The Words of the Hyun Jin Moon
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The Words of the Hyun Jin Moon |
Esteemed dignitaries, family, friends, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Global Peace Festival in beautiful Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Salam Sejahtera! Greetings!
It is a great honor and pleasure to be with you today to celebrate a vision of everlasting peace. Your being here this evening in such numbers is a clear sign that the Global Peace Festival is indeed bringing a new breath of hope to a world yearning for an end to the cycle of war, conflict and poverty!
I love Malaysia! Each time I come here, I am deeply impressed at how this nation is becoming a model of interfaith peace and unity, with people of all religions, races and ethnicities living together as neighbors and as brothers and sisters. Malaysia is truly a nation that loves God. When we visited the Putrajaya Mosque on Friday, I was inspired to learn how the government officials pause their duties daily and especially on Friday to pray at the mosque.
Elsewhere, we saw preparations for the celebration of Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights, and we were reminded of your beautiful tradition of accepting all faiths, allowing all Malaysian’s to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.
Moreover, Malaysia has invited tens of thousands of students from all over the world to study here, many with generous scholarships. In this way, you are helping to create a new generation of peace-builders who will play a central role in building a world of peace in this 21st century.
Young people like to dream big. Malaysia is young nation that is dreaming about becoming the world capital of peace. I have come here tonight to challenge you to dream the greatest dream of all, the dream of “One Family Under God.”
I think we can all agree that there is a long way to go if we are to truly realize this dream of peace. In recent weeks, financial chaos and economic uncertainty have been shaking almost every nation of the world.
Every nation also faces persistent problems of crime, unemployment, AIDS, poverty, family breakdown and youth problems. On top of all that, there are a record number of wars and regional conflicts that continue to plague the human family.
Recently, the United Nations released a very pessimistic report stating that progress towards the Millennium Development Goals is way off track. No wonder it sometimes seems that our world is actually further away from peace than ever before!
One thing is clear: if there is to be any change, the world undeniably needs a new vision of peace for the 21st Century. Moreover, unlike the secular thinking of our recent past, it should be a spiritual vision, rooted in universal values.
We only need to look back to the last century to recognize the futility of tackling the world’s problems through the same old military, economic, political, diplomatic and scientific solutions. Dealing with only the symptoms of global crisis and conflict and ignoring the root cause will not work.
We must be bold and break new ground in our search for peace and prosperity, if we are to really go beyond the failures of our past. Today, therefore, I want to share a new vision of lasting peace for Malaysia and for all nations.
That vision is “One Family under God!”
The one who has taken on the mantle to champion this vision around the world is none other than my father, the Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon. He has devoted his entire life and all his resources to the fulfillment of that dream.
The dream to build “One Family Under God” is not the dream of just one man, woman or family but belongs to all humanity and, most of all, to God.
As my father explained in a recent Peace Message, God, the Creator of all things under the sun, is the true parent of all humanity. He is not a parent in the parochial sense, existing only for a certain religion, a certain race, or the residents of a certain region.
You may call Him by any name, be it Allah, Jehovah, God, Heaven or any other. What is important is that He certainly exists and lives as the creator and true parent of all mankind.
Why is the family the fundamental building block for peace? First and foremost, the family is universal. Regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality and religious affiliations, we are all members of families.
Secondly, the family represents the most intimate of human relationships. We use familial terms to describe the closeness of any relationship, saying “that person is like my father, like my mother, like my brother, like my sister, like my son and like my daughter.”
Most importantly, the family is the school of love. I believe that the three-generational model of grandparents, parents and children is the paragon of family virtue.
Those generations represent the past, present and future living in harmony in one family, setting the basis of establishing everlasting peace centered upon true love.
Before we call ourselves Muslim or Christian or Hindu, before we see ourselves as Black, White, or Asian, before we identify ourselves as Malaysian, Chinese or Korean, we are first and foremost brothers and sisters and members of God’s eternal family.