Dear honorable participants of this World Summit:
It seems that human civilization has arrived at a turning point. This turning point is a summit that we cannot move further up, but only come back or go down. We should make a stop to ponder what to do. If the top is spacious and nice, it might be good for us to stay and thrive.
Due to scientific progress, human beings can now enjoy all kinds of pleasure and extreme prosperity through technology. Alone at home or anywhere, however remote, a person can learn of almost everything happening in the world or take part in almost every activity going on elsewhere. However, people also begin to feel that no one, anywhere on earth, however well-protected and sound, can really be safe and secure. The same globalizing technology that has brought about the New Economy has also made possible the ‘new kind of war’.
It has long been realized that modern scientific and technological progress does not lead to real peace and happiness. Albert Einstein wrote 71 years ago, in his message to The 1932 Disarmament Conference:
As it is, the hardly bought achievements of the machine age in the hands of our generation are as dangerous as a razor in the hands of a three-year-old child. The possession of wonderful means of production has not brought freedom — only care and hunger.
“Worst of all is the technical development which produces the means for the destruction of human life, and the dearly created products of labor…
In our ‘so-called’ civilization, humankind has created, along with law and order, wars and conflicts. Peace has been broken easily and frequently. The advances of civilization have also generated tools of destruction that are higher developed and more effective than those made for constructive purposes. Moreover, economically, more wealth has been exploited for war and defense than that used for the promotion of human welfare, far more beyond comparison.
In spite of all that we have developed in the name of civilization, human beings still cannot live peacefully amongst themselves. With more advances in civilization, economic and social development thrives at the expense of the environment. Now, humans cannot live peacefully with nature. Threatened by the degeneration of the ecosystems, people have gathered for two Earth Summits, both of which have produced doubtful results.
Moreover, in spite of all the development and advances, a human being, as an individual, cannot live peacefully and happily with himself or herself. That is, he or she does not find peace and happiness inside. In the midst of all kinds of pleasures, equipped with comforts and conveniences, civilized people are not really peaceful and happy.
In reality, the lack of this internal peace and happiness has forced people to search for insatiable external pleasures and thus come into conflict with one another and exploit nature. It is this wrong way of life that has led to ‘unsustainable development’, to advancement at the expense of peace and happiness, both inside and outside, both social and environmental. Since development is the core of current civilization, unsustainable development leads to unsustainable civilization.
However, as the above-mentioned lack of internal peace and happiness is the result of human misdirected development, we still have hope that a redirection of education can solve the problem. But, when an individual finds no place or time to feel secure, he loses the last vestige of internal peace. It is as if the loss of external peace recoiled to root out internal peace. The loss of peace can be at the point of no return. This is the failure and utter ruin of civilization. Here, one can imagine how very important it is to find a solution. That is why we are now at the summit of all summits.