Moon was ‘unifier on the world stage’

Rev. Moon envisioned a roadway linking multiple countries via asphalt, bridges, tunnels — framing the project as a modern-day Silk Road that would require the cooperation of many nations and thus generate cross-border understanding in difficult times.

“There will be no roadblocks. The entire world will be interconnected,” he reasoned.

The theme of peace and peacemaking remained a central theme of his work and thought to the end of his life.

Family as the foundation

In 2011, the reverend linked his themes of peace and family explicitly in a conference in Abuja, Nigeria, as part of the Universal Peace Federation “Founder’s Peace Tour,” which attracted some 3,000 people to a country facing economic woes and religious tensions between its Muslim and Christian populations.

“The tradition of peace that God wants to see in Africa must be firmly established in the family,” Rev. Moon told the gathering. “Every family must establish a pure tradition. Then, even if the family’s fortunes go up and down, even as far as the sun falling below the horizon, eventually the light will return.”

In July, just weeks before he fell ill, Rev. Moon established a leadership organization for women meant to reintroduce a feminine perspective in peacemaking at the United Nations. It would signal “dramatic change,” Thomas G. Walsh, president of the Universal Peace Federation, told a crowd of 12,000 who gathered in Korea to celebrate the idea.

“The leaders who disregard or can’t look straight to the new global reality will be swept away by the changes surging like a tsunami,” Rev. Moon told his enthusiastic audience. “I believe that it is time now to go forward, daring to receive new opportunities and values.”

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