This year marks the 33rd anniversary of my arrival in Canada as a young refugee from Iran.
By 1979 in Iran, with the advent of the Islamic Republic in my ancestors’ land of Persia – a region with a great history of empires and civilizations, known for its first charter of human rights – suddenly peaceful minorities were accused of not conforming with the Shia Islamic clerical code.
They became harshly persecuted. Young boys, especially those from minorities, were sent to the bloody front of the war with Iraq, or deprived of education and persecuted.
My parents made a painful decision: they arranged for my professional future by securing my passage to Pakistan, where the representative of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner of Refugees and the Bahá’í Community eventually facilitated my settlement in Canada.
Canada has a long humanitarian tradition for its contributions to a more peaceful world and in welcoming immigrants from many lands.
My family and I are indebted to Canada for the education, professional training and friendly living conditions we encountered here and for having been granted Canadian citizenship.
I am a member of the peaceful Bahá’í minority in Iran whose systematic persecutions and annihilation by the Islamic regime have been repeatedly denounced by Canada in international fora, at the UN General Assembly and by the government and parliamentarians.
Without the help of Canada and other countries, many more of the 300,000 Bahá’ís remaining in Iran would have been put to death, imprisoned and deprived of civil and economic rights. I owe my freedom and, who knows, my life to Canada!
You may well ask: what is the ‘crime’ of Bahá’ís for such a harsh treatment? It is basically a question of freedom of religion, of conscience and of thought.
Bahá’ís believe that we live in a new planetary era ushered in by a manifestation of God, a spiritual educator or founder of religion – Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892).
He was the son of a minister at the court of the shah of Persia.
He was called the “father of the poor.” He embraced the cause of The Bab – the young reformer of Islam who in 1844 announced in Persia the imminent advent of “Whom God Shall Make Manifest,” – the Promised One of all world’s faiths.
Bahá’u’lláh was immediately persecuted and imprisoned, deprived of his nobility titles and eventually banished under escort to Baghdad.
There, he declared in 1863 his mission as the Promised One and proclaimed a message of peace – mankind is one, religion is one, God is one.
He was further banished to Turkey and finally to Akka, in the Holy Land.
I had the privilege, when I received my Canadian passport, to visit and serve there at the Bahá’í World Centre in Israel, – the Holy Land of four world faiths, where I met my wife who comes from Switzerland.
We both appreciate having the opportunity of living with our three children – all Canadians by now – in Fergus, and I have been active as an engineering service manager with a well-known internationally-active company in Guelph. Thank you Canada.
What about the double anniversary?
Together with thousands of my Canadian Bahá’í friends, we shall celebrate next October the bicentennial of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh whose teachings are guiding me and my family and some six million people around the world to contribute to unity in diversity and to the advancement of a peaceful global civilization.
Saraj Saylany is an Iranian refugee living in Fergus.
