The following is the address delivered by Dr. Junsook Moon, chairwoman of Global Peace Women during the Global Peace Leadership Conference (GPLC) Africa 2024 convening held on June 25-27, 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya.
African Renaissance and the Family Imperative: Rediscovering the Root of Community Peace and Social Cohesion
(Swahili – good afternoon) Mchana mwema! (how are you?) Hamjambo.
Fellow Speakers, conveners of this significant conference, the Chandaria Foundation Inter-Religious Council of Kenya, and the Global Peace Foundation;
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor to be joining all of you today as we lay the groundwork to launch this grand endeavor for continental revival.
The work we set out to accomplish during this short time together is to address the central value and significance of the family, the key to community peace and social cohesion for the African Renaissance.
Over the years, my husband and I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you from across this magnificent continent. With each visit, I continue to be amazed by Africa's beauty and abundance, which is only succeeded by the spirit and heart of the African people.
Your warm hospitality welcomes all of us as part of the extended African family, and I feel as if I have returned home to experience this moment with you. Your profound faith and steady commitment to the family have prepared you to play a leading role in the moral and spiritual renaissance that must guide the emerging new era of history.
African Renaissance and One Family under God:
Ladies and gentlemen, my husband, Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, has issued a call to Africans everywhere and the global community to join in reviving the African Renaissance, opening a new chapter for this continent as a global catalyst for freedom, peace, and sustainable development. The heart of the African Renaissance beats in resonance with the simple yet profound vision: that we are One Family under God.
This vision recognizes that each and every life is valuable and endowed with fundamental, inalienable rights and freedoms that come from a source that transcends any human-made institution: God, our Creator, the Sovereign of the universe, and the Source of the eternal, unchanging principles that govern it.
It also recognizes our connection to each other in the most intimate terms of our lived experience as "family."
When I have spoken with women from Africa, Asia, and the Americas, we instantly bond over the joys and challenges of motherhood. Indeed, the experience of family is universal.
Faith and Family: Peace Begins in the Home:
Faith and family are integral parts of the peacebuilding equation. Faith guides our quest to connect to God, the source of love, truth, and life, and to understand the fundamental truths and principles governing how we should live.
Family is the first school of love where God's love is expressed, the practice ground for applying principles, values, and virtues that undergird all the workings of humanity and clarify our purpose and design. From the time we are born, we are interconnected in a series of bonds and relationships: parents and children, siblings, eventually husband and wife, and even grandparents. Within these unbreakable family ties, we learn, make mistakes, and ultimately grow our hearts and characters.
Eventually, these capacities enable us to relate harmoniously to our greater global family.
From basic social connections, civic duty, business and enterprise, and governance – everything becomes an extension of the peace that begins in the home. Thus, the home is the first, most natural place to begin our work to realize this dream of peace and mutual prosperity.
Family-Based Solutions:
The family is a powerful agent of peace, the building blocks of the African Renaissance. Yet this powerhouse of positive transformation is too often disregarded. In my birth country of Korea, the waning focus on the extended family has come at a huge social cost. To put it bluntly, with the lowest birth and marriage rates and highest suicide rates in the world, Korea has set itself on a course of extinction.
You are likely now facing the same moral and social challenges brought about by the West. I know your struggle. It has not been easy raising my children in the United States,
where every day they are bombarded in school, through their friends, and very much so on social media, by the confusion and delegitimization of the most basic familial relationships arising from modernization, urbanization, and divisive self-centered, individualist ideologies.
However, amidst this confusion, there is a silver lining.
We have grown closer together as we strengthen our commitment to upholding universal principles and moral values, cultivate our spirituality, and, most importantly, deepen our love for God. And it is through our families that we keep our eyes on what is most important in life - creating families who live in service to God and humanity.
I have heard in Africa that the family is everything—the wellspring of laughter, love, and optimism and the source of resilience and strength that enables you to overcome any hardship and devise solutions.
I understand that in the African village and extended family, every person, no matter their age, gender, capacity, or personality, has a role to play and a value to offer. You are, first and foremost, members of the African family.
The African Renaissance can engage each of you with your various roles, from the village mother to the multi-national businesswoman, from the farmer father to the ambassador, in small and large ways, to build up this grand family that will secure peace and prosperity for all.
