Activity of the Schiller Institute

Linking Up Scandinavia and Europe to the Belt and Road via Pakistan

April 30, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in BRICS updates, China, Denmark, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, New Silk Road / BRI updates, Norway, Our economic development events, Pakistan, Sweden, World Land-Bridge updates

STOCKHOLM, April 29, 2021 (EIRNS)–The Zoom webinar meeting of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden, together with the Embassy of Pakistan in Sweden, and the Embassy of China in Sweden, was an extraordinary success. More than 130 participants were present at the height of participation. The first part of the program was moderated by the Commercial Counsellor of Pakistan for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. The focus was on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the tremendous potential for European and Scandinavian business interests to invest in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) that are connected to the current industrialization phase of CPEC.

There were welcoming remarks by the Ambassadors of Pakistan to Sweden and Denmark, and by the Ambassador of China to Sweden. The Chinese-language website of the Foreign Ministry the next day highlighted the BRIX event, printing the greetings of Chinese Ambassador Gui Congyou at the event.

There were several leading governmental agencies from Pakistan, like the Board of Investment, as well as regional officials, who outlined the great potential for investments and business in all areas when the basic infrastructure, especially electric power, is built. There were also important presentations from Business Sweden, Innovation Norway, and the Trade Council of Denmark to welcome and provide support and help for Scandinavian businesses that are ready to invest in Pakistan. The significance of Pakistan’s cooperation with China on the BRI was highlighted, and many business interests from China also participated.

The second part of the webinar was focused on the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and how the work of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden continues to present truthful and accurate information on BRI, despite deliberate distortions by Western media and other institutions.

This section was moderated by Stephen Brawer, the Vice Chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden, and the responsible leader of BRIX for webinars and seminars. His preliminary remarks summarized three of the most important points on the BRI as a global development policy, open to all nations, and the necessity of eliminating extreme poverty worldwide as has been achieved in China in 2020. He also noted the importance of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, as a principle for cooperation, in which the interests of the other are primary, as opposed to only serving your own interests, i.e., geopolitics.

There were four speakers in the afternoon session. Professor Michele Geraci of Italy pointed to the primacy of commercial relations behind the much discussed and dramatic geopolitical controversies. Mr. Henry Tillman of the UK reported from his own investigations the meteoric rise of the Chinese pharma industry in just one year, showing how China and India are now the main suppliers of vaccine to the world, as the USA and Europe have limited their deliveries to their domestic markets. In the UK the entire vaccine production has been kept 100 percent for the British people.

Dr. Maria Sultan of Pakistan situated the CPEC in the global landscape of container trade and digital transmissions, showing the tremendous growth in the Asia-Europe and Asia Pacific corridors with the Pakistani ports of Karachi and Gwadar in the crossroads. Hussein Askary of the BRIX highlighted the Health Silk Road as the only possible approach to counter the current and future pandemics, providing the necessary infrastructure needed for a modern health system.

Brazil Media Covers the Schiller Institute Statement ‘President Alberto Fernández to China, Ibero-America to Mars’

April 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Media coverage of our activity, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Space updates, Youth Movement

Brazil’s Monitor Mercantil Covers the Schiller Institute Statement ‘President Alberto Fernández to China, Ibero-America to Mars’

April 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—Brazil’s Monitor Mercantil, a political analysis daily widely read in leading circles in that country, yesterday published a short article headlined: “Argentina Will Sign a Belt and Road Partnership with China.” It reads:

“Argentine President Alberto Fernández will visit China in May with a mission which is fundamental for Latin America: he will sign a Memorandum of Understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This is a global infrastructure project involving nearly 150 nations, which breaks out of the merely financial economy sponsored by London and Wall Street, in favor of a high-tech, science-driver approach to development.

“For Latin Americans, it is an opportunity to develop partnerships in the areas of technology and infrastructure. The Chinese have for some time shown an interest in rail projects in the region. What is important for us is to make the investments conditional on transfer of technology and development, so that Latin America doesn’t remain a mere exporter of raw materials, as in colonial times.

