National
interest is the best starting point for building a peaceful,
healthy and harmonious world.
In the
modern era, individualism, secularism, humanism, and relativism have
flourished, while at the same time poverty, environmental
degradation, HIV/AIDS, violence, human rights violations have also
prospered. In a word, self-interest has become the dominant
principle that shapes attitudes, behavior, public policy and
culture. We live in a culture of selfishness.
The United
Nations was launched with its own fundamental values, not the least
of which was faith in the sacred value of the nation-state. National
sovereignty and national self-interest were enshrined in the
institution's structure.
The era of selfish
individualism will decline, as will nations that are guided solely
by the principle of national self-interest. Peace will not come
through the pursuit of self-interest. Self-interest alone will only
produce conflict, competition, and disharmony. Furthermore, a world
without God, cannot generate an ethic of unselfishness.
Without God, we
are alone in a world of standards we ourselves set, and these
standards are ever changeable, depending on the circumstances.
Standards rooted in divine reality are unchanging and absolute. In
this sense, spiritual principles are very similar to natural laws.
The Universal
Peace Federation (UPF) calls for a radical and innovative approach
to peace, one that is both profoundly spiritual and yet
fundamentally rooted in history and the material world. Peace is the
cause of our time. The quest for peace, long desired by all
humanity, is now at hand.
Conditions for its
achievement are being established in the spiritual world itself, and
the providence for peace is being guided by the hand of God. Its
distinguishing marks are unselfishness, forgiveness, reconciliation
and love of enemies. These are the forces that will usher in a new
era of peace. Efforts that rely on force, or on political, military
or economic power alone, will fail.
