Promoting Global Civilization

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Five World Congresses of Global Civilization 1st Congress : Sydney, Australia - 2001 - Theme: Theory 2nd Congress : New York, USA - 2005 - Theme: Politics 3rd Congress : Jerusalem - 2009 - Theme: Religion 4th Congress : Moscow, Russia - 2013 - Theme: Environment 5th Congress : Africa - 2017 - Theme:Culture The First Word Congress of Global Civilization July 16-18, 2001 / Sydney, Australia The First World Congress of Global Civilization was held from July 16 - 18, 2001 at Hilton Hotel Sydney, Australia. Fifty delegates and thirty invited guests from 37 countries attended the conference. These scientists, philosophers, scholars and government officials discussed and debated the necessity of a global civilization spirit, how to cultivate it and how to manage the relations between a global civilization, local cultures and regional civilizations. It was a conference of seeking an overall theoretical answer to where is humanity going in this global world. The Declaration of Global Civilization with the principles of “All matter in the universe shares one origin; all humankind shares one nature; all beliefs share one divinity; all share one essence” as its framework, was passed overwhelmingly and adopted in the conference as OPGC’s theory guidance. The Declaration of Global Civilization Welcome Speech for The First World Conference of Global Civilization An Open Letter to the representatives of The First World Conference of Global Civilization The Second World Congress of Global Civilization November 14-16, 2005 / New York, USA The 2nd World Congress of Global Civilization was held from November 14–16, 2005 at the Millennium United Nations Plaza Hotel, New York, USA. Over 80 representatives from 38 countries attended the conference. The opening session was chaired by Professor William Beeman from Brown University (USA). Professor Shaohua Zhang, a famous thinker from China, Chairman of 1st and 2nd World Congress of Global Civilization and Chairman of OPGC, gave the opening speech. The conference passed “An Open Letter Proposing to the United Nations General Assembly A Discussion on the Establishment of a World Coalition Government”. This open letter with signatures and comments from delegates, together with the book "My Ideals of a World Coalition Government" by Prof Zhang, were officially submitted to United Nations after the conference. Opening Speech by Shaohua Zhang on November 14, 2005 An Open Letter to UN Proposing the Establishment of a World Coalition Government A vision of World United Government The Third World Congress of Global Civilization October 2009 / Jerusalem The 3rd World Congress of Global Civilization will be held in the first half of May 2009 in Jerusalem. The theme of this conference is “Promoting the unity of spirituality to achieve interreligious harmony in a global world”. The key task is to discuss and pass “The Proposal of Communication in Spirituality in the Global Age”. The Preparatory Committee of the 3rd World Congress is led by Zhai Xinliang, the Acting Chairman of OPGC, and Chairman of the 3rd World Congress. The Secretary-General of the Preparatory Committee is Vincent Law, the Executive Director of OPGC and Secretary-General of the 3rd World Congress. The preparation for the 3rd World Congress started in June 2005. The Proposal of Communication in Spirituality will be drafted and finalized by December 2006. We will post the proposal online after it is finalized. Comments and suggestions are welcome in this topic. We also sincerely welcome people from religious institutions, scholars and specialists in this field to attend The 3rd World Congress of Global Civilization in Jerusalem in 2009. The guiding principles of the 3rd World Congress of Global Civilization are from one section of The Declaration of Global Civilization that is the 3rd section of Part Two (Discussion), which sub-title is “Oneness of all faiths” emphasizing the unity of all religious beliefs in the world. If you would like more information about the 3rd world congress, please see the Dr Zhang’s speech in the 2nd world congress: “It is far from sufficient to look for theoretical or political answers alone to know where humanity is going. As we dig deep into the ground of theory and politics, we will discover a strong common “root” underneath. This root is religion. Individuals may have different theories and beliefs. The same can happen in politics where the president can be changed, a regime replaced, or policy and law at any time. However, these changes are merely superficial. The belief system of the people that is the “root”, their religion, remains the same. Religion could be defined as the organized system of faith in a spirit that creates, transcends, and orchestrates humankind. Different religions are simply giving different names and explanations to the same transcendent power. In an attempt to address this issue, the 5th board and executive committee meeting of OPGC has decided that the 3rd World Congress of Global Civilization will be held in Jerusalem in 2009 with the theme of oneness of all faiths and with an aim to achieve interreligious harmony. The key task of this conference is to discuss, debate, and pass “The Proposal of Communication in Spirituality in the Global Age.” Preparation for this conference began in June 2005 by Mr. Zhai Xinliang, the Chairman of the 3rd World Congress. Indeed, the topic of the 3rd Word Congress is extremely sensitive and complex while also being crucial for the advancement of humanity. I would like to share with you a true story I just heard a couple of days ago. There is a gentleman in New York who came to the Executive Committee meeting yesterday. He has an amazing plan to purchase 60 hectares of land in the State of New York where he would build churches, mosques, and temples of every religion and then invite religious leaders to manage each section, turning it into a human Garden of Eden, a land of peace and harmony for all religions. His ideas and plans are completely in tune with the theme of our 3rd World Congress of Global Civilization. Religious Reconciliation and Spiritual Solidarity in the Age of Globalization Invitation of The Third World Congress of Global Civilization The Fourth World Congress of Global Civilization 2013 / Moscow, Russia The 4th World Congress of Global Civilization is scheduled for 2013 in Moscow, Russia. The theme is environment and the guiding principle is “ oneness of all matters”. The task of the conference is to discuss, debate and pass “50 years’ of planning for global management of sustainable ecosystems”, to be drafted and written by renowned scientists around the world. If you would like more background information about the 4th World Congress, please see some paragraphs from Dr. Zhang’s 2nd world congress speech in New York as follows: “The answer to where humanity is going seems to be an “internal” issue among humans. However, the destiny of humanity also depends on how humans interact with their external environments. It is interesting to realize the fact that the same ocean encircles all continents, the same atmosphere envelops the whole planet, the same mountain range spreads over multiple states, and