Peter Kovach Preventing Violence and Achieving World Peace Panel 1

The conference is co-sponsored by Dept. of Anthropology ,The Rumi Club, Graduate Student Government at the University of Maryland, College Park. Several distinguished speakers including former ambassador, US State Department official, academicians talked about the contributions of the Gulen Movement to the World Peace.

The conference opened with a keynote speech by Dr. Ori Z. Soltes from Georgetown University, titled, "Socrates, Violence, Education, the Gulen Movement, and Peace". This talk compared Socrates' aims to those of the Gulen Movement. Dr. Soltes noted that like Fethullah Gulen, Socrates emphasized importance of ethics and the process of dialogue for brining morality into all facets of life. Gulen emphasizes that education is the ultimate means through which we can deduce Divine will and thus improve the world. He noted that unlike Socrates, the Gulen Movement has been able to put Gulen's ideas into action through its varied educational programs, media, cable, and internet programming. Moreover, the Gulen movement seeks peace through constant effort and struggle, and this is a "fullness of peace" that not merely tolerates, but embraces diversity, and it cannot be described as merely the absence of war.