Beloved members of the Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia and Japanese representatives who have come across the sea to celebrate this meeting!
Today I feel an immeasurable honor to be able to express my thoughts to you, the members of the Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia, about “The Way the Federation of Women for Peace in Asia Should Go.” Today those who have gathered here are all women. Among the women of the world, Korean women are proud of having the virtue of fidelity. You are all descendants of Korean mothers who endured various storms of life with a compassionate heart and a sacrificial attitude, through a long history of heavy snow, rain, and wind.
I believe that this assembly today has very great historical significance for women. The opening of this WFPA (Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia) National Assembly for “A World of Peace and Love” is not something that has happened incidentally, but is a necessity of swiftly flowing history; it is destiny.
Until now, the role of men has been emphasized. The world order and social systems have been centered on men because in past history, the “logic of power” has been ruling. The concepts of war, revolution, conflict, extortion, suppression, control, violence, and so on, have been occupying most of human history and that is why men’s “logic of power” has been communicated and men’s ideology has been ruling.
Logic of love
However, the present age is different. Today, history is demanding peace, compromise, compassion, love, tolerance, service and sacrifice. It is an age where men’s “logic of power” alone cannot solve the problems. There is no need for an ideology that suppresses mankind anymore. It is a time when there is no need for feminine “logic of love” to solve the present problems and to lead history in a proper way.
We have ten more years left until the twenty-first century, and communism, which has been mercilessly trampling on mankind and has initiated violent revolutions and class struggle, has announced its end. Moreover, the constant voice of world opinion, which will not permit war, is an indication of the rising of the curtain to begin the women’s age.
Members of WFPA who long for a world of love and peace! Last year, on April 11, my husband and I visited President Gorbachev at the Kremlin in Moscow, which had been the head temple of the world communist bloc. At that time, my husband advised Pres. Gorbachev: “The victory of the Soviet Union depends on whether or not you are centered on God,” and declared, “Atheism only causes self-destruction and disaster.” He also advised that the way for the Soviet Union to survive would be to pull down the statues of Lenin, the father of the communist revolution, grant religious freedom, and teach the people religious values.
Since that time, the Soviet Union has been changing rapidly. In particular, the response to my husband and the Unification Church has been completely revolutionary. More than five thousand Soviet students and more than one thousand professors and political leaders have received Unification Principle education. Now it has been over a year since my husband was the first Korean to meet and talk with Pres. Gorbachev. Finally, the Soviet Union has started to give up communism and stand as a nation that accepts God. Especially in Moscow, those Soviet students who first heard the Unification Principle last year are standing in a teaching position to top American Ivy League university students and teaching them the Unification Principle.
Isn’t it ironic that Soviet students, representing the atheistic world, are inspiring the top American students, representing the theistic world, about this new teaching? Through this, top Soviet and American students will cooperate to establish the “Federation of World Youth.”
Whatever people may say, my husband is standing high on the top of the religious, ideological, media, scientific technological, cultural, and artistic worlds. Still, Korean Christians are opposing my husband, but no one can tear down his worldwide foundation and accomplishments. I, standing here before you, am the wife of this person who is the focal point of many people’s interest.
Ladies, you are wondering, aren’t you? You must be very curious about what kind of person the wife of Rev. Moon is. This is my second public speech and my first public speech in Korea. My first public speech was in Japan on September 17, as the keynote address to the WFPA in Tokyo.
Before coming to this public position today, I truly have passed through many events. My life has not been easy. Originally I was born and raised quietly, without knowing the world. But by attending Rev. Moon as my husband I have walked a way unbearable for any woman. You must know well what difficulties Rev. Sun Myung Moon has endured in Korean society. The persecution that he has met because of the lack of understanding of the established churches is inexpressible. He has received opposition not only from North Korean communists but also from the South Korean government. Even in America, he suffered in Danbury prison.
I shed so many tears behind such a husband. Being a wife who believes in and supports a man who is experiencing incredible suffering for going the way of God’s will, and also being the mother of thirteen children, the past has not been easy.
The life of our couple in pioneering a course full of unfathomable waves of trouble has been like an acrobat’s life. I cannot help but tell you that it was my absolute faith in God that supported me strongly and guided me wisely through this whirlpool.
As he trusts God
In particular, for me, it was the greatest test of faith to see my husband go to Danbury innocent, just because of religious and racial prejudice. While going toward Danbury, my husband said, “I am going to Danbury looking beyond the prison walls.” He was talking about the worldwide victory that would unfold after this one person’s suffering life in Danbury prison.
