The formation of the League of Nations: - “one of the most distinctive milestones”

Be that as it may, the significance of the steps already taken cannot be ignored. Whatever the present status of the League or the outcome of its historic verdict, whatever the trials and reverses which, in the immediate future, it may have to face and sustain, the fact must be recognized that so important a decision marks one of the most distinctive milestones on the long and arduous road that must lead it to its goal, the stage at which the oneness of the whole body of nations will be made the ruling principle of international life.

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Weaknesses of the League of Nations

There can be no doubt whatever that what has already been accomplished, significant and unexampled though it is in the history of mankind, still immeasurably falls short of the essential requirements of the system which these words foreshadow. The League of Nations, its opponents will observe, still lacks the universality which is the prerequisite of abiding success in the efficacious settlement of international disputes. The United States of America, its begetter, has repudiated it, and is still holding aloof, while Germany and Japan, who ranked among its most powerful supporters, have abandoned its cause and withdrawn from its membership. The decisions arrived at and the action thus far taken, others will maintain, should be regarded as no more than a magnificent gesture, rather than a conclusive evidence of international solidarity. Still others may contend that though such a verdict has been pronounced, and such pledges been given, collective action must, in the end, fail in its ultimate purpose, and that the League itself will perish and be submerged by the flood of tribulations destined to overtake the whole race. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

‘Abdu’l-Baha elaborates on the need to create a “binding treaty, and…a covenant” among “all the governments on earth”

“The sovereigns of the world,” writes ‘Abdu’l Bahá in elaboration of this theme, “must conclude a binding treaty, and establish a covenant, the provisions of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to all the world, and obtain for it the sanction of all the human race… All the forces of humanity must be mobilized to insure the stability and permanence of this Most Great Covenant… The fundamental principle underlying this solemn Pact should be so fixed that if any government later violate any one of its provisions, all the governments on earth should arise to reduce it to utter submission, nay the human race as a whole should resolve, with every power at its disposal, to destroy that government.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: Bahá’u’lláh’s “prophetic…words…in the light of recent international developments”

How clear, how prophetic, must sound the words uttered by Bahá’u’lláh in the light of recent international developments:—“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.” “The time must come,” He, foreshadowing the tentative efforts that are now being made, has written, “when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Great Peace among men… Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: “For the first time in the history of humanity the system of collective security, foreshadowed by Bahá’u’lláh and explained by ‘Abdu’l Bahá, has been seriously envisaged, discussed and tested.”

A general Pact on security has been the central purpose towards which these efforts have, ever since the League was born, tended to converge. The Treaty of Guarantee which, in the initial stages of its development, its members had considered and discussed; the debate on the Geneva Protocol, the discussion of which, at a later period, aroused among the nations, both within the League and outside it, such fierce controversy; the subsequent proposal for a United States of Europe and for the economic unification of that continent; and last but not least the policy of sanctions initiated by its members, may be regarded as the most significant landmarks in its checkered history. That no less than fifty nations of the world, all members of the League of Nations, should have, after mature deliberation, recognized and been led to pronounce their verdict against an act of aggression which in their judgment has been deliberately committed by one of their fellow-members, one of the foremost Powers of Europe; that they should have, for the most part, agreed to impose collectively sanctions on the condemned aggressor, and should have succeeded in carrying out, to a very great measure, their decision, is no doubt an event without parallel in human history. For the first time in the history of humanity the system of collective security, foreshadowed by Bahá’u’lláh and explained by ‘Abdu’l Bahá, has been seriously envisaged, discussed and tested. For the first time in history it has been officially recognized and publicly stated that for this system of collective security to be effectively established strength and elasticity are both essential—strength involving the use of an adequate force to ensure the efficacy of the proposed system, and elasticity to enable the machinery that has been devised to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of its aggrieved upholders. For the first time in human history tentative efforts have been exerted by the nations of the world to assume collective responsibility, and to supplement their verbal pledges by actual preparation for collective action. And again, for the first time in history, a movement of public opinion has manifested itself in support of the verdict which the leaders and representatives of nations have pronounced, and for securing collective action in pursuance of such a decision. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: The League of Nations: - “The voices that have been raised ever since its inception, the efforts that have been exerted, the work that has already been accomplished, foreshadow the triumphs which this presently constituted institution, or any other body that may supersede it, is destined to achieve.”

