Looking for Baha'u'llah's Will in Everything

Indigenous children's rights at the centre of 'National Emergency'

If you live in Australia, you know that it's been a massive week for dialogue about race and rights. The release of a report entitled 'Every Child is Sacred,' has revealed staggering incidences of childhood sexual abuse in the majority of Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory. While some kind of drastic recourse is imperative, the official authorities' declaration of a 'National Emergency,' replete with the deployment of army troops and police officers, as well as outlining plans (thankfully now under revision) to conduct invasive medical checks on every child under 16, has struck many as overly dramatic and almost completely irrelevant.

It's difficult not to feel polarised about the issues involved. On one hand, there is evidence that children have been violated. This is abhorrent, unacceptable and requires urgent action. On the other hand, I for one can't help feeling sceptical about the magnitude of this extremely public reaction considering how long other Aboriginal rights; to health care, to land ownership, to education, have been neglected - especially when a Federal election looms just months away.

What I want to focus on however is not political machinations but the fact that, as in every situation if I look hard enough, there are signs of Baha'u'llah's Will to be discerned by my hopeful Baha'i eyes. In this case, it is the language being used to criticise the velocity with which action has been taken, specifically the lack of 'consultation' with Indigenous leaders and elders. Rex Wild QC, co-author of 'Every Child is Sacred' felt "disappointed the report's recommendation for a joint approach between the Federal and Territory Governments in consultation with Aboriginal people has not happened....'The answer is to sit down with the people, work out what they need, provide them with assistance.' he said." (Read the whole article here.)

For Baha'i's, the term consultation refers to a distinctive element of future global governance revealed by Baha'u'llah. Consultation has many features, but essentially it is a mode of decision making that is spiritual in nature. True consultation seeks to respect the beliefs and rights of everyone involved when addressing issues of injustice, rather than solely those in positions of power or authority:

"The heaven of divine wisdom is illumined with the two luminaries of consultation and compassion and the canopy of world order is upraised upon the two pillars of reward and punishment." - Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 126

Additionally, Baha'u'llah described consultation as a means of building unity across diverse opinions and, by implication, diverse cultures:

"Take ye counsel together in all matters, inasmuch as consultation is the lamp of guidance which leadeth the way, and is the bestower of understanding." - Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 168

Any attempt to address the complex problems in the Northern Territory will be ethically challenging and will no doubt raise ugly truths about the failure of the Commonwealth of Australia to protect its most vulnerable citizens. And while I wish with every cell it had not been initiated by such confronting human right abuses, I'm glad the hyperbolic response to this report has led to such open dialogue about the dark skeleton of racial inequality in this nation's closet. The events of this last week have given voice to an increasing desire for a workable dialogue of reconciliation, for interracial consultation, and my heart glows just a little whenever I hear Baha'i terminology being freely used in contemporary vernacular. If we are going to achieve real unity in Australia, as in the rest of the world, we need to start listening to one another. Though we're not yet adept at using the gifts Baha'u'llah's legacy has bestowed upon us, we are starting to be aware of our need for them. It's a start.

Solid Rock, Sacred Ground, Borrowed Time

The Australian Aboriginal Flag: red earth, gold sun, ancient black culture.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which I sit as I write these words, the Wurundjeri people and four other main tribal groups of the Kulin nation, who were systematically dispossessed, imprisoned or slaughtered throughout the mid to late 1800's. The name of the city where I live can be translated from the original language of the Wurundjeri as "a place in the shade." According to a 2001 census, people of Indigenous Australian descent comprise less than one percent of the area's population. The local council's tagline is "City of Harmony." (Click here to see Goanna's "Solid Rock,' the land rights protest song every Aussie worth their 1980's birthday knows by heart.)

Just yesterday I was reading a piece in an international current affairs magazine that rated nations according to their populations' mortality rates. Australia scored highly, which I found deeply surprising as our Indigenous population has some of the worst mortality rates in the world. (For some disturbing statistics on the comparative life expectancy of several Indigenous cultures from New Zealand, North America and here, check out this report from the Medical Journal of Australia.) I can only assume the exclusion of Aboriginal health concerns from the data on Australia in the magazine article was based on ignorance or denial. I was reminded of the following quote from Baha'u'llah:

"In this Day the secrets of the earth are laid bare before the eyes of men. The pages of swiftly-appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world...This is an amazing and potent phenomenon. However, it behooveth the writers thereof to be purged from the promptings of evil passions and desires and to be attired with the raiments of justice and equity. They should enquire into situations as much as possible and ascertain the facts, then set them down in writing." - Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, pp. 34-40