South Korea hosts global peace summit. The first-ever summit of the World Alliance of Religions for Peace (WARP) will be held in Seoul, South Korea from September 16 to 19, with thousands of people including leading politicians as well as secular and religious leaders from all faiths, nations and cultures expected to attend the gathering meant to foster world peace. The summit, that will have a number of attendees even from Uganda, is being hosted by the Heavenly Culture World Peace Restoration of Light (HWPL) -- a non-profit, non-governmental international organisation registered under the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Man Hee Lee, a Korean war veteran and renowned peace advocate, founded the organization after his involvement with numerous volunteer associations, having seen the need for a foundation whose central focus is to unite the people of the world behind the goal of peace irrespective of any apparent differences between them. Lee has completed 13 world tours, encompassing more than 60 different countries spanning all continents, to speak with opinion leaders about peace. These leaders around the world have signed their names under the Declaration of Peace, showing their support for the movement. In the Philippines, for example, there was conflict between Catholic and Islamic groups for 40 years, which saw 100 000 people dying due to this conflict. On January 24, 2014, Lee went to Mindanao and helped to solve the conflict, with the Catholic and Islamic leaders signing a peace agreement and agreeing to unite and put an end to their rivalry. In a letter that he wrote ahead of next weeks gathering, Lee invited all family members of the global village to the summit, imploring them to work for the achievement of world peace in our generation. Should you be unable to be physically with us during this momentous event, we ask that you participate with us, nonetheless. I ask that you pay close attention to the proceedings -- and send your hearts to be with us, watch and listen to what is happening, even from where you are. We also ask you to keep us in your prayers so that all wars will come to an end, and that peace will be achieved. Surely, the Creator will hear your prayers, he said. A regional spokesperson for next weeks summit, Hilda Mari van Niekerk, said while many respected peace advocates and peace movements had been fighting for positive change in the world, their efforts had been largely fruitless as a result of the greed of mankind. Speaking from South Africa, she said it was now time to bring peace to the forefront of every persons agenda and win over the greed and selfish desire that caused tragedy and loss. While it may, in most cases be too simplistic to say that ideological differences based on religion or culture are the cause of war in our world today, it is not too much to say that these differences are exploited to heighten the community’s propensity for violent behaviour. Through the World Alliance of Religions for Peace Summit, HWPL seeks to create a forum for dialogue centring on the creation of a commonly acceptable value-system between secular and religious communities in all socio-political sectors of our divers societies. Such a value system will form the basis for the creation of peace agreements and a universally applicable constitution of interfaith relations, as well as education materials which can be used across the spectrum of humanity’s diversity to begin revolutionising the basic precepts of our cultures and ideologies which provide the central tenants promoting conflict and violent behaviour, Van Niekerk said. She said the goals of the summit in detail were: * To begin the process of establishing a universally applicable system of values focussing on aspects of morality and experience of life that bind us together as a global family; * Establish a basic ideological foundation upon which a World Alliance of Religions can be built in order to bring conflicts founded on differing religious ideologies to an end; * Draft and publicly make the Declaration of the World Alliance of Religions; and * To define the roles of cultural leaders, both secular and religious, in the creation and implementation of a new, heavenly culture. The summit would culminate in, among other things, the signing of an agreement for the alliance of religions, cessation of war and world peace; the ratification and implementation of world peace agreements for religious bodies; the appointment of ambassadors of Heavenly Culture World Peace Restoration of Light to each continent and country; and the announcement of a global statement for the peaceful reunification of Korea.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:11:47 +0000