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The Soka Gakkai Youth Peace Conference (YPC) was launched in 1979 to serve as the axis for promoting a youth movement dedicated to building a peaceful society underpinned by the Buddhist philosophy of the sanctity of life. The Soka Gakkai youth division sees its peace activities essentially as an educational movement to awaken in individuals the spirit of global citizenship, a goal upheld by the Soka Gakkai ever since its founding.

Abolishing War
The Soka Gakkai was founded as an educational reform study group in 1930 by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, who became its first and second presidents. Both were educators. During World War II, Makiguchi and Toda were imprisoned for their opposition to the Japanese military government and its abuse of religion and education in support of its war of aggression in Asia. Makiguchi died in prison in 1944, but Toda, his closest follower, emerged from prison after the war to rebuild the Soka Gakkai as a lay Buddhist association. In 1957, in his "Declaration for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons" delivered at a gathering of 50,000 youth, he called on young people to take responsibility for establishing the principle of respect for the dignity of human life as a basic social standard. This declaration, one of the last instructions of Mr. Toda, who passed away the following year, became the starting point of the Soka Gakkai youth division's peace movement.

In 1973, the youth members of the Soka Gakkai in Japan adopted the Youth Division Appeal for the Protection of the Right to Live. In this they confirmed their commitment to work toward lasting peace and the well-being of all people by persistently calling for the abolition of war, upholding environmental protection, and opposing all forms of oppression and violence. Today the Youth Peace Conference wages various campaigns based on the annual peace proposal issued by SGI President Ikeda. One of the basic directions that the proposal provides is support for UN initiatives. The goal of the YPC's activities in this regard is to raise public awareness around global issues also identified as key concerns of the UN. In this, the YPC adopts an educational approach.Public EducationPeace promotion initiatives include international exhibitions such as "Nuclear Arms: Threat to Our World," first presented in 1982 during a special session on disarmament at the UN Headquarters in New York in cooperation with the UN Department of Public Information and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It has toured 39 cities in 24 countries. To preserve a record of people's experiences of World War II, Soka Gakkai youth also compiled 80 volumes of more than 1,000 individual accounts. Many of these accounts have also been recorded on video. In 1975 and 1998, anti-nuclear-weapon petition drives collected 10 million and 13 million signatures which were presented to the UN Headquarters and the Abolition 2000 movement respectively.

Another focus of the Youth Peace Conference has been the promotion of human rights education in support of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) and the World Programme for Human Rights Education that started at the beginning of 2005. Initiatives include exhibitions such as "Toward a Century of Humanity-Human Rights in Today's World," which has toured some 40 cities in eight countries, an antiapartheid exhibition and lectures and seminars on peace issues. The YPC has also created exhibitions promoting education for sustainable development and campaigns aimed at stopping bullying in Japanese schools.

Humanitarian Relief
The Youth Peace Conference has also been actively engaged in humanitarian activities, including refugee relief and postwar restoration assistance overseas. It has undertaken annual awareness-raising and fund-raising campaigns in support of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and, between 1973 and 2001, it conducted 21 such campaigns to facilitate provision of medical care, food, education and other services administered by UNHCR and related organizations. In 1993, the YPC coordinated the collection of 300,000 secondhand radios and donated them through the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) to the people of Cambodia to help them stay informed about that country's first-ever democratic election.SGI President Daisaku Ikeda has written: "The empowerment of the people, by the people, for the people, to inspire and enlighten the spirit of each individual, will be the fundamental force for truly changing the world.

"The purpose of our movement is to create a culture of peace; it is to plant a seed of peace in every person's heart and cultivate the spiritual soil in which peace can be built. Dialogue is the actual tool in this endeavor. It is our firm conviction that building a fortress of peace within the heart of each person through effective dialogue is the most unfailing path to peace.

ACTION AREA #2: A New Form of Global Competition
by By Daisaku Ikeda (Reprinted from SGI Quarterly). Posted 1246572476

The following is excerpted from the 2009 peace proposal, Toward Humanitarian Competition: A New Current in History by SGI President Daisaku Ikeda. Each year on January 26, the founding date of the Soka Gakkai International, Mr. Ikeda issues a proposal examining the current state of global affairs and proposing solutions grounded in a Buddhist perspective. The full text of this proposal can be read at www.daisakuikeda.org.

The impact of the "once-in-a-century" financial meltdown, which started with defaults in the subprime mortgage market in the United States, has now spread to engulf the whole world.Even as policy makers struggle to find effective responses, the current financial turmoil is undermining the real economy, bringing about a global recession. If we remember that the Great Depression only fully set in two years after the 1929 stock market crash, the gravity of the current situation becomes even more apparent.People have the right to live in peace and humane conditions, and to that end, they exert themselves assiduously day after day. It is unacceptable that the foundations of people's livelihoods should be disrupted and devastated by the effects of "tsunami" that they could not foresee and which originated in realms far beyond their control.

The processes of globalization, buoyed by deregulation and technological innovation, have encountered a fierce backlash in the form of globalized recession. It is now apparent that the faith in free competition and markets to resolve all problems was misplaced; nothing in the world is so neatly preordained.As an alternative paradigm to both unbridled competition and centralized control, I would like to explore certain ideas set out by the founding president of the Soka Gakkai, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, in his 1903 work The Geography of Human Life. Specifically, I would like to explore the possibilities to be found in his idea of "humanitarian competition.

"In the closing chapters of this work, which was published when he was just 32, Makiguchi surveyed the grand flow of human history and identified the forms of competition--military, political and economic--that have prevailed in different periods, overlapping and intertwining as they undergo gradual transformation.Makiguchi concludes with a call for us to set our sights on the goal of engaging in humanitarian competition, a perspective he reached by tracing the inner logic of historical development.

Makiguchi describes humanitarian competition thus: "To achieve the goals that would otherwise be pursued by military or political force through the intangible power that naturally exerts a moral influence, in other words, to be respected rather than feared."I am reminded here of the idea of "soft power," defined by Joseph S. Nye Jr. of Harvard University as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion."Likewise, there are resonances between the concept of a "win-win world" put forward by the American futurist Hazel Henderson and the views Makiguchi expresses in the following passage: "What is important is to set aside egotistical motives, striving to protect and improve not only one's own life, but also the lives of others. One should do things for the sake of others, because by benefiting others, we benefit ourselves.

"I am fully convinced that the time has now arrived, 100 years after it was originally proposed, for us to turn our attention to humanitarian competition as a guiding principle for the new era.Free competition driven by the unrestrained impulses of selfishness can descend into the kind of social Darwinism in which the strong prey on the weak. But competition conducted within an appropriate framework of rules and conventions brings forth the energies of individuals and revitalizes society.

Herein lies the value of humanitarian competition. As a concept, it compels us to confront the reality of competition while ensuring that it is conducted firmly on the basis of humane values, thus bringing forth a synergistic reaction between humanitarian concerns and competitive energies. It is this that qualifies it to be a key paradigm for the 21st century.