And yet while the shadows are continually deepening, might we not claim that gleams of hope, flashing intermittently on the international horizon, appear at times to relieve the darkness that encircles humanity? Would it be untrue to maintain that in a world of unsettled faith and disturbed thought, a world of steadily mounting armaments, of unquenchable hatreds and rivalries, the progress, however fitful, of the forces working in harmony with the spirit of the age can already be discerned? Though the great outcry raised by post-war nationalism is growing louder and more insistent every day, the League of Nations is as yet in its embryonic state, and the storm clouds that are gathering may for a time totally eclipse its powers and obliterate its machinery, yet the direction in which the institution itself is operating is most significant. The voices that have been raised ever since its inception, the efforts that have been exerted, the work that has already been accomplished, foreshadow the triumphs which this presently constituted institution, or any other body that may supersede it, is destined to achieve. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’) 

1936: “Every system, short of the unification of the human race, has been tried, repeatedly tried, and been found wanting.”; “An ever-deepening gloom is settling on its fortunes as she recedes further and further from the outer fringes of the darkest zone of its agitated life and penetrates its very heart.”

Beset on every side by the cumulative evidences of disintegration, of turmoil and of bankruptcy, serious-minded men and women, in almost every walk of life, are beginning to doubt whether society, as it is now organized, can, through its unaided efforts, extricate itself from the slough into which it is steadily sinking. Every system, short of the unification of the human race, has been tried, repeatedly tried, and been found wanting. Wars again and again have been fought, and conferences without number have met and deliberated. Treaties, pacts and covenants have been painstakingly negotiated, concluded and revised. Systems of government have been patiently tested, have been continually recast and superseded. Economic plans of reconstruction have been carefully devised, and meticulously executed. And yet crisis has succeeded crisis, and the rapidity with which a perilously unstable world is declining has been correspondingly accelerated. A yawning gulf threatens to involve in one common disaster both the satisfied and dissatisfied nations, democracies and dictatorships, capitalists and wage-earners, Europeans and Asiatics, Jew and Gentile, white and colored. An angry Providence, the cynic might well observe, has abandoned a hapless planet to its fate, and fixed irrevocably its doom. Sore-tried and disillusioned, humanity has no doubt lost its orientation, and would seem to have lost as well its faith and hope. It is hovering, unshepherded and visionless, on the brink of disaster. A sense of fatality seems to pervade it. An ever-deepening gloom is settling on its fortunes as she recedes further and further from the outer fringes of the darkest zone of its agitated life and penetrates its very heart. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: “the impotence of present-day institutions to avert the calamities with which human society is being increasingly threatened”

• The disastrous failure of both the Disarmament and Economic Conferences;
• the obstacles confronting the negotiations for the limitation of Naval armaments;
• the withdrawal of two of the most powerful and heavily armed nations of the world from the activities and membership of the League of Nations;
• the ineptitude of the parliamentary system of government as witnessed by recent developments in Europe and America;
• the inability of the leaders and exponents of the Communist movement to vindicate the much-vaunted principle of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat;
• the perils and privations to which the rulers of the Totalitarian states have, in recent years, exposed their subjects—

all these demonstrate, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the impotence of present-day institutions to avert the calamities with which human society is being increasingly threatened. What else remains, a bewildered generation may well ask, that can repair the cleavage that is constantly widening, and which may, at any time, engulf it? 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: Comments by some prominent Europeans about the prevailing conditions in Europe prior to second World War

