Helga statement, article, transcript

Project Ibn Sina: Restore Afghanistan’s Ancient Greatness

November 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Nov. 21 (EIRNS)–This is the edited transcript of the speech delivered by Mrs. LaRouche, the founder of the international Schiller Institutes, on November 17 to the online conference, “Humanitarian Roundtable for Afghanistan,” sponsored by the Council on Global Relations (CGR) located in Metro Washington D.C. The conference was convened by the CGR to address “the need for urgent assistance and a shift in narrative,” and to “make a difference in the lives of 39 million Afghan people facing a collapsed economy in the heart of a brutal winter coming out of 40 years of war.”

Hello to all of you.
I just want to state emphatically that the money that is being withheld by the U.S. Treasury—but also Commerzbank, Bundesbank, and the Bank for International Settlements—this money belongs to the Afghan people. I think that this is what we have to face, given the situation that was pointed out by both Dr. Beasley [of the UN World Food Program] and Dr. Tedros from the World Health Organization, that 97% of the people are in danger of being food insecure. And food insecure is just another word for starving to death.

Then you have a health crisis—95% of the people have no access to healthcare. And that is happening in a condition of famine and of the COVID crisis. So, to withhold that money for any more days means you’re risking the lives of people. So, I think the first step must be an absolute demand that the money which rightfully belongs to the Afghan people must be released without condition. I think this idea of giving it piecemeal and making conditions and so forth, that just will contribute to chaos. It will force the Taliban to resort to opium production, which they do not want to do. I think I mentioned in a previous discussion that Pino Arlacchi, the UN special representative in the fight against drugs in 2000, had an agreement with the Taliban, in which they agreed to stop all opium production.

The increase of the opium production occurred during the NATO presence—especially this year, opium production went up by nine percent in the period before the Taliban took over. Then the price shot up to the sky, because there was an expectation that Taliban would not continue the opium production. The price went up because of potential scarcity. So, the people who are withholding the money from the Taliban are pushing the opium trade! That should be stated very, very clearly.

Secondly, if you’re now not supporting a government that you may not like politically—but it’s there—and if you don’t support them being successful, you are encouraging the opposition. And what is the opposition? It has been largely terrorist groups, and you know that terrorism will spread, not only in Afghanistan but throughout the region. The big question is that maybe that is the intention, as a geopolitical force against the countries in the region, especially Russia and China.

So, the people who are withholding the money—and I want to be very, very clear, because there is no point in talking about nice things if that is not settled first—the people who are withholding the money are doing it completely illegally. And I think they should be held accountable. Any death which occurs from here on will be the guilt of the people withholding the money. And I think that has to be stated first.

I think if we can agree on that, then I’m willing to talk about a better vision. Psychologically, I can understand that it is very difficult for the NATO countries and their armies, after having lost a war having been in the country for 20 years. I talked to some people who were there, and I understand that this is a trauma. They did not expect it, and they are having a very hard time switching to another mental attitude. But that has to occur if Afghanistan is to be saved.

I have thought a lot about what can be done to give hope to a country that has gone through hell for the last 40 years. And really through hell for the last several 100 years—going back to the Great Game, to Brzezinski and his Islamic card that started this whole present disaster. People in Afghanistan have lived through trauma, and they need something to put the country back together with a beautiful vision. This region of the world was once known as the land of the 1,000 cities. Admittedly, this was on the order of 3,000 years ago, but there was once a period in which this region was one of the cradles of mankind. I think to be grounded in one’s own great tradition is a very important stepping-stone for building a positive future.

Then, naturally, there are many poets one could mention. The fact is that there is a health crisis right now of biblical dimensions, a pandemic which is unprecedented in terms of the potential of where it may go. So, my idea is: It has to start with the modern health system. Afghanistan needs modern hospitals. They can be built in two weeks. The Chinese proved in Wuhan that you can build a modern hospital of 1,000 beds in two weeks. Then you need doctors, modern, educated doctors, nurses, health workers. A lot of the diaspora Afghanis are doctors. They are in the United States, they are in Europe. They can be mobilized to come back and help to build a modern health system. And that modern health system can be the beginning of an economic transformation. If you are going to have a modern health system, you need water, you need electricity, you need other infrastructure. But that building of a modern health system can become the engine of hope and the engine of economic reconstruction. This, however, needs to have a beautiful vision, an idea of what that means.

Many years ago, I studied the works of Avicenna, or Ibn Sina as he is called in the Arab world. He was one of the great universal thinkers. He lived from 980 A.D. to 1038 A.D. He was not only an extraordinary thinker; he developed philosophical conceptions which had influence way beyond the Arab world, and to the Mediterranean, and to European thinkers. But especially it is known that he was an extraordinary physician. He wrote several medical books, and a canon on medicine which was the standard work in Europe until the 17th Century, and in some cases even the 19th Century. He developed an idea of the anatomy of the body, the nerve system, the psychology. He knew about new diseases like breast cancer. He developed the connection between muscles and nerves. He wrote a whole book about modern medicines based on herbs and other such things. But he is famously known to have been one of the great sons of Afghanistan.

