Sun Myung Moon
February 2, 1990
Second Summit Council for World Peace and the Eighth Association for the Unity of Latin America Conference
Lotte Hotel, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Mr. Chairman, distinguished former heads of state, prime ministers, honorable legislators and ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen: I am pleased and honored to welcome you to Korea for this important conference.
I am very glad that we are gathered together for the second Summit Council for World Peace with the theme of the reunification of Korea and East-West cooperation. Furthermore, I am very happy that, together with this summit conference, we are convening the eighth conference of the Association for the Unity of Latin America, commonly known as AULA, which has a tremendous record of achievement in bringing about harmony and unity in Latin America during the past seven years.
I truly feel that the timing of this conference is very significant. This is the beginning of 1990 and the new decade of the nineties. In ten years, we are going to usher in the year 2000. In our lifetime we will witness the beginning of the new millennium. We must feel the tremendous importance of living in this time, of not only witnessing dramatic changes in human life, but also actually shaping those events.
It is a hope shared by all of us that the new millennium will be characterized by true peace. For that to be so, the next ten years will be challenging and demanding. These organizations gathered here today, the Summit Council for World Peace and AULA, have a very important part to play for the next ten years. I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you for the work you have already done for the achievement of peace. At the same time, I would like to challenge you to become champions of peace in the new decade.
The transition from confrontation to constructive engagement
The period between the close of the Second World War and the present, roughly forty years, can be viewed as the age of confrontation between two camps with diametrically opposing ideologies. We have witnessed numerous conflicts between peoples and between nations, accompanied by an escalating arms race. There really was not a moment when people could have a feeling of peace in their hearts.
Then, in 1985, Mr. Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union and began to initiate a series of changes. He encouraged greater freedom of expression within the Soviet Union, undertook a restructuring of the Soviet economy, and perhaps most significantly, repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine. Within a short time, dramatic political changes within the Soviet bloc became a daily occurrence. In the past few months we have seen the democratization of Poland, followed by Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and finally Romania. These events culminated in the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of confrontation between East and West. With that, a new era of reconciliation has dawned.
I would like to extend my heart-felt appreciation to President Gorbachev for his courage and leadership in bringing about these constructive changes, which have enabled us to enter this new era of cooperation. I am committed to support the Soviet Union in its genuine desire to uphold individual human dignity, to bring about economic reform and, most importantly, to establish religious freedom.
As you may already know, I am also committed to working with the People’s Republic of China. This giant nation comprises one fourth of the world's population. Certainly we cannot talk about world peace without taking into account the well-being of the 1.3 billion Chinese people. To help in providing needed jobs, technology and income, I am now building in China one of the world's largest automobile assembly plants. This is another aspect of our effort to bring world peace.
Furthermore, as you may know, in 1981 I launched an International Peace Highway project. When completed, this highway will allow a family to drive from Tokyo to London. I am seriously discussing the project with the governments of Japan, Korea and China, and I hope that the Soviet Union will also welcome this project. Of course, this is a lofty dream. Every great undertaking begins as a dream. Not so long ago, no one could have even dreamt of people walking on the moon, yet with vision and hard work, it became a reality. So it will be with the International Peace Highway.
Overcoming the confusion of values between East and West
At this point, having shared with you my feelings of tremendous hope and optimism for the future, I feel that I must also address what I consider a dangerous tendency by some people to celebrate the advent of peace prematurely. Although the Berlin Wall has fallen, significant difficulties remain in both camps. The leading nations of the free world, along with their vast material wealth, are beset with moral decay. They have fallen victim to pervasive materialism, and the abuse of freedom is commonplace. The rise to near dominance of atheistic secularism in the West has brought with it the collapse of moral standards. As a result, western society is afflicted with serious social ills, among them the breakup of families, an epidemic of drug abuse, an increase in sexual immorality and disease, and widespread political corruption.
To put the matter simply, the current problems of both East and West ultimately come from the same cause, a confusion of values. The falsity of the Marxist value system has finally borne its fruit in the failure of the communist system. It is no secret that I have been ardently opposed to communism throughout my life. It is because I know that its militant denial of God and its belief that progress occurs through conflict can never lead to success in building a good society.
Through my own life experience I have come to know with certainty that God is real, and that the most important thing in life is true love. Human progress can come about only when we cherish God and give love the highest value. Lacking these, neither communism nor the free world is presently equipped to lead humankind toward a peaceful twenty-first century.
