Busan
Communication Statement
Reclaiming communication for life, justice
and peaceStatement from the International Consultation on the Theme of the World Council of Churches’ 10th Assembly: A Communication Perspective held in Busan, Korea, 22-25 May 2012 and organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC), World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), and the Korean Host Committee (KHC).
Preamble
The world is
a very different place from when the World Council of Churches addressed the
issue of communication at the Uppsala (1968) and Vancouver (1983) Assemblies.
Today, people everywhere, even children, share their stories through media
platforms – ranging from Internet-based social networks to the initiatives of
citizen journalists – that are more powerful than those available to churches,
governments and media conglomerates 30 years ago.
Political,
economic, social, and cultural structures have been transformed by
globalization and technological innovation. Yet, important elements of our
context remain unchanged. Urgent questions of justice and equality need to be
addressed all over the world, not least in countries suffering repression,
conflict and poverty.
As the
World Council of Churches prepares to gather on the Korean peninsula, we are
mindful of the role played by communication in deepening divisions that have
lasted for generations, but also in sowing the seeds of reconciliation.
In today’s
world, despite the potential of social media, a few powerful corporations and
individuals continue to decide whose voices are heard and what images are seen
by the public, allowing them to shape policy, form public opinion, and move
people toward war or peace.
The
integrity of the journalistic enterprise has been compromised by media
conglomerates and challenged by new forms of media. Some media workers,
journalists included, have dared to lift up the concerns of the excluded and to
interpret with insight how power flows today.
Communicators
who discern the ebb and flow of political, economic and cultural power in a
particular time and place can use their insights to denounce the abuses of the
powerful and to defend the dignity of widows and orphans, outcasts and
strangers. Communicators can also announce the good news of how God is working
in our midst to bend human history toward justice and peace.
During World War II,
many women – including many Koreans – were forced into sexual slavery by
Japanese soldiers. Euphemistically, these victims of war were known as “comfort
women”. Beginning on 8 January 1992, a group of survivors gathered each week in
front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul asking for a formal apology from the
Japanese government. When they held their one thousandth gathering on 14
December 2011, they unveiled a statue of a bare-foot girl seated on a school
chair. Beside her is an empty chair that invites people to sit next to her in
solidarity. As Christian communicators we are called to sit next to this little
girl and be witnesses in service to life, justice and peace.
God of Life
What
if God had not spoken?
According
to the Genesis account, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth…” According to John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word. […] All
things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into
being.”
Without
communication there would be no life. Creation was, and is, an act of
communication. Communication was, and is, an act of creation.
All
living beings consist of many cells that can only survive if there is
communication between them. In the traditional Eastern worldview, as well as
that of many indigenous peoples, the universe is understood to be an integrated
whole, an interdependent organism. This view helps us to see that communication
is the essence of life and that human beings are in communication with all
creation.
Communication
also plays a vital role in confronting threats to life. It affirms life by
promoting truth-telling, fairness, participation, dialogue, openness, and
inclusion. Communication that threatens life is characterized by censorship,
misinformation, hate-speech, lies, and exclusion.
Communication
can strengthen people’s ability to identify and respond to threats to life and
can advocate for those made invisible and excluded. In a world that has enabled
people of different backgrounds, religions and cultures to be more aware of
each other and their inter-connectedness, communication has the potential to
promote life together in faith, hope and love.
Lead us to Justice
Communicators are called to take a stand for justice. The
struggle for the dignity of all women, all men, requires that communicators
become effective advocates for human rights – including the right to
communicate – as well as defenders of the integrity of all creation.
Communication in the way of Jesus must promote wholeness and
the common good. According to Philippians 2:7, “Jesus emptied himself, taking
the form of a servant.” That means He served all people, especially taking up
the cause of the poor, the suffering, the outcasts, the weak and the oppressed.
Communicators for justice will empty themselves and act as servants of the
Gospel – even if this means challenging structures of power.
Prophetic communication opens up alternative horizons that
are not limited to the perspectives imposed by the dominant culture. Prophetic
communication empowers individuals and communities to tell their own stories
and to craft their own images and gestures. Communicators must ensure that
those who have been silenced have access to the media they need in order to
share their views with the larger world.
Lead us to Peace
Communication can sow understanding or misunderstanding, harmony or
discord. Those who challenge injustice use communication to empower. Those who
deny justice use communication to disempower. Communicators for peace seek to
create images and tell stories that respect the values and traditions that lie
at the heart of other people’s lives. Such images and stories can strengthen
inter-cultural and inter-religious understanding, challenge stereotypes, and
promote societies that are able to live together in peace, affirming what they
hold in common as well as what separates them.
Communication
for peace creates opportunities for people to consider and value non-violent
responses to potential and actual conflict. Communication for peace reveals
backgrounds and contexts, listens to all sides, exposes hidden agendas and
highlights peace initiatives no matter their origin.
The
complexity, scale and diversity of the conflicts that exist in today’s world
means that no single news source can hope to address adequately the challenge
of communicating about conflict or ways of creating sustainable peace. Opening
eyes and ears to diverse sources of information and knowledge fosters the depth
and breadth of understanding that allows people to make informed decisions.
Reclaiming communication
Communication rights claim spaces and resources in the public sphere for
everyone to be able to engage in transparent, informed and democratic debate.
They claim unfettered access to the information and knowledge essential to
democracy, empowerment, responsible citizenship and mutual accountability. They
claim political, social and cultural environments that encourage the free exchange
of a diversity of creative ideas, knowledge and cultural products. Finally,
communication rights insist on the need to ensure a diversity of cultural
identities that together enhance and enrich the common good.
Communication for life, justice and peace affirms the centrality of
communication rights to mass, community and social media and to restoring voice
and visibility to vulnerable, disadvantaged and excluded people in a spirit of
genuine solidarity, hope and love.
God of life, in your grace, lead us to communicate justice and peace.
Call for Action
In
order to be effective communicators in today’s world and to give due
recognition and support to church communication workers, secular media
professionals and citizen journalists, we call on the churches and their
partners:
- To become communicators for life, justice and peace throughout the world and especially in the context of the peaceful reunification of Korea.
- To advocate communication rights for all.
- To train people both within the church and secular society to communicate responsibly and with integrity and to understand how media are created and consumed in a globalized world.
- To reflect on their own ways of communicating internally and externally.
- To advance media literacy, communication for participatory development, media and gender justice, and to develop contextualized toolkits on how to communicate effectively.
- To integrate the study of communication for life, justice and peace into theological training.
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