Monitored by the Police

It was not always possible for members of the Bahá'í community to be so open about their beliefs in South Africa. Although there were Bahá'ís in South Africa as early as 1911, a significant community was not established until the mid-1950s.

From that time until the end of apartheid in 1990, the Bahá'í community was closely monitored by the government's special police, who were charged with maintaining racial separation. Since Bahá'ís are bound by the principles of their Faith both to adhere to racial integration and remain obedient to the laws of the land, they had to walk a fine line when organizing meetings for worship and discussion under the old race laws.

"It was totally against custom for blacks and whites to meet together," said Lowell Johnson, a native of the United States who has lived in South Africa since 1953. "For our meetings, we had to take people in through the back door, slip them through the kitchen, and, with the curtains drawn, then turn the lights on. Because, although the law allowed social mixing in your own home, if the neighbors objected, you would have to stop. So we had to be very cloak and dagger about even the simplest gathering."

Daniel Ramoroesi, who was among the first blacks to become a Bahá'í in the 1950s, explained the situation this way: "To stand up and say that we were going to openly proclaim the unity of mankind, or the oneness of all races, would not have been tolerated."

Added his wife, Judy Ramoroesi: "The police watched us all the time. My family was a target, but they couldn't find anything -- because we obeyed the law."


Lowell Johnson, left, and Daphne Masethla, shown here on the steps of the national Bahá'í center in Johannesburg, have been members of the South African Bahá'í community since the 1950s.

Nevertheless, the Bahá'í community stuck firmly to its principles. The first national Bahá'í governing council, elected in 1956, had four white members and five blacks -- a degree of integration that was extremely rare, if not unique, for any sort of national organization in South Africa at the time, said Mr. Johnson.

"The integration among Bahá'ís is not only administrative, as has gradually become the case with churches and other groups in South Africa, it is spiritual and social," said Shohreh Rawhani, secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly. "We're not where we want to be, of course. But there is in the Bahá'í community here a genuine love among the races that goes beyond the intellectual idea of equality. And it is this natural socialization which we believe offers a distinctive example."

All races represented

At one Bahá'í gathering in Johannesburg several years ago, for example, where some 25 regional and local community representatives met with the nine-member National Spiritual Assembly, an outsider counted up the various backgrounds that were represented. Out of fewer than 40 people, there were men and women of white, black, colored, Indian, Chinese, and Persian heritage. Among the blacks were members of the Sotho, Batswana, Venda and Xhosa tribes. And the religious backgrounds included individuals who were formerly Christians, Hindus, Jews and Moslems. Nevertheless, a spirit of genuine friendship and relaxed association pervaded the gathering.

This spirit is difficult to document, of course. Hard statistics on interracial friendship and social integration are elusive. But the anecdotal evidence of genuine integration among Bahá'ís in South Africa is strong.

"For me, the Bahá'í community is quite different from the other communities in South Africa," said Daphne Masethla, a 66-year-old Soweto resident, who was at the gathering in Johannesburg. "We really care for each other. We do things together; we meet, and we socialize and our children mix."


OneCountry (e-mail: 1Country@BIC.Org) | Contents | 1994 Issues