The Words of the Davies Family |
UPF Global Peace Festival, U.K, Friday, September (Netherlands report)
Christopher Davies
September 10, 2007
Report below sent to media/public/contacts on Monday, September 10.
Some 40 members attended from The Netherlands: a bus with 31 members and AfP Imam Hamza Kailani returned straight after the festival and three families went by car and attended HDH with Hyun Jin Nim; and already in Germany were Peter van Kampen, Fred Tijsterman and Irene Wong Fong Sang, also Margaret Stoudinger.
It seemed that during the festival our Dutch members would be limited to being a supportive audience, but when Hyun Jin Nim appealed for musicians to support him singing Johnny Be Good, the cry went up for Hans Campman - and the opening guitar riffs were provided by Carlos Figueroa.
Attached: report from Germany by Hildegard Piepenburg written for members, received when report below was almost completed.
Global Peace Festival in Offenbach, near Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, September 7
Some 40 key supporters of the Dutch chapter of the Universal Peace Federation attended the Global Peace Festival in Offenbach City Hall, near Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, September 7. They joined an estimated gathering of some 1,000 activists from Austria, the Czech Republic and Norway as well as the host nation. The festival was part of a series being held in Europe within the space of one week, starting in France on Thursday, then Germany, Albania, the United Kingdom and Spain. They are in main a celebration of the efforts being made to support the accomplishment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The largest festival was expected to be the London one on Sunday, being held in a number of halls and rooms in Imperial College, with three conferences, many stalls and a finale including music and speeches.
Peace Walk The German Festival was preceded by an eight day peace walk made by two groups, one from the north, Herdorf, the other from the south, near Heidelberg, ending in Bad Camberg, where UPF-Germany has a center, on Thursday. The actual walking was for seven days, the groups sleeping mainly in youth hostels, covering about 20 km a day, meeting mayors and the media and visiting the religious centers of a number of faiths. The walk was a resounding success, meeting the goal of having 80 people participate (representing the eight Millenium Development Goals). The Cologne Buddhism Centre was centrally involved, Ashin Sopaka, a monk from Burma and experienced peace marcher, said he particularly appreciated the chance to meet and talk with many, especially his fellow walkers, on the way. The two groups covered 330 km. between them, on the "E1", a European far distance walking trail that goes from Galway in Ireland to Genoa in Italy.
German Global Peace Festival "Clean" The German Global Peace Festival was billed as "Clean", with no alcohol, no smoking and no drugs, and there was a clear desire to appeal to young adults, the eight bands (again the number eight) tending to be represent the teens and early twenties age group.
Two young MCs, Stefan Ikehata and Thea Künzig, introduced the first band, Shinrok, originally assembled by the keyboard playing mother of one of the group of seven, playing all original, self-penned material, aspiration to higher values winning over teenage angst, someone commented, the aspiration of a chrysalis to become a butterfly.
A PowerPoint presentation explaining the background of each of the MDGs was described by UPF lecturer, Rainer Fuchs, who was followed by Band 2, Jamacadoo, a didgeridoo and washboard type percussion duo, emanating a "world music" atmosphere.
The stage design also seemed aimed at the MDGs theme, the black and dark blue backdrop reminiscent of a black African night, fronted with yellow-green lit grasses heralding a new life and new day. Band 3 was Strokes Percussion, an extraordinary five man percussion group from Hungary, their instruments being garbage and recycled material: tins, buckets, even a rubbish trolley that one member later said had been removed by a stage hand who didn’t realize it was an instrument. Rhythmically brilliant, with dramatic interplay between the performers and much humor. And only one was a professional musician!
Some backstage scheduling problem enabled the MCs to depart from the script, and be all the better for that, and a superlative xylophone performance by Jamacadoo percussionist Thomas Nemeth.
