The Education Action Hub recently received a paper forwarded from the International Council of Women (ICW). The paper was written by Young-Ae Ha PhD who is the Education Advisor of ICW and professor at Humanitas College of Kyung Hee University of Korea.
Dr Young-Ae Ha urged us to study the ideologies of Young Seek Chou (1921-2016) of Korea and Daisaku Ikeda (1928-2023) of Japan. Both men founded universities in their respective countries, advocating the importance of “education for human society and peace.”
After World War II and in the height of the Cold War, Dr Choue proposed and co-founded the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP). The IAUP’s inaugural conference was held in Oxford University, United Kingdom in June 1965. Dr Choue worked with leaders of Costa Rica to enact in 1981 the International Day of Peace, and he promulgated the International Year of Peace in 1986. Though Korea was not a member of the United Nations, Dr. Choue petitioned 2,000 leaders around the world to support the bill. Today the UN encourages the world to celebrate September 21 as an International Day of Peace. Dr Ha asserted that Dr Choue emphasised nonviolent method of peace to overcome socio-economic problems in society – “and based on this, various doors such as freedom, equality, and co-prosperity in human society were presented.” The Graduate Institute of Peace Studies and the Institute of International Peace Studies brought scholars together to research peace and allowed for “fostering peace talent.” The Graduate Institute of Peace Studies won the Peace Education Award at UNESCO in 1993. Dr Choue wrote over 50 books, including Democratic Freedom, The Creation of a Civilized World, Reconstruction of the Human Society, and Oughtopia.
Meanwhile, Mr Daisaku Ikeda served as a leader in the Soka Gakkai Buddhist movement in Japan and undertook studies of peace. Dr Ha wrote that President Ikeda “emphasized human dignity and placed importance on 'one-on-one dialogue and human education.'” He met with leaders of China and the Soviet Union because he believed in direct dialogue, citizen diplomacy, to bring about peace. See more about his regular petitions for peace and justice submitted to the UN at his website: https://www.daisakuikeda.org/.
Dr Ha wrote that these two men “put the core values of the ideology of educational peace into practice with the peace of mankind… [and] left a great mark in the history of world peace.” She concluded that understanding the work of these two men clarifies for us today “the importance of education and peace and the role of the United Nations, especially at a time when women and children suffer the most in today's escalating wars and conflicts.”
To read more articles from The Circular (March-April 2024) issue 646, click on the tag below.