May10, 2021
In a time of global racial and economic turmoil, approving the initiative of Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, Prime Minister of Bahrain, which supported by many member states, the 73rd UN General Assembly declared 5 April the International Day of Conscience on July 25th, 2019. The resolution with the theme "Promoting the Culture of Peace with Love and Conscience" reminds member states that the three pillars of Human Rights, Peace , Security and Development, must be interrelated and complementary. The Federation of World Peace and Love (FOWPAL), UN NGO, played an important behind-the-scenes role in facilitating drafting the resolution and global promotion of this United Nations Day.
What is conscience?
Conscience is a ruler for kind and evil, right and wrong, good and bad in everyone's heart.
More than two thousand years ago, philosophers from the East and the West had same thoughts on conscience proven time and again.
The Western philosopher, Plato, mentions "justice" and " Good is the highest Form" in "Utopia". Aristotle further elaborates his teacher Plato’s views, and emphasizes in his book "Ethics" that everyone must personally practice the virtues in order to achieve the ultimate goal of " the highest human good": happiness. He argues that virtue is achieved by maintaining the mean, which is the balance between two excesses, "too much" and "too little." Regarding the concept of "justice", he argues that people needs to be trained to judge whether a particular event is "just" or not. Aristotle believes that practicing “doctrine of the mean” can make a person live healthier and happier.
More than 3,000 years ago, the Chinese book "Shangshu · Da Yumo" written in the Mid Western Zhou Dynasty said: " Man's heart is incomprehensible. Man’s spiritual faith and longing for the truth is weak. Be discriminating, be determined in the pursuit of what is right. Words and deeds conform to the Mean. " 2,500 years ago, living in the same era as Plato, Confucius, the Eastern philosopher and educator, also had the doctrine of the mean at its core. “Zhong” in Chinese means impartiality, free from excess and deficiency. “Yong” means average quality. In "the Chapter of the Gentleman of the Mean" in the book“the Doctrine of the Mean”, Confucius mentions: "A Noble Man actualizes the mean; a villain goes against it. A Noble Man actualizes the mean because he is living with it; a villain cannot actualize the mean because he has no respect for anything. The doctrine of the mean, in fact, is conscience.
Only by awakening everyone's balanced and altruistic love, and uniting these conscientious human beings to create a culture of peace, a culture of peace can be cultivated in the world. When the culture of peace exists in the world, the only home of mankind, the earth, has a chance to become sustainable.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
—Henry Ford，an American industrialist, business magnate, and founder of the Ford Motor Company
In this era when the rapid development of digits, technology, and economy is almost getting out of hand, modern industries are also facing a crisis of social conscience. We are the leaders of this new digital era. We make use of digits. Through every individual’s unique creativity and choice based on conscience, we can easily achieve spreading the culture of peace in communities, creating butterfly effect, and awakening conscience, the inherent DNA of humanity. We perform deeds benefitting ourselves, others and our earth.
In this way, the International Day of Conscience can be implemented, and the international communities are able to promote peace, forgiveness, tolerance, understanding and unity, and then together build a sustainable world of peace, unity and harmony for the earth.