U.N. taking religious approach to peace
Manav Tandon, The Technician
RALEIGH, N.C.
The United Nations is sponsoring a World Peace Summit that is the first of its kind in the 55 years of its existence: a summit involving religious leaders from around the globe. More than a thousand religious delegates have arrived in the United States to help the U.N. accomplish what it hasn't been able to since its inception in 1945 — peace.
The U.N. has long been the guiding force behind peaceful solutions to ... ok, just kidding. The U.N. has long been an incompetent puppet organization that has looked out for the interests of the West while disregarding the needs of the "Third World." In the 55 years of its existence, it has proven its loyalty to the Western nations and its inability to maintain peace and order in the world by such events as the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the recent bombing of Yugoslavia.
In addition, it has proven that it is a failure as a peacekeeping organization by its most recent debacle in Sierra Leone, a small West African province.
Last year, rebels belonging to the opposition disregarded the peace settlement that had been signed only a year before and took 500 U.N. peacekeeping soldiers hostage. However, since the region is no longer of any strategic or economic value to the West, the U.N. called for more troops to be sent from "Third World" countries. No call was made to the US to send its troops, which are better trained and better equipped than the Third World soldiers. The result: well, let's just say there's no peace in Sierra Leone's near future.
But now the U.N. has finally realized its ineffectiveness in maintaining peace (or so it seems), and have, for the first time, invited religious delegates from its member countries, hoping that they would be a little more successful. The U.N. has realized that it must look beyond economic, political and military ambitions of the West in order to prevent future wars of apocalyptic proportions.
This realization should have been obvious from the very beginning; political leaderships of different nations would always propagate policies and acts that would be most beneficial for their own countries. However, the question arises if the religious delegates will actually be any different from their political predecessors.
First of all, the historic event has already been surrounded in controversy. The U.N. has been widely condemned for not inviting the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, to the summit. Apparently, the U.N., the self-proclaimed advocate of democracy and freedom, was initially reluctant to invite the Dalai Lama because of China's differences with the exiled Tibetan leadership. The U.N. feared that inviting him would signal recognition of his exiled government in India, which would not sit well with the Chinese leadership. However, courting enough pressure and criticism, the U.N. hastily sent out an invitation at the very last minute. The Dalai Lama, fortunately for the U.N., politely refused. He did not want the summit to suffer because of his presence.
Secondly, if political leaders could not agree on standard policies for peace because of their selfish ambitions for political, economic and military power, the religious leaders would be even more divisive, because the principles and theologies of different religions will counter each other. And religious texts, theologies and principles cannot be compromised, even for the noble cause of peace.
Perhaps some of the delegates are fundamentalist religious zealots who intend to convert all of the other delegates to another religion and to conform to their beliefs. Proselytizing and conversion have been the core of some religions, and it would be foolish to expect that the delegates of such religions would suspend their core beliefs for the duration of the summit. Religious bigotry is a far more dangerous thing than political or economic ambitions.
I believe that to attain peace in the world, spirituality (not religion) must play a huge role. Each individual, no matter what his or her economic and social position, should strive to be peaceful toward other fellow beings; only then can we expect entire nations to get along with one another. The religious delegates at the summit must first dispose of any hostility and hatred toward members of other religions. They must first attempt to understand each other's religious beliefs before diving right into a discussion about peace.
They must go to the summit with an open mind, realizing the fact that "Truth is one, paths are many" (an ancient Hindu phrase). Only then can the delegates come up with an effective solution for long-lasting peace. Let's hope, for the sake of humanity, that they are successful in this noble endeavor.
This column first appeared in the North Carolina State University newspaper, The Technician, on Sept. 1, 2000, and is reprinted here courtesy of U-WIRE.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, September 6, 2000