He was probably born in Bactria. There are also some people who say, no, he was born in Bukhara, or maybe in Persia. It does not matter. His father was for sure born in Bactria, and he is for sure a son of the region.

He is an example of how somebody coming from Afghanistan can be a contributor to universal history, by moving mankind forward, by developing a whole new, modern medical science. So, I’m suggesting that the effort to save Afghanistan be called Operation Ibn Sina, because it somehow captures both the proud tradition and also a vision that Afghanistan again can be a pearl of the nations of the world. Afghanistan will be contributing something to other nations. You need to give people who have gone through such hell a vision of a beautiful future.

I think that would capture the imagination of a lot of the people, both inside Afghanistan and out. The danger is terrorism and drugs, and you want to have an image which presents a completely different future, one based on the intellectual tradition which made this country a great country in the past, and it means that it will again be a great country in the future.

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CGTN Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on “Western Perspectives On China’s Whole-process People’s Democracy”

November 4, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, China, Economic development updates, General updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity

Nov. 3 (EIRNS) – CGTN yesterday published a six-minute video excerpt, with accompanying text, of an interview with international Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. The following is a copy-edited version of that CGTN transcript.

Editor’s note: The concept of “whole-process people’s democracy” was first put forward about two years ago during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to a civic center in Shanghai. Since then, some Western media outlets have been attacking it for being hollow and misleading. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, shares her thoughts on the concept. The opinions expressed in the video are her own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

CGTN: Why does the Western media keep attacking the “whole-process people’s democracy”?

Zepp-LaRouche: My understanding of this “whole-process people’s democracy” is that it is an inner party democratic process whereby you identify, on the basis of meritocracy, which are the most qualified people for the job and who are the [best] servants to the common good. And I think there is an empirical proof that this method is truthful, because China was able to lift 850 million people out of extreme poverty. That is the greatest contribution to history I know of. But to lift so many people out of poverty and also to offer that to the developing countries is exactly what is the crime in the view of the Western people who attack China on this point, because China has overcome extreme poverty in its own country, and it is now helping developing countries to do likewise. This is exactly the same mindset which was the mindset of Malthus since the time of the British East India Company which, as you know, was behind the Opium Wars against China.

It is not because of what they say. It is because the Chinese model has upset the whole world order. Because you have offered for the first time to the developing countries the possibility to overcome poverty and underdevelopment, and they wanted to keep the colonial order. I think this is really the bottom line of the accusations against China. I’ve been in China many times, and my impression was always that the spirit of the people is extremely positive [and] optimistic [about] the future. Therefore, the CPC must be doing something very right. If you ask people in the West, most people are pessimistic about the future. So, I think that expresses, in my view, more truthfulness than any of the propagandistic lines in the mainstream media.

CGTN: How do you see Chinese democracy and Western democracy?

Zepp-LaRouche: Democracy sounds very nice, but in many cases, it is a label, and you had better look what is the content of the bottle on which the label is pasted. Because nowadays the different parties are mostly lobbying for different interests. I would like to read you another quote from George Washington’s “Farewell Address” as president of the United States in 1796, where he warned of the evil spirit of party in general.

He said, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”

I think that is what we are seeing right now in the West. In many countries, you don’t have real democracy, but you have [the] form of despotism like in the United States. The polarization between the Republicans and the Democrats has torn the country completely apart. In Germany, where you have now the effort to form a new coalition, the voters will not get as government what he or she voted for, because they form coalitions as they want.

There were periods, however, where the Western democracy did function. This was the case in the beginning of the American Revolution, and it was the case with the Fifth Republic of Charles de Gaulle. But unfortunately, we, in the West, have moved very far away from these more noble conceptions, so we are more in the system of despotism which George Washington warned about.

CGTN: Can China and the West maintain good and stable relations?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think that there are indeed different models of democracy, according to the specific tradition and culture. It is very possible for these different systems to cooperate. However, this will only function, if they are united by a higher one [that] must be in the interest of all of mankind. I think the model closest to that is what President Xi Jinping has proposed – a community with a shared future, because that includes this idea of humanity as a whole. There is in the West an idea which is very similar, or actually identical, and that is the philosophical idea of a thinker from the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa, the coincidence of opposites, which is the idea that since human beings are the only species capable of creative reason, that we always can think the higher one, a level of unity where all the differences disappear. So I think we need to enter a dialogue why this concept of the coincidence of opposites and President Xi Jinping’s idea of [a community with a shared future] are one and the same idea. And once we agree on that, I think cooperation will be very easy.

Civilization Itself Is at Stake: Will We Rise to the Challenge?

