Liz Augustat (Austria) – Ms. Augustat is President of Peace through Culture. Europe (Germany)
Peace through Culture is an organization whose main target is to build bridges between ethnics, countries, religions, traditions and different worldviews. Focused on our function as an inspirer and connector, we have organized numerous conferences in Kazakhstan and other Eurasian countries. Looking back to our World Congress under the title “Towards Spiritual Concord” in Almaty with more than 1500 attendees, which was supported greatly by the then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev I especially remember the late Prof. Dr. Dr. H.C. Hans Peter Dürr, the world-renowned German quantum physicist, director of the famous Max-Planck-Institute for Physics, and winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize, who so often enriched us with his participation and insights. Our joint conversations are partially reflected in my contribution.
Nuclear physicists are eagerly following the basic question on what is holding our world together at its core. So Prof. Dürr also asked himself what actually is behind matter. He split matter into smaller and smaller parts hoping to eventually find the essence. But after 50 years of research, he came to the astonishing conclusion: The essence does not lie in matter, but actually does not even exist in the way we thought. What we think matter is, actually is vibration and energy, it is a structure of relations.
Reality is quite different from what we have imagined it to be so far. Expressed in modern language there is no physical matter/hardware at the beginning, but only idea and software. In other words, and with the help of logics, it follows that the so-called “physical or gross matter” and the so-called “subtle matter” are two sides of the same coin, an inseparable unity of spirit and matter. This statement, so far assigned to the area of spirituality, is now getting substantiated scientifically by quantum physics step by step and is likely to radiate into all areas of society in the future.
Our world is the One and the Whole and cannot be dissected. This fact leads to fantastic consequences, because if we include ourselves in this world, we are distinguishable, but not separate. We are all part of this community, in this connectedness. In Sanskrit, this is called “Advaita,” the Oneness, the A-duality.
When people wage wars against each other, they are hurting themselves at the same time, because all living beings are part of the One. When anything in the world suffers, we suffer with it, even if we do not know the reason. This is not to be attributed to sentimentality, but [to] a deep ontological feeling that touches our common roots. Despite retaining our individuality, we are part of a higher unity, namely the whole of humanity.
Reality around us constantly gives evidence to the collective liability mankind is caught in: Let us just take examples such as “El Nino” or the testing of nuclear weapons or the gigantic emissions of poison by industry into the air and the oceans—effects that do not stop at national borders, nor at mountain heights, nor at depths of the oceans.
Worldwide cooperation, individual ethical responsibility, benevolence and mutual understanding of cultures and traditions among peoples will be necessary to climb to the next step: towards world peace. So far, unfortunately, the United Nations has fulfilled the hope of uniting the world through joint political action just rudimentarily, in some individual departments. Can we create something similar in the field of international, intercultural and interreligious understanding and achieve effective results?
Many years ago, my late father, Willy Augustat, already introduced the concept of an International World Ethics Congress, from which a World Ethical Council subsequently would have to emerge. Such an institution would ensure that universal ethical requirements and corresponding parameters could optimally be considered in all major decisions at all levels.
It is true that not all languages differentiate between the terms ethics and morality. However, we can clearly state that “moral” is a somewhat limited term, used within society of either local or temporary significance (what to do or not to do in the sense of customs and traditions). What was allowed and accepted in former times is no longer valid now and vice versa! The current morals are part of the education and legal regulations within a country or group. Whereas the ethical foundation is already part of the human being—it is, so to say, inborn in the individual!
Looking for universal principles we find them in all great world religions, which have a lot of basic ethical requirements for the individual’s consciousness and character in common.
Ethical Councils on a worldwide basis could be composed of impartial representatives of the academies of the humanities and social sciences, artists, scientists in general and religious representatives; they would have to recognize all world religions in their original sense and represent ethics as the common foundation of all cultures and religions. Each candidate would have to be chosen by virtue of his knowledge and authority in a particular field and by virtue of the esteem and trust he enjoys in his own or related cultures.
