A major focus of UPF-NL in September was the international speaking tour of members of Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon’s family, the third such tour in less than a year (the first, in 2005, by Rev. Moon; the second by Mrs. Moon and one of her sons and the third by children and grandchildren, in some cases also by Rev. and Mr. Moon, neither of whom came to Europe because of the UPF Assembly in Korea. This tour was rather different than the first two, each country visited hosting 12 talks in one day, in various major cities. In Europe, nine countries were visited in nine days, September 6-14. The Netherlands was not on the list. UPF-NL supported the tour by delegations going to Germany on the seventh, Brussels (included as ‘France’) on the ninth and London (Britain) on the 14th. ; and two members spent one week in Prague helping the preparations for the Czech Republic visit. In addition, similar events are being regularly in the Netherlands, in Breukelen, between Amsterdam and Utrecht on October 8.

Securing entry for Rev. and Mrs. Moon Rev and Mrs. Moon are still banned from entering the Netherlands. The German government was due to review the "Schengen" ban in August but there is no report that they have changed anything. We are still challenging the Dutch Immigration Department/Service (IND) ban through the Dutch courts, even though it may eventually end up in Luxembourg: the Raad van State, it seems, usually overturning the decisions of the courts. The hearing on September 14, before three judges, lasted two and a half hours and a judgement was promised within six weeks. - Legal action to secure True Parents entry to the Netherlands

On Saturday, Sept. 23, UPF-NL held a meeting with key Ambassadors for Peace Professor M.K. Gautam, Imam Hamza Kailani and Mr. Abdul A.S. Santoe, accompanied by his wife and daughter.

Before the meeting officially began, there was some discussion about the speech that the Pope had given in Germany that had caused such a strong reaction in the Moslem world. The AfPs felt that remarks by the Pope regarding Islam were regarded far more seriously in the Moslem world than anything that a politician like Pres. Bush might say (see below link to article about the Pope meeting Moslem diplomats). Why the Pope included in his speech the quote about the violent character of Islam from a long time ago is unclear.

After some general discussion about language and culture, initiated and basically led by Professor Gautam, Wim Koetsier gave a wide ranging report about UPF activities. He first mentioned future symposia in Spain (Madrid, 6 – 8 October) and Huize Glory (Nov. 9 – 12) on the "Vision and Background of UPF", then the Three Generation Tour, which recently completed a nine day visit to Europe. It was very unusual, he explained, for the religious zeal of a religious leader to be passed on through his children and grandchildren, but this tour illustrated how this is happening in Rev. and Mrs. Moon’s family, despite them having been so busy with their mission that they had hardly had a normal family life.

Mr. Koetsier then talked about the history of war in order to support the statement of Dr. Hyun Jin Moon, that only military means are not able to solve conflicts. Hundreds of years ago, war had been waged on battlefields, man to man, but that began to change with the invention of guns and other modern martial equipment; World War One brought a massive increase in the number of casualties and World War Two involved the deaths of millions of civilians. Modern methods of warfare tried to limit civilian losses with precision bombing, but this technology was prohibitively expensive and not effective enough, if fighting guerillas who based themselves within the civilian population. Military strength could no longer effectively win wars, as the United States was realizing, and Israel had discovered in southern Lebanon. Another way had to be found. Money for warfare could better be directed to one of Rev. Moon’s projects like the Bering Strait "World Peace King Tunnel" with huge ensuing economic benefits for the whole world coming from international cooperation.

There was a real need for people to try and understand each other. This required real listening, without immediate reaction. Rev. Moon’s answer, solving conflicts by loving the enemy and living for the sake of others centered on God’s love, gave new hope that we could realize World Peace.

Mr. Koetsier moved on to a point from the previous meeting: the issue of freedom of opinion and the multicultural society. This topic is connected to the campaign to secure Rev. and Mrs. Moon’s entry to the Netherlands. It was symptomatic of a general problem in the Netherlands, of an increasing "formalistic" approach to governance. He cited the example of a war veteran who had boarded the wrong train and was treated with a total lack of respect by the ticket inspector, who gave him a fine. Inspectors were now given strict instructions on how to act and were forbidden from using their own discretion, as they had done in the past.