Is it to be wondered at, that in the course of a recent statement made by one of the outstanding Ministers in Europe this warning should have been deliberately uttered: “If war should break out again on a major scale in Europe, it must bring the collapse of civilization as we know it in its wake. In the words of the late Lord Bryce, ‘If you don’t end war, war will end you.’” “Poor Europe is in a state of neurasthenia…”, is the testimony of one of the most outstanding figures among its present-day dictators. “It has lost its recuperative power, the vital force of cohesion, of synthesis. Another war would destroy us.” “It is likely,” writes one of the most eminent and learned dignitaries of the Christian Church, “there will have to be one more great conflict in Europe to definitely establish once and for all an international authority. This conflict will be the most horrible of horribles, and possibly this generation will be called on to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: Humanity “entering the outer fringes of the most agonizing phase of its existence”

With no less than ten million people under arms, drilled and instructed in the use of the most abominable engines of destruction that science has devised; with thrice that number chafing and fretting at the rule of alien races and governments; with an equally vast army of embittered citizens impotent to procure for themselves the material goods and necessities which others are deliberately destroying; with a still greater mass of human beings groaning under the burden of ever-mounting armaments, and impoverished by the virtual collapse of international trade—with evils such as these, humanity would seem to be definitely entering the outer fringes of the most agonizing phase of its existence. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

1936: Alarming conditions of humanity on each continent

On the continent of Europe inveterate hatreds and increasing rivalries are once more aligning its ill-fated peoples and nations into combinations destined to precipitate the most awful and implacable tribulations that mankind throughout its long record of martyrdom has suffered. On the North American continent economic distress, industrial disorganization, widespread discontent at the abortive experiments designed to readjust an ill-balanced economy, and restlessness and fear inspired by the possibility of political entanglements in both Europe and Asia, portend the approach of what may well prove to be one of the most critical phases of the history of the American Republic. Asia, still to a great extent in the grip of one of the severest trials she has, in her recent history, experienced, finds herself menaced on her eastern confines by the onset of forces that threaten to intensify the struggles which the growing nationalism and industrialization of her emancipated races must ultimately engender. In the heart of Africa, there blazes the fire of an atrocious and bloody war—a war which, whatever its outcome, is destined to exert, through its world-wide repercussions, a most disturbing influence on the races and colored nations of mankind. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“The whole world, wherever and however we survey it, offers us the sad and pitiful spectacle of a vast, an enfeebled, and moribund organism, which is being torn politically and strangulated economically by forces it has ceased to either control or comprehend.”

Politically a similar decline, a no less noticeable evidence of disintegration and confusion, can be discovered in the age we live in—the age which a future historian might well recognize to have been the preamble to the Great Age, whose golden days we can as yet but dimly visualize.

The passionate and violent happenings that have, in recent years, strained to almost the point of complete breakdown the political and economic structure of society are too numerous and complex to attempt, within the limitations of this general survey, to arrive at an adequate estimate of their character. Nor have these tribulations, grievous as they have been, seemed to have reached their climax, and exerted the full force of their destructive power. The whole world, wherever and however we survey it, offers us the sad and pitiful spectacle of a vast, an

enfeebled, and moribund organism, which is being torn politically and strangulated economically by forces it has ceased to either control or comprehend. The Great Depression, the aftermath of the severest ordeals humanity had ever experienced, the disintegration of the Versailles system, the recrudescence of militarism in its most menacing aspects, the failure of vast experiments and new-born institutions to safeguard the peace and tranquillity of peoples, classes and nations, have bitterly disillusioned humanity and prostrated its spirits. Its hopes are, for the most part, shattered, its vitality is ebbing, its life strangely disordered, its unity severely compromised. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society that must either be reborn or perish.”