April 15, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Russia, United States, World war danger updates

Civilization Itself Is at Stake: Will We Rise to the Challenge?

Escalating tensions with Russia, driven by Ukrainian’s suicidal push for NATO membership, U.S. encouragement, and the U.S. military itself, threatens — despite President Biden’s reaching out to President Putin for an in-person summit — to explode into war, nuclear war. A provocative visit of former U.S. government officials to Taiwan adds more fuel to the fire of China’s cross-strait relations. Economic lending into the real economy by U.S. banks withers, even as they are showered with money. Inflation accelerates, and a blowout of the trans-Atlantic financial system is inevitable. Death by starvation stalks the impoverished inhabitants of war-zones Syria and Yemen.

Will these crises culminate in what would become nuclear conflict, a devastation of the human race, or will a new paradigm overthrow the oligarchical structures that drive conflict? What flanks can you create to achieve that happier outcome?

In her weekly Schiller Institute webcast discussion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche responded to the urgent call to the world by Cardinal Mario Zenari in Syria for the world to come to the aid of the Syrian people. More than 90% of Syrians are below the level of extreme poverty, and many are in danger of losing their lives due to famine. (Zenari’s Time is Running Out.) The last decade of war, the unjust sanctions, and the Covid pandemic have created an absolutely intolerable condition of suffering for the Syrian people.

Similar horrors confront Yemen, where the agonizing reality of hunger is conveyed in the powerful documentary {Hunger Ward}, referred to by the head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, who saw children dying before his very eyes in the hospital, and he was unable to help.

In both Syria and Yemen, the results of supposedly “humanitarian interventionist” wars — and there is nothing humanitarian about them! — conducted under the guise of defending the people from murderous governments, are genocidal. Was U.S. military intervention in Syria driven by Assad’s chemical weapon murder of the people there? No, that was not the reason, and the claims about the attacks were not true. As Col. (ret.) Richard Black (USA) has explained, the plan for regime change in Syria was developed ten years before the 2011 destabilization, as part of a policy of regime change in the entire region, comprising Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya.

The narrative about the causes of the war is completely wrong.

But even leaving that aside, start from the current humanitarian situation: “When you have a people about to die, and the world does absolutely nothing, that means the people watching that are {morally unfit to survive.} And I’m crying out to you to help us make a mobilization to get rid of the “Caesar” sanctions and to have the immediate reconstruction of Syria.”

In contrast, the so-called donors’ conference in Brussels raised a few billion dollars, but it was an absolute charade. The funds will {not} go to the Syrian government, but rather to neighboring countries that have taken in refugees, to NGOs, and to opposition groups. But, as Cardinal Zenari says, without a {reconstruction}, there will be no end to the misery. Peace through development is the only way out of the crisis.

And we know how to do this! The Schiller Institute has worked for half a century on plans for the development of Southwest Asia, dating back to Lyndon LaRouche’s 1975 “Oasis Plan” proposal. Since then, the LaRouche movement has developed a plan for Syria (“Project Phoenix“), a plan for Yemen (“Operation Felix“), all in the context of bringing Southwest Asia into a development paradigm of the New Silk Road / Belt and Road Initiative.

Against this potential stands the Caesar sanctions, based on a lie. Photographs supposedly showing victims of torture carried out by the Assad government were used as evidence to push through these brutal sanctions policy. But these photographs were mainly of Syrian soldiers killed by al-Qaeda-linked groups! This is not the first time such fabrications have been presented. Saddam Hussein’s forces were accused of ripping babies out of incubators in Kuwait. This was used to start the 1989 Iraq War. Then we had the “yellow cake” and other supposed evidence of Saddam Hussein’s program to create weapons of mass destruction — again, all lies. Then we had the lies from the White Helmets about the supposed use by Assad of chemical weapons.

Zepp-LaRouche demanded: “This must stop and the Caesar sanctions must be lifted. And all the members of Congress who do not lift these sanctions make themselves complicit in every death that occurs in the region…

“This has reached the point where either the world wakes up and we start to remedy this, or we will not survive, because of our own moral failure as a human species.

“I call on you: work with the Schiller Institute. Work with its Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, which is working to get aid programs and reconstruction.

“I appeal to you: get in contact with the Schiller Institute and respond to the call by Cardinal Zenari, which has not been covered much at all by the Western press, which alone should show the one-sidedness of the media, which we must overcome.”

Will you answer the call? Become a member of the Schiller Institute and work to make its vision a reality.