The IND’s arguments against allowing Rev Moon’ s entry seemed to not be genuine reasons, but just a way of defending their arbitrary decision. Even the judges had been astonished at the ridiculous suggestion that were he allowed to enter the Netherlands, the German government might mobilize extra guards, possibly even the army, to make sure he did not enter Germany. The argument that he might disturb public order was meaningless: he certainly would not incite his followers to violence, and if there was a worry about demonstrations, then one should also ban Pres. Bush, even the Pope.

A German law professor, Dr. Seiwert, saw Dr. Moon’s case as a violation of Citizen’s Rights and wrote an article how in general the state took more and more the position of determining citizens’ rights. This article would be circulated

In our legal battle against the IND, the immigration office asserted that it was important to follow the German signalizing, based on the principle of trust among the EU nations. However, Germany was a very young democracy and unfortunately disturbed the world order 3 times (WW I, WW II and exporting communism) in the previous century. The Kaiser had not only started World War One, he financed Lenin to make a revolution in Russia. With this in mind a modicum of critical sense to the German policy would be justified.

However, what we saw was that the Dutch government was rather critical of another ally, the US, even though the US was an old and rather stable democracy, had helped to solve the problems of the World Wars and promoted democracy. The IND stated that after 9/11 the security in the world had changed and that was a major reason not to make an exception for Dr. Moon to enter The Netherlands, even though it was admitted that Dr. Moon had nothing to do with terrorism and that the leading nation in the fight against terrorism allowed Dr. Moon to enter freely and even asked the German government that Rev. Moon be allowed to enter Germany. The IND approach was formalistic: rules are rules.

As UPF, we objected in public against such an approach at the occasion of "Prinsjesdag" by giving out a leaflet. This was part of a campaign, invoking the spirit of Willem van Oranje to remind people to remember the principle of freedom of religion that was at the heart of the Netherlands’ tradition. A copy of the leaflet would be send around. (see below * Prinsjesdag: Regering, let op uw (geestelijke) zaak! and *Also see "Welkom in het Land van Willem van Oranje!") At this point, Prof. Gautam suggested that a coalition of lawyers and law professors needed to be formed to fight this injustice. Wim Koetsier mentioned that Mark Brann had recently talked of proposals for a Lawyers Federation for World Peace and felt that such a coalition could also tackle other injustices. Mr. Santoe, however, felt that it was quite acceptable that Rev. Moon’s case should be dealt with as a separate matter. It was decided to make a list of people who could be approached about the issue of civil rights, including the freedom of opinion. Also included will be the matter of putting someone on a black list for disturbing the public order. A government should have proper reasons to be able to do this. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, governments have to keep certain standards concerning civil rights. - http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm). After a light lunch, Prof. Gautam talked of his experiences in Korea at the Universal Peace Federation Assembly, "Peace-building and Human Development: The UN and Beyond," convened in Seoul, Korea from Sept. 10-14. He mentioned a number of speakers at the opening session (they included Dr. Thomas Walsh, Secretary General of UPF, Sir James Mancham, chairman of the Presiding Council of the UPF; the First Lady of the nation of Palau, Mrs. Debbie Remengesau; and Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa, former prime minister of Zimbabwe) and singled out the keynote address given by Rev. Dr. Chung Hwan Kwak, UPF Chairman as being the most important for him. He himself attended workshops on the Media and South Asia.

Concerning the matter of peace-education, Wim Koetsier reported that material developed by the International Educational Foundation in Russia and China had been developed into 12 booklets and PowerPoint lectures. These are being used in schools in Australia and New Zealand and other countries in Australasia. Peace education began with character training, good morals bearing good fruit. We hoped to obtain more of this material for use in the Netherlands. Two textbooks for students, which were used in Russia were handed over to Mr. Santoe and Prof. Gautam, in order to evaluate the possibility of using this material in The Netherlands.

Mr. Santoe commented, concerning character building, how emotion was the driving force in life: one could not live without emotion - emotion was life. So it was imperative to learn how to manage one’s emotions.