In this conceptual framework, national ethical councils would have to send representatives to the World Ethics Council, which needs to be on a par with the United Nations. All measures would only be adopted with the agreement of both bodies so that ethical standards are taken into account in every political and other far-reaching decision. Veto rights would not exist within the countries of the United Nations as they do today, but only on the part of the Ethical Council. In a future world community, the advantage of one must also be to the advantage of all others. All cultures of the world should be allowed to keep their substance and thus be included in the aspired overarching World Peace Culture. Unity in diversity, universal ethical principles such as justice—non-violence—equality—freedom—community and philanthropy are the values of today. The kick-off could take place in the frame of an Ethical Congress where the participants define and elect suitable candidates. Let us carry this idea to the next level of practical realization together!
We are here today because we know that there is no other way left for us but to move forward towards peace, if life on Earth is to continue. We all are aware that time is mature for a new paradigm, a profound change of consciousness. Going back to Plato and other philosophers, we must awaken our consciousness again to the cosmic law of cause and effect which at the same time is connected to self-responsibility for everyone.
Fritjof Capra, physicist and futurologist, compares this approach with a global immune system that becomes active for protection of our Earth, a collective and almost instinctive response of humanity to the acute threat to its livelihood. This immune system consists of many people and groups who are tirelessly engaged in all places of our globe to neutralize and regenerate the harmful influences that are threatening our life everywhere.
I am very happy that the Schiller-Institute offers a strong network of such immune reaction for a peaceful future for ALL!
And let me close with my father’s words: “World Peace can only build on a higher cultural consciousness and responsibility, as well as awareness of necessary action!”
Tatjana Zdanoka – Ms. Zdanoka is a Member of the European Parliament, Latvia
We used to say, “Don’t bring me, My God, to live during an era of big changes.” But we are living during an era of big changes now.
The methods of management focused on unifying the population of Europe and the world according to values of “homo economicus”—the self-sufficient rational consumer—are enduring a systemic crisis. “The economic person” is not even an abstraction, it is a reduction, a flat projection of one of a set of measurements of any human being. The reality is that all people—West Europeans, East Europeans, the Chinese, Indians or Russians—cannot be reduced to the sum of their economic requirements and to functioning as consumers of goods and the benefits.
Each person exists only in the interrelations and the relations with other people, and these communications are irreducible to mutually advantageous or mutually acceptable economic exchange. These are social and political communications—belonging to language, culture, national or subnational community or to religious community. Both these communications and interests are unrealizable out of community, out of political space.
The following phenomenon is evident: with the growth of integration on the contrary, awareness of the originality increases. There is the known mathematical rule: the process of integration must be accompanied by the process of differentiation. I’m often used to quoting the words of Yehudi Menuhin: “Either Europe will become the Europe of cultures, or Europe will die.”
The title of my intervention is “On Demonization of Russian Culture.” There is no need to argue that the EU is infected with Russophobia. Here is just one single example out of thousands.
You see in this slide the invitation to the discussion “Pushing Pushkin: the imperialism and decolonization of Russian culture” co-hosted by Rasa Juknevičienė, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Lithuania, and Raphaël Gluksmann, MEP from France. The main idea promoted by the organizers and guests of that discussion is that Russia has always used and continues to use any work of culture as a “weapon of colonization.” The burning hatred in Baltic states, in particular in my country, Latvia, towards everything Russian is irrational and caused by a state inferiority-complex of national elites.
At this moment, the Russian minority of Latvia is on the verge of a catastrophe under the blows of the decisions taken by the ruling politicians, who represent exclusively the national majority. Since last spring, the situation has deteriorated significantly. The war in Ukraine served as a signal for new persecution of the Russian-speakers of Latvia.
Four years ago, my colleague Inese Vaidere, a member of the European Parliament from Latvia, denounced me to the State Security Service for publicly stating that Russians in Latvia felt like Jews on the eve of World War II (saying that we cannot compare [the two], the situation of Jews in Germany was worse). Now another colleague, Sandra Kalniete, calmly tweets that “we should take advantage of the “window of opportunity” that has opened to solve issues important to “our people,” first of all, the elimination of education in Russian and the demolition of the Monuments to the Liberators of Latvia from the Nazi invaders.