The Coming Fall of the Cult of Gaia — Helga Zepp-LaRouche Keynote Address to an International Youth Discussion

October 23, 2021by David Dobrodt in General, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and her co-thinkers are mobilizing true leaders on every continent—those who thirst for the knowledge of universal principle, such as the doctors, the classical artists, the scientists, the statesmen, and perhaps most importantly, the YOUTH—to inaugurate an Age of Reason, by the successful transformation of Afghanistan, and of Haiti. The people of Afghanistan and Haiti, and of so many nations across the world, face famine, disease, war—but worse, they face the “depraved indifference” of the governments and people of the United States, European countries, and many others, who ignore known solutions to vicious suffering and death, who ignore the success of China in lifting 850 million people out of extreme poverty, who ignore the fifty-year economic forecasting record of the late American economist and statesman, Lyndon H. LaRouche. Together, let us raise up a force of impassioned people, dedicated to righting these wrongs once and for all, so that we may say, truly, “Never again!”

Zepp-LaRouche Participated in “The International Academic Forum In China, 2021–a New and Uniquely Chinese Path to Modernization”

October 22, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, History

Oct. 20 (EIRNS) — Helga Zepp-LaRouche participated in the high-level International Academic Forum in China 2021, hosted by CASS, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on the theme of “A New and Uniquely Chinese Path to Modernization,” which was held in Beijing on the 14th and 15th of October.

The conference opened with a speech by Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. He said: “Over the past 100 years, the CPC has led the people in pioneering a new and uniquely Chinese path to modernization and creating a new model for human advancement…. China will follow its own path, strengthen exchanges and mutual learning with other countries, and make greater contributions to the world with the new achievements of modernization.”

He pointed out that the forum is an important platform for the promotion for exchanges in philosophy and social sciences between China and the world. More than 100 scholars from various universities, thinktanks, and academic institutions from twenty nations participated.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, speaking as the president of the Schiller Institute,” titled her presentation, “A Chinese Contribution to Universal History Viewed from the Future.” She presented the great achievement of China’s transformation from a poor primarily agricultural nation into one of the world’s leading nations in science, industry, and culture. Her call for a dialogue on the highest level all cultures of the world elicited a very positive reaction from the panel moderator, who emphasized that the juxtaposition of both the greatest poets and thinkers of West with those of China demonstrates that while they represent very different cultures, the dialogue between them represents truly universal values. One could see this idea expressed in the song of the European Union (EU), Schiller’s and Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

The questions that needed to be answered were also addressed: What steps must be taken to push the world into a community of a shared future and how can the knowledge produced in China more directly become part of world knowledge?

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

CLINTEL/Schiller Institute—A Wake-Up Call: The Danger for Mankind Is Not the Climate, but Toleration of a Devious Policy that Uses Climate To Destroy Us!

October 11, 2021by madeleine in Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

The following statement was jointly issued by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and Guus Berkhout, emeritus professor of geophysics; initiator and co-founder of CLINTEL (Climate Intelligence).

PDF of this statement

We have bitter debates about just about everything: green energy, pandemic measures, political ideologies, tax policies, the refugee crisis, rising rents, erosion of fundamental rights, pension plans, government bureaucracies, the generation gap, women’s rights, etc. But what we fail to see is the big picture: namely, that we in the West are ruled by an increasingly powerful political establishment that is in the process of destroying everything we have built since World War II!

All the symptoms of a collapsing system are right before our eyes, if we care to see them: an economic system in which the balance between cost and benefit is totally out of balance, an accelerating hyperinflation that devours our earnings, a good healthcare system that only the rich can afford, an education system that teaches neither excellence nor moral values, an out-of-control woke culture that turns people against each other, a disastrous geopolitical confrontation policy against alleged rivals—and the list could go on and on!

All these manifestations of crisis have a common cause: We in the West are living under the dictatorship of a financial oligarchy, for which the common good is nonexistent, and whose sole interest is to maximize its own privileges. An oligarchy that needs “endless wars” to generate income for its military-industrial complex, and promotes the production and distribution of mind-destroying drugs, both illegal and legalized, the latter because the financial system would have collapsed long ago without the input of laundered drug money. And given that this system is now hopelessly bankrupt, the entire economic and financial system is now supposed to be converted to so-called green technologies in a final great coup—the Great Reset. Under the pretext of climate protection, the motto for this conversion is “Shifting the Trillions.” And it’s happening now!

The policies of the Green Deal (EU) and the Green New Deal (USA) mean that banks restrict their loans to investments in green technologies, and have long since subjected companies to an increasingly strangulating system of requirements such as taxonomy, the Supply Chain law, etc. At the same time, there is a method to the high energy prices: pushing prices above the pain threshold in monetary terms is supposed to manipulate the population into learning how to get along without meat consumption, heating, decent housing, travel, etc. This goes hand in hand with an image of man that sees every human being as a parasite polluting nature. While we know that CO₂ is essential to all life on Earth, the green policy trumpets: “The less CO₂ footprints left behind, the better.”

The truth is, this is old wine in new bottles. It is exactly the same austerity policy of Hjalmar Schacht, Germany’s Reichsbank president and economics minister just before World War II. This is cannibalization of the labor force. Whoever thinks this comparison is exaggerated, should watch the film Hunger Ward about Yemen, featuring the World Food Program’s David Beasley, or consider the death rate of children in Haiti.

