Friday November 20, 2020, 7:30 pm

Why History Matters: Reflections on the 20th Century as a Turning Point with Jóhanna Jochumsdottir

The twentieth century has been characterized by historians as the ‘age of extremes’, a time of unprecedented turbulence that left ‘a catalogue of horrors unknown to even the darkest of ages past’. But simultaneous with warfare, famine and the breakdown of political, economic and social institutions across the globe, new opportunities arose. Other spaces and ways of being opened up to whole peoples and populations previously enslaved, colonized and deprived of their autono my. This presentation will look at the destruction and ruin of the twentieth century and propose that the revolutionary changes that took place also made the idea of the unification of humanity a realistic possibility. From this vantage point we can see the twentieth century not only as a period of destruction, but also as a ‘century of light.’

Finally, we will briefly reflect on how the Baha’i community, during this century, has evolved from a small, scattered, and unknown group to a worldwide community  a community which is applying the vision of the oneness of humanity as it works to bring change to all levels of local and national communities, and at the highest levels of global governance.