Bahá'í Faith and Social Action

Bahá'ís at the United Nations

Ethics-based and religious non-governmental organizations (RNGOs) are playing increasingly significant roles in their consultative collaborations with the United Nations. As a RNGO, the Bahá'í International Community (BIC) represents a network of 182 democratically elected National Spiritual Assemblies that act on behalf of over 5.5 million Bahá'ís worldwide. Accordingly, the BIC is the voice of the worldwide Bahá'í community in international affairs. On the 60th anniversary of the United Nations in October 2005, the Bahá'í International Community issued a statement, “The Search for Values in an Age of Transition,” presenting its recommendations for human rights, development, democracy, and collective security. Commending the international community's commitment to democracy, the BIC stressed that democracy is good governance—an essentially moral exercise (what Alain Locke calls a “moral democracy”). Democracy will succeed only if it is coefficient with personal integrity (gaining respect of the governed), moral principles, transparency, objective need assessments, and ethical applications of scientific resources. Democracy, according to the BIC, must be rooted in moral values that promote social welfare both within and beyond the nation-state. Without this principled anchor, democracy falls prey to the excesses of individualism and nationalism, which tear at the fabric of the community, both nationally and globally. As sociomoral forces, Bahá'í principles of unity serve as a moral bedrock for building a world democracy.