the same river passes through numerous borders. People in this global world are no longer isolated by territory or borders. Any environmental issue will not be resolved by one single country, or a few states. And it should not be, indeed, it will not be resolved by warfare or any other force, as has always been the case in the past. It could be further exemplified by cases of population and ecosystem management. For generations, the majority of the African population has been living in an environment of extreme climates and limited resources, which has a significant impact upon their quality of life and level of education, physically and psychologically. Even the reproduction rate has been strongly affected. With these results, should we consider the possibility of a well-planned massive immigration of a proportion of the African population who are under extreme conditions, to a vast new land such as Northern Europe, Australia, Canada, or the spacious Siberia in southeastern Russia, where it is difficult to find a trace of human existence in the boundless world with wealthy resources? By doing so, will we be able to improve the ecosystems of those most impoverished states and maintain a healthy level of population? Will the dramatic environmental change be beneficial for these African migrates physically and mentally? Many important projects, such as our management and preservation of marine, groundwater, or fossil fuel resources; our battle against deforestation and land degradation; our protection of biodiversity; and our space projects, such as the Moon, Mars or Jupiter projects, are about human well-being, and should have been implemented by joint forces of all specialists from all nations rather than being secretly conducted by one country or a few states. And in this domain of human pursuit, we should not engage in the competition of resources, blockading of information, or the protection of technical knowledge as some countries are doing today. That is to say, all challenges that humans are confronting today, including global warming, water and air pollution, population growth, and space exploration, must be answered from the perspective of all human beings and the long-term future of humanity, by the joint force of all humans on this planet, via two specialized world entities that I have been proposing: One is a global research institution that conducts comprehensive research and provides necessary knowledge; the other is a global judiciary entity that has true authority and enforcement support, and will be managed by rationality and cooperation of all the countries of the world. Both entities should be constituted by policy-makers, philosophers, religious leaders and scientists from all over the world. All we have discussed here could be conveyed by one idea—all beings, including the animals, the humans, the earth, the atmosphere and the galaxy, are essentially “energy” in various forms. Thus all beings constitute the oneness of a unified universe. This has given us the theme for the 4th World Congress of Global Civilization to be held in Moscow in 2013: Oneness of all matters. It has been decided the mission of the 4th World Congress is to discuss, debate, and pass “The 50 years’ planning for global management of a sustainable ecosystem” to be drafted and written by renowned scientists around the world. The Fifth World Congress of Global Civilization 2017 / African The 5th World Congress of Global Civilization is to be held in 2017 in Africa. It will be a conference that integrates themes of the 2nd Congress (oneness of all humans), the 3rd Congress (oneness of all faiths) and the 4th Congress (oneness of all matters) to a new theme of “all is one in the universe.” It is also a pledge to promote the spirit of Global Civilization (the theme of the 1st Congress) on a global scale. It will take 10 days and have two missions to be accomplished. One is to advocate and promote the civilized concept of “energy universe” and the philosophy that all matters, humans, and faiths share one essence. To be specific, this concept has two implications: on one hand, it is the oneness of the universal system of the material world (matter), the human world, and the spiritual world; on the other hand, it is the unified human existence of the body (matter), the mind (humans), and the spiritual system. Our second mission is to compile a textbook based on The Declaration of Global Civilization, to organize a group of educators and public speakers comprising influential politicians, religious scholars, and scientists from all over the world, to raise public awareness and understanding about the spirit of global civilization through activities targeted universities of every state and major media of the world. The site of the 5th conference will be either South Africa, or Ethiopia where the earliest fossils of Homo sapiens were discovered through archaeology. South Africa is a example of a country originally inhabited by generations of black people, once governed and dominated by white, which is now finally a harmonious society and peaceful state shared by blacks and whites. We chose South Africa as one of our options in an attempt to proclaim to the world that our human fellows do have the ability to find a path towards unity and peace after experiencing clashes of civilizations, as well as to proclaim that another, better world is possible. We also have good reasons to favor Ethiopia —our ancestors spread out to the world from this very place with the seeds of civilization. After a lengthy period of difficult expansion, the seeds of humanity have been dispersed to all corners of the world where they have deeply rooted and flourished. Today in the 21st century, these civilizations are all searching for the origin of a global civilization, the root of humanity. The essence of this origin and its root are the four principles of Global Civilization. In other words, the global civilization theory that we established in the 1st World Congress is conceptualized by the four principles. Among them, three of the principles have been discussed by the following three world congresses. In 2017, all participants of the 5th World Congress representing various civilizations will bring back a better seed for humanity—the spirit of the Global Civilization. We will return to humanity’s birthplace, search for our roots, pay tribute to our ancestors, and take the oath to be unified under one humanity, to rebuild a better planet here on earth. The Textbook of Global Civilization with the four principles as its theoretical framework will be published in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. There will be two versions of this textbook: one a concise version for the general public, the other an advanced version for academic purposes. We have repeated that from the birth of hominids about 5 million years ago, humans have experienced two critical learning phases. The first is the humanization phase at the beginning of human history when humans learned how to be human; the second phase is today, when humans are learning how to be unified as one humanity. This Textbook of Global Civilization is especially being prepared for the second phase of human learning. It is a textbook for humankind.