February 14. On this date in 1957, the foundation stone of the first Bahá'í House of Worship of Africa, designed by Charles Mason Remey, was laid in Kampala, Uganda. Enoch Olinga, named a Hand of the Cause of God later that year, was present for the ceremony.

 

February 14. On this date in 1957, the foundation stone of the first Bahá'í House of Worship of Africa, designed by Charles Mason Remey, was laid in Kampala, Uganda.  Enoch Olinga, named a Hand of the Cause of God later that year, was present for the ceremony.

Charles Mason Remey was an early and active Bahá'í who, along with Howard C. Struven, became the first Bahá'ís to make a complete circuit of the world. Mason Remey would later become a Hand of the Cause, the president of the International Bahá'í Council, and after Shoghi Effendi's death, a claimant to the office of Guardian. 

Mason Remey based his claim to be the second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith the idea that by appointing him as President of the International Bahá'í Council, the embryonic form of the Universal House of Justice which would be led by the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi had in fact implicitly named him as the second Guardian. Mason Remey's claim was largely rejected with several notable exceptions, including five members of the National Spiritual Assembly of France led by Joel Marangella. The remaining 26 Hands of the Cause unanimously declared Remey and whoever followed him Covenant-breakers.

Born to a Christian family of the Iteso ethnic group in Uganda, Enoch Olinga became a Bahá’í in Kampala in 1952. In 1953 he became the first pioneer to British Cameroon, and was given the title Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for that country. As the number of Bahá’ís grew in Cameroon new Bahá’ís left the immediate region to pioneer in other surrounding areas, each becoming a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh including Ghana, and Togo. Because of the successive waves of people becoming Knights of Bahá’u’lláh, Enoch Olinga was entitled "Abd'l-Futuh", a Persian name meaning "the father of victories" by Shoghi Effendi.

In October 1957 Shoghi Effendi appointed him as a Hand of the Cause of God. Olinga chaired the opening session of the first Bahá’í World Congress (in 1963) which announced the election of the first Universal House of Justice after which he travelled all over the world.

On September 16, 1979, Enoch Olinga was killed. A close associate of Ugandan President Idi Amin, who was deposed and exiled on April 11, 1979, Enoch Olinga, his wife, and three of his five children were murdered by unknown gunmen on September 16, 1979, during the administration of President Milton Obote when people affiliated with the Amin regime were being systematically targeted.  Denis MacEoin touches on this topic in his 1979 Letter on Bahá'í attitudes towards politics and scholarship.

One day after his murder, on September 17, 1979, Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum wrote a poem, "On Hearing of Enoch's Murder."

The sunlight is black

The sunlight is black

What raven wing

Covered my sun at noonday?

In my mouth is the salt of tears

I cannot swallow so much salt . . .

Blood is so beautiful

Blood is so pure

Why do the people let blood

Run in the street?

So long it took

To make this man

Noble and good

His mind and his soul

Expanded like sunlight

At noonday.

Why did you kill him?

Are you pleased at this riddled shell,

This mangle of bone and flesh?

Did you think your deed in the dark

Was a bright light?

Everything is pulsing,

Throbbing and throbbing!

There is no answer

And the sunlight is black.

Go Enoch go!

Go to Musa on the hill

Go to your Master

Go to your Guardian

Go to the Kingdom of Light!

But ask not of us

Nor of your people

Who have plucked a sin

Big enough and dark enough

To blot out the noonday sun!

Woe to Africa!

Weep as you have not wept before,

Weep on your knees,

Weep your eyes blind,

You have murdered Abu'l-Futœh,

The Father of Victories is dead

At your hand, at your hand!

Your jeweled crown

page laced by God on your head

Is rolled into the grave---

Weep, weep, weep your heart away.