciousness comes when we are called to support those whose existence is threatened by acts of man.

Robert Weinberg