Hearing that I determined, “I will believe in God and be victorious,” and with the children, we did an all-night prayer condition every day. At that time, I pledged that I would become a mother whom my children can trust as they trust God. I decided that I have to become a wife whom my husband can trust as he trusts God.
I swore that I would become a daughter whom the world can trust as it trusts God.
Dear members who have gathered from throughout the nation! Today I am not telling these things to you in order to be proud of my past. I say this to help you understand in what direction I, as the Founder of the Federation, will lead it.
Also, I would like to bear witness that the main figure in establishing the “Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia” is my honorable husband, Rev. Moon. He, honoring God’s will, has persevered through all kinds of persecution and scorn and finally attained the heights of victory in order to build an ideal world of peace.
Originally, God created all things in pairs. Therefore, in the human world there are men and women, in the animal world there are males and females, and in the world of plants, there are males and females. Also in the world of molecules, there are positive and negative ions, as well as electrons and protons in the world of atoms. In a word, all beings are made in pairs. The system of pairs means that all beings exist by having ties with a partner, centering on love. It means that without having a partner to live for and to love, existence is not possible. Anywhere in the world, it is the same as being dead when you don’t have a partner to give and receive love with.
The reason God created man is that He absolutely needs a partner whom He can love. In human society, parents want their children to be greater than them because God when He created man put the root of an embracing heart of true love into him.
Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon
It is because of true love from God that we naturally desire that our object be better than us.
This means that if God invests the value of one hundred in a being, that being’s existence only has the value of one hundred. Therefore, to create a being with a value of more than one hundred, God forgets and invests again. In this way, through continuously forgetting and investing even His life, a greater object than Himself is created. This is where true love begins.
True love means the absolute love of God. In love, there is inheritance and oneness, and the concept of eternal life is established. A family and society that are practicing true love will develop and never perish.
If man, who was made to be God’s object, had not disobeyed God’s words and had matured according to God’s will, inheriting true love from God, then in human society a fundamentally peaceful history would have evolved, and there would have been no miserable, war-torn history of bloodshed. In that true love, between individuals, societies, and nations, even if opposition and troubles had been met, they would have been transcended and melted completely, and a truly peaceful world would have been established.
However, because of the fall of the first human ancestors, they couldn’t inherit that true love. Because man could not become God’s object of true love, the position of True Parents as the embodiment of the true love of God was lost. As a result of that, until now men have passed through an evil history, killing and exploiting each other. Because man was not able to realize the ideal of True Parents centered on true love, he established a fallen world.
Federation members are in attendance! Now, we women must practice this true love. We must restore the ideal of True Parents and embody the true family, society, nation, and world centering upon true love. Today, I think that we must consider the following three dimensions for opening a new era of virtue and value, which will establish world peace through practicing this true love.
Love power
First, we must become mothers whom our children can trust as they trust God. Mother’s love is sacrificial. A mother invests all of herself and gives birth to a new life. Because she gives her heart, her life, and her love limitlessly to her children, however painful and difficult it may be, by just embracing the children to her bosom, power is generated. This is the love and heart of a mother.
Therefore with this sacrificial mother’s love, we must be able to revive the lives of people who are dying from corruption and who are afflicted with sin. We must be able to feel the situation of the neighbors who are in pain just as we feel the breathing of our child in our arms. At the same time, we have to embrace our children and teach them: “To become pure people who are beneficial for the world, you have to be able to endure any kind of difficulty.” In this way, we will be able to solve the worsening youth problems. A mother’s heartistic family education centering on true love is the prerequisite for our children to grow properly and for the nation to find hope.
We have to be greater than the mothers of Han Seok Bong and Lee Yul Kok [famous educators and scholars in Korea]. This is the way to become mothers whom our children can trust as they trust God.
Second, we must become wives whom our husbands can trust as they trust God. A wife’s fidelity is our distinctive virtue. Korean women are descendants of Choon Hyang. We have blood that will never allow us to become descendants of Nora in “A Doll’s House” by Ibsen, who left home.
Nowadays, looking at the newspaper reports, in our country there are one hundred seventy thousand ‘pleasure business’ places, with more than six hundred and fifty thousand women working there doing immoral acts. What is worse, it is estimated that each year abortions by unmarried women number more than six hundred thousand. It is a terrible reality. Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed? Why did the Roman Empire fall? Who do you think can save this world where all kinds of sexual crimes and immorality are spreading like poisonous mushrooms?
Isn’t it true that all the world’s leaders, educators, and ministers are helpless, and isn’t it known that laws and regulations are ineffective? My husband, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, has discovered that the disobedience of God’s commandment by the first human ancestors, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was a sexual crime that destroyed the order of love and blood lineage. I cannot but pro-claim that this Unification Principle, which will save mankind from the swamp of immorality and corruption, is the gospel of gospels.
