Sun Myung Moon
July 16, 2012
Inauguration of the Abel Women’s UN
Cheongshim Peace World Center, Korea
Photo: Belvedere, 1974 or 1975
I would like to extend my warmest welcome to the woman leaders, peace leaders and members of the Women’s Federation of World Peace (WFWP) from one hundred ninety-four nations, who have come to the Cheongshim Peace World Center in Korea to take part in the historic Abel Women’s UN Inauguration Assembly.
From our early days, my wife and I have upheld Heaven’s will and proclaimed the vision of the peaceful world originally envisioned at the time of the Creation. We have come here today, having returned from America after completing our busy providential schedule there, in order to establish the Abel Women’s UN. It has the mission of realizing the providential goal of creating, on earth, a world of lasting peace, without conflict or war.
As my wife and I have already proclaimed, Korea is God’s homeland. Therefore, this inaugural assembly for the Abel Women’s UN, which will play the providential role of leading the establishment of a new world of peace, had to take place here in Korea in accordance with God’s will.
Beloved woman leaders from around the world, as you are well aware, representatives of all the world’s peoples, who had been suffering from the aftermath of the Second World War, founded the United Nations according to God’s will and with a yearning for peace. In June 1945, representatives from fifty nations met in San Francisco in the United States of America to sign the United Nations Charter. Today, with one hundred ninety three member nations, the United Nations has developed into a unique organization in the world with the purpose of maintaining global peace.
Respected peace-seeking leaders from around the world, what is today’s reality? During the sixty years of the United Nations’ existence, it has been unable to prevent wars from breaking out, including the Korean War. Even though the Cold War has ended, the world is not free from wars, both large and small, that originate from conflicts between rich and poor, between races, and between people of different faiths. Hasn’t the UN experienced repeated breakdowns of its efforts to fulfill its original purpose and mission to maintain global peace?
At the time of its inauguration, the UN was shaped by a compromise between the United States and the former Soviet Union produced under the confrontational structure of the Cold War. From the outset, its ability to transcend individual nations’ interests and to bring about lasting world peace was limited. For this reason I have proclaimed that in terms of God’s will, the UN has been unable to emerge from the position of Cain. Therefore we emphasize that the renewal of the UN is absolutely critical to building a world of lasting peace as originally envisioned at the time of the Creation.
To realize this renewal in a concrete form, I maintain that an Abel-type interreligious and international peace council needs to be organized within the United Nations. I propose a reorganization of the UN into a bicameral system within the present UN General Assembly. The arena of individual nations with their competing interests can serve as the lower house, and the interreligious and international peace council consisting of global religious leaders can serve as the upper house. I already have presented this proposal of renewal to the UN, and the Philippines, as a co-sponsoring nation, has done so as well.
Respected peace leaders, the UN has run into a brick wall. It is unable to move beyond balancing the various interests of individual nations. Isn’t that the case? In history up to now, we have depended on governmental organizations mostly managed by men to bring about global peace. Now, however, to surmount the limitations they have demonstrated, I believe that a women’s peace movement based on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) needs to take root as a new system to resolve problems that arise in the field. One individual or one NGO alone cannot carry out this women’s peace movement; rather, it is only possible through a global organization exercising global solidarity. For this reason today’s inauguration of the Abel Women’s UN is absolutely necessary.
Today’s historic, inaugural assembly of the Abel Women’s UN was made possible by the foundation of the declaration of the coming of the global era of women. Twenty years ago, Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon and I declared this era, when we founded the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) in April 1992 as a central organization of the women’s peace movement, in accordance with Heaven’s decree. The event took place at the Seoul Olympic Stadium in Jamshil, and woman representatives from more than seventy nations and one hundred fifty thousand Korean woman leaders attended. Since then, WFWP, which this year celebrates its twentieth anniversary, has established local chapters and has been active in more than one hundred sixty nations. It has continuously participated in the global peace movement by creating networks that carry out peace efforts.
Furthermore, the Women’s Federation for World Peace does not intend to be an ordinary women’s organization. It does not aim to be an external, political and aggressive women’s rights movement mainly targeting men, which advocates the expansion of women’s rights, gender equality and reform of the workplace. Rather, it is a global peace movement on a whole new level with the providential significance of realizing the ideal world as God envisioned it at the Creation.
In the context of such providential significance, during the past twenty years, WFWP has carried out service projects and education programs based on true motherly love. It has been active in all parts of the globe, establishing families that embody true love and elevate the status of mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. It has achieved amazing growth and development throughout the world.
From the moment of its inauguration, Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon and I have worked together as co-founders to prepare the ground for WFWP’s global organization and the foundation for WFWP activities. WFWP members,including the sixteen hundred Japanese members who went to one hundred sixty nations as volunteer workers in its early days, have carried forth a peace movement around the world.
At WFWP’s inaugural assembly, my wife said in her inaugural message that, under True Mother as the victorious representative of the world’s women, women can now establish the model of a true mother and true wife and form ideal families through a true love movement. Furthermore, women can carry out a campaign to exemplify the practice of true love by living for the sake of others in all walks of life, including politics, economics, culture and social work.
Accordingly, we have carried out a variety of volunteer projects and educational programs, as well as campaigns to bring about the resolution and reconciliation of international conflicts, transcending the barriers of race, religion, language and nationality.
In addition, after the special address my wife gave at the UN headquarters in New York in September 1993, and based on three years of hard work, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) approved the Women’s Federation for World Peace as an NGO in general consultative status, which is the highest status given to an NGO. Since then, every four years after our approval, our status has been re-approved. This ECOSOC re-evaluation entails a strict assessment of activities and achievements. It is safe to say that ECOSOC recognizes our true value, because among the more than three thousand nine hundred NGOs affiliated with the United Nations, only one hundred forty have this highest status.
