Ten-day Mahathir Global Peace School (MGPS) 5 was officially closed on Monday (5/12) at Graduate School floor 4 of Unversitas Muhmmadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY). It was closed by having closing dinner and awarding a certificate to all participants. In a wrap up meeting, Head of the MGPS, Hilman Latie, Ph.D. expressed, “I believe that this experience will be valuable for all of us. This is the last MGPS. Having participants from various countries and backgrounds and knowing one another show that we are adequately unified.”
Hilman expected that the participants can engage in a peace process. “I hope that the alumni can carry out something for their home country since each country confronts different issues. I hope that all of us can create a small community project to take lessons, to identify issues, and to promote world peace,” he envisaged.
Even though the 5th MGPS was the last program after having been organized for three years, a mission of global peace will remain to exist and it is possible to conduct the second round of the program. Hilman responded that there may likely be a reunion forum for participants of MGPS 1-5. “I think we can meet in a forum to gather all the alumni of MGPS,” he told.
Besides, in his closing remark via teleconference video call, Prof. dr. Gerry van Klinken talked about music as an instrument to promote peace. “Peace always focuses on politics. What we have not recognized yet is that music can be employed to create peace. Music can be a reminder that, in fact, peace comes from our own heart. The uniqueness of music is that it can speak a lot of aspects, and share emotions including peace,” he believed.
Gerry declared that war should be ceased since it can bear trauma for the people. “An English composer, Ralph Vaughan William lost his musical intuition after being the English army in World War I. War left him emotional memories such as losing his friends including his best friend, George Butterworth who was a composer as well. During the war, back fire was noisy and could cause hearing loss. He took long time to write music again. Afterwards, he changed his mind to promote music for peace. When World War II, he was busy writing music to echo peace,” he told.
