Attempts, Obstacles and Achievements
Even after the initial founding years, the League went on being handicapped by the problem of geographical separation; the managing committee itself was unable to make personal acquaintance with the majority of the BEL members. On top of all this, in 1979, contact with the Bahá'í Esperantists in Iran (there had been 16 on the election list of 1976) had to be broken off because, in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, correspondence with the West would have been dangerous for these members.
One of the main tasks to which John Dale, in his capacity as secretary, dedicated himself "was to rectify the widespread misunderstanding on the part of Bahá'ís of the Esperanto language". He found that the many of them favoured English as the future world language; others regarded Esperanto as the ideal candidate for this role but were not willing to learn it before a specific request to do so had come from the Universal House of Justice. "To overcome such misunderstanding of and resistance towards the activities of BEL, I took upon myself the following tasks: (1) to compile quotations from the Bahá'í Writings about Esperanto and the language problem; ... (2) to collect Bahá'í-Esperanto documents and to translate various Bahá'í texts into Esperanto; ... (3) to produce and distribute information material and basic documents in English and Esperanto as an aid towards making BEL better known among both Bahá'ís and Esperantists."
The translation of John E. Esslemont's "Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era" — the most widely known introduction to the Bahá'í Faith — into Esperanto had been initiated by Martha Root and carried to completion by Lidia Zamenhof. The reissuing in 1978 of this translation, "Bahá'u'lláh kaj la Nova Epoko", after revision, additions and the inclusion of an appendix was certainly one of the greatest successes of this period.
Furthermore in 1976, under the editorship of John Dale, BEL published the brochure "Unueco kaj universala lingvo" (Unity and Universal Language) in four languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Esperanto and the original English). This was followed in 1977 by the brochure "Bahaaj Respondoj" (Bahá'í Answers) and in 1981 by "La Kashitaj Vortoj" (The Hidden Words), one of the central Writings of Bahá'u'lláh. In 1979 Dale also sent a letter, enclosing a copy of the "BELmonda Letero", to all National Spritiual Assemblies in order to make the existence of BEL better known to seek the cooperation of the national Bahá'í communities. Dale also wrote to the Universal House of Justice, requesting it "to consider ways and means of experimentally introducing Esperanto and encouraging the Bahá'ís to learn the language."
A similar request had been made earlier by Cardoso. But again the attempt was in vain. The Universal House of Justice did not change its standpoint: although very much sympathising with the aims of the Bahá'í-Esperanto movement, it was opposed to the unofficial introduction of Esperanto (even if only temporary) into the Bahá'í Community, stressing that it was the principle of an international auxiliary language rather any one concrete proposal that Bahá'ís supported. At that time Cardoso had been so disappointed that all his efforts were bearing no fruit that he left the Faith a few years later.
Read more about this topic: Bahá'í Esperanto-League
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