Peace King

Hon. Woo Seok Kim

President, Ambassadors for Peace Association, Sonpa District, Seoul, Korea

It is no exaggeration to say that history has been a long journey in search of peace. Our ancestors always had an ardent desire for peace, yet peace is still a long way away. We continue to be afflicted with wars, struggles and conflict. Historians state that the years of war and conflict outnumber the years of peace. We long for peace, trying to surmount the barriers of race, religion, ethnicity and nationality.

The French political scientist Raymond Aron defined peace as a cessation of violent conflict and opposition between political units for period of time. Political scientists generally define peace in terms of maintaining the status quo, rather than as a fundamental condition.

However, humankind desires more than just temporary peace. My homeland, the Korean peninsula, currently lives under a state of truce, due to a tragic civil war between two peoples of the same ethnicity. Sixty years have already passed, and yet we cannot say we are living in a state of peace. We live in times dominated by crisis and tension, which are, to borrow Aron’s words, nothing more than "a substitute for war." This applies as well to the entire world since the conclusion of the Second World War.

Since we cannot call a time of crisis and tension one of "peace," we desire a world of lasting and unchanging peace. Furthermore, the faith which imperfect human beings have in religion is an expression of their desire for lasting peace.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s philosophy and peace movement drew my attention because of his devotion to peace. I could not help being moved by someone who was born in a nation subject to colonialism, in the midst of a century of conflict and war, dedicating his life to peace.

What is more amazing than anything is that Rev. Moon has achieved many things as an individual that even governments have been unable to accomplish. There is almost no place in the world where he has not had some impact; his global foundation covers many different fields, including finance, media, education, culture, the arts and NGOs. This foundation speaks for itself. Rev. Moon’s peace movement has become deeply rooted all across the globe, despite a gigantic wall of religious misunderstanding, in less than a century. I believe that this is primarily based on his personal example and daily manifestation of true love.

Living for the sake of others is a very simple principle to espouse but not easy to practice. Rev. Moon says that inner peace comes only when one’s mind and body are united. In other words, peace cannot be separated from unity. Just as a family cannot have true peace if its members experience conflict between their minds and bodies, the same is true for society, peoples, nations and the world.

In revealing these principles, Rev. Moon exhorts us to become true parents and true teachers, and to establish true families. He calls this the cornerstone for establishing world peace, something that moved me very much.

The current conflicts in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, have shaken us out of our juvenile thinking and taught us that conflict is not simply a confrontation between good and evil, but also between the strong and the weak, and that revenge breeds revenge. Rev. Moon has long been striving to bring resolution and reconciliation to the Middle East conflict. His approach does not emphasize the logic of power and force but promotes mutual recognition among all parties and harmony among different faiths.

It is sometimes said that World War III would be a war among religions, which speaks to how much blind faith in religion blocks the path to peace. As a "second Berlin Wall" goes up between Israel and Palestine, all sorts of terrorist activities are taking place. Attempts to suppress such problems using force are a mistake; that approach contradicts the very nature of the times in which we live.

I totally agree with Rev. Moon’s approach of standing on the front line of these issues and healing the painful wounds of the past. He has done this by dissolving hatred, promoting reconciliation between Christianity and Islam, and mobilizing religious leaders from around the world to participate in peace marches in the Gaza Strip and other areas of conflict.

What especially moves me are Rev. Moon’s efforts to realize peace on the Korean peninsula. We are divided between North and South. There are also two Koreas even in South Korean society. We have been influenced by a philosophy of hate and struggle, which can only lead to more conflict and confrontation and never achieve reconciliation and harmony.

We desperately need a philosophy of true peace and unity that can rescue our people and resolve our internal confrontation and conflict. An ideology founded on hatred and conflict will only promote further division. Now is the time to move beyond extremism in ideology and take a more rational and practical approach. The key to this happening is Rev. Moon’s philosophy of true love and living for the sake of others.

As economic cooperation increases, more South Korean companies are developing business ventures with North Korea. This is a positive trend, from the perspective of building a foundation for Korean unification. How­ever, in light of the current political situation on the peninsula, our business ventures with the North should not focus just on profit. North Korea’s increasing dependency on China threatens the unification of the Korean people. It is vital to strengthen collaborative investment in North Korea in order to prevent it from becoming enslaved to China. In seeking to unify the peninsula, improve the living conditions of North Koreans, and form an economic coalition of the Korean people, we should aggressively provide financial support and invest in developing the industrial infrastructure.

If we sincerely aspire for unification, we should induce North Korea to move in that direction. Furthermore, we should encourage the international community to invest in North Korea with confidence. In this regard, the engagement of Rev. Moon’s Tongil Group with North Korea is producing good results that can stand as a model.

It was Rev. Moon’s efforts that led to economic and civil exchanges between North and South. Through his talks with Kim Il Sung in 1991, Rev. Moon began early economic cooperation with the North and laid a foundation for the 2000 North-South Summit. A watershed in North-South cultural exchange was the Little Angels’ performance in Pyongyang in 1998. Additional examples of economic cooperation are Pyeonghwa Motors and the Potonggang Hotel.

Sandwiched among the superpowers—China, Russia, Japan and the U.S.—Korea will be pressured over the coming decades to choose a partner. This may well result in a tragedy for Korean people. The situation is similar to that at the end of the Chosun dynasty in the late nineteenth century, when colonial powers competed over Korea.

In the near future, the Korean people will have to find a way to secure their independent existence. In order to avoid repeating the sorrowful history of a century ago, we have to do our best to maximize our people’s ability to build the necessary foundation as an independent nation. The international community should also agree that peace on the Korean peninsula will make a vital contribution to world peace. We must put a stop to the suffering and division which stem from ideological conflict raging on this planet.

The international foundation Rev. Moon has built will make a substantial contribution to the independence of the Korean people. In seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis, Rev. Moon has been mediating between the U.S. and North Korea, with encouraging results. With foundations in the media, business, culture, the arts, etc., stretching across the global community, Rev. Moon truly does the work that nations are unable to do.

One of his proposals is to build a link between America and Russia across the Bering Strait to promote the common prosperity of all humankind. The international community should recognize the potential for this project to play an important role in eradicating war and realizing peace. It will help bind humanity together as one family.

In the hope of offering some help to Rev. Moon and Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon, I will stand on the front line and use my knowledge and experience gained from long years of public service to assist not only the local community but promote the unification of the Korean peninsula and world peace.

7.28 Dr. Min Ha Kim