 Good morning, everyone. Bienvenue to Le Monde. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this morning's first plenary. What a timely topic our first panel this morning addresses. Our nation, indeed our planet, is in the grips of tackling issues of citizenship on an unprecedented scale. And the more we can learn from one another, the better we hope we can address them. As Dr. Arabab told us last night, part of our task is to identify the knowledge systems that underpin society and identify the defective structures that underlie the problems of society as a first step in presenting solutions to them. Perhaps you, like me, have pondered what it means to be a citizen. Is it merely the passport in our pocket, which is a very powerful document and sought after one? Or is it more than that? Is it about integration and a feeling of belonging to a place? Some would suggest that integrating into a society engenders participation in it. Some would argue the other way around. In a survey of Canadians a few years ago, the top response to the question, what makes someone a good citizen, was obeying the law. But the answer, the top response to the question, what makes you feel like a good citizen, was volunteering. And what can we learn when we look at these questions from a spiritual perspective and keeping in mind the teaching of the Baha'i faith that the world is but one country and mankind, it's citizens. We're fortunate to have three experts with us who are going to guide us through our exploration of this fascinating topic. Each speaker will have 10 minutes to make his initial comments on three particular questions. Which questions? Stay tuned. So let me introduce Professor Arash Abizadeh to my left. Professor Abizadeh teaches philosophy at McGill University. He received his M. Phil from Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. To my immediate right is Carl Murrell. Mr. Murrell served as principle U.N. representative for the Baha'i international community, working with civil society on a number of issues including the elevation of the status of people of African descent in the United States through the lens of the United States decade for people of African descent. And to my far right we have Dr. Gerald Philson. He is the director of public affairs of the Baha'i community of Canada. Dr. Philson has served as chair of the Canadian network on international human rights, the co-chair of the mosaic management group of Vision TV and board member of the Kuchiching Institute for Public Affairs. So without further ado, let me turn it over to Arash on my left here who will tackle our first question. What are some of the prevalent ways in which citizenship is defined and analyzed in the social sciences and humanities? Thank you very much for being here and thank you for inviting me to think with you about this topic which is obviously very timely. And I want to actually start out a little bit more abstract even to sort of frame the question about citizenship at a more abstract level and ask probably one of the most fundamental questions in political philosophy is what is it that legitimizes the exercise of political power? What makes it legitimate for some human beings to exercise power over others to make decisions for them for how they're going to live their life and so on and in fact to back that up with the threat of coercion as political power is done. So that's a sort of fundamental question in political philosophy and there are different ways of thinking about the relationship between an individual and the exercise of political power. The form of political power that we're most familiar with in the modern world is state power. So we are organized into states in the modern world. This was not always the case. This is a modern development. And so the question we might ask is what legitimizes the exercise of state power? And there have been at least three different ways or models if you like of thinking about this in the recent political philosophical tradition. One is what we might think of as the state sovereignty model. So it's a model about what's the relationship between the individual and the political community as a whole that exercises power over her. And on the state sovereignty model the answer basically is well what legitimizes the exercise of political power is the ability to keep the peace. If you are capable of maintaining control over a given territory you're able to maintain social and political order so that you're able to maintain peaceful relationships in some way so you get right that's the value of security that we all value then your exercise of political power over the individual is legitimate in some way. So think about here the relationship between the individual and the state or the those who exercise political power is as the subject of political power. You are a mere subject on this model. Whoever can keep the peace impose order and provide security has the right to rule and all others have the duty to obey. So this model thinks of individuals as subjects with the obligation to obey. So that's the thing that sometimes people are answering when they talk about what does citizenship mean for other people when they say well obey the law that's on this state sovereignty model. And in fact there's two others that have developed in the European or North Atlantic tradition in particular and one of them is that challenges this state sovereignty model because notice here that there aren't necessarily any constraints on the legitimate exercise of political power once you've been able to maintain security. So here's a different model. You might think of this as a liberal model one