A SPECIAL INVITATION TO ATTEND
Business for Peace, Ypres, April 10-12, 2014
Prof. Luk Bouckaert, President, European SPES Forum
Dear GCGI Family and Friends,
As a member of the Scientific Committee and also as the co-organiser of the Business for Peace Conference, it gives me a great pleasure to share with you a very speciall invitation from Prof. Luk Bouckaert, President, European SPES Forum, and the Conference’s Co-convener to attend the forum.
I, too, very much wish to encourage you likewise. I am sure you will find the Business for Peace Conference most informative, rewarding and fruitful.
Please below see Prof. Bouckaert’s letter:
There are many ways to commemorate the centennial of the Great War. One is to celebrate the heroism and patriotism of the victors as we see in many TV productions. They make war exciting. Another is to unmask the lies of war and to reveal its hidden motivations, its revenge mechanisms, its unnecessary victims, its incapability to solve the underlying problems. This way turns war into a catastrophe of human madness. A third perspective is looking at war as a battle for values, a fight for freedom against slavery, a clash between good and bad. I am afraid that this moralist approach to war and peace does not disclose its deeper ambiguities and complexities. At its best, it legitimatizes war. If we perceive ourselves as the good guys or the peace-makers and the other as the bad guys or the war-makers, we always have a legitimate reason to force up the arms race and even use ‘a first strike’ strategy in order to guarantee peace in our own terms.
The Business for Peace Conference in Ypres started from the idea that commemorating the Great War means first of all preventing the next one. As a consequence of this idea, the first thing to do is to unveil the roots of conflict in ourselves and to discover the conditions for peace in our local and global communities. This is the most productive way to build on the legacy of the millions of young people and innocent citizens who died in the trench warfare. In making our future let us listen to their silent voice. Chesterton characterized this way of listening as ‘the democracy of the dead’.
Why Business for Peace? We believe that many businesses – in a direct or indirect way – are involved in the arms race. More than through their actions they are involved by motivations such as economic greed, hyper competition and the megalomanian drive for more and bigger. Those motivations foster a spirit of conflict and blindness. On the other hand, businesses are the main actors in developing a sustainable economy of peace based on cooperation for the common good. They have the potential to create a new global world of open communication and free and fair exchange. However, because of the ambiguous power of business, there is a need of permanent reflection. How to discern the spirit of peace and the spirit of war? The Conference Business for Peace is an effort to clarify the motivations and the choices and to explore new strategies for a peace-minded global and local economy.
The Conference will bring social and business leaders, self-dependent entrepreneurs, and peace activists together with academics and researchers in the field of business and social ethics. The three-day reflection will result in a ‘Charter for Hope’ stipulating a path for peace in and through business life. Your presence at this Conference implies a spiritual commitment for peace and a future-oriented way to commemorate the Great War. The Conference will be opened by Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council and Peter Bouckaert, Emergencies director of Human Rights Watch.
The Business for Peace conference is a joint initiative of the European SPES Forum, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative, VKW het Ondernemersplatform, Philosophie & Management, Global Compact Network Belgium, the European Baha’i Business Forum and Optimists Without Borders. With the support of Mulder Natural Foods NV and some private gifts. For all information about speakers, programme and registration see:
http://strategiesforhope.nimbu.io/#nav-header
We need the support of many. You are very welcome.
Luk Bouckaert
President European SPES Forum