• The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of patriotic arrogance;
• the increasing evidences of selfishness, of suspicion, of fear and of fraud;
• the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness, of drunkenness and of crime;
• the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures;
• the weakening of family solidarity;
• the laxity in parental control;
• the lapse into luxurious indulgence;
• the irresponsible attitude towards marriage and the consequent rising tide of divorce;
• the degeneracy of art and music, the infection of literature, and the corruption of the press;
• the extension of the influence and activities of those “prophets of decadence”
• who advocate companionate marriage,
• who preach the philosophy of nudism,
• who call modesty an intellectual fiction,
• who refuse to regard the procreation of children as the sacred and primary purpose of marriage,
• who denounce religion as an opiate of the people,
• who would, if given free rein, lead back the human race to barbarism, chaos, and ultimate extinction—

these appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society that must either be reborn or perish. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily increasing.”

Such, we might well admit, is the state which individuals and institutions alike are approaching. “No two men,” Bahá’u’lláh, lamenting the plight of an erring humanity, has written, “can be found who may be said to be outwardly and inwardly united. The evidences of discord and malice are apparent everywhere, though all were made for harmony and union.” “How long,” He, in the same Tablet, exclaims, “will humanity persist in its waywardness? How long will injustice continue? How long is chaos and confusion to reign amongst men? How long will discord agitate the face of society? The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily increasing.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

What happens when “the light of religion is quenched in men’s hearts and the divinely appointed Robe, designed to adorn the human temple, is deliberately discarded”

No wonder, therefore, that when, as a result of human perversity, the light of religion is quenched in men’s hearts, and the divinely appointed Robe, designed to adorn the human temple, is deliberately discarded,

• a deplorable decline in the fortunes of humanity immediately sets in,
• bringing in its wake all the evils which a wayward soul is capable of revealing.
• The perversion of human nature,
• the degradation of human conduct,
• the corruption and dissolution of human institutions, reveal themselves, under such circumstances, in their worst and most revolting aspects.
• Human character is debased,
• confidence is shaken,
• the nerves of discipline are relaxed,
• the voice of human conscience is stilled,
• the sense of decency and shame is obscured,
• conceptions of duty, of solidarity, of reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and
• the very feeling of peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually extinguished. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“Should the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness, of justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine.”

“Religion,” He, in another Tablet, has stated, “is a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world, for the fear of God impelleth man to hold fast to that which is good, and shun all evil. Should the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness, of justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine.” “Know thou,” He, in yet another connection, has written, “that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“The weakening of the pillars of religion hath strengthened the hands of the ignorant and made them bold and arrogant.”

There can be no doubt that the decline of religion as a social force, of which the deterioration of religious institutions is but an external phenomenon, is chiefly responsible for so grave, so conspicuous an evil. “Religion,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “is the greatest of all means for the establishment of order in the world and for the peaceful contentment of all that dwell therein. The weakening of the pillars of religion hath strengthened the hands of the ignorant and made them bold and arrogant. Verily I say, whatsoever hath lowered the lofty station of religion hath increased the waywardness of the wicked, and the result cannot be but anarchy.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“evidences of moral decadence… in…individual lives no less than in their collective capacity”

The signs of moral downfall, as distinct from the evidences of decay in religious institutions, would appear to be no less noticeable and significant. The decline that has set in in the fortunes of Islamic and Christian institutions may be said to have had its counterpart in the life and conduct of the individuals that compose them. In whichever direction we turn our gaze, no matter how cursory our observation of the doings and sayings of the present generation, we can not fail to be struck by the evidences of moral decadence which, in their individual lives no less than in their collective capacity, men and women around us exhibit. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“the decline of religious institutions”: “its share to the process of general disintegration—a process that must necessarily precede the fundamental reconstruction of human society

No more, I believe, need be said of the decline of religious institutions, the disintegration of which constitutes so important an aspect of the Formative Period of the Bahá’í Era. Islám had both as a result of the rising tide of secularism and in direct consequence of its declared and persistent hostility to the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh sunk to a depth of abasement rarely attained in its history. Christianity had, likewise, owing to causes not wholly dissimilar to those operating in the case of its sister Faith, steadily weakened, and was contributing, in an increasing measure, its share to the process of general disintegration—a process that must necessarily precede the fundamental reconstruction of human society. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)