that emphasizes not the status of the individual as a subject but rather as a rights bearing citizen. So here not just a mere subject but a citizen who has certain rights that impose moral constraints on the way in which the state is legitimately able to exercise power over individuals. So there's some things that are if you like off the table you can't do to individuals. Why? Well because they might have certain kinds of civil rights for example that need to be respected by the state if the state's exercise of political power is to be legitimate. So on this liberal model you have certain kinds of freedoms, freedom from certain kinds of interference. So think here of the classic list of liberal rights freedom civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of contract and so on. But there's also a different set of rights that a different kind of liberal tradition emphasizes not just civil rights but also social rights. So certain rights to say a minimum level of welfare that's provided to you. If the population is starving and political institutions are not doing something about it to ensure that their own population is not starving then you might think that there's a kind of a legitimacy gap that they're not fulfilling all of the requirements of the legitimate exercise of political power. That's the case on this liberal model which is a citizenship model not just a mere subject but on this one it says that individuals must be thought of not just a subject but as citizens who have certain kinds of rights. Now there's a third tradition, third model if you like. And you can think of this we can either use the Greek word or we can use a Latin word to characterize the tradition. The Greek word is democratic, democracy refers to rule of the people, republic is rest publica, the public thing. So right here you represent the political community and its institutions not as the private sphere not as something that is owned by some let's say individual that can use political power for their own private purposes but rather you think of it as something public. So in this democratic republican tradition they also have a model of citizenship but not just a citizen who bears civil and or social rights that must be respected by the laws that the state imposes on the society as a whole but on this democratic republican model the individual is an active citizen, the individual is a citizen who participates in the determination of what those laws are. So you're not just protected by the laws but you are a participant in the creation of those laws on this democratic republican model. So you're not just subject and you're not just protected but you are a participant. And so the rights that are emphasized in this particular model either instead of or in addition to civil and social rights are political rights of participation. So for example think here of the right to vote, the right to political speech and so on. So what I've tried to do here so far is to put on the table two models of citizenship that are in a way challenges to the state sovereignty model that thinks of individuals as mere subjects. Two models of citizenship what we might think of as the liberal one and the democratic one. Okay so on these models in contemporary political thought in the social sciences and the humanities often there's four elements that are associated with citizenship. One is simply the status of membership in the political community. So it's a status. We recognize you as a citizen is to say we recognize you as a member of this political community. A second element that is often associated with citizenship are the rights that are associated with that status. Okay so you do you have certain rights that go along with being a member of the political community whether they be civil rights, social rights or political rights of participation. These two things don't necessarily need to go together. The fusion of the status of membership and a various sets of rights is actually a fairly modern development. It's developed in the modern national conception of citizenship. Previously for example if you're an aristocrat and you travel across whatever the political community was you carried your aristocratic privileges with you wherever you went right in relation to the lower classes. It was not a matter of citizenship or political membership what rights you had. That's what national citizenship has done in the modern era. It's fused these two together. The third element is active political participation and the responsibilities and perhaps the virtues that go along with it. So a kind of sense of public spiritedness. When people talk about citizenship that's what they sometimes mean. They're talking about public spiritedness. I'm told to speak slower. Actually you're told to end. Okay. What? Speak slower for translation. Okay. Now the second message is to finish the remarks. I will finish in a couple of seconds. So that's the third element is active political participation sometimes when people are talking about that and with it the responsibilities of citizenship and being public spirited to sacrifice for example your private interests in the favor of the public good. And another fourth this is the last point another fourth element that is often associated with citizenship is a sense of identification. And so people talk about patriotism the sense of identifying with the political community. And some people think in fact this sense of patriotism is necessary in order to motivate public spiritedness the third element that I was talking about. So these are debates that occur. But the first two are often thought of as essential. The second third and