“‘Such development is the way—the only way—to stop the drug trade, stop desperate migration, stop the gangs, stop the poverty, and stop the pandemic,’ according to a document issued by the Schiller Institute. The Germany-based group views cooperation between Argentina and Mexico as a lever to attract international support to address the entire region. “Meanwhile, Brazil continues on poor terms with China and is leaving the BRICS aside. It is precisely from 3 of the 5 countries that make up that bloc (Russia, India and China) that the vaccines come that could pull our country out of the health and economic quagmire in which it is sunk.” The coverage can be found at this link.

Dominican Friend of the Schiller Institute Proposes Emergency Measures for Haiti

October 19, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Dominican Republic, Economic development studies, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Haiti, Healthcare, Our economic development events, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Oct. 18 (EIRNS)–A Dominican friend of the Schiller Institute who has been discussing the plan for reconstruction and development of Haiti, made a number of specific proposals on emergency measures he feels should be taken right away, in the context of the broader strategic program to transform the nation. While he took issue with the Institute’s proposal to solve Haiti’s vast energy deficit with nuclear energy, and only addressed the security situation in a general way, his proposals overall are serious and excellent. He emphasizes the Dominican Republic’s crucial role in developing Haiti and the whole island of Hispaniola. He writes:

“I want to make a couple of comments regarding the program to develop and save Haiti as well as my own country, because we are inextricably linked to the same consequences as this is one island and neither of our nations can relocate ourselves. I think that the program should be divided into two main parts:

1) A comprehensive emergency program to mitigate hunger, disease, uncertainty and the dissolution of the country. This would include:

–massive and sustained distribution of cooked, canned or fresh foods—cooked on the spot on stoves on trucks (many of these are already used in my country in disaster zones).

— set up mobile clinics on trucks that can reach poor neighborhoods in the cities or countryside;

—set up mobile schools, transported by truck, for basic education that can be located in rented locales;

—provide facilities, funding, tractors, consulting, etc., to small farmers who produce food, as well as to cattle ranchers and poultry farmers who raise cattle, pigs, chickens and eggs either at home or on farms;

–provide specialized machinery and personnel to build basic access routes, indispensable neighborhood roads or trunk routes, and small bridges

–provide large quantities of construction material to build low-cost houses, preferably prefabricated, and furnish them with household goods;

–build mobile government offices that would be used primarily for dealing with civil matters;

— identify sources of water to be made potable through chemical processes and osmotic filtration (in which I am a specialist).

–provide large quantities of clothing, shoes, sheets, mattresses, folding beds, mosquito netting and insect repellent;

–massive distribution of vitamins, minerals, painkillers, medicines to treat parasites and diarrhea, mobile laboratories for basic analyses of fluids, and dental clinics;

2) A strategic program like [the Schiller Institute’s Haiti program,] with which I fundamentally agree. We have to see how a mechanism for directing the process can be created without interference—so that everything can be monitored and be above board, because the whole [Haitian] government is illegitimate, and no one knows for sure what its plans are nor to whom it really answers. As I mentioned, the Dominican Republic can play a crucial role in the carrying out of any plan, as we’ve already done this [before] without international aid.

Greetings to the Commemoration of the Victims of Terrorism at the Teardrop Memorial

September 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Russia, United States

The end of the military campaign by the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan signifies the “end of an era,” as President Biden has stated, an era of so-called humanitarian interventionist wars. If one looks at the outcome of these wars of 20 years, it is devastating. More than a million lives were lost, more than 8 trillion dollars were spent, up to 70 million people were turned into refugees. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, were devastated. More than 70 percent of the people in Afghanistan, 90 percent in Syria and even more in Yemen are living now below the extreme poverty line. In all of these countries there is now a gigantic humanitarian crisis, threatening death to many more millions of human beings.

The first priority must be to save the lives of the people in the countries which were the targets of the „endless wars,“ and the international community is called upon to join hands in bringing real economic development to the entire region, starting with the creation of a modern health system in every single country, which in the time of this pandemic and the danger of future pandemics is the precondition to defeat this curse of humanity. That requires clean water, which is scarce in Afghanistan—a nation hit by droughts—and it requires electricity, of which Afghanistan only produces 600 MW in the entire country, the equivalent of one medium- to- large plant in the U.S. 18 million people are food insecure and 4 million are in danger of starvation in the coming winter.

