Address to Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference,
Seoul, Korea, August 11-15, 2022
Today I am very honored to deliver the welcoming address at this grand, historic International Academic Conference commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Seonghwa of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, Sun Myung Moon. And I am delighted to be co-hosting this conference with UPF today.
This day is not simply a day to commemorate the ascension of a great man, but has the meaning that we have all gathered to succeed in and complete the accomplishments of that reverend elder of ours. This is because the path that Rev. Sun Myung Moon took is not the path of ordinary humans, but the path of the Messiah as the True Parent of humankind.
Cheon Il Guk is the country of hyojeong, of filial attendance in the supreme degree melded with warm affection that embraces all people. True Mother hosted a Korean and Japanese leaders meeting at the Yongpyong [resort in South Korea] in 2016, and there for the first time spoke the name of Hyojeong Academy.
The Hyojeong Academy was founded as an institution that coordinates four academic institutions: the Cheon Il Guk Academy, the Professors World Peace Academy, the Unification Thought Institute, and the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences. The Hyojeong Academic Foundation is responsible for academically helping and supporting the international headquarters of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which is leading the way toward a Unified Korea and a Heavenly Unified World.
Under True Mother's guidance, we have published character education textbooks for second-generation youth around the world, textbooks for a Heavenly Unified Korea and Heavenly Unified World, and are also conducting research on the World Scriptures of Heavenly Parent’s Holy Community. Moreover, the Hyojeong Academic Foundation is playing the role of coordinating the International Association of Academicians for Peace, one of the seven pillars of UPF, which was established at [the World Summit 2020, held at the] KINTEX [Korea International Exhibition Center outside Seoul].
The UPF peace movement has the character of an alternative to the existing United Nations. Presently the UN has become increasingly ineffective at solving international conflicts. For example, Russia vetoed the resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine, and subsequently hopes for international peace evaporated.
The theoretical basis for the founding of the United Nations derives from Immanuel Kant's Theory of Permanent Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden), which is a representative of classical theory based on “reason” and “freedom” as the principles of peace.
UPF argues for a republican democracy based on co-prosperity, as opposed to the republican federal system based on Kant. Republican-minded democracy based on co-prosperity holds that human rights such as freedom, equality, and fraternity cannot be achieved by existing systems of democracy; rather, they can be fully realized only in a brotherly democracy upholding the leading thought of Heavenly Parentism. Only in this way will the association of the world's nations be able to overcome the negative effects of extreme national selfishness of the United Nations republican federation. This is because in the UPF democratic commonwealth, the naturalistic principle of shimjeong operates, going beyond the individualistic “principle of reason” of Kant.
In particular, I think this International Academic Conference is a challenge that the Hyojeong Academic Foundation and the seven pillars of UPF are working on together. Please rate it well, and please attend to the end, and kindly proffer your opinions. Your perspectives will be of great help in designing the future. Thank you very much.
To go to the World Summit 2022 Schedule page, click here.