My African brothers and sisters, you are prepared to set new global trends with innovative, family-based solutions. The world is waiting – even if it doesn't yet realize.
This precious institution that we have fought to protect and empower holds the solutions to so many of the issues our nations face today.
When we place the family at the heart of our human experience, it transforms the way we live. Everything we do becomes a part of developing our capacity to contribute to humanity. Starting with self-mastery, we strive to become men and women who live principally and grounded in our relationship with God. Eventually, we marry to form strong, healthy families where we can raise children of goodness who, in their own turn, can continue a legacy of service to the world.
If we return to these basic understandings and give the family the attention and empowerment it merits, answers to the urgent social and economic issues we face throughout the world will naturally arise.
From improving mental and physical health to mitigating domestic violence and extremism, promoting interfaith, intergenerational cooperation, good governance, and generating economic enterprise, we will see holistic, effective solutions emerge from the inside out-- starting from the people we raise in the family.
As parents, we are the first line of peacebuilding and innovation in our world. Our Creator grants us fundamental rights and freedoms, and among these is the right to raise our children as their parents. However, with this right comes the great responsibility of doing it well for the happiness of our children and the betterment of humanity.
If we neglect this role, how can we aid them in making good choices in life? We must uphold our God-given responsibility of raising the next generation of humanity.
This is our most important life's work: to instill character, values, and virtues in our children.
The Complementary Roles of Mothers and Fathers:
If we think about this beautiful role that we are blessed with as parents, we come to appreciate and uplift the unique and complementary qualities that both men and women are endowed with.
A family begins with a man and woman committing to the ideal of a family and each other through marriage. In their shared love, they create life.
Parents in the audience, we know full well this is just the beginning of our work. After giving birth, fathers and mothers are integral in raising boys and girls to become mature men and women.
Fathers provide, protect and lead. And as mothers, we nurture, support, and guide:
Yes, what fathers and mothers do in the family is different, and that difference is crucial. My husband and I teach our children very differently, but together, we cover 360 degrees.
Within my journey of motherhood, I have been deeply moved by this gift of womanhood granted to me in God's design. Women play a precious and irreplaceable role for humanity.
We bring new life into this world, and during the formative years of our children's lives, we have the privilege of showing them their immutable value and dignity, and the dignity and value of all human life, of teaching them their first lessons of right and wrong. Moreover, our love can bring together all children. We can be the mothers for our villages, our nations, and our world.
Fatherhood, I venture to imagine, is equally profound for men. The experience of looking into the eyes of the little ones who are your progeny, who see you as their ultimate hero, motivates you powerfully to live nobly, lead with principle, and seek to make the world better.
The family is the anchor, yet it is also the place of rest, recharge, and unconditional love that unlocks our limitless potential:
Husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, take time to express your appreciation and love for one another. One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the beautiful image of mom and dad together. Your children need both of you, and when they see you as a loving couple, you encourage them to dream of someday making a family of their own.
The family perspective can also transform how we relate to our natural environment.
If we know that this earth is the nursery that will nourish succeeding generations, we will naturally seek to use it responsibly and preserve it for the benefit of future generations.
Launching a Movement for Regional Peace and Prosperity:
Africa, this is your time to shine. Unlike many regions of the world that have traded faith and family for modernization and the rush to amass wealth, you have preserved these jewels.
Peace requires God and family. God is the source of truth, goodness, and love, and our family is where we bring this vision of peace to life. I trust that you, the people of Africa, will recognize that your most precious resources lie in the principles and values found in your faith journeys, families, and particularly the extended village family model.
The African Renaissance is inspired by a larger vision of continental and global peace and prosperity. It is a movement that is fueled by the agency of the African people to fulfill their destiny to contribute to humanity, each and every one of you.
I pray that this vision of One Family under God can transform your homes, your villages, your nations, and this great continent to raise a revival that brings God into every heart and every home and creates a wave of peace and development that has civilizational impact.
This is your time. With faith and fortitude, let us join hands together and transform our guiding vision into practical initiatives that will open a new era of peace and development for the world.
May God bless you and your families.
Thank you very much.