President Biden is being criticized for the withdrawal of troops, but he did the right thing, and his promise of the “end of the era of the endless wars” also must mean the end of the freezing of financial means for Afghanistan; it must mean the end of the Caesar Sanctions for Syria; and the end of any sanctions during the time of the pandemic. It is the time for joining hands, especially, again, between the U.S. and Russia, as there were several periods in the history of both nations, were such a collaboration existed for the good of all humanity.

Let us therefore use the coincidence of the end of 20 years of war and the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 for the solemn commitment to regard terrorism, hunger, and underdevelopment as the enemies of mankind, and not each other. Let us replace the era of geopolitics with an era of achieving the common aims of mankind. It is not an idle hope that the human species, as the only one that has proven through its existence that creativity is that quality which can transcend all seeming limitations, will soon leave conflict, aggression, and war behind it, and that we become truly human. Let us be inspired by the lofty ideal of man as it is expressed in the great art of the composers, poets, painters, architects, and sculptors, such as the creator of this Teardrop Memorial, around which we gather today.

These last 20 years are hopefully the final chapter in the adolescence of humanity, to be followed by adulthood—in which people and nations relate to one another based on the creative potential of the other, thus bringing out in them the best they can be. To learn to think that way requires an elevated state of mind in all of us, to think from above, from that higher One of humanity which shows the way to a future, in which all nations and all people will create peace on earth and colonize the stars together.

— Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Friendship, Unity Against Terrorism Expressed by U.S. and Russian Officials at Schiller Institute 9/11 Memorial Ceremony [Video included]

September 13, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, United States

On Sunday, September 12, 2021, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the Schiller Institute, with the support of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Washington, D.C., and the Russian Consulate in New York City, organized a memorial ceremony on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the mass terrorist attack on the United States. It was held at the towering Tear of Grief monument, which sits just across the Hudson River from the site of the attack on the Twin Towers in Manhattan. The Tear of Grief monument, designed by Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, was given by the Russian government and people as a gift to America in 2005, in sympathy and in support of the families and survivors of the 9/11 attack.

The master of ceremonies was Fireman Michael Pelliccio, from the City of Bayonne Fire Department, which provided its honor guard, joined by that of the City of Bayonne Police Department, and by the New York City Police Department Ceremonial Unit Color Guard. Extraordinary music, including the national anthems of the United States and Russia, was provided by the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus, and by soloists Kevin Maynor, and NYC police officer Kevin Shaw.

Among the many speakers were Terry Strada, national chairwoman of 9/11 Families and Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism, Consul General Sergey Ovsyannikov of the Russian Consulate in New York, Bayonne Mayor James M. Davis, Bayonne Fire Chief Keith Weaver, and Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst of the National Security Agency. Messages were read from Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche and from the President of the Russian Academy of Arts, Zurab Tsereteli.

An important message was sent by the Russian Federation’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Anatoly Antonov. The Ambassador’s message concludes:

“The 9/11 tragedy has shown that terrorism is a common global threat. Any attempts to create isolated ‘islands of security’ in the modern inter-connected world are ephemeral and doomed to failure. The victory over terrorists can be achieved only through joint efforts of the entire international community. There is no place for carelessness and double standards in this regard. It is unacceptable to divide terrorists into the good and the bad.

“Vladimir Putin as well as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have stated multiple times that cooperation in counterterrorism meets the interests of both Moscow and Washington. Interaction in this sphere can save the lives of hundreds of people.

“The Tear of Sorrow monument testifies to the unity of our peoples in the face of the global terrorist threat. This memorial epitomizes grief, which the Russians share with the Americans.”

Bayonne Fire Chief Keith Weaver discussed in his remarks, the common values of the American and the Russian people in the face of great challenges, and concluded by saying, “God bless The Russian Federation and God bless America.”

The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations released 2 short videos of the event: https://twitter.com/RussiaUN/status/1437074316248633346 https://twitter.com/RussiaUN/status/1437064574042259470

Schiller Institute Statement: President Alberto Fernández to China; Ibero-America to Mars!

