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The Global Peace Festival is a new movement that promotes world peace through service projects and interfaith harmony, working in partnership with other nongovernmental organizations, government ministries, churches and other stakeholders in dozens of countries. The Japan festival, hosted by the Universal Peace Federation and other nonprofit organizations, was held Saturday in Ajinomoto Stadium, Tokyo, with roughly 50,000 participants and delegates from 43 countries. Despite the light rain and chilly weather, the audience was enthusiastic.
"Conflict begins when we fail to follow the dictates of our conscience and fail to recognize our common heritage in God," said UPF co-chairman Dr. Hyun Jin Moon in his keynote address. Moon is also chairman of News World Communications, Inc., which owns United Press International.
"Before we call ourselves Christian, Buddhist or Shinto, or see ourselves as black, white or yellow, or identify ourselves as Japanese, Korean or American, we are the sons and daughters of God and members of his eternal family," he said.
The motto Moon emphasized at the Tokyo gathering was "One Family under God," defining it as a spiritual vision, rooted in time-enduring values, principles and aspirations. The idea is one he has inherited from his father, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who is the founder of the Unification Church and News World Communications, Inc.
"To my father, the dream of building 'One Family under God' is not the dream of just one man, one woman or one family but the dream that belongs to all humanity and, most of all, to God," he said.
Jose De Venecia Jr., former speaker of the House of Representatives in the Philippines, underscored the importance of interfaith cooperation beyond the national, racial or religious boundaries that humankind has created.
"There can be no peace among nations without peace among the religions, and there can be no peace among religions unless there is dialogue among the religions," he said.
He also emphasized the necessity to create an interfaith council in the United Nations to promote interreligious dialogue at the global, regional, national and local levels, mobilizing all the religions.
One urgent issue for Moon, who was born in South Korea and grew up in the United States, is the unification of North and South Korea. He urged Japan, where more than 600,000 North and South Koreans live, to support reconciliation. The two communities within Japan have been seen as a symbol of the Korean peninsula's conflict.
Japan "can play a vital role in this work by bringing these two divided communities together. This will greatly support the peace process of your closest neighbors," he said. Moon also called on Japan, which has already gained international status as an economic giant, to be a moral or spiritual giant in a new Pacific Rim era.
The Global Peace Festival movement and its philosophy have been attracting world leaders of many nations, especially those whose countries have been suffering from religious or ethnic strife.
When the festival was held in Nairobi, Kenya, in August this year, Prime Minister Raila Odinga attended the International Leadership Conference, which was part of the GPF festivities, and praised the global movement. Odinga took office with President Mwai Kibaki in a coalition government in April this year after over 1,500 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced due to violent ethnic conflict related to the election.
"The Global Peace Festival of ‘One Family under God’ shows that before we are a member of one nation, tribe or political faction, we are first and foremost children of the same Creator," Odinga said. "Membership in the human family makes us brothers and sisters. Survival, prosperity and peaceful coexistence for us all require that we never forget this."
Cleanup and service campaigns under the festival’s slogan have been conducted in some cities where the festival was held. In Paraguay, more than 10,000 high school and college students cleaned up almost every park in the capital city of Asuncion. In Kenya, more than 70,000 volunteers helped clean the Nairobi River, one of the country’s dirtiest rivers.
GPF-Japan kicked off an eco-campaign, encouraging people to collect plastic bottle caps for recycling, in exchange for which sponsors will provide vaccine for children in developing countries. Volunteers collected 1.1 million caps in one day, equivalent to providing polio vaccines to 2,700 children.
After Japan, the GPF moves on to London, England and seven other locations by the end of the year.