I cannot but proclaim to the whole world that the Unification Church “Blessing,” which is the fruit of this teaching, is the touch of God’s true love to save the world.
Therefore, we have to keep the virtue of fidelity and become wives and women whom our husbands trust as they trust God. Furthermore, before the world and mankind, we have to become historical wives who help our husbands. We can see that behind each great figure of history, there was the devotional support of a woman.
Charity, prudent concern, and chastity
Just as without the help of the wife a husband cannot succeed greatly in society, without the participation of women society and history cannot develop properly. It is impossible to build a peaceful world and a prosperous society only with men. We need women’s charity and prudent concern. Men do not know the suffering of women caused by war. They cannot understand the sorrow of a woman who has lost her husband and children on the battlefield. Therefore, we can anticipate the genuine reality of a future peaceful world through the participation of women who hate war instinctively.
Thirdly, we should become women, daughters of the people, whom the nation can trust as it trusts God. If there is anything that a daughter should keep, it is chastity. What a daughter can do to make her parents happy is keep her chastity. Single women who have gathered here, please think of purity as a precious thing. You mothers, please educate your daughters thoroughly about purity.
Also we, as the daughters of our fatherland and race, have to devote ourselves to the unification of North and South. Our nation’s eternal symbols of filial daughters are Shim Chong and the patriot Ryu Kwan Soon. Regarding serving parents, Korean daughters have the heart of filial piety of Shim Chong, who gave even her life for the sake of the parents. Isn’t patriot Ryu Kwan Soon, who gave her whole body and life for the sake of the fatherland, the eternal daughter of the nation? Daughters give happiness to the parents and they can be concerned about the smallest details. Therefore, we in the position of a daughter can discern problems of the fatherland that men can never discover. We will find a way for everyone to joyfully live for others.
Now our fatherland is divided at the waist into two parts. It looks like a parent who is lying down half-paralyzed. Who do you think will relieve this pain? Who do you think will help the semi-paralysis of the fatherland? Whose responsibility is it? I think that we women should think deeply, from the position of a daughter, about the method of approaching the unification of North and South. We have to grope for the road to unification by having the heart of Shim Chong, who supported her sick parents.
I think that the way to unification is by loving others. If all of us who have gathered here attend our neighbors the same way we attend our parents, this will open the way to unification. For that, we have to know other people’s situations. When we know what the difficulties of others are and what the cause of their pain is, when we invest our hearts, comforting them and sharing their troubles, we become one with our neighbors. When this kind of neighborly love is spread, we can melt the thirty-eighth parallel.
As we go on, I think that through this kind of love for our neighbors we can train ourselves to love our North Korean brethren. Even if unification is accomplished, in the climate of today’s neighborhoods and broken society, there will be problems.
Who can love and help our North Korean brethren with a true heart after unification? So from now on we must have the heart of a daughter caring for her parents toward our brethren from North Korea. In this way, the people of our fatherland will think of us as daughters whom they can trust, as they trust God.
Beloved members of WPP A, who are walking the same way as I am, as a mother who is raising children, as a wife who is serving her husband, and as a chosen daughter of the fatherland, working for the unification of North and South! I believe that I have generally touched on the subject of today’s speech, “The Way the WFPA Should Go.”
Family: Bud of peace
Where can we find peace of the family, society, and nation, where does the peace of Asia and the world start from, and centering on what will it be established? It is not realized by the politics and economics advocated by the politicians or economists. Nor is it realized by international meetings and interchanges. We have to realize the fact that the bud of peace sprouts from the family where love dwells.
The family where love is dwelling is a family attending God. It is the place where true parents are. It is the place where true children can grow. This is true. You have to understand that the way to peace is the way of cultivating families where true parents, true couples, and true children are gathered and live attending God.
We, the women who are gathered here today, are the main figures who will raise such true families. In particular, we, the Korean WFPA, who are bound together by such true families, have to constructively develop the unification effort to link the blood vessels of the divided peninsula, by the true love of God. The unification of North and South is the gateway to peace in Asia and the unification of the world. Let us women stand in the forefront, opening this gateway with true love.
Dr. Sun Myung Moon
As we go on, by starting with WFPA, I will make an effort to organize the “World Women’s Federation for World Peace” with women of the six continents and five oceans who have the same determination as ours. Let us all devote our constructive efforts through ever greater exertion for this holy task.
I will conclude my speech by wishing God’s blessing to be present in your family. Thank you very much.
Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon
