Formation Of World Government is…Plausible

 As an incurable idealist I am happy to read Gideon Rachman at FT.com stating that “for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible”. Much of Rachman’s attention is on the difficulty of over-coming national resistance to focussing on international priorities. He writes that “the world’s most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but the average citizen’s political identity remains stubbornly local”. I think the average citizen could be forgiven for this stubbornness if he or she sees world government as a kind of Globalism Mk 2. However there is another vision of world order on offer of which Shoghi Effendi said-

“Its purpose is neither to stifle the flame of a sane and intelligent patriotism in men’s hearts, nor to abolish the system of national autonomy so essential if the evils of excessive centralization are to be avoided. It does not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of language and tradition, of thought and habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that has animated the human race. It insists upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other. Its watchword is unity in diversity…”

“The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh” by Shoghi Effendi US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991 first pocket-size edition Pages: 206

‘9,19, and 99’

The use of the number 9 (and variations such as 19 and 99) is an interesting aspect of the Bahá’í Faith. (For example the Bahá’í Calendar consists of nineteen months of nineteen days). As I understand it there are two main reasons for the use of these numbers. Firstly there is the (symbolic) numerological association of the number 9 with unity and perfection. Secondly there is a system in Arabic called ‘Abjad’ which associates numerical values with words and letters. In this system the Arabic Word ‘Bahá” (meaning ‘Glory’) has a numerical value of 9. Shoghi Effendi wrote

“Concerning the number nine: the Bahá’ís reverence this for two reasons, first because it is considered by those who are interested in numbers as the sign of perfection. The second consideration, which is the more important one, is that it is the numerical value of the word “Bahá”…Besides these two significances the number nine has no other meaning. It is, however, enough to make the Bahá’ís use it when an arbitrary number is to be chosen.”