the fourth are a matter of debate. The last comment that I'll make about this is that citizenship in its modern development has a paradoxical character. On the one hand it has created a realm of equality amongst the members of political communities. Think of what I said about the aristocrat. Think also of what I said about the distinction between citizen and subject right a realm of equal citizens bearing the same rights amongst themselves. But the citizen is not just being contrasted with the subject. The other thing that it is being constructed in relation to is the foreigner. And so on the one hand it creates a realm of inner equality. On the other hand it creates a realm of inequality against outsiders. And this in a way is the dual face is the dual character of the modern national conception of citizenship that we live under. And it's something that I think that we'll have to think about. How is it that these two faces the equality and the inequality face relate to each other? And how does that complicate the way in which perhaps we should think of the notion of citizenship as evolving in the future? And there. Thank you. Thank you very much, Arash. Now we turn to Carl to answer the question about what aspect, sorry, how does citizenship relate to the empowerment of populations to participate in processes of social transformation? I'll stay I'll sit here. So I'll be short to make up the time. And so I would like to clarify that I am the representative to the UN for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States. Bonnie Dugal will let me know that I am not the Baha'i representative for the Baha'i international community. It's okay. That's distinction that should be made. So I've been working at the Baha'i offices for over 20 years. I started when I started to work I started to serve in the in the Baha'i office of the environment. And this was an avenue where with the Baha'is could begin to talk about world citizenship. Obviously sustainable development is something that we have to think about together. So it was interesting to me at the time that the director of the behind of the Baha'i international community always for the environment would visit various missions and share the thinking of the Baha'i community at that time. And the one thing that all of the missions had a problem with was the concept of the earth is a common homeland. That was rejected almost at every stop. It was seen as controversial. It was seen as tampering with the with the sovereignty model the nation state model. How can we be members of a common homeland when you're in your country and I'm in my country. So and now it is that flows out of the lips of every everybody from the secretary general to every member of the organization. So that shows that the concepts that we have though they may be unsettling at first once we continue to share and learn the spaces that we're in and learn how to to convey them that they become accepted eventually because they are all right and true. So I'm just going to share some of the thinking back then that was shared about this concept because it is that time of this conference on sustainable development in 1992 was unprecedented. It was the first time that the civil society had its own space where developed its own language and became in essence a community. It was the first time that people from different backgrounds began to work together because they had an organizing principle the earth is their common homeland to rally around and some of the the thoughts that were shared then I'll just share a few with you that were shared by the Baha'i community at the time I'll share with you the greatest challenge facing the world community as it mobilizes to implement what was called agenda 21 which was the outcome document of that conference is to release the normal the enormous financial technical human and moral resources required for sustainable development. These resources will be freed up only as peoples of the world develop a profound sense of responsibility for the fate of the planet and for the well-being of the entire human family. This acceptance of the responsibility can only emerge from the acceptance of the oneness of humanity and will only be sustained by unifying vision of peaceful prosperous world society. Without such a global ethic people will be unable to become active constructive participants in the worldwide process sustainable development provides an indispensable framework of scientific knowledge technical know-how of the implementation of sustainable development. It does not inspire personal commitment to a global effort. That is to say that ethics and values were ignored during that United Nations conference that I was telling you about. The call for unifying values was heard throughout the process and in particular the concepts of unity and diversity world citizenship and our common humanity were invoked to serve as the ethical undergirding for the process. So as Bonnie was sharing with you on day one when we go into these spaces we stand for what is rather than for what is not. And that is part of the work that we have to do when we work with populations that affirm the negative or affirm the problems. We have to be in those spaces with the ability to affirm the solutions which are applicable to the process at hand. I'll stop there. Thank you very much, Carl. Now we turn to Gerald who will share with us his thoughts on the aspects of the Baha'i conceptual framework that come to the fore when examining the discourse on citizenship. So Asun works in government. She's a Baha'i. She knows all about the rights and duties and legal issues around citizenship. Arash