April 12, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General, General updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Space updates

Schiller Institute Statement: President Alberto Fernández to China; Ibero-America to Mars!

April 10 (EIRNS) — {The Schiller Institute today issued the following statement in Spanish for broad circulation in Ibero-America and Spain. Below is the English-language version.}

The upcoming May 2021 trip to China by Argentine President Alberto Fernández, in which he is scheduled to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China on the Belt and Road Initiative – the global infrastructure project involving nearly 150 nations – presents a unique strategic opportunity.

1) All of Ibero-America can take a giant step towards finally breaking out of the straitjacket of financial looting by the dying London/Wall Street system, and join instead with the Belt and Road, sometimes called the New Silk Road, and its high-tech, science-driver approach to development.

2) An Argentina-Mexico axis can emerge to propose a game-changing policy in the Western Hemisphere: that China and the U.S. shall jointly work on developing the Mexican-Central American region in particular, and also all of Ibero-America, by cooperative efforts around extending the BRI into the region. Such development is the way – the only way – to stop the drug trade, stop desperate migration, stop the gangs, stop the poverty, and stop the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But is it possible?” people will ask skeptically. Can we really end poverty? Well, look at China, where 850 million people were lifted out of poverty in 40 years. If China can do it, why not we?

Can small nations actually hope to master the most advanced science and help develop breakthroughs for all mankind? Well, look at tiny United Arab Emirates, and their historic achievement of sending an orbiter to Mars. If the UAE can do it, why not we?

Can we really get the U.S. and China to cooperate in the development of Mexico and all the Americas, instead of heading towards confrontation and war which only serves the Establishment’s geopolitical interests? Yes – if the U.S. returns to its senses, and to the policies of its greatest sons: Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon LaRouche. The current breakdown crisis of the Western financial system has now made that possibility a necessity – if the U.S. itself is to survive Wall Street’s unavoidable demise.

The key is space, beginning with an international 50-year Moon-Mars exploration and colonization project, powered by fusion power, that the nations of Ibero-America – especially their youth – must participate in.

It just so happens that two of the world’s premier space-launch sites are in the South American continent: Alcântara in Brazil, and Kourou in French Guiana. They are very close to the equator, which is a big advantage for space launches. Additionally, Argentina and Brazil both have very significant aerospace capabilities, which can help be the cornerstones for cooperation with China, the United States, and other space-faring nations such as Russia and India, to develop those space-launch sites in those two locations as centers of scientific and economic development for the entire region.

Argentine President Fernández should be entrusted with a mission on behalf of all of Ibero-America during his upcoming trip to China, especially in light of his developing close working relationship with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which is already benefiting the whole region. In addition to the package of Argentine infrastructure projects that he is already planning to discuss with China’s President Xi Jinping – which importantly includes nuclear energy – Fernández should propose regional great development projects as well, especially in the field of space. Specifically, he should propose establishing two polytechnic institutes, or institutes for space science educational activity: one in Argentina and one in Mexico — perhaps in the city of Querétaro near Mexico City. These two centers will serve as centers of international scientific cooperation, and as poles of educational and technological progress required to bring the entire continent into this kind of high-technology space development. They will be centers of the emerging New Space Silk Road.

The other crucial area for cooperation is developing both the science and the health infrastructure needed to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic – and any new pandemics that might emerge to threaten mankind. Again, Argentina-Mexico cooperation is leading the way, and must be used as a lever to bring in international support to aid the entire region.

The Schiller Institute has long proposed a full set of regional infrastructure projects as part of the World Land-Bridge. We mention some of the key ones here:

1) Build a set of South American bi-oceanic rail corridors connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific (including a northern Brazil-Peru route; a central Brazil-Bolivia-Peru route; and a southern Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay-Uruguay-Chile route). All are viable; all are necessary.

2) Construct a North-South high-speed rail line extending all the way from Tierra del Fuego in the south to the Bering Strait tunnel in the north, traversing South America, the Darien Gap, and the entirety of Central America and Mexico. These would be development corridors of about 100 kms in width, with integrated power, industry, agriculture and communications infrastructure along the way. That would create millions of new productive jobs along the way, which is the sine qua non of defeating poverty and the associated drug trade and migration problems in the region.

