Speeches
- Written by: Shrivatsa Goswami Acharya, Sri Radharamana Mandir, Vrindavan, India
Shrivatsa Goswami Acharya, Sri Radharamana Mandir, Vrindavan, India address to International Leadership Conference, Washington, DC, December 17, 2007
- Written by: Rev. Mark Farr, Senior Director, Outreach, Points of LIght Foundation, USA
The greatest challenge facing the United States and the West has and will be in the next twenty-five years how it treats its religious minorities. In our world today this suddenly has become very real. How this issue is addressed affects our foreign policy and our domestic policy. We in the West are still used to thinking in dominant, hierarchical ways. We look at the Millennium Development Goals and we think, “That’s for those who have problems in the developing world.” But that is to totally miss how we should be seeing it.
- Written by: Musa Bin Jaafar Bin Hassan, President, General Assembly of UNESCO
According to the report by Jacques Delors, Chairman of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, education is “learning to live together.” We learn to know, we learn to do, we learn to be, and we learn to live together.
- Written by: H.E. Anwarul Chowdhury
The agenda of the United Nations has expanded over the years. It covers almost all dimensions of human activity. Think of countries such as my own, Bangladesh. We became independent in 1971, and as that country has been building itself, from less than scratch, every aspect of our lives has been touched by the United Nations.
- Written by: Dr. Antonio Betancourt
Whether we like it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, the world is marching toward one world in terms of information, technology, communications, and transportation. The world is becoming one global village. At a much slower pace, the world is becoming one human family. However, we are still very divided and dysfunctional, often at war over differences of opinion, ideology, religion, race, class, nationality, economy, and resources.
- Written by: Hon. Jose de Venecia, Jr., Speaker, House of Representatives, Philippines
We have gathered here because we, too, share this universal longing for peace, which all of us feel most acutely during this sacred season. Peace on Earth is our greatest need, but it is also our most elusive collective goal.
- Written by: Prof. Eliezer Glaubach-Gal, Jerusalem, Israel
I propose that a fishery be built on the seashore border between the Gaza Strip and Israel as a joint venture between investors and the Israeli and Palestinian authorities. Such project will serve the common interests of all sides and have economic and political benefits.
- Written by: Dr. Muli Peleg, Co-chair, One Voice Israel Palestine
The non-violent approach unequivocally won and changed forever the history of the United States and of the entire world. The precedent it created, similarly to the French Revolution 200 years earlier, turned into a symbol with present and future implications for political struggles in various locations.
- Written by: Dr. Andrew Wilson, Academic Dean, UTS Interfaith Seminary, Barrytown, New York
The renowned sixteenth-century Kabbalist Isaac Luria taught that God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light.
- Written by: Dr. Hamdi Murad, Jordanian Interfaith Co-existence Research Center
Allah blessed humanity when He created us in the best form, giving us the mind to understand and behave in a manner beneficial to ourselves and to others.
- Written by: Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon
Civilization has completed a circuit of the entire globe and has now arrived in the Pacific sphere. Human history has now come to a point in the providence where it should reach fruition through the Pacific Rim region.
- Written by: Malimba N. Masheke, Former Prime Minister, Zambia
Even now, criminal cartels are still running Africa. We have people who are dividing nations. When we talk about reconciliation, it means that the country is devastated and needs reconciliation among its people and with God. In Darfur, the Congo, and until recently Angola, which are rich countries, the criminal cartels provide armaments to various warlords. Why are they doing so? They are doing so to further deplete those countries of their resources, because, just as when two dogs are fighting for a bone, the foreign dog that is not fighting will pick up the bone. This is what is happening in Africa.