UPF-Germany Secretary General Dieter Schmidt took over as MC, introducing a PowerPoint presentation on UPF’s Principles of Peace, again elaborated on by Rainer Fuchs, with which clearly showed how the activities of UPF and associate organizations contributed to specific goals. The music group Wild Kimchi (young Koreans living in Germany) prefaced a trio of speakers:
Speakers Dr. Amir Mohammed Herzog, Dr. Edda Hanisch, Dr. Thomas Walsh, Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon Dr. Amir Mohammed Herzog, a prominent native German Moslem living in Berlin, who powerfully apologized for some of the activities of those claiming to be Moslems, asserting that it was not truly representative of his religion, Dr. Edda Hanisch, a former GDR (East Germany) dissident and board member of the Jacob Kaiser Foundation, and UPF Secretary General Dr. Thomas Walsh; and then the hall was electrified by Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, co-chairman of the Presiding Council of the Universal Peace Federation, who insisted how a better world would never be created just by money (many measure the accomplishment of the MDGs just in terms of how much money the governments of "developed" countries’ contribute), though he himself has a doctorate in business studies background and has been active in developing businesses that can contribute to economic development and support for NGOs, but needed us all to feel that we were all members of one human family.
Dream the big, ‘hairy’, audacious, biggest dream of building "one family under God" He challenged the audience to wash their hearts, "some say my father is a ‘brain washer’, but he is not interested in your brain, but your heart", and to live for the sake of others - and dream the big, ‘hairy’, audacious, biggest dream of building "one family under God"
As he passionately appealed to everyone to commit themselves to this vision, Dr. Moon came down into the audience to encourage individuals and couples to proclaim "One Family under God, Aju!", Aju being a Korean world that affirms ownership of the statement, "I will do it".
Prior to visiting Europe, Dr. Moon had attended a Global Peace Festival in Jerusalem, as part of UPF’s Middle East Peace Initiative (MEPI) and had been accompanied by his close friend Martin Luther King III; and, from his speech in Germany, one might imagine that Dr. Moon had been influenced by "Black American preachers", but one could sense the distinctly personal and intense spirit of his father, the Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon even more. So energized was he that he sang an Elvis Presley gospel song unaccompanied and then, having encouraged senior UPF officers and Ambassadors of Peace on stage as backing singers, burst into a "rousing to the max" rendition of Johnny Be Good, this time also with instrumentalists, including UPF-NL’s senior lecturer, keyboardist Hans Campman, with guitar riffs from Huize Glory conference center staff member Carlos Figueroa.
Report on Peace Walk, awards of medals and certificates, more music After calm had been restored, Christian Hausmann reported on the Peace Walk and medals and certificates were presented to representatives of the walkers and UPF Ambassador for Peace certificates to each on the bands. The rest of the program consisted of music, some of the previous bands performing again, plus Talking Horns, a trio of brass players from the Vienna Philharmonic who had traveled from Austria to show classical musicians can also swing, plus bands Exit; Timeless and Red Cabbage, performing a mix of rock, grunge and metal.
UPF "first generation" had received much persecution Most of the Dutch attendees returned home by bus the same evening, completing a 21 hour "commitment to peace", but some stayed on for a meeting with Dr. Moon the next day. He also spoke to the children of UPF activists, UPF consciously seeing itself as a movement to unite generations, and told them that though he was part of the "second generation" of those who supported UPF founders Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, he felt somewhat closer to the "first generation", who had received much persecution for their commitment, not least in Germany. With the German government having withdrawn its ban on Rev. & Mrs. Moon entering Germany, and thus many other European countries that were Shengen signatories, he was certain that that period was at an end.
UPF meetings in the Netherlands; Utrecht, Monday, September 17 UPF meetings in the Netherlands relating to the Millennium Development Goals have been devoted to Afghanistan, Vietnam, "Nonviolent Communication" (as developed by Marshall Rosenberg and taught in Africa as well as in the Netherlands and other western countries), "Football for Peace", a project of UPF affiliate WANGO (World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations), and the legacy of Dag Hammarskjold, with a talk on "The UN, Millennium Goals and Dag Hammarskjold, by Dr. Monica Bouman", most of them in UPF-NL’s Dialoogcentrum in Amsterdam.
A Universal Peace Festival, including visiting Japanese Ambassadors for Peace, will be held in Utrecht on Monday, September 17.