works in the academic community. He knows a lot about citizenship. I refer to his website to see just how much he's written on that. Carl here works like I do in civil society. Citizenship is a discourse issue that emerges in these three different categories and more and more individual Baha'is are working in areas related to citizenship. There are a number of Baha'is who work in refugee and immigration settlement in Canada. One of the largest Roman Catholic settlement agencies in this country is actually directed by a Baha'i who was loved and revered in that position. He advises government. So we have many individual Baha'is who are working with this discourse issue. Baha'is have, although it's a long history of citizenship from the city state down to the nation state as Arash started to outline, and Baha'is have interrogated the subject using often the 12 principles, all of which relate to it. We're at a new stage in participating in discourse where we have an evolving conceptual framework, which is different than just the list of discrete principles. The principles or concepts of the Baha'i faith are interrelated in more like a web or a framework, and it's an evolving one. Now obviously there are elements in that framework that relate to the discussion of citizenship. Global citizenship is one, the oneness of humanity. Obviously that's one. And it's interesting in a BBC poll published April 28th of this year, places like Indonesia, China, India, Nigeria, people are self identifying as global citizens and measured up towards 70%. In the developing world, the United States and Germany and Russia, they're well below 50%. Then when they self identify, they self identify as Germans or as Russians. Canada is just slightly above 50%. So what does that mean? It means that their global citizenship is an issue. Now it can be very amorphous and the academic community talks about cosmopolitan citizenship. We talk about global citizenship. But when you go back to our conceptual framework, we also have an interpretation of history. The trend line is towards global citizenship. But we also know that we're on the threshold of the oneness, therefore we're at an adolescent stage in that. So as we read social reality, we have to consider, well it's not as simple as a simple trend line. We can just blurt out at some meeting or somebody, we're all global citizens, wake up. No, we're in a stage of adolescence and we know that there are integrative and destructive, disintegrative forces. So we bring that part of our conceptual framework into the discussion and that gives us a deeper kind of discussion about global citizenship. We also, the House of Justice and the Guardian told us that there will be successive stages in the evolution of the nation state international system. And so we have to read social reality to determine what stage are we at now, before we simply talk about global citizenship and the way we used to do the 12 principles. No, we have to reflect, we have to take action and say things. But then we also have to study just what stage are we at in that discourse. And when we talk about citizenship as discourse, we also know that there are these three protagonists, the individual, the community and institutions. And as we learn, the relationship between the individual to the state institutions is one thing. The relationship of the individual to national communities is another identity. One is rights and one is identity. It's a very complex, very challenged discussion and there are people who have looked at these things for a long time. We are at an early stage, very early stage, not in stating the 12 principles, but engaging our conceptual framework in a way that involves a partnership relationship with civil society. Bahá'í is working with the academic community in that. Government professionals, we have more and more from the Bahá'í community in government circles. And individual Bahá'ís have to learn how to take actions, make statements, engage, then reflect on how they're engaging and then study, study our conceptual framework in the writings and then have consultation with each other. So that's one level of discourse. Individuals all have to do that as Bahá'ís. Second level, however, is a more collective learning process, which I think the Association of Bahá'í Studies is trying to do here, where we can gather together in small groups and begin to learn together as we take actions, as we reflect, as we study, and as we consult. Then there are the institutional, the institutions of the faith now have to engage this discourse. And in Canada, we've chosen this discourse because it relates to so many things. Global education is an important thing. Every Canadian knows about multiculturalism. This issue of citizenship comes up. The role of youth in citizenship and empowerment and participation. And as I've soon said at the beginning, although rights and identity and duties and recipients of state services is part of citizenship, we know as Bahá'ís we have to push that further and talk about participation. But it's not simply participation. Our participation is not participation in the status quo. It's participation in transforming society. And so we're doing that and building communities. So the point of all this is to say to everybody, it's not a matter of doing less of anything. It's a matter of not doing less reading and study. It's not doing less consultation. Well, Heisel complained about that. It's not a matter of doing more action in the name of not reflecting and studying and consulting. We are asked to do all four things. And we're asked to do it on three different levels. The protagonists, the individual, working