The CIHA Team in South Africa recently attended the African Leaders of Peace Summit in Cape Town. This Summit brought together citizens from across Southern Africa including government ministries, civil society organizations, youth and media, as well special guests from across the continent including African heroes of peace and Nobel laureates, and focused on practical solutions to achieving peace in our lifetime. Today we post a write-up of this event by Bangirana Albert Billy and Yenziwe Shabalala from UKZN.
By Bangirana Albert Billy & Yenziwe Shabalala, UKZN
Introduction
The initiative to promote world peace is indeed a noble one. In fact, our world needs peace whether in form of cessation of war or inner peace as religiously intimated. It was from this perspective that the CIHA Blog team at UKZN decided to honour the invitation to attend the African Leaders of Peace Summit. Organized under the theme, ‘Achieving Peace in our Lifetime’, this year’s summit brought dignitaries, civil society, youth, religious leaders and media from across Africa together, working towards a conflict free continent as envisaged by the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and Silencing the Guns by 2020.
About the Summit
Funded and promoted mainly by the Heavenly Culture World Peace Restoration of Light (HWPL) – a South Korean quasi-religious organization, the predominantly South Korean-led Summit took place in Cape Town, South Africa from 13 to 14 August 2018. It was noted that since South Africa is an active contributor towards peace and stability on the continent, it is imperative that the Summit be held there. However, the timing for this Summit, for some reason coincided with this year’s Africa Day celebrations under the theme, “A year of Nelson Mandela – Building a Better Africa and a Better World”. This was also a time that South Africa was tasked by the United Nations to take a leading role in assisting with the African Union’s efforts to resolve conflicts on the continent and accorded a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. With this new role, the agenda for the promotion of peace was even more pressing. The HWPL successfully exploited this opportunity coining the following Summit objectives:
- To celebrate the centenary of Tata Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Mama Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisiulu, show-casing the practical achievement of peace in Southern Africa as an example to the rest of the international community, as outlined in the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
- To collaborate with government and civil society to advance a practical way to replace a culture of violence with a culture of peace.
- To strengthen the existing frameworks of government and civil society organizations to align for the common goal of establishing peace.
- To create a generation of active citizens who participate in the peace building process.
- To consider legal tools, which can be used to advance the legal framework for a conflict-free Africa including the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW).
- To advance peace value education within schools as a platform for moral regeneration in Southern Africa.
- To discuss the role of religious leaders as messengers of peace to their communities
- To incorporate the voice of youth and women as the leaders of tomorrow and important decision makers in both civil society and government.
- To create a platform for media to collaborate to become peace messengers in Africa.
Well-crafted, the above objectives stimulated the desire for a conflict free world – a world of bliss. The idea seemed constructed upon an eschatological narrative of a heaven already here but not yet. There was a covert theological message of hope and faith in the ideology of eternal peace in the present – with an innate belief, that peace to the world we MUST bring and it is through us that this will happen. It was a restrained experience with little room for critical questions regarding the privatization of peace promotion.
After every session, declarations were presented and signatures solicited from all attendees with cameras flashing and recording. I came to realize that all these declarations were pertinent to the promotion of world peace by encouraging many other people to join the World Peace Movement. This was then intended to persuade the UN Security Council to pass resolutions against arms proliferation to North Korea and the nuclear programme, and stopping of military drills in the Korean peninsula. This seemed like a stolen show with South Korean interests all over it. Was Africa and her genuine cause usurped again for interests thousands of miles away? The icing was that many a country have already adapted the ‘World Peace in our lifetime’ agenda through endorsements from their leaders. The idea was to put pressure on the government of South Africa to do the same.
This agenda was spearheaded by three joint organizations – the Heavenly Culture World Peace Restoration of Light (HWPL), International Peace Youth Group (IPYG) and International Women’s Peace Group (IWPG).
The Heavenly Culture World Peace Restoration of Light or HWPL’s specific task is to end war and conflict and to leave a legacy to future generations. HWPL seeks to establish peace and conflict resolution through international law, the World Alliance of religions Peace (WARP) offices for religious harmony, the Hub of the international network for peace, the WARP Summit as an international peace conference, campaigns for spreading a culture of peace including peace education and youth empowerment and News reports on peace through media agencies and social media.
The International Peace Youth Group or IPYG is a global organization founded in South Korea seeking to identify the causes of conflict in the societies and facilitate the implantation of solutions for lasting peace, since its establishment in 2013 it has become one of the fasted growing movements for peace. With more than one million members, 851 affiliate organizations, in 111 countries IPYG and its affiliate organizations are creating this culture through various initiatives, such as the establishment of peace libraries, museums and academies, to help the public engage with the concept of peace.
The International Women’s Peace Group or IWPG is a women’s group transcending the boundaries of nationality, ethnicity, and religion, to become one with IWPG and work for peace. Through the tours, numerous leaders and women, including former and current Presidents, First Ladies, queens, ambassadors, lawmakers, politicians, judges, journalists, religious leaders and heads of ethnic groups have expressed their hopes for peace. The IWPG supports and advocates for enactment of an International Law for Peace through Conferences, Signature Campaign and DPCW Advocacy Campaign. It also has the Women Peace Education initiative that focuses on Peace Workshops, step by step women peace education, Peace Lecture Trainings, Plant Peace that focuses on Peace Culture Campaigns, Cultural Arts, Commemoration Events and Local Peace Activities, and networking of IWPG. Since its inception in September 2013, IWPG has formed a global network that transcends national borders, race, and religious ideologies to realize world peace.
In his opening remarks, the founder and chairperson of the Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Mr Man Hee Lee noted that the focus of this year’s summit was to promote Peace through journalism, and through Peace ambassadors. A number of peace ambassadors from the communities around Cape Town and beyond were acknowledged. These included the Cape Argus editor Aziz Hartley, Peace Journalism Foundation founder Gloria Laker from Uganda, and The Voice reporter Daniel Chida from Botswana for their work in promoting peace through media. Publicity ambassadors motivated journalists to spread the culture of peace. The director of the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), Peter Jung, concluded that the law of peace must be established to prevent wars, address religious conflicts and emphasise the importance of education.
Observations
Despite the hype set by the Summit around the City of Cape Town with peace walks, musicals, workshops in Townships and numerous messages on Television and radio, the underlying agenda seemed to have been skewed towards interests far beyond the continent’s boarders. Much as the summit focused on the necessity for peace and the cessation of all forms of conflict, less agency was given to Africa’s plight in the cause for peace by not centering the reality of Africa’s conflicts and the humanitarian predicament thereof. Longstanding conflicts in Africa such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Cameroon, to reference a few, did not surface at all in a Summit named ‘African Leaders of Peace Summit’. We are not sure whether this was a matter of skewed interest or a lack of contextual sensitivity.