What does Klaus Schwab say about this in his book Stakeholder Capitalism? He complains that African countries like Ethiopia successfully fought extreme poverty (p.154):

“It reveals the central conundrum of the combat against climate change. The same force that helps people escape from poverty and lead a decent life is the one that is destroying the livability of our planet for future generations. The emissions that lead to climate change are not just the result of a selfish generation of industrialists or Western baby boomers. They are the consequence of the human desire to create a better future for himself.”

Here it is in black and white. According to this logic, increasing the death rate by increasing poverty is the best thing that can happen to the climate! Life does not matter to the elites of Schwab.

If we want to escape the looming catastrophe, we must rebuild society completely on very different principles. This is our positive message, being a message of a hopeful future with prosperity for all:

1. Human life is inviolable. Man is the only species endowed with creative reason, which distinguishes him from all other living beings. This creative capability enables him to continually discover new principles of the physical universe, which is called scientific progress. The fact that the human mind, through an immaterial idea, is able to discover these principles, which then have an effect in the material universe in the form of technological progress, proves that there is a correspondence between the lawfulness of the human mind and the laws of the physical universe.

2. Just as the spatial expanse and anti-entropic evolution of the universe are infinite, so is the intellectual and moral perfectibility of the human mind. Therefore, every additional human being is a new source for further development of the universe and for the solution of problems on Earth, such as overcoming poverty, disease, underdevelopment, and violence. Taking care of each other is key in this ongoing development. It is the combination of creativity and empathy that transcends mere day-to-day exigencies.

3. Scientific and technological progress has a positive effect in that, when applied to the production process, it increases the productivity of the labor force and of industrial and agricultural capacities, which in turn leads to rising living standards and a longer life expectancy for more and more people. A prosperous physical economy is the precondition for the positive development of the common good, providing not only the elites, but all people with quality food, clean water, affordable and modern health care, quality education, modern communications and, above all, cheap and sufficient energy with high energy flux densities. Inherently safe third-generation nuclear energy and the future use of thermonuclear fusion are indispensable for securing mankind’s energy supply for an unlimited time. Unreliable energy systems and increasing energy prices are the mother of inflation. Poverty starts with energy poverty.

4. The purpose of the economy has nothing to do with profit, but with the happiness of people, in the sense meant by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, i.e., that people are able to develop all the inherent potentials they have into a harmonious whole, and thus contribute to the best possible further development of mankind. Or as the wise Solon of Athens said: The purpose of mankind is progress. It is the duty of good government, through its policies, to provide for the happiness of its citizens in this sense, beginning with universal education for all, the goal of which must be to foster beautiful character through education and the development of an ever-increasing number of geniuses. This perspective is in accordance with Vladimir Vernadsky’s conviction that the physical universe must inherently evolve in such a way that the share of the noösphere increasingly grows in relation to the biosphere. To be more specific, growth should be two-fold, creativity for the material necessities and empathy for the immaterial needs. Taking care of each other and our natural environment is presented in our slogan: “Prosperity for all,” in which all refers not only to us in the here and now, but also to future generations.

5. Man’s true destiny is not to remain an earthling. His identity, as the only known species endowed with creative reason, is to explore space, as we did with planet Earth. What space pioneer Krafft Ehricke called the “extraterrestrial imperative,” or in a certain sense, the new educational effect of space travel on man, requires mankind to truly “grow up,” that is, to cast off his irrational impulses, and make creativity his identity, which has so far only been the case for outstanding scientists and artists of classical culture. In this phase of evolution, of love for humanity and love for creation, generated by recognition of the magnificence of the physical universe, it will have become natural that mankind takes care of all aspects of humanity, the planet, nature, and the universe at large with great care, because the fabricated contradiction between man and nature will have been overcome (new stewardship). Man does not exist in opposition to nature; he is the most advanced part of it. This is what Schiller called freedom in necessity, and is the concept that Beethoven placed above his Grosse Fugue: “Just as rigorous as it is free.”

This lofty idea of man and everything he has built, is what is threatened by the Hjalmar Schachts, Klaus Schwabs, the power-hungry political leaders, and the profit-hungry business leaders of the world. This is a wake-up call, addressed to all people, to resist the danger of a new evil. Let us prevent a return to the past, when an evil elite impoverished mankind and told us to be happy with such conditions.

Can ‘The West’ Learn? What Afghanistan Needs Now!

September 6, 2021by David Dobrodt in General, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

PDF of this statement

September 5—The catastrophic failure of NATO in Afghanistan, and with it the policy of 20 years of wars of intervention, couldn’t be more dramatic. It is not only that the war was lost; it is paradigmatic for the whole spectrum of misconceptions of the Western liberal system. It is therefore to be welcomed when President Biden announces that the withdrawal from Afghanistan marks the end of the entire era of the use of American military power with the aim of “remaking” other countries. But if this reorientation only means that we will no longer busy ourselves out in the boondocks with the “endless wars,” but instead will concentrate all forces on the “new challenges”—namely the confrontation with Russia and China—then the lesson from this shameful disaster has not been learned and we are embarking on an even worse catastrophe. But the wound is still fresh, the shock of defeat has shaken the whole Western world and the chance exists for a completely new approach.