Our WFWP Women’s Conference for Peace in the Middle East, which has been held every year since 1997, has attracted widespread interest and participation from woman leaders of the Middle East nations. Over the years, it has expanded and recently given birth to more concrete activities in the field, about which I am glad to be able to report. At the end of June this year 2012, WFWP sponsored the sixteenth annual Middle East conference, held as a session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations Office at Geneva. The subject was Children Affected by Conflict and Disaster: Prevention, Protection, Healing and Empowerment. Women leaders from eighteen nations in the Middle East, diplomatic officials, including ambassadors to the United Nations in Geneva from around the world, and representatives from UN agencies and global NGOs attended the conference. About one hundred eighty participants came together, discussed this serious, contemporaneous problem, and resolved to apply the results of their discussions in the field.
Furthermore, each WFWP chapter is also providing relief aid to address problems caused by natural calamities and poverty in various parts of the global village. In particular, under the slogan, “Let us share a little of what we have,” they are carrying out the 1% Love Share Project to help children and women in North Korea. I am very happy to tell you that they have achieved wonderful results.
As can be seen, from WFWP’s founding to its reaching the highest consultative status as an NGO at the United Nations, our members have never lost their founding spirit and have quietly pioneered the path of a woman’s peace movement with an unwavering heart. Therefore, I would like to offer a big round of applause to express my utmost gratitude to them, and also to the woman leaders who have never held back in their encouragement and participation.
However, the work for world peace WFWP carried out until now need not remain at its current stage. It has the potential to expand and develop to the next stage, so that it can work together in solidarity and cooperation with woman leaders and NGOs from all parts of the world, and strive to follow the path of the ultimate establishment of the world of peace.
In order to do that, WFWP has to go beyond the level of a women’s NGO, bring together the governments, organizations and individuals across the world and march forward. The establishment of a great organization under the name Abel Women’s UN is absolutely necessary to bring this about. It is, in fact, the absolute decree of God’s providence.
As we usher in such a cosmically historic and revolutionary era of changes, my wife and I solemnly declare the inauguration of the Abel Women’s UN. We urge all women in the world, who make up half of its population, to recognize their historic mission as stated above and to expand their work to all parts of the globe.
Beloved woman leaders who seek peace, what path does humankind need to take today? In the end, the problems afflicting humanity can only be resolved through the worldview of one family under God, which is the system of thought based on true love that my wife and I, the True Parents, have learned from Heaven and have championed and taught throughout our lives. These ideals alone represent the path that will lead humanity to a world of everlasting peace and happiness.
We are living in a historic time of a great cosmic revolution to change history, to unite the spiritual and physical worlds and to create the ideal kingdom of heaven that God has longed for since the beginning of time. We can no longer postpone or delay it. Heaven has already proclaimed that the thirteenth day of the first month in 2013 by the lunar calendar will be its Foundation Day.
Therefore, it is a time for all people to be humbly obedient to Heaven’s decree. I hope you will bear in mind that a fateful time is approaching, and that we need to devote ourselves completely with a life or death commitment for the remaining time under the guidance of True Parents, who are carrying out the providence on earth as the substantial selves of God, the King of peace.
Beloved woman leaders, the course for humanity is set. Now that we have Foundation Day, the “D-Day” that Heaven has given us through True Parents, what reason is there to hesitate? We now have less than a year. Heaven will bless your endeavors to establish a world of peace based on the Abel Women’s UN.
However, I would like to emphasize again that the priority of the Abel Women’s UN needs to be creating a true family movement that emphasizes living for the sake of others based on true love and carried out in conjunction with education in proper values. War and conflict arise from selfish motives, desiring to take others’ land, others’ possessions and the like by force. On the other hand, peace arises from investing oneself for the sake of others, that is, giving based on true love.
Those leaders who turn their faces away from the new realities of the world, or who refuse to see them, will be cast aside by the changes coming upon us like a tsunami. I believe the time has now come for us to step forward boldly and seize new opportunities and values.
Beloved woman leaders, you are not here merely to help or to be protected by men; rather, women are interdependent individuals who, as representatives of the feminine aspect of God’s nature, are meant to make men more complete and manly. Centering on true love, women are men’s precious love partners. Men and women are absolutely equal in terms of value.
Men and women who unite through the true love inherent in the original ideal share the same position. Also, they attain the right to accompany each other wherever they may be. Furthermore, they attain the ideal right of inheritance, where all their property belongs to each equally. Thus, when the original love unites men and women in God’s ideal of true love, they become completely equal beings, focused on true love, by sharing the same rank and the right of participation and their possessions with one another.
Therefore, men and women do not need to confront or contend with each other, because they do not need to imitate the characteristics, dispositions or roles of the other or to covet those things and take them by force. Instead, by giving what they have to the other with true love, and completing the other, they can unite in a greater whole and share in a relationship of joint ownership.
In the twenty-first century, women need to play a major role in world history by serving, together with men, as the wheels of the vehicle advancing the construction of a peaceful world. Transitioning beyond a century of power and technology, women will be the central axis in building a new century characterized by its loving, peaceful culture, and their role will be more important than ever before.
I sincerely ask you to choose the path of a true mother, the path of a true wife, of a true daughter and of a true woman leader who will build a united world where freedom, peace and happiness overflow in its truest form.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for having listened closely right to the end of my speech. I pray that God’s blessing will be with you, your families and your work.
Thank you.