3) Establish new centers for the industrialization of raw materials throughout Ibero-America, such as a major steel production center near the Mutún iron mine in Bolivia; aluminum plants near the plentiful bauxite in Jamaica, Guyana and Surinam; and so on. Stop the neo-colonial pattern of looting of raw materials in order to pay the foreign debt (various times over), leaving only poverty and devastation behind.

4) We need nuclear energy, and lots of it, as well as the total technological up-shift associated with this new energy platform – especially as we transition into fusion power. Solar and wind power are a bad joke. Their low energy flux density, their high physical-economic costs, and their intrinsically interruptible nature, mean a return to the technological platform of the Middle Ages, with a corresponding collapse of population to medieval levels. The Green New Deal is nothing but old, unscientific Malthusian depopulation policy, with a fresh coat of (green) paint.

That Malthusian agenda which is planned for the April 22-23 global summit on climate change, scheduled to start on Earth Day, has to be totally rejected – as it is beginning to be by nations such as India, China and others. In fact, Earth Day should simply be cancelled, and replaced by a more human holiday: Mars Day!

President Alberto Fernández’s upcoming trip to China can become the first step in Ibero-America’s participation in mankind’s mission to Mars.

Marmolejo Names “British Crown” Behind Supranational Attack on Mexico; Cites Schiller Institute, EIR

April 12, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Counterintelligence, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Media coverage of our activity

Marmolejo Names “British Crown” Behind Supranational Attack on Mexico; Cites Schiller Institute, EIR

April 10 (EIRNS)—In an April 5 discussion on Sin Censura Internet TV, a popular site for supporters of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), Mexican investigative journalist Daniel Marmolejo — who spoke at the Schiller Institute’s March 20-21 conference — warned that supranational forces are on a drive to shut down AMLO’s morning press conferences, and censor independent voices such as his own. To back up this charge, Marmolejo read the March 28 note issued, he said, by the Schiller Institute, revealing that the “Article 19” NGO which had launched a broadside against Lopez Obrador’s press conferences in mid-March, is a London-based NGO, but “it is not very Mexican, and not particularly `non-governmental’ either.” In fact, EIR dug out and published that just under 60% of that “Mexican” NGO’s money comes from grants from international private foundations, and 40% from “diplomatic representations in Mexico and development agencies,” he reported, reading off the list from the EIR account: the British, Dutch, German Embassies, the State Department, the NED, George Soros, Ford Foundation, etc.

Marmolejo summed up his message: the force behind the attack on AMLO’s government and Mexico is the British Crown, the supra-nationalists, the US military-industrial complex, all determined to restore neoliberalism in Mexico–which stunned his host, Vicente Serrano. Marmolejo and Serrano then went off into the “weeds” of Mexican political infighting in the run-up to crucial midterm elections in June, but Marmolejo interjected several times, in the midst of discussing different corrupt Mexican figures and forces, including those penetrating AMLO’s Morena party, that people should remember that behind all that, is the British Crown, and its allies, seeking to destroy Mexico.

A Call To Release the Funds of the Afghan People

October 12, 2021by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, General, Global Diplomacy, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Sanctions

This call by the Schiller Institute will be distributed internationally Oct. 14 as the IMF and World Bank meet in Washington.

PDF of this statement

Sign the petition

Today and in the coming days, we, informed citizens of the world and patriots of our own nations, stand united, in Washington, Berlin, Lima, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Madrid, Stockholm, Brussels and in many other cities of the world, to expose and denounce a crime.

On August 15, after four decades of foreign interventions, a new government took power in Afghanistan. While having orientations we don’t necessarily approve of, the new government has expressed its willingness to face the immediate humanitarian challenges, eradicate opium production, reconstruct Afghanistan’s health system and build the basic infrastructure required to jump-start trade and development. As clearly understood by Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, Iran and others, it is in the interest of all to allow the new government to stabilize the situation by engaging in normal international relations. But more is required: without a minimal foreign input, Afghanistan will fail in dealing with a deadly food and health crisis that started way before Aug. 14.

