'Grand shift' needed for world's problems: Peace BAR Festival

Academia must pave the way for a grand shift in how the international community perceives global issues plaguing the world, Choue In-won, chancellor of Kyung Hee University System, said Wednesday.

Choue In-won, right, chancellor of Kyung Hee University System, discusses world peace and the future role of academia during a dialogue session moderated by Kwon Gi-bung, left, rector of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University, on Wednesday at the school in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, during this year’s Peace BAR Festival. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Academia must pave the way for a grand shift in how the international community perceives global issues plaguing the world, Choue In-won, chancellor of Kyung Hee University System, said Wednesday.

Choue highlighted the need for fresh solutions to chronic problems such as climate change, hunger and the gap between the rich and poor during a dialogue with the audience at the university’s main campus in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul.

The session was part of the university’s annual Peace BAR Festival, held to raise awareness of the UN-designated International Day of Peace, which falls on Sept. 21 every year.

BAR stands for Kyung Hee University’s three core values of spiritually beautiful, accounting for the “B”; materially affluent, accounting for the “A”; and humanly rewarding, accounting for the “R.” With its emphasis on global citizenship and world peace, the university sees the three values as being crucial for living in the 21st century.

Kyung Hee founder Choue Young-seek, a peace activist and philosopher, proposed the International Day of Peace and the International Year of Peace to the United Nations in 1981.

The proposal was adopted by the UN General Assembly later the same year, officially establishing the International Day of Peace and the International Year of Peace.

Kyung Hee University System, which governs Kyung Hee University and other educational institutes, has hosted the Peace BAR Festival every year since 1982, inviting scholars from around the world to discuss world peace and the path to it.

Themed “Peace or Collapse: In Search of New Horizons for Geopolitics,” this year’s Peace BAR Festival mainly revolves around Kyung Hee founder Choue and his teachings, as 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of his death.

In Wednesday’s dialogue session, Kyung Hee University System Chancellor Choue In-won shared the vision of the university's founder and how it can be applied to the current society.

“I think social atmosphere plays a very important role in how we solve the critical issues facing our world today,” said Choue.

“It’s obvious that we can’t solve, for example, climate change, social conflicts and polarization like we once imagined we could, yet we’re still holding onto our ways of the past,” he said. “We must ask ourselves, who does this stubbornness serve?”

The future will be one that no one has ever experienced, he continued, which is why people’s perceptions must be less conventional. Academia must encourage such out-of-the-box thinking by letting students and scholars step out of their comfort zones and accept new ideas, even if they go against what’s widely accepted by the mainstream.

The chancellor noted academia must play this role because governments can’t.

“It’s our job to figure out how we are going to plan for the future,” he said. “The government can’t decide for us because, oftentimes, they act on national interests or political goals, and so the path they take may not be the right path.”

When asked by the audience how he thinks about global issues disproportionately affecting poor nations, Choue replied that all countries including Korea and all sectors of society including Kyung Hee University must search for a way to contribute to the whole.

“Civilization is a platform, and we need to gather all our wisdom to develop a platform that could serve as a driving force for our future,” he said.

“And it’s not just our members [at Kyung Hee University]. Anyone from a nongovernment organization, a research institute or a company who’s interested in preparing for the future should come together to build this platform.”

When asked by the moderator about the hope that the late Kyung Hee University founder would have had for members of the school today, Choue cited a sentence from the founder’s book, which roughly translates as, “A new world calls for a new political ideology.”

“I think he would have encouraged us to have strength, wisdom, courage and resolve to overcome today’s crises,” said Choue, “as told by the university’s founding spirit.”

Kyung Hee University’s three-day Peace BAR Festival, which wraps up Thursday, includes several other discussions on global citizenship and world peace, as well as a memorial exhibition honoring the school’s founder, who won numerous awards for his life of activism for world peace and holistic education.

The exhibition dedicated to the late Kyung Hee founder runs through Oct. 14 at the Seoul Campus’s Central Library in Dongdaemun District and the Global Campus’s Central Library in Yongin, Gyeonggi.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]