A Brown University project to ascertain the costs of U.S. wars since September 11th, for which we are about to mark the 20th anniversary, has calculated that the total costs for the military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, etc. are $8 trillion and at least a million people have lost their lives. This breaks down to $2.3 trillion for the Afghanistan war, $2.1 trillion for the Iraq/Syria war zone, $355 billion for military operations in Libya, Somalia, etc., $1.1 trillion for Homeland Security programs, and $2.2 trillion for the upcoming care of U.S. veterans who were deployed in these wars, a large number of whom suffer from secondary physical and mental illnesses. At least 15,000 U.S. military personnel and roughly the same number of international NATO troops were killed. Around 70 million people are refugees from these wars. Hundreds of thousands of troops were deployed, an unknown number of civilians perished, and the majority of the troops were essentially occupied with protecting themselves in a hostile environment. They had just as little idea of those people and their culture at the beginning of the 20 years, as at the end of it, as was known to the public no later than with the publication of the Afghanistan Papers in 2019.

The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is appalling. World Food Program Director David Beasley, who visited Afghanistan last week in August, announced that 18 million Afghans are starving—more than half the population—and 4 million are at risk of starvation next winter without massive help. The WHO fears a medical disaster in view of the scarcely existing health system in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and only around 1 million people are vaccinated so far. Can the people of Western countries have any idea what kind of suffering the Afghan population has had to go through in the past 40 years of war, and must still endure at this point in time?

In view of this almost unimaginable tragedy, it is downright absurd and deliberately misleading that in the context of the “endless wars” one still speaks of “nation-building.” What was built in Afghanistan when half the population is starving? If the U.S.A. and other NATO members had invested only 5% of their military spending in the real economic development of Afghanistan, this horrific debacle would never have occurred.

Modern Health System and Agriculture

So far it has not been apparent that there is any real rethinking in the United States or Europe. Because this would not mean merely that one is willing to “talk to the Taliban,” but that one is correcting the entire premise of the policies of the last 20 years. If Biden is serious about ending the entire era of the wars of intervention, then U.S. troops must finally comply with the vote of the Iraqi Parliament, which demanded their withdrawal in January 2020. Then the murderous Caesar Act sanctions of the U.S.A. against Syria must be ended immediately, which to this day contribute to holding over 90% of the population to a standard of living below the poverty line. Beyond that, especially during a pandemic, we must end the policy of sanctions against all countries; they have no UN mandate, and they only strike at the poorest sections of the population and often kill them.

What the U.S.A. and the European nations have to do now, if they ever want to regain credibility with respect to “values” and “human rights,” is to offer real help to the Afghan government that is being formed, e.g. by building a modern health system. One of the things that is urgently needed now is a whole system of modern hospitals, in connection with a system for the training of doctors, medical professionals and a training program for young people who can help the population in all rural areas to familiarize themselves with the hygiene measures required in a pandemic. With the help of partnerships, such a system could be linked to medical centers in the United States and Europe, as is already in place with other countries in the developing sector.

In view of the famine, in addition to the airlift that David Beasley of the WFP is setting up from Pakistan, which can bring food into Afghanistan, a comprehensive offer of agricultural support is needed urgently. If we are to stop the farmers from falling back to the cultivation of poppy plants for the production of opium out of sheer necessity, then the development of agriculture, integrated into the general economic structure, must be supported. With the agreement concluded with the Taliban in 2000, the former UN drug commissioner Pino Arlacchi demonstrated that the abolition of drug cultivation is possible and that the religious convictions of the Taliban can be met.

Provided that the sovereignty of Afghanistan and the new government is absolutely respected, and it is guaranteed that such aid in building up agriculture is not mixed with a political agenda, various pilot projects based on the model of Jawaharlal Nehru’s green revolution could be started with the regions that are ready to do so. There are committed young and older farmers in the United States and Europe who would be willing to participate in such a peace mission to improve agricultural production in Afghanistan in such a way that the famine can be permanently eradicated. In view of the repeated droughts, such programs would of course have to go hand in hand with irrigation programs and general water management.

An Aid Coordinator Who Is Trusted

It must first and foremost be about helping the Afghan people in a gigantic emergency that they did not cause themselves, and this is only possible if a basis of trust is established with the new government, regardless of all ideological reservations. The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites therefore proposes that the U.S. and European governments choose the person to coordinate such an aid program, who has shown in the past that such a policy can work: namely, Pino Arlacchi. It would guarantee that Afghanistan’s sovereignty would be respected and that no attempt would be made to impose Western standards, since he has already won the Taliban’s trust in the past.

