Artist Elika Mahony has made a special release of a song we worked on called ‘Persecution’ dedicated to Baha’is in Iran who have been persecuted for their Faith despite posing zero threat to the government, or showing any signs of aggression in any way towards anyone.

You can find out more about it, and listen/download it on Elika’s blog post about it here.

It was a rushed production, so not as refined or elaborate as usual, but Elika wanted to get it out without delay to help spread awareness… The amazing thing about this kind of web release though is that within 24 hours of mixing the song, we were getting feedback from hundreds of people who had listened to it and downloaded the song! It was also impressive to see the web activity of people sharing the song online. Immediate feedback, rather than months later was very exciting.

Leaders of the Baha’i Faith in Iran, recently arrested for their beliefs

The plight of the Baha’is in Iran is a truly sad one, many have been martyred, including Elika’s own great uncle, and the current head of the Baha’i administration in Iran were recently arrested soley for their beliefs, although the Iranian government makes up all kinds of other reasons for detaining them. Information from a friend who knows a relative of one of the prisoners who was finally able to talk to them said they use psychological torture on the prisoners, such as keeping them in a white room, in white clothes, with white food for weeks on end without beds or chairs. This is apparently so there are no signs of physical torture. The ultimate objective is to get them to recant their beliefs, as the fundamentalist clergy in Iran feel the Baha’is are a threat to Islam.

The bizarre thing is that Iran feels that by disrupting and eradicating the Baha’i Faith there, they will somehow affect the Faith in a concrete way, despite the fact that there are Baha’is in over 220 other countries and territories around the world! But perhaps the most interesting thing is the backlash that is happening in Iran and worldwide as a result of these recent arrests. Many Iranians who know Baha’is personally know this is an unjust and cruel act on the part of the government, and is causing an uprising against the government giving them more trouble than they could have every imagined.

It never ceases to amaze me exactly how low the importance of children is in our society in terms of the priorities of things in our culture, country, political system etc.

Lately, this painful reminder came during a meeting with our local government adoption agency, who handle children with possible developmental issues that we are considering as we expand our family.
Apparently, due to ‘privacy of information’ the government cannot obtain any medical information about the mother, and therefore know little to be able to help with a child’s health and future development. Considering the lack of care, and often self abuse that goes on in many cases with biological parents of these children, this means very serious consequences for the future of any child that is without a family (in the area I live in alone, there are thousands – all with developmental disorders that can’t be identified until the children are old enough for this to have caused major problems)

You could argue that I am ignorant of how the system works, but I like to think I know injustice when I see it.
Approaching this from a purely materialistic and non-spiritual perspective, as a politician, what could possibly be the incentive for not passing an amendment for the freedom of information act allowing personal privacy to a mother who is a drug addict, on welfare, alcoholic etc. that demands full medical records of that person for the sake of being able to provide the best care to that baby possible? (a mother who uses during pregnancy often causes irreparable damage)
How do special interest groups, corporate incentives, and all the other groups that politicians actually serve besides themselves, actually benefit from protecting the medical records of a mother who cannot take care of her child? Shouldn’t the rights of that child outweigh the rights of it’s mother? What is the incentive for that not to be the case?

I understand the low priority of children in a corrupt, un-spiritual system, but what I cannot fathom is as a politician, focusing on the materialistic and business perspective of this issue, a child is a future taxpayer! If we are going to ignore all good and virtuous motivations, for the sake of future income through the total taxes each of us pay in our lifetime, one would think the government would protect a child like a golden asset, growing to provide future millions of dollars to the government! But even THAT is not enough of an incentive for politicians to put priority on the care and education of our children.

If that doesn’t show absolute and irrepreperable corruption of the ‘modern democracy’ and political system, I don’t know what does. It’s hard to believe anyone is naive enough to have any faith left in this current system. It’s way beyond band aids and solutions, the only thing that can save it now is a total collapse. USA, lead the way!