The 8th World Peace Forum
Human Fraternity and the Middle Path as the Pillars for a Peaceful, Just, and Prosperous World
Surakarta, 16-18 November 2022
THE SURAKARTA MESSAGE
We are living today in a situation where humanity is in constant crises. Conflicts and wars remain. And event escalate, in different part of the world. Latent violece compounded with new emerging situation has led to an aggravated political confrontation among super powers with each of their allies. Conflict and war have caused destruction of ecological structure, suffering among people, especially those who become displaced from their homelands and deprived from their basic necessities. Conflict and wars are threatening human lives and world civilization.
Modern civilization has been determined by global political and economic contestation that undermines the noble values of humanity. This situation leads to disintegration, global disorder, uncertainty, injustice, discrimination, and many different forms of violence. This situation definitely brings about suffering of the people and deterioration of the quality of lives, such as poverty, hunger, and decease. Millions of people around the world are living in a critical condition due to the lack of security and provision.
We are living in a situation where suffering is deemed to prevail due to climate change. The escalating rate of global warming, the widening of ozone hole in the atmosphere, and unpredictable temperature and flood will cause destruction of ecology, which some day in the future all lead to the living creature on earth to cease, Over consumption of energy has become the primary cause of the climate change. Living on earth has been threatened by the uncontrollable escalation of global warming.
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The world situation has been even worsened due to Covid-19 Pandemic that hits the entire world since the end of 2019. This pandemic brought miseries to human life. No single country was exempted from the impact of the pandemic, deteriorating almost the whole aspects of human life. World's economy has been deteriorated and political hegemony stagnated.
In the light of these crises, human fraternity is unquestionably needed. To strengthen the global human fraternity, it is very essential to promote the humanity spirit by developing the culture of dialogue and cooperation, and rediscovering the values of peace, justice, tolerance and co-existence. Essentially, human fraternity is theologically and ethically ingrained in the teaching of world religions that emphasizes that the universe is created by God and that all human being is created equal on account of His/Her mercy.
Human fraternity will be generating a powerful force for human conscience in establishing a peaceful, just, and prosperous world.
We are living in a situation where violent extremism and intolerance are still around us. This mode of thinking and behavior may result from misunderstanding or misuse of religions, or unempathetic attitude of political and economic interest of the modern world. The fragmentation of social lives has been stimulated by extremist and intolerant behavior which bring us to the breakdown of social cohesion and integration.