Talk:The Dawn-breakers (book)

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[edit] POV

Jeff3000, the qualifying statement you added is true, though it doesn't fully address the issue. In point of fact, the World Centre has not only not allowed physical access to the archives themselves, they have also declined to make any kind of reproduction of Nabil's Narrative available to scholars, Baha'i and non-Baha'i, a policy which is in contrast to their treatment of requests for other materials, photo-reproductions of which are often made upon request (though with significant delay time, of course, as they have a skeleton staff). The issue does not need to be polemicized or overblown, but I'd suggest that your qualification, as it is basically a verbatim representation of the World Centre's justification for its unwillingness to allow materials they perceive as "sensitive" to be made available to reseachers, might be seen as violating NPOV (I certainly see it this way). A number of Baha'i historians have asked the House of Justice - in some cases repeatedly - to clarify its policy, and to indicate the criteria by which it decides to not make certain items available, and they have always answered with the line that you added; clearly, the issue is being avoided, as that response does not answer the question at hand. There have also been cases where a given item has been reproduced for one Baha'i historian but not another, and again there has been no explanation as to the denial of access to specific individuals. Your qualification, then, appears to me to clearly reflect a Baha'i bias and is perhaps innappropiate in this context. The info on the availability of the ms. *is* relevant, however, since it is the only complete copy known and its unavailabity means that historians have no way of verifying that Shoghi Effendi's Dawn-Breakers is faithful to the original. My suggestion is that you put your qualification in parantheses and that you also rephrase it slightly, perhaps along the lines of: (In its defense, the Baha'i World Centre has maintained that the current restrictions on access to items in its archives are a consequence of the fact that its preservation, classification and cataloging efforts are on-going.) What do you think? Masarra 03:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that the statement is POV. If you are going to state that the World Centre is not giving access, then the reason why they state for not giving access has to be included in the article. I am not stating it as fact, but just that that is the reason why they have not given access. I wouldn't mind removing both statements, but if one remains, then the other has to remain as well. The other issue is that you believe that the World Centre's actions are inconsistent and they are avoiding the issue, but that is a belief, and cannot be substantiated. I don't mind your wording, but I do not think that it deserves to be in parentheses. -- Jeff3000 03:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

For my part, I think the following letter from the Universal House of Justice is the best summary of their position. It's linked here.

"As for source documents at the World Centre itself: these are held by the Universal House of Justice in trust for the entire Bahá'í world and ultimately for the whole of humankind, of both present and future generations. There is tremendous work to be accomplished in sorting, identifying and cataloguing such documents so that they can be effectively studied without either damaging them or losing vital information by disturbing their inter- relationships. As far as the urgent needs of the Faith are concerned, the primary work in this respect must be devoted to the Sacred Texts rather than to documents of historical interest, although the latter are by no means ignored. It would be irresponsible for the House of Justice, without itself first being fully informed of what is in the Archives, to consider opening them to individual scholars for the pursuit of purely personal interests.

"Far from allowing anyone to tamper with the historical records, the Universal House of Justice has the obligation to preserve the integrity, not only of the Sacred Texts, but of all the historical documents in its possession. It has, moreover, a responsibility for arranging their publication for the scholarly world in a coherent manner that will not give a misleading impression of events as a result of the mere choice of the items and the order in which they are made public. Undoubtedly, in due course, it will be possible to publish editions of historical documents in facsimile accompanied, in the case of each document, by a printed transcription, and supplemented by necessary commentaries and notes. It is with such thoughts in mind that the House of Justice feels that a certain discipline is required of those individual believers who decide, for their own purposes, to publish or translate documents which they have at hand.

"This entire process is made the more delicate by past experience with those who, pursuing unacknowledged agendas of their own, have wished to publish certain documents for ulterior motives, or with others who have lacked the good sense and breadth of vision to act responsibly.

"You refer to the principle of the unfettered search after truth. This is certainly upheld, but it cannot imply that the institutions of the Faith have a duty to make available to each enquirer every piece of information he or she requests. We are faced here, not with wisdom prevailing over the search for truth, but with a process of organic growth, both in the world and, commensurate with it, at the World Centre of the Faith.

I think this response is very reasonable, and a strong contrast to the authoritarian nature that h-bahai tries to portray. I would say that your copy-edit of h-bahai is just as POV as copy-editing a letter from the House of Justice into the article. Cole is not the end-all authority of Baha'i history, and Masarra's edit reflected his personal attacks on the administration without any representation of what the administration actually says about the situation. Cuñado - Talk 03:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about, Cunado? Attacks on the administration? This is simply a statement of a fact which has bearing on Nabil's Narrative. And I have no idea what you mean about copy-editing h-bahai. H-Bahai is a website and discussion list, and I didn't get any of this from either of those two things. This is a matter about which I have a good deal of first-hand knowledge, having spoken about this particular issue with the (now-retired) World Centre archivist and two members of the Research Department, all of whom I count as friends. You're over-reacting. I'll address Jeff3000's response later; I'm not going to try to force the issue, but I'd ask that you try to maintain a little neutrality here. Just because I don't share your beliefs doesn't necessarily mean I'm an enemy of them. Masarra 04:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Looking over the edits again, I don't think I was over-reacting. You added points that are controversial and semi-condemnatory of Baha'i researchers, used H-Baha'i as your reference, linking to it twice, and got up in arms when Jeff3000 tried to tone down the language and add a reason for why they might have not released every single document that anyone ever asked for. I'm sure you're familiar with Cole (maintains H-Baha'i) and MacEoin, who both have written voraciously about this exact issue and insist that there is some kind of cover-up. I think the point is that there are well documented responses from the House of Justice on the issue, and the tone of your edits did not take them into account, and instead relied on the opinion that is shared and proliferated by Cole.

Having said that, I didn't mean to upset you, and I'm glad you're editing the Baha'i articles. There are hardly any non-Baha'i editors on these pages and when people like you come along the article always improves a lot (after some back and forth editing). Cuñado - Talk 05:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reference

Masarra, I would like to see a reference to the following point you added:

"Unfortunately, the version of his narrative that Nabil re-wrote on the basis of this review was stolen in the early twentieth century, and the partial English translation made by Shogh Effendi was based upon the first, unreviewed draft."

I don't have any reason to doubt it, but since it's such an important point I think it needs a linked reference, or a pointer to a book and pg number. Cuñado - Talk 03:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)