Ethnic Russians make up 25% of the population of Latvia, the Russian-speaking linguistic minority makes up 37% of the country’s population. This part of the country’s population is of mixed origin—some represent the descendants of the citizens of the Republic of Latvia from the period 1918-1940, and some represent the labor migrants of the Soviet era. There are approximately 25% of Russian-speaking citizens among the voters of the country, since 12% of Russian-speaking permanent residents remain in a status close to the status of a stateless person and cannot vote.
When speaking about a “window of opportunity,” the Latvian colleague supposed, “[W]e can now achieve our goals without much international attention.” What are those goals? [They encompass] a full-scale campaign by the Latvian authorities to dehumanize, suppress and marginalize the country’s Russian-speaking population. Latvian society is sinking in the wave of hate speech in the mainstream media and social networks. Columnists and commentators openly compare Russian-speaking compatriots with “animals,” a “fifth column” and “aggressive occupiers.” One of the members of National Parliament (Saeima) of the ruling coalition party openly called for ethnic cleansing, aimed at increasing the proportion of ethnic Latvians in the country’s population. The signatures are collected on a petition for the expulsion of “disloyal citizens” from the country and deprivation of their Latvian citizenship, as well as on a petition for a ban on my party, the Latvian Russian Union, standing for the protection of the rights of Russian-speaking minority.
The European Union nominally has an instrument to combat this kind of manifestation. This is the Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism. This document does not have direct effect—it obligates the states to criminalize the respective acts in their legislation. And the Latvian Criminal Code has an article punishing incitement to national, ethnic and racial hatred. The crux of the matter is that this article is only selectively applied in my country.
Appeals to the police and state security bodies regarding the use of hate speech and calls for violence against Russian-speaking residents of Latvia are fruitless. Consistent refusals to initiate criminal proceedings are coming in. At the same time, charges of allegedly inciting hatred against the titular population have been brought against several journalists writing in Russian, the most prominent of them being Yuri Alekseev and Vladimir Linderman.
The Government has prepared a package of initiatives to destroy memorials dedicated to the soldiers of the Soviet army who liberated Latvia from Nazi occupation during World War II. About 150 thousand Soviet soldiers died in the battles for the liberation of Latvia. In almost every family of Russian-speaking Latvians and in many Latvian families, the memory of the victims of the war and the ancestors who fought on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition is preserved. Through this initiative, people are deprived of the opportunity to preserve the memory of their families.
Thanks to the efforts of our party, complaints were submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee and a temporary settlement was requested, i.e., a ban on the demolition of eight monuments until the complaints were finalized. All these requests were granted. However, the government ignored the UN HRC’s decision, stating that it was advisory in nature. During last summer and autumn, more than 70 monuments to the liberators of Latvia from German fascist occupiers were dismantled, despite the decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee obliging Latvia to refrain from demolition.
I was among those who addressed the Committee. Fate so decreed that the land on which one of the monuments stood belonged to my ancestors, victims of the Holocaust. It is the monument to Alosha in the city of Rezekne, the capital of Latgale.
In addition to the demolition of the World War II monuments, the authorities have recently taken on other sites. You see in this slide the sculpture of Pushkin in one of the parks in Riga which was recently demolished.
The fight against monuments of the past continues with repressions against people living in Latvia today. Some of the elderly people are at risk of becoming illegals. The new retroactive norm provides annulment, in the case of bad knowledge of the Latvian language, of the permanent residence permission for those who acquired the citizenship of Russia. But most grave consequences of the use of “window of opportunity” affect the young generation. The ongoing destruction of minority education started in 1995 (higher education), continued in 2004 (secondary education) and 2018 (primary education). The latest amendments to the Education Laws in the Republic of Latvia are deemed to abolish the education in Russian language in total. It will apply both for public and private schools.
I will conclude my intervention with the fragment of the video clip produced by our team in 2003 when the mass protests of Russian-speakers against education reform started. With the kind permission of Roger Waters, the fragments of the famous Pink Floyd clip were used.