What we urgently need at the outset of this new decade is a true value system, one that can fill the vacuum created by the collapse of values in both the free and communist worlds. We must base that new value system on a worldview centered on God, namely, the ideology of Godism. Throughout my entire life, I have worked with members of all religions and denominations to spread the understanding of this God-centered worldview. This has made it possible to create numerous broad-based academic and interfaith organizations dedicated to the search for absolute values and the establishment of true peace. I have also established news media organizations, as well as institutions of art and education. I have prepared this entire global foundation to assist people like yourselves in your efforts to attain true world peace.
True world peace cannot be achieved unless the people share a clear value system. When values are clarified, humankind will no longer be in darkness. Godism allows each individual to clearly see the meaning and value of his or her life. Each person is then motivated to seek his or her spiritual wellbeing by living responsibly and serving others. This is the ultimate solution, the way to alleviate world suffering.
In other words, what our world needs today to save itself is a spectacular spiritual awakening. The world must be awakened into the reality of God and equipped with a worldview based on God-affirming principles. This worldview will enable us to eliminate the confusion in the value systems of both camps.
Awakening our awareness of higher values will transform the nature of the relationships between nations. The desire for personal profit has played too large a role as a driving force for economic development. It has unleashed a great amount of human potential, and we have witnessed remarkable development on a global scale. Nonetheless, we have to balance the desire for profit with the fundamental understanding that all people are the children of God.
The way to reunify Korea
We are all brothers and sisters. The purpose of our life on earth is not to amass material goods. We are alive in this world so that we can develop and perfect our eternal spirit. The only way to do this is through the practice of true love, to live for the sake of others.
We need to practice true love on all levels of life, including relations between nations. The developed nations of the world need to believe that God blessed them for the purpose of helping others. They must be willing to sacrifice for the developing nations of the world. If the prosperous nations do not think beyond the desire for profit, their very desire for prosperity will result in their prosperity slipping away.
Today, the interests of the key nations of China, Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States converge on Korea. At the time of the Korean War, people of many nations made the supreme sacrifice to determine the future of this peninsula. We have gathered here today in the same spirit of concern. It is entirely appropriate that political leaders from around the world have come here to discuss the issue of Korean unification. Historically, this is more than a national issue. It involves the entire international community.
I would like to suggest a few guidelines, which I hope you will consider in your discussions about the unification of Korea. With regard to North Korea, there are several prerequisites to the process of reunification. First, North Korea must abandon its plans for military conquest of the South. Second, they must put an end to their extreme isolation and open their society to the world community of nations. Third, they must carry out their own version of glasnost, thereby giving their people the most important freedom, the freedom to worship as they desire, and they must put a stop to the deification of their leader.
Only then will North Korea be ready to undertake effective economic reforms. As North Korea begins to cooperate with South Korea and the other nations of the world, it will become increasingly evident to its leaders that unless they give people realistic hope for a better life, as well as incentives and freedoms to achieve it, it will be virtually impossible for them to increase their productivity.
I want to emphasize, however, that there must also be change in South Korea. South Korea has been experiencing an unprecedented wave of prosperity. This prosperity must be seen for what it is, the blessing of God, and it must be shared with others. We the people of this nation must now be ready and willing to embrace our brothers and sisters in the North, and help to alleviate their suffering. In the same way, the free world must now totally support the initiatives toward freedom made in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China.
The two worlds of democracy and communism must reconcile as bothers as did Jacob and Esau
The Bible tells the story of two brothers, Jacob and Esau. Though they were both destined to play an important part in the providence of God, there was a great conflict between them. Jacob was blessed by his father, yet only because Jacob tricked him. When Esau learned of this, he wanted to kill Jacob, and Jacob had to flee. It was only after they had lived separately for more than twenty years that Jacob returned with gifts and with love in his heart for Esau. When the two brothers met after this long period of separation, Jacob approached Esau and said: "to see your face is like seeing the face of God." (Gen. 33:10) They forgave each other and embraced in tears. Esau no longer wanted to kill Jacob, but to live with him, share with him and learn from him..
Today the free world stands in the position of Jacob. The communist world stands in the position of Esau. Many communist nations, such as Cuba and North Korea, have been taught that, like Jacob, the free world has stolen the blessing from them. Like Esau, in the past they wanted to destroy the nations of the free world. Like Jacob, for many years, the free world has wisely stayed militarily strong and avoided falling into a position where the communist world could destroy it.
However, I believe that now the time has come for the free world to reconcile with the communist world. When we see our brothers and sisters who have been suffering for many years under the communist system, we must see in them the face of God. We must support them, comfort them, fill them with confidence, and allow them to enter the world community of democratic nations.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope your deliberations during the next two days will be productive and rewarding. I am certain that because of such efforts as these, Korea will transform into one unified nation well before the end of this decade. On behalf of the sixty million Korean people of both the North and South, I want to express my gratitude for your having come here. I pray that your efforts will be fruitful.
God bless you. Thank you very much.