in their various professions, as Bahá'ís emerged in Canadian society, in positions of very strategic positions in terms of influencing their discourse. But then also learning to work together to do this and then also working at an institutional level. Now there's many other aspects of our conceptual framework. Justice, our concept of justice is about universal participation. It's very different. It's tweaked a little bit differently than the classical ideas. So these are just a few comments on a very long and difficult subject. But I want to emphasize that we are at an early stage, but it's a new stage. It's a stage beyond where we were 10 years ago. And it's a stage that has learned from expansion consolidation. And this conceptual framework idea is an important one for us to grasp. And in looking at the best kind of short explanation of it, look at section two of the social action document, which really has a good... Because we often throw out this term, conceptual framework. Well, what is conceptual framework? It's used a lot, but there's an issue. And then you can reflect and then you can take action by engaging in discussions on this issue. And then the institutions have to go a little bit slower because they represent the faith. But you individuals can do it all the time in conversations. And I think as you go down the list of the conceptual framework of the concepts there, we also have to learn that it's not just about content, but it's also about methodology. Because you see part of our conceptual framework is understanding what consultation is, that we should be agents of unity, but not agents of unity as conformity or as accepting the status quo, but agents of unity in pushing forward the transformation of society, but not only transforming society, transforming ourselves. And so this concept of citizenship is a very rich, multi-layered, multi-faceted concept. And it seems to be just emerging in many, many ways. We, the National Spiritual Assembly, in guiding the Office of External Affairs in Canada, has decided, well, citizenship's a very good discourse issue because it touches on so many other discourses, including reconciliation, the issue yesterday morning. But it also touches on youth, which is our second discourse we're following, and it also touches on the role of religion in society. Because you see, when you look at refugees and immigration, all this discussion of last year about the Syrian refugees, so many of the local agencies that were involved and are involved in that are religious communities. Well, we, Baha'is, should be learning from them, working with them, but at the same time engaging them with the concepts that we're drawing from, from our conceptual framework. And we've gone through some very interesting discussions over the past year with our partners, both in the religious communities of Canada, with the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, who comes and asks us for advice more and more often on issues, and they're dealing with this issue of citizenship. We're learning that we have to be very attentive to not only the content, the Baha'i concepts as content, but how we're learning to practice them with others in a way that is not, that is humble, that adopts a learning mode. And then also talk directly to them about that methodology, that we Baha'is are involved, not merely in doctrine or a set of sacred literature, but we also are involved in our community, in practices and in learning. And in trying to address participation, but not merely as participation with higher voter turnout, better response to following the laws, like paying our taxes, increasing volunteerism, which is important, but also pushing the envelope and really transforming society. So I'm, notice I'm starting to repeat myself, so I think it's time to close off. Thanks. Thank you very much, Cheryl. So we have about 20, a little more than 20 minutes for a bit of a back and forth, and I would invite each of the speakers, if they have comments on what they've heard from the other speakers, to feel free to share additional comments. But maybe just to start things off, I noticed in the remarks of all three of our speakers, this idea that I think the Universal House of Justice has also talked about that some of the issues that we face, and those in particular with regards to citizenship, they are insoluble in the context of the current conditions of society, and that a recognition of the fundamental oneness of humanity, and therefore a spiritualization of the masses, is needed in order to really tackle these issues from their base. And Arash, you had talked about at the end about the kind of two faces of inequality and how they can be negotiated when thinking about citizenship. Perhaps I can turn to you again to elaborate on that or any comments you may wish to share in light of the other speakers' remarks. Sure. I mean, one thing that you might want to think about when thinking about citizenship in contrast to the subject as opposed to the foreigner, is that, you know, when in these two other models that I was talking about, when people insist that, no, we're not just mere subjects, but we must, the subjects of political power must be recognized as rights-bearing citizens or even participants in the political community. That's what legitimizes the exercise of political power over them. That's a nice answer to what gives legitimacy to the exercise of political power when you, when it, if it's true, that all those who are subject are in fact citizens. But when you look then to instances where political state institutions are exercising a tremendous amount of power over the lives of human