“Upholding Harmony But Pushing Not for Uniformity” and World Peace

Speech by Dr. Tong Yun Kai, President of the Confucian Academy

At the World Summit on Leadership and Governance

“Establishing a New Model of Global Governance”

 December 11-14, 2004, Washington, DC, USA

Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen,

              The Federation has long been striving for the promotion of world peace and has achieved encouraging results.  I’m much delighted to on, behalf of the Confucian Academy, have this opportunity to share our views with you all on such significant occasion.

              Peace on earth is a shared common wish of the world.  All people of conscience should make an effort to contribute to its accomplishment, and it should be a duty of all religious people.

              Nowadays, conflicts between religions and races are becoming more serious; confrontation between Palestinian and Israeli is worsening; there is still war in Iraq and Afghanistan is still in a turbulence situation.  All this has already caused anxiety among the general public and the religious circles.  If world peace is to be realized, we must transcend the interests of religions and take the standpoint of benevolent love and righteousness; we must also transcend the parochial viewpoint of racial interests and take the standpoint of interests of all human kind.

              To solve the conflicts among countries, races or religions, what’s most important is a doctrine that can really represent mankind’s interest and transcend all boundaries among countries, regions, races or religions and be acceptable to the majority of the world populace, so that it can solve hatred and conflict with benevolence and harmony, promote dialogues and enhance all mankind to live in peace and work for advancement together.

              The Confucian philosophy of “upholding harmony but pushing not for uniformity” is the essence of the humanistic philosophy of Chinese tradition, and it is also the panacea for solving the various conflicts in the world and maintaining harmony and peace among mankind.

              Confucianism has long been advocating peace and it has never provoked any wars against other religions; there has also never been any persecution of heretics.  As for how to realize religious unity and world peace, lots of the important teachings of our Exemplary Teacher, Saint Confucius, still bear great significance of guidance to us nowadays.  Let me put forward a new interpretation of Confucius’ teaching of “uphold harmony but pushing not for uniformity” in the context of practical issues for your reference and discussion.

              Harmony, cooperation and peace are the goal of our various races, religions and religious groups.  Yet, how to attain this common goal?  One way is to attain harmony through “pushing not for uniformity”.  The world we live in is one that is full of conflicts and composed of things greatly different from each other.  It is both impossible and unnecessary to achieve “uniformity”.  It will easily lead to conflict and war if we set an artificial “uniformity” standard for other races and religions to abide by.  In the realms of religion, race and culture, a state of harmony can be achieved when different factors, even contradictory or confrontational ones, can well integrate with and depend on each other.  It’s just like blending different flavours to make a delicious dish and combining different musical notes and tones to make a beautiful melody.  The integration of various racial cultures will lead to prosperity of the cultural world.  Only when various religions get along well with each other can a great vision of the religious world be achieved.  In this way, the various religions can enlighten, complement, progress and upgrade with each other.  Another way to attain harmony is through “refusing to associate with others in their evil deeds.” “A Gentleman does get along with others in harmony, but refusing to associate with others in their evil deeds (Zhong Yong 中庸)” “Refusing to associate with others in their evil deeds” means he will not unprincipledly accommodate others or chime with their views nor will he follow others blindly but abide by the principle of righteousness; he will be brave enough to fight all evils and never yields to evil power.  Only in this way can all healthy factors integrate with a reasonable structure and attain a state of perfect harmony.  The kind of harmony will be a temporary, defective and harmful one if it is attained by unprincipledly accommodating others, chiming with others’ views and surrendering to others.

              All different races, religions and religious groups live in the same world, so conflicts resulting from differences are unavoidable; yet, if we can respect each other, seeking after common points and tolerating differences, then we can get along well in harmony.  As a disciple of a certain religion, it is right for one to abide strictly by one’s faith.  Nevertheless, “one short-coming of man is his eagerness to have others behave in his way.”  Some people insist on their own doctrine as the only truth on earth and view others’ as fabrication, trying to impose on others their own faith and resorting to power when others are not willing to accept.  That’s why more than 14,000 religious wars, large-scale or small-scale ones, have broken out, causing miseries and disasters to mankind.  I deem it a violation of the Confucian doctrine of benevolent love.  We advocate mutual respect among various religions and religious groups and seeking for the common point.  I deem that the common point shared is to establish a healthy spiritual life through faith and defend a moral code with benevolent love and righteousness as its core.  When we find this shared point, we have the foundation for understanding and cooperation among various religions and religious groups.  At the same time, we have to be aware that due to the differences in history, tradition, custom, language and culture, different religions show different racial or regional characteristics and it is exactly such difference that makes the world so rich and colourful and necessitates the interchange of ideas.  Therefore, we advocate seeking for common points and tolerating differences among different parties.

              Nowadays, economic globalization is underway.  Some certain developed countries, with their advantage in economy, technology, skill and military force, establish their cultural supremacy and impose on developing countries their culture, values and lifestyle; it brings strong disintegrating effect to the traditional culture of the developing countries, leaving the people not knowing what to turn to after losing their own traditional values.  This is the main reason why chaos continues in these areas.  Therefore, while there is globalization, we must avoid unitification of cultures around the world.  There should be dialogues and interchange of ideas on equal terms among various racial cultures and religions, so as to work for the progress and development for all the parties.  There should be no rejection or attack on unequal terms.  In the field of world cultures, cultures of all races and religions should be allowed to develop freely.

              Every religion advocates love.  The love advocated by Confucianism is the love of the benevolent, that is, the sacrificial love of people of the virtue of “benevolence.”  They love others not for the benefits the “others” can offer them, nor because the “others” are of their family, their race or their religion; they love simply out of their kind heart; it is out of their conscience that they love all lives in the world and all stuff of nature.  If people of every race can treat people of other races with benevolence and every religion can treat people of other religions with benevolence and they all work for the mutual benefits of all parties, then world peace will come!  But if a religion adopts an attitude of suppression in treating another religion, the other religion will certainly refuse to obey and revenge will continue forever.  In fact, a religion must treat other religions morally and abide by Confucius’ teaching “when distant subjects are unsubmissive, one cultivates one’s moral quality in order to attract them.”  Only with virtue can we completely win others’ heartfelt admiration and acceptance.

              In our global village, the interest of all races is tightly linked to the overall interest of mankind.  Nowadays, all political, economic and ecological kinds of development are global.  Human beings co-exist in mutual love and get hurt in mutual hatred.  Both developed and developing countries have to depend on each other.  For the same reason, the common interest between neighbouring countries and races is more important than the discrepancies and conflicts among them.  It benefits both parties when there is harmony but harms both when there is a fight.  Certainly, one who really thinks for the interest of his country advocates good neighbour relationship.  Let’s take a look at the recent situation of Palestinian and Israeli.  There will be no happy or peaceful days for them if religious or racial reconciliation cannot be achieved.  It’s better to make a friend than to make an enemy.  Historical conflicts can only be resolved through negotiation, compromise and mutual understanding, not resorting to force.  A great historian scholar, Zhang Zai（張載）, once said, “Enmity can only be resolved with reconciliation.”  There will be no other way out of enmity.

              Confucius is a saint of Chinese, and he is also ranked first in the list of the ten great thinkers.  He originates from China but also belongs to the whole mankind.  The Confucian Academy is now applying to the government of the HKSAR to make Confucius’ Birthday (The Twenty-seventh Day of the Eighth Month of the Chinese Calendar) the Teacher’s Day and a public holiday.  We sincerely wish for great spiritual support from you all.  Please give us a clap to show your consent.

              Wishing you all good health and luck!

              Thank you.