Such a redefinition of policy towards Afghanistan naturally also means completely turning away from thinking in geopolitical categories, rejecting the idea of politics as a zero-sum game in which the rise of China and Asia are automatically understood as the decline of the West. With his visit to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the new head of government, Abdul Ghani Baradar, signaled that his government is counting on cooperation with China and the integration of Afghanistan into the New Silk Road. The Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, has proposed an international conference for the country’s economic development to discuss which projects must have absolute priority in order to overcome the emergency.

If the West has learned anything from the millennium defeat in Afghanistan, then it must cooperate impartially with Russia, China, and neighboring countries in Central Asia, Pakistan, Iran and India in building not only Afghanistan, but all of Southwest Asia. The slogan “to end the endless wars,” which got Tony Blair so excited, is not imbecilic—what is imbecilic is the policy of colonial wars of intervention he proposed. This was not only moronic, but criminal and murderous, and has destroyed the lives of millions of people or plunged them into unspeakable suffering. The architects of this policy should be held accountable.

But if the cycle of violence and revenge is to be overcome, then a new policy must be on the agenda: The new name for peace is development, as Pope Paul VI once said. Afghanistan is the one place where the United States and China can begin a form of cooperation that can be a baby step toward strategic cooperation putting humanity’s common goals in the foreground. Ultimately, its realization indicates the only way that the end of mankind in a nuclear Armageddon can be prevented.

In any case, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer does not seem to have learned anything from the “severe defeat,” if all she can think of is the demand for “more military independence for the EU.” The “lack of skills” of which she speaks does not only refer to the failure of European resistance to the U.S.-driven withdrawal from Afghanistan. If the self-induced decline of the West is to end, we need an honest analysis of why the neo-colonial liberal social model has failed, and above all we need a renaissance of our humanistic and classical culture. Our attitude towards the construction in Afghanistan is the test case of whether we are able to do so.

This article was translated from the front-page lead of the German weekly newspaper Neue Solidarität* for issue No. 36, Sept. 9, 2021. https://www.solidaritaet.com/neuesol/2021/36/hzl.htm*

July 31, 2021 Schiller Institute conference

August 21, 2021 Schiller Institute conference

CGTN Publishes Helga Zepp-LaRouche Opinion Piece on ‘COVID Resilience Rankings’

July 17, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

July 16 (EIRNS)—A commentary from Helga Zepp-LaRouche, responding to “COVID Resilience Rankings” determined by Bloomberg, was published by CGTN today. Zepp-LaRouche lambasts the Bloomberg report, which gave the U.S. higher marks than China, in which she states, “Essentially this ranking is a demonstration of the thesis, that one can prove anything with statistics, as long as you define how the statistics are constructed. While most of the nominal facts of the listed rankings appear to be factual, the accompanying article in the section ‘Containment Formula’ belies the overall purpose and bias hidden behind the statistics. Here the worry is expressed, that the ‘underperformance of some of the world’s most prominent democracies’ as compared with ‘authoritarian countries like China’ has raised questions about the ability of democratic societies to cope with pandemics.”

Zepp-LaRouche continues: “The reality shows a quite different story. In Wuhan, China, it demonstrated that the prioritization of society’s well-being over individual liberty was very successful. The Chinese approach after the containment in Hubei Province to test, isolate, quarantine, continues to spot cases to the present day and has resulted in only 4,636 deaths to date. In the U.S., on the other hand, more than 600,000 people lost their lives with many people suffering from long-term COVID debilitating effects.” The full opinion article is here.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Briefs China Plus ‘World Today’ Program—‘The New Name for Peace Is Development’

July 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, New Silk Road / BRI updates, Russia, World Land-Bridge updates, World war danger updates

July 13 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave the following interview to China Plus radio’s World Today broadcast today. China Plus is the official English website of China Radio International. The interview is the second news story starting at 12:55 minutes

CRI: Welcome back. The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed China’s resolution on the contribution of development to the enjoyment of all human rights, at the 47th session, which emphasizes the right to development and that the aim of development is to improve the developing of the people. For more, we are now joined on the line by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a Germany based economic and political think tank. Thanks for joining us Dr. LaRouche.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, hello! How are you?

CRI: I’m good, thank you. So, the resolution stresses that development and the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. How do we understand those?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: First of all, let me express my congratulation. I think this is an excellent development, because hopefully this will inspire a very productive discussion everywhere around the world, what is the right definition of human rights. And I think the interdependence between development and human rights and freedom, you can see best if you look at the lack of development. Because then you have poverty, and you have still on the planet, 2 billion people who have no access to clean water, more than 800 million are and you have no freedom if you have all day to try to get a little bit of water and a little bit to eat, just to try to stay alive, so you have no freedom under these conditions. So therefore, I think development is very clearly the precondition for both human rights with freedom.

