President of Vision Africa international Bishop Sunday Onuoha, has recommended forgiveness and reconciliation, amid shunning of discrimination, as recipe for world peace.
Speaking at the Global Peace Convention (GPC-2023) organised by the Global Peace Foundation in Manila, the Philippines, on the theme “One Family under God: Vision for National Transformation and a Civilization of Peace,” he said that for the world to be a better place, every sincere attempt at creating an impactful transformational change must work at diminishing social and economic classes or divides.
While acknowledgeling the uniqueness of the world’s sociocultural formations and formulate peace-building, he said that leaders must strategically, address the peculiarities and intentionally engineer human civilization towards a civilization of peace.
Bishop Onuoha said that such efforts must meet the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, improve collaborative planning and collective action among actors on multiple levels, as well as adopt new collaborative approaches that recognize global resource constraints.
He noted that civilisational confrontations have expanded the spectrum of war into advanced military technologies, nuclear and biological weapons, rather than peaceful co-existence.
Bishop, who in the past won peace award, observed that world governments claim to allow freedom of conscience, but withhold freedom of religion, where peace is enforced by suppression but no promise of security, where they tokenise gendered participation but claim support for women’s leadership and economic empowerment.
He said that in the context of promoting peace and unity, national transformation starts with everybody.
He raised some posers: “What emphasis have we, as individuals placed on the value of human relationship?; What is the nature of our civic engagement culture?; What indigenous cultural conflict resolution principles have we aligned ourselves with?; Are we taking an active role in shaping our own communities?; What is the shared purpose of your own community”.
Bishop Onuoha asked communities to promote a sense of belonging and inclusivity, continue to dialogue openly, develop, and continue to modify mechanisms to de-escalate tensions, encourage forgiveness and reconciliation, build trust and foster a sense of shared destiny.