School education in native languages of traditional ethnic and linguistic minorities is one of the most important values of the EU. The Russian-speaking community of Latvia is one of such traditional linguistic minorities of the European Union like many others, and its rights should be respected.
Maurizio Abbate – Mr. Abbate is Chairman of ENAC, National Institute for Cultural Activities, Italy
Dear friends and colleagues from around the world,
We are gathered here today to seek, with all our strength, useful ideas and solutions to resolve the terrible armed conflict that has been raging in the old continent for almost a year-and-a-half. A fratricidal war capable of bringing death and destruction among the civilians in the territories directly involved and a very serious economic and financial crisis in the rest of the world, due to a system of speculation implemented with unprecedented wickedness by the food and energy multinationals. Corporations often controlled by the same masters.
We are well aware that giants such as Vanguard and BlackRock share a majority of the shares of agribusiness multinationals through Monsanto, Cargill and Dupont. The same hold today in Ukraine about 19 million hectares of land devoted to intensive agriculture, which corresponds to 60 percent of Ukrainian agricultural land. Similarly, 100 percent of Ukrainian mines are now owned by multinationals. To ask why war broke out in this part of Europe, starting from those simple figures, therefore seems superfluous.
The important thing, therefore, is not to analyze the causes of the conflict, but rather to try to understand how was it possible that the American public, as well as the European public, always attentive to the problem of peace, thanks to their peace movements, are today almost numbed by what is happening.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. These were the slogans engraved on the facade of the Ministry of Truth described in George Orwell’s famous novel. This year, the European Union, in an almost grotesque way, has created a Peace Instrument to allocate nearly €8 billion for the purchase of weapons. Buying weapons to prevent conflict and build peace—this is stated, prominently, on the European council’s website. Almost a parallel to the Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
If an institution such as the European Union can alter the foundations of freedoms, that is, the truth, by characterizing the supply of weapons, tools for killing, as useful tools for building peace, then the cultural and moral degradation of the institutions, as well as that of the media that should be exposing such lies, has become self-evident.
Unfortunately, what I have previously stated about the concentration of food and energy production in the hands of a few powerholders is also true for political institutions, the media, as well as those in charge of education. Culture, which, emulating the teachings of Socrates and Plato, should be concerned with developing thoughts and indicating the models of society to be built in order to achieve nobler goals, such as general welfare and solidarity among peoples, is constantly downgraded to a kind of unimportant fashion. Such principles, at the same time, are subordinated to the interests of a few economic powers who have made contemporary society a huge market of precariousness in which everything can be sold or bought. Even the right to life.
A society in which social cohesion is being progressively demolished and upon which continuous alleged emergencies are being imposed, such as climate, health and finance, capable of altering national choices in agriculture, crafts, industry and society.
Therefore, the time has come to stop this neo-barbaric drift caused by the globalization of economy and culture.
A new social and cultural Renaissance must be initiated. To do so, a new paradigm is urgently needed for our Western communities, which must definitively abandon the principle of business as the centerpiece of society and put man with his material and spiritual complexity back at its center. Politics must redefine a harmonious system in which every man and woman has his or her own role in a synergistic and organic way. A society in which human beings must be judged and valued for who they are, for the values they express and succeed in embodying, rather than for what they possess. Only in this way can individual nations, free, independent, self-determined and with their own specificities, become communities again and contribute to the global growth of all humanity.
The differences and peculiarities of peoples, generated by centuries of history and different cultures, must become the driving force to build a constructive dialogue for peaceful coexistence. A dialogue that leads to an equitable distribution of the resources of the planet on which we all live and which are often the cause of armed clashes and unprecedented violence due to the criminal desire to concentrate them in the hands of a few.
As we develop this thesis and try to involve all those who share its aims, however, strong and persuasive signals must be sent out. It is imperative to make it clear to the world that so many free people, not only have no intention of bowing to the deliberate decisions autocratically made by globalist elites, but are ready for a global change of the paradigm imposed until now by those who believe themselves to be the absolute masters.
Confronted with the holders of the major global media in a now imminent head-on clash, networking is needed. It is necessary to organize as many events as possible and use