beings who are not citizens, where the subject actually turns out not to be a citizen, then there's a question mark. Well, what makes this legitimate? Why does this set of political institutions get to decide and impose its regulations on these individuals who have not been recognized as citizens and recognize the citizens? If on these other two traditions, that's what's being insisted on. And this comes out most clearly in the case of boundary laws, right, borders. In the case of borders, what you have is you have an interstate system currently where states exercise a tremendous amount of political power over individuals to prevent them from moving, for example, in various geographical space on the surface of the earth, but without recognizing them as citizens, right? So that's exactly what the state sovereignty model looks like in a way, right? Is that you are enforcing boundaries and say, well, no, this is our territory. You can't necessarily come here. You notice this and we don't recognize you. And we're going to enforce that against you with a tremendous amount of political power with huge human costs. So think of how many thousands of people have died trying to margrate, for example, across the Mediterranean Sea. Is it that thousands of people die? Why? Because of the nature of the interstate system and the way that power is exercised over human beings. So it's a question. If you've got equality internally, but you've got inequality externally, and states are exercising power over foreigners, subjecting them to their own exercise of power, how is it then that this can become legitimized given the insistence that state power is legitimized only if those who are subject to it are recognized as citizens with a set of rights? Okay, so that's a question for this sort of bounded citizenship model that we currently live under. Carl, maybe I could ask you to comment about this very real situation that our planet faces. And you talked about how in 1992 when there was talk of the recognition of the planet as one home, it was thought of as controversial and really impinging on the state sovereignty model, and that nowadays it's on the lips of politicians and many people everywhere, members of civil society included. How have you seen that transition happen and where do you think we can go from here to kind of further foster that and address some of the practical issues that our ashes brought up? Well, sustainable development is a bit obvious. So there are certain things that people will talk about. They'll say when you're talking about citizenship for instance, is it relevant if the planet is not taken care of? Because if we don't have a sustainable planet then certain issues become irrelevant. Now obviously some of the issues with our planet affect most obviously women, but the people who do not have a permanent place to call home. I would be interested in this term migrants and refugees, these terms how they fit into what you're talking about because there are places with those populations that are in the tens of thousands, those are cities now. They're not as temporary as they might be mentioned but in these places the environment is at the worst condition. So when you have a weakened environment it affects the marginalized citizens the most. And so it affects women and children the worst. It doesn't make a difference if it's in a place of means. In my hometown of Bronx, New York, gas stations are in poorer neighborhoods and those children have the highest incidence of congestion in their lungs. I may not be answering your question, am I? It's okay. It's okay. All right. So I'll end by saying that it is a point of unity around which communities which have not in previously worked together can find a common voice and a common purpose. I'll leave it at that. When we talk about people who have not previously worked together finding a common voice, one observation that I can perhaps add is that actually came up at a conference held by a national public affairs institute on this very topic last weekend that I had the fortunate opportunity to attend on the topic of identity, citizenship and nationhood. And one of the messages that came clearly from the young people who were attending that conference who came from a diverse array of backgrounds was that in order for them to even feel ready to engage in conversation about a unified identity and you know we were only talking about being Canadian let alone being a citizen of this planet but a common theme that came out from several of the young attendees was that a prerequisite for engaging in that conversation was taking all the time that was needed to first recognize and validate and accept the full experience that each person brought to the table. So when they were talking about some of them had been members of the Black Lives Matter Parade that occurred in Toronto not long ago and some of them were members of Canada's Aboriginal community and here we were talking about nationhood and identity and people who have come to this country since the original inhabitants were here. There was a lot of reluctance to and perhaps this is maybe what you have experienced at the governmental level to engage in that discussion when there hadn't been a validation and acceptance of the lived experience of each of those individuals and as soon as that was done as soon as there was time given for each person to start off with saying this is my experience this is my family's experience then the entire conversation kind of the tone of it lowered and the opportunity for more cooperative discussion became obviously apparent even physically the way people were speaking and engaging