Activists in 120 countries are working this summer to bring attention to diplomatic and policy solutions for some of the world’s most turbulent regions, including advocating for an international “peace highway” connecting six continents.
The “Peace Road 2015” effort, led by the Unification Church’s Family Federation for World Peace, kicked off in Las Vegas on May 30 and has spread to Asia, Africa and South America as well as across North America.
One of the focal points has been to grow support for an international peace highway, an idea first raised back in 1981 at an interdisciplinary conference of Korean, Japanese and American scientists in Seoul and advocated for decades by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church founder.
Moon, who died in 2012, expanded on the idea later in his life, even proposing a bridge and tunnel across the Bering Strait that would connect Russia to the United States.
He argued that tensions between global adversaries could be lessened if their peoples could more easily in engage in culture, trade, and travel together through a common highway, thus easing distrust.
This summer’s tour includes peace activists riding on bikes in various communities as well as symposiums that have included such locations as the United Nations in New York and the U.S. Congress in Washington.
At the event in Washington, leaders discussed the benefits of the peace highway as well as the eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula.
“Bering Strait Peace King Bridge and Tunnel project initiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon to connect the United States and Russia is a truly amazing vision,” former U.S. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., told the gathering of about 100 dignitaries.
Ki-Hoon Kim, North American director of the Family Federation for World Peace, told the dignitaries that Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, have long believed the reunification of the Korean peninsula is essential to growing peace worldwide.
“Pursuing the peaceful unification of the Korean peninsula, we should bring together their philosophy into practice around the world which is suffering from conflict and overcome the differences of races, regions and nationalities.” Mr. Kim said.
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