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R. Robertson: Address to Summit 2022, Session II
Written by Hon. Ross Robertson, member of Parliament (1987-2014), New Zealand
Thursday, August 11, 2022
Address to Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference,
Seoul, Korea, August 11-15, 2022
We are a delegation from Oceania; we would like to address the importance of peace and security in our region. Peace in the Pacific Rim region dictates the restoration of humanity and world peace. The Korean Peninsula is the cornerstone of its success.
We have a voice and a contribution to make in the formation of an Asia Pacific Union, where contemporary challenges to peace and global order are threats from poverty, climate change and family breakdown. Threats from conflicts between states, threats from violence and massive human rights abuses, and threats from terrorism.
In my twenty-seven years as a member of the Parliament of New Zealand and my nine years as a member in local government, I found that in times of crisis, conscience, and catastrophe, the family was always there. “In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony” [Eva Burrows, a general of the Salvation Army from Australia]. Faith sustained me, prayer ignited me and love lifted me to stay strong, steadfast and willing. Kia kaha, Kia Maia, Kia manawanui.
We have an independent foreign policy, and our concern with the recent geopolitical influence in the Asia Pacific region is that when elephants fight, the ants may be crushed. The weak get hurt in conflicts between the powerful. To escape poverty and build futures for our children, families and communities who lack opportunities, we need peace, security and sustainable development. We need positive dialogue!
We have heard recently that we should send an SOS around the world endorsed by a call for a global consciousness of responsibility, peace and good will. While some have warned of the vulnerability and fragility of peace, I say: Look up in faith rather than forward in fear. Should we petition the UN for a lasting peace? Of course we should—and better still, why not engage the World Trade Organization and show that human responsibility is at the core of global ethics?
Can there be peace and good will, can there be mutual prosperity and a core set of universal values? Of course there can—and UPF can lead it—but how do we accomplish such a task in a world that stumbles from one crisis to another? For we live in a world of “irresponsible entitlement,’ a world completely turned upside down, a world that has redefined so many things from marriage, social justice, morality, and ethics. At the heart of these redefinitions is the redefinition of truth, and truth is under attack; yet it will set us free.
Governments around the globe are facing an unprecedented time of change, chaos and confusion. The culture of unlimited irresponsibility has seen volatility in Europe, the United Kingdom, the Americas, and Africa, and the electorate has to deal with the unpredictable and therefore stressful flux. More than ever before, there is exacting scrutiny on the moral character of elected representatives; fractious social issues are becoming more important; race relations a poignant reminder; electorates frustrated by the government’s failure to have palpable values against which to gauge their initiatives are calling for change, and with good reason.
The prime challenge for all world leaders is to take our society off this reckless roller coaster; to represent the aspirations of our community; to communicate with our people and with the world. In this oceanic era, UPF must fulfill its mission as the main vehicle for creating the culture of the oceanic sphere, which is the sphere of women’s culture. We need women and men called to the place where their deep love and the world’s deep hunger meet [Frederick Buechner, an American writer and theologian]. Men and women who walk the walk as well as talking the talk.
A great practitioner of this art, a man whom I had the privilege to meet while playing rugby in South Africa for the parliamentary rugby team, was Nelson Mandela. He stood at his inauguration shoulder to shoulder with one of the men who had been a guard during his cruel confinement on Robben Island, to say, “If I can forgive and forge a new sense of a shared future, so too can you!”
Mandela was a remarkable man. He knew that those raised with love and intimacy, such as that shared within a healthy family, were those given the praise and affirmation that children or young people need during their formative years. He did not stumble accidentally into victory; he had a plan. He worked hard. He focused on goals beyond himself, and he journeyed in community, for he knew that together we serve and together we prosper.
Brothers and sisters, we live in a secularized, materialistic millennium in which a decline in faith, responsibility and ethics is in progress. We live in an age of doing better but feeling worse, where what is right and wrong is what I can get away with. We live in a world where the highest good is now “individual freedom and happiness.” It is my human right to do what I like, for I have freedom of choice. Should a charter of human responsibilities balance it? Of course, it should, and therein lies the problem, for we lack a core set of universal principles. When society stops doing what is best for the collective, we are in trouble.
The world is crying out for a leader, a person of vision who has the ability to motivate and inspire others to follow. A person whose weapon is the truth, their appeal to conscience. Others may vie with them in brilliant imagination, fervid enthusiasm, and intellectual force, but they have unrivaled supremacy in the realm of conscience. A conscience awakened responds to the truth.
Therefore, colleagues, the role of UPF in building a unified world of peace should know no boundaries, only the truth. Our role is to prevent our world from going completely bad.
We need solidarity; we need to stay strong; we need to be sure and steadfast; and we need to be willing, for family building is nation building.
Kotahitanga, Kia Kaha, Kia Maia, Kia manawanui.
Norada tena kotuo, tena kotuo, tena kotuo katoa.
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