themselves it was very apparent. So Gerald maybe I could ask you to comment you have been involved in so many different organizations within civil society on different topics could you give perhaps some examples of how again you have seen some of the transitions take place or some best practices or challenges that you faced and surmounted in your field my goodness um you know there was a stage in our external affairs work where I don't know I don't think Susie Tamas is here at work with a long time which is so as long as we don't embarrass the faith at this meeting we'll be okay which is a pretty minimal kind of requirement but even in even I mean it was obviously it was a joke we tried to do more than that but just just even in doing that the strangest thing is that often Baha'is because of our experience in consultation which we often don't recognize how how how much that seeped into the way we behave even in groups how often we Baha'is are as at the UN you've had this experience where you're appointed to the committee as you're appointed the chair and so on and and they see Baha'is because of the methodology we have so that but now we're at a stage where we're really trying to to give more content to it and as we do that one of our one of our exercises next year in 2017 is a holding of a conference in Ottawa called our whole society where we're we did have a conference at McGill and we had a conference at UBC in Vancouver we're working with about 10 other organizations we're one of 10 but what is interesting is that in those in those in the in the organization of that conference now the third one next year is how everybody's interested in the organization in that but but the actual ideas and the content has been written by by people in our office it's the content but people don't have content and this is a conference on the dialogue between secular society and religious in religions in Canada bridging the secular divide was the initial subject now our whole society because we're trying to bring so many different people into it and it's it's interesting to see that people really do respond to Baha'i concepts if they're put in a language that that that meets the language that's there but there are concepts but it's their language I'm not sure if I'm answering your question but there's this progress I think we're starting to see at the institutional level where we move beyond just just showing up and trying to be good Baha'is on a personal level and so on but then also having our methodology and the fact that we know how to chair a meeting and we don't speak over one another try not to we know how consultation works and people recognize that and say oh you should be on the committee you should be this but now the actual content is starting to emerge the Baha'i contact and concepts if expressed in a way that is adapted to the to the context are being picked up much more rapidly so so there's really to be a movement and this Kuchaching conference which you were at is is one place where it's clear now that when I first was on the board of Kuchaching even 10 years ago they didn't want to hear reference to religion or to that kind of issue whereas now I think they're really inviting and welcoming more and more Baha'i participation in it because of course we're not coming across in that religiosity with that sectarian way that that religion so often do but more and more we're realizing that our religious partners and can't have also learned that they've learned that we can't be sectarian any longer we do have to to work together so there's it's interesting to see the resonance that Baha'i how fast society can change even as it goes down even as the destructive forces go down the integrative forces are really out there and I know you probably want me to stop but I just say one more thing because I really do want to say this I think people have to read history more to realize just how rapidly things change how fast things can change nationalism these European nations that they think they believe they go back a thousand years they're very new creations and and and they just they were imagined into existence in the 19th century but it's going to change and all this thing about citizenship that we encounter in in in with our other professionals academic civil society and so on it rests on a bunch of assumptions about almost static relationships between individual and institutions and so on but we know that those assumptions have to be tested because the because the interrelationship between individuals and community and institutions are going already undergoing rapid change and are going to undergo more rapid change and as we involve ourselves in the discourse we have to recognize that it's not just a matter of structure changes not just a matter of this change it's a matter of consciousness changing and as the House of Justice always reminds us it's a way of life that is going to change but that can occur very rapidly if you look through different phases of history it can happen not overnight but almost overnight and so Baha'is have to really work hard at being the instruments of changing discourse but then also being ready with the work that we're doing in building communities to step into voids which are already opening up all over the place as the disintegrative forces operate thank you no it was great so we have less than 10 minutes left and i'd like to use that time to give each of our speakers a final two minutes each to make some final remarks perhaps comments they didn't have time for earlier reflections on what the other panelists have said or a final message that you'd like to leave our audience with on this