ppression that had darkened
the pages of recorded history throughout the ages.

This circumstance highlights the relevance of the Faith's activities to
the life of the larger society in which these efforts are taking place.
Together with world peace, the need for the international community to
take effective steps to realize the ideals in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and its related covenants is an urgent challenge facing
humanity at the present moment in its history. There are relatively few
places in the world where minority populations, because of religious,
ethnic or national prejudices, are not still denied basic human needs of
some kind. No body of people on the planet understands better this issue
than does the Baha'i community. It has endured--continues to endure in some
lands--mistreatment for which there is no conceivable justification,
whether legal or moral; it has given its martyrs and shed its tears, while
remaining faithful to its conviction that hatred and retaliation are
corrosive to the soul; and it has learned, as few communities have done,
how to use the United Nations' human rights system in the manner intended
by that system's creators, without having recourse to involvement in
political partisanship of any kind, much less violence. Drawing on this
experience, it is today embarked on a programme to encourage governments
in a score of countries to institute public education programmes on the
subject of human rights, providing whatever practical assistance of its
own is possible.(140) Throughout the world, it is particularly active in
promoting the rights of women and children. Most important of all, it
provides a living example of brotherhood, from which countless people
outside its embrace derive courage and hope.

* * * * *

As the Iranian crisis was unfolding, an initiative taken by the Universal
House of Justice suddenly moved the external affairs work of the Baha'i
community to an entirely new level. In 1985, the statement _The Promise of
World Peace_, addressed to the generality of humankind, was released
through National Spiritual Assemblies. In it, the House of Justice
asserted, in unprovocative but uncompromising terms, Baha'i confidence in
the advent of international peace as the next stage in the evolution of
society. Set out, as well, were elements of the form that this
long-awaited development must take, many of which went far beyond the
po