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How Shall Peace be Approached?  | May 21, 2004

Recent months have seen rapid development and change in Dr. Moon's orientation toward addressing world problems. A number of major world leaders have collaborated with these developments at one point or another in the process.
This short explanation is meant to put some of these changes and developments in perspective.

Recent Developments for Peace

In Seoul, August 2003, the IIFWP convened a special committee of religious leaders at the Summit of World Leaders. At the time, IIFWP was intensely oriented toward United Nations (UN) reform, particularly with the focus to establish a formal, interreligious body IN the UN.
Since that time, the IIFWP under the inspiration of its founder (Dr. Sun Myung Moon) has undergone radical changes in its orientation toward this concept.

What changed:
Dr. Moon came under the inspiration that current world circumstances are at a point of crisis and urgency which transcends the capacity of the UN to respond in a sufficiently timely manner.

Said simply, even if the UN were to agree to such a council in concept, its process, structure, and time frame for deliberation and decision is simply too slow given current world crises.

Additionally, Dr. Moon expressed concern that such an interreligious body; even on the outside chance the UN actually approved and welcomed it might not fulfill what ultimately is needed. His concern is this: If leaders of religions gather at the UN only to follow the same patterns of veiled diplomacy, and politics of self interest which characterizes the UN at present, then the progress urgently required will not be possible?

Concern 1: Change in the UN cannot happen fast enough given the intense global crisis at present.
Concern 2: The mere addition of an interreligious council, but one which does not diverge significantly from assumptions and patterns of current UN behavior, would not be sufficient to make the contribution the world desperately needs at present.
Philippines Effort
Presently, the county of the Philippines is preparing a draft resolution to submit to the 58th General Assembly. Some members of the IIFWP Secretariat are collaborating with that effort. Dr. Moon supports this effort and hopes for it to be fruitful, and encourages Unification support for this initiative, but no longer considers this singular, or uniquely central in his current efforts for world peace.

A World Peace Council
In the mean time, Dr. Moon urged the IIFWP simultaneously to establish a free standing Interreligious and International Peace Council, which fully embodies the structure and principles he believes to be vital and indispensable requisites for effective peace building and to establish an ideal social order. (These include: 1. Affirmation of Divine and spiritual involvement in human affairs, 2. The ontological ground requiring integrated spiritual and political leadership in all models of governance, 3. Social and international relations proceeding on the principle of living for the sake of others, and 4. The family as the cornerstone of peace and ideal society.)

At first, Dr. Moon urged the establishment of a peace council reflecting these principles, which would serve function as the body that should exist as an upper house or at least an integral part of the United Nations.

Dr. Moon changed almost immediately from this and insisted instead that this free standing peace council function not merely as the body which should properly be the inner guiding voice for the UN, but rather that this council now should establish itself in its own right, not dependent on acknowledgement or affirmation from the United Nations.

I hope this brief summary has been helpful.

Thank you for reading

Posted by geros at May 21, 2004 10:22 AM


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