theme so i will work my way from left to right i don't think i have anything uh any final comments uh all right so um uh yeah i think i'll let i i talked a lot so i'll let the other panelists uh talk if we don't say anything you get off early and get to have an extra ice cream um so so one of the things uh one of the areas that i that i work in is uh the status of people of african descent in the united states and obviously race is a big issue in developing countries and it's a very sensitive and issue but uh is there's a story i'm tracking down that because i don't have all of the facts i'll give you the bare bones and it hopefully it'll give us some confidence in programs of growth ability to change social conditions so in the northeastern part of the united states there was a problem with youth youth violence in the african community african-american community and a woman who was not uh a high woman who was not part of that african-american community wanted to help and started children's classes and uh it was one of the children was known by one of the council persons in the uh the town and it was and was so taken by what they saw that they invited this person to be part of the town's uh race amity structure or something like that so uh and all this person wanted to do was respond to this initiative this this issue that was going on in their community even though they weren't part of it so um i just thought it was amazing that it that it was seen as that it was taken note of by this this politician who said you you have to work with us and help our town become better and so uh you know this idea of citizenship particularly for the for the african-american community is very uh is very uh challenging but um our programs of growth have have shown uh have shown progress to particularly with children and changing the way that they perceive the possibilities of their future i'm sort of as those that know me find it odd i'm not a loss for words because i don't want to get going because i'll soon have a hard time stopping me um but but but this the thing about i want to go back to the individual community and institutions how important those the interrelationships of those things are and how we really test the assumptions that lie at the bottom of the way those are figured and and structured in our society how people assume make assumptions about those relationships and i think we have to begin to test those assumptions and talk about different relationships and that includes we even within the institutional makeup of a country and of a society the interrelationships amongst the institutions what are the relationships between the government institutions the academic institutions and the institutions of civil society the intermediate institutions and we in a sense are one of those intermediate institutions the Baha'i community and those those institutions can play a very a remarkable role and i think that that that as the Baha'i community now emerges as a very as a as a more and more of an intermediate institution in society modeling a learning collectively about the relationships within the community individual community institutions but no longer as a congregation no longer as an include isn't it as a club but but with it's kind of open to everybody this there's there's a lot of very rich learning to do here and it's not as i said earlier it's not a matter of doing less of one thing to do more of another we have to be constantly operating in a mindfulness and with greater consciousness as we do all four of these things the action the reflection which we have to do more of the study which involves not only reading this reading reality by following the newspapers following our neighbors what are they thinking how but also studying academic work we have to do more of that but in a way that is conscious and mindful of the action reflection and this and the and the text the sacred writings that and you go back to them and then you find new meanings in them and then the consultation and the way we are able to work to get and collective learning and nothing has been more valuable to us i think in terms of now entering the public discourse is the experience of the expansion consolidation and the institution process if you want to do participating discourse professionally as institutions collectively we have to do the institution program we have to do rui books we have to do that we have nothing is better nothing has been designed better as an instrument of our collective change in consciousness and trying to teach us how to be mindful in action mindful in reflection mindful and and and also mindful of listening and learning from other people in these groups and then now book eight and book nine and book ten unit one of book ten dear friends i wish i'd learned that 40 years ago i'd gone through that i had the opportunity recently go through this tells you how to be a good behide yes it's centered on the junior youth program and in power and in accompaniment and empowerment but there that that unit is what we should be doing in discourse in our professional lives at the workplace in the study in our office in government offices and so on and and i mean we really are on a cusp of of an accelerated acceleration speed history change all of that i'd like to thank all of our panelists for sharing their insights and experiences with us and i know like you like me you could probably listen to them for many more hours on this topic i encourage you to approach them during lunch or in other portions of the conference with questions i know they'd be happy to answer them so i'd like to thank you very much and uh move on to the next