CRI: Yes, but that is very different from the Western explanation for human rights, which all starts with the ballot box and has everything to do with individual freedom. How did it get the different priorities when it comes to the human rights issue?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well first of all, I think one has to see that the label isn’t always consistent with the content. Many things which have the label “democracy” and “human rights” have quite some different content, and in the case of the Western parliamentarian system, or unfortunately even the presidential system in some countries, is more a plutocracy, where the money of the multinationals and the big banks determine who gets a seat. Also, I think if you look at the overemphasis of individual freedom it has degenerated into a notion, everything is allowed, and the common good is regarded as a suppression of these individual freedoms.

Now, if you have a crisis, like in the case of COVID-19, you can see what the consequences of this is. China and some other Asian nations took strict measures for the common good, and it worked well, and then also the individuals profited because they were rid of the pandemic earlier; while in the West you had a back and forth, people were even protesting against having to wear masks, regarding that as an intrusion in their personal freedom, and they had to pay a much, much bigger price.

CRI: Well, representatives from countries including Venezuela, Cuba, and Pakistan also made speeches to appreciate China for delivering those draft resolutions and stressed that development should be the focus of every country, especially developing countries. But why is the resolution getting support from these countries?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it’s very simple: Because in the entire post-World War II period, the IMF conditionalities prevented real development in the developing sector. They were told, you have to pay your debt first before you can invest in infrastructure or health, and the result was a blatant underdevelopment and incredible poverty. So, China, even before the Belt and Road, invested in railways in Africa and other infrastructure, but especially with the Belt and Road Initiative and the COVID crisis, it became very clear that these countries regarded the help from China—which was denounced as “vaccine diplomacy” by some Western media—but these developing countries regarded the attitude of China as a life-saver for them. So, it’s no surprise that they would support it.

CRI: And I think you earlier mentioned about what should be the right definition of human rights. And another question is who gets to pick what the most basic human rights should be? And have you got a feeling that this has been heavily guided by a small number of mostly Western nations which has led to a general bias in favor of the civil, political liberties over economic, social, and cultural rights?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. You can see that right now very clearly in the case of the so-called “identity policy.” For example, between the EU Commission and countries such as Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, there is a big tension right now, whereas in the East, they have rejected the effort by the EU Commission to impose the values of the Western liberal European countries.

So, I think what needs to be put up front again, is the Five Principles of peaceful coexistence and the idea of non-interference in the different social systems, because they are, due to customs, traditions, cultural heritage and these must be respected.

CRI: In 2019 a study by the Center for New American Security—that is a Washington-based think tank—says that China’s actions in the UN were part of this effort to redefine how such institutions are run and shift away from Western concepts of democracy and human rights. What is your thought on those?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, China has been the leading nation for centuries, and only in the 18th and 19th centuries, because of the colonialist attacks and Opium Wars by the British, you know, that that was diminished. But now, China is again the second largest economy in the world. The lifting of poverty of 850 million people represents a tremendous civilizational contribution, and therefore, I think, it is absolutely correct that China should have a major role in this discussion.

CRI: OK, but do you feel the widespread back and forth surrounding human rights issues around the world currently has been highly politicized? And sometimes it has even been used as a tool for political purposes and sometimes as an excuse to put pressure on other countries or even invade other countries?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. These notions, human rights and democracy, have become like a two by four: You can smash any argument into the ground. So, I think this double standard needs to be corrected. Those people in the West who support sanctions under conditions of the COVID-19 crisis against such countries as Syria, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela—I think altogether 30 countries—I mean, this is a violation of human rights if you ever have seen one. Or, if you look at how Assange is treated, or what happened to Snowden, all these people just did the right thing, and they have been treated in an absolutely horrible way. So, this double standard should be stopped.

CRI: What are the consequences of such double standards or politicizing such human rights issues? Is it like shifting our focus away from the real human rights problems?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, it poisons the atmosphere, and it degenerates the idea of human rights, which is actually a beautiful idea, and makes it a victim to geopolitical reasons.

Now, the Schiller Institute is upholding this concept of the “New Name for Peace Is Development.” This comes originally from Pope Paul VI in 1967 in his Encyclical Populorum Progressio, where he coined that idea that the “new name for peace is development.”

And this is very important right now, concretely in Afghanistan. Look, for example, NATO spent there 20 years for absolutely nothing, and now the question is what’s to come out of Afghanistan? Will you continue the geopolitical war? Or, will you have an agreement among all neighbors, like Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and have real development? The real development would mean to extend the New Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative into Afghanistan, but also into Iraq, Syria, Yemen, the whole region. And then you can have peace. So this is not an abstract academic notion, this is an extremely actual issue, that the idea that real peace does require development, that that is a precondition without which nothing will function.

CRI: OK, thank you Dr. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a Germany-based political and economic think tank.

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