Hence, it is outrageous that in the days following the Taliban takeover, the White House announced that all assets of Afghanistan’s central bank held in the U.S. would not be released to the new Afghan government:

The U.S. Federal Reserve refuses to release the $9.5 billion of assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, $7 billion of which are held by the New York Fed. About $1.3 billion of these are held in international accounts, with some of it in euros and British pounds, while the rest are held by the Bank for International Settlements based in Switzerland. As a result, Afghanistan can only access 0.1-0.2 % of its total reserves!
The International Monetary Fund has suspended all financing for “lack of clarity within the international community” over recognizing the new government. $370 million set to be released on Aug. 23 was withheld and access to the IMF’s reserves in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) assets, which can be converted to government-backed money, have also been blocked.
The World Bank (as denounced by a petition of Code Pink) has refused to release some $440 million, notably the funds required to pay Afghan teachers and health workers. Hence, while there is a huge outcry over “women’s rights,” 13,000 female healthcare workers, including doctors, midwives, nurses, vaccinators, and other female staff, are not being paid by the World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF).

On Feb. 29, 2020, the Taliban and the U.S. government signed an agreement. Part III of that agreement stipulates: “The U.S.A. and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan are committed to continue positive relations, including economic cooperation for reconstruction…. The United States will refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan or intervening in its domestic affairs.”

Today, if the United States wants to regain respect and esteem, it has to live up to its own commitments, especially when millions of human lives, both female and male, are at stake, which is the case in Afghanistan as a result of a food and health crisis of apocalyptic dimensions. Two out of five Afghans, many of them children, are facing starvation.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, call on President Joe Biden to act in the spirit of the 2020 Doha agreement, signed by the U.S.A., and lift all unnecessary sanctions against Afghanistan, including the use of malign pretexts to prevent its control over the assets of its own central bank as well as its normal access to the international financial markets. The urgency is now!

Support this call and help to spread it!

Initial signatory:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President, Schiller Institute

Jacques Cheminade, President Solidarité et Progrès, three-time presidential candidate

Sign the petition

Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites: Mozambique Project—

April 11, 2021by Lynne Speed in Activity of the Schiller Institute, COVID-19, General, General updates, Healthcare, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Statement from the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites: Mozambique Project—Medical Supplies, Food Aid & Seeds for the Future

April 11 (Schiller Institute)

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
—Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963

The Schiller Institute’s Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, initiated by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General, has launched an effort bringing together people of good will, of various backgrounds including youth, social activists, religious figures, farmers, medical personnel, miltary logistic experts and others, concerned, not just about themselves, but the crises facing all humanity. The Committee has emphasized reviving the non-violent direct action tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The idea is to demonstrate in a pilot project—beginning in Mozambique—that we can mitigate tragic circumstances, and inspire the large-scale response needed.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) Director David Beasley warns that famine now threatens the lives of 270 million people. It is essential that governments work together to: 1) implement full-scale emergency relief programs; 2) establish modern healthcare systems in every nation, including full-set infrastructure and trained staff; and 3) defend and expand family farm-scale agriculture everywhere.

Our initial effort focuses on delivery of medical supplies, food, and seeds to Mozambique, in southeastern Africa. With a population of 31 million, it is one of the poorest, and youngest (17 years is the median age) nations in the world. Terrorist attacks in the northern province of Cabo Delgado have displaced more than 670,000 people. There is chronic malnutrition, with over half of the children malnourished. There is widespread damage from recent cyclones. Crowded shelters and homes lack the most basic necessities, like soap, contributing to cholera, malaria and COVID-19. The disruption to spring harvesting and replanting is severe.

At the same time farmers in the world’s highest output food-belts—France, Germany, India—are in the streets with their tractors, protesting low prices, and new agro-dictates that will ruin them and cause world food shortages.

The objective of the Committee is to get a delivery of food and medical supplies into Mozambique as rapidly as possible, at the same time publicizing in the U.S. and internationally, the necessity for a global mobilization by governments and institutions for health security for all. Several farm leaders and military experts are joining with us to publicize and support this mission.