We needed a "Culture of Heart", said Wim Koetsier, we lived in a "brain culture". Prof. Gautam referred to Rev. Moon’s speech in the Peace Palace (see UPF Assembly report below), that we needed to "live for others", needed to listen to others, and he said we needed a balanced mix of reason and emotion.

Hans Campman reported on his attendance a Symposium "Religie van de toekomst in Nederland", organized by the Nederlandse Orde van Vrijmetselaren (Freemasons) on September 14 in the Grote Kerk Den Haag. He mentioned in particular how the Moslem speaker had suggested we all needed to aspire to be the Messiah and how a Jewish rabbi had agreed with this, that we should all, like God, be "givers of life". The rabbi had talked about the difficulty of, for example, giving help to the people in Dafur and had cried out "where is the conscience council?". Hans commented that this was one aspect of the Inter-religious Council that Rev. Moon proposed should be created at the United Nations. A Roman Catholic priest had emphasized that God was not just interested in morality, one needed a mystical experience (a longer report is awaiting editing by Mr. Campman).

Wim Koetsier said each religion has to be considered not as an end point, but as a beginning point for working together in common projects like helping to solve conflicts, promoting living for the sake of others, guiding young people to prepare for marriage and to understand the responsibility of being a parent. At different occasions recently the Dutch prime minister had spoken about the need for the state to take over the education of difficult children. However, research had shown that children fared better in almost the worst families than in state care.

In the coming period, we needed to make a list of people for setting up a coalition for civil rights, dealing with the issue citizen’s rights and state control. Also the IEF material would be evaluated to see how it might be used in The Netherlands in a peace education program.

On September 14, Hans Campman attended an inter-religious symposium (Religion of the future in the Netherlands), organized by the De Nederlandse Orde van Vrijmetselaren (Freemasons), in the Grote Kerk, Den Haag. It was hardly reported in the media, so UPF-NL prepared and distributed one. - "Religie van de toekomst in Nederland.

On Tuesday, September 19, Prinsjesdag, State Opening of Parliament, UPF members participated in the church service witnessed, and later circulated with other participants and onlookers, handing with a leaflet in verse, "Regering, let op uw (geestelijke) zaak!" reminding the governement of its priorities - UPF-NL members witnessing in Den Haag on Prinsjesdag.

OnThursday, September 21, UPF-NL participated in the Amsterdam Dag van de Dialoog. Wim Koetsier chaired the meeting in the UPF-NL’s Dialoogcentrum with local guests and members. - Dag van de Dialoog, donderdag, 21 sep. 2006 - doe mee!.

The next day, UPF-NL members attended a lecture at Vredescafe Amstelveen: "De nasleep van de oorlog in Zuid Libanon" (The aftermath of the war in South Lebanon) by Dick Leurdijk, senior research associate at the world famous Clingendael Institute. Again, UPF-NL reported on this very important talk, where Mr. Leurdijk explained how the UN is moving to be more proactive, "peace-enforcing" more robustly than just "peace-keeping" and seeing its "responsibility to protect" taking precedence over "respect for national governments". - Report: De nasleep van de oorlog in Zuid Libanon: Lezing, Dick.

And on Saturday, Sept. 30, UPF-NL members supported a rally to free a child from failed asylum seekers detention center and comprehensively reported it to the media.- UPF-NL supports rally to free child from prison; and proposes a - and Dutch Rally Supports Imprisoned Child

At a FFWPU service on the first Sunday of September, UPF-NL Secretary General (and UM-NL President) drs Wim Koetsier, in talking about the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, said we could see that there was no real winner. The conclusion: this way, with rockets and bombs, couldn’t solve the problem. War couldn’t solve conflicts, it also had become much too expensive, Rev. Moon offered another way: true love, connected with God, that involved the heart of the people. Rev. Moon’s hope was that our UPF Ambassadors for Peace could be parents who would bring the opposing and fighting brothers together; it was not so easy, but it was the only way. Without God, you couldn’t solve the problem.

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