The Committee is working in conjunction with the Golden State Medical Association (GSMA), the California branch of the National Medical Association (NMA), to facilitate this project, due to their previous impactful humanitarian experiences in Mozambique. GSMA, along with NMA’s Council on International Affairs, have conducted several earlier missions to Mozambique and know the situation well. Contacts have already been established with government and medical personnel on the ground in Mozambique by GSMA, who can ensure safe and efficient delivery of goods to designated people in need.

The Committee intends to supply food (corn-soy meal, dried fish, etc.), seeds, water purification tablets, medical supplies (PPE, pharmaceuticals, etc.), procured both in the U.S., and directly in Africa to minimize transport costs. Funds and donations-in-kind are now being collected by the Committee and are tax-deductible.

For more information, please contact: Lynne Speed, Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites lynnespeed@schillerinstitute.org

Schiller Institute NYC Chorus Dedicates Concert to the “Spirit of the Elbe”

April 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Boston SI activity, Cultural renaissance updates, Denmark SI activity, Detroit SI activity, Europe SI activity, France SI activity, General, General updates, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Houston SI activity, Ibero-America SI activity, Music updates, New York City SI activity, Northern Virginia SI activity, Our cultural events, Our musical events, United States SI activity

April 25 (EIRNS) – The Schiller Institute NYC Chorus & with friends from Ibero-America and Europe broadcast an uplifting concert this afternoon, which was introduced as follows by Jen Pearl:

Good afternoon, and welcome to `Beethoven’s Credo: Believe in the Future, a World Without War.’ My name is Jen Pearl and I am the chair of the board for the Schiller NYC chorus.

On December 17th, 2019, Beethoven’s 249th birthday, our chorus, the SI NYC Chorus participated in an event at Carnegie of the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture, opening up what was supposed to be a year-long celebration of the Beethoven 250th year. We performed the choral movement of the Ninth Symphony there, with the preeminent Gerard Schwarz as conductor. We took as our objective to perform Beethoven’s great Missa Solemnis a year later.

Then we all know what happened. While many choruses and arts organizations were forced to pull back during the lockdown, the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus pushed ahead, despite the challenges, because we know how important it is to sing beautiful and profound music in times of crisis—music, which connects us at the higher level of humanity as a single immortal species. We managed to present virtual performances of the Kyrie and Gloria last December.

Today’s concert is truly special because it features another movement the Missa Solemnis.

And while we are excited and joyful about bringing you the Credo movement of the Missa Solemnis and other beautiful selections tonight, we are also performing this concert in the context of a world fraught with crises, including an increasing potential of world war and starvation in Yemen and Syria. The beauty of tonight’s program, which reflects the very best of mankind’s creativity, is also very much in direct contrast or dissonance with the very worst actions being done at the hand of human beings, right now as we speak, toward entire nations and populations of children.

Beethoven once said that, if people understood his music, there would be no war.

On this day, April 25th, 76 years ago there was an event that resonates powerfully still today with that sentiment, that mankind should not settle disputes with violence. This was the day during WW II that American and Soviet troops met from the east and the west at the Elbe River near Torgau Germany, south of Berlin, ensuring an early end of the war, and thus became known as `Spirit of the Elbe.’ We dedicate this concert to that spirit which is much needed today. So we will begin our concert today with this short video introduction.

Near the end of the concert, Jen Pearl made the following closing remarks:

Our final offering this evening is Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus. Mozart composed this motet in a perfect way to evoke from you the awe you would experience when seeing the body of Christ for the first time. Imagine what your reaction would be then as you listen, think of how Mozart evokes that in you!. Mozart’s opening words are `hail, hail true body. . .’ As with any great classical work, the singer and you, the audience, can relive the experience of that actual moment in history and therefore experience true immortality.

We are now in a moment of history, where we need to evoke that quality of empathy and immortality in ourselves in order to take all of mankind into our hearts and souls. As we referenced at the beginning, we invite you to join the chorus of voices that are calling for an end to these wars, sanctions, and starvation, particularly in Yemen and Syria. You can find Mrs. LaRouche’s urgent call in today’s program and I invite you to join us. Thank you, and now you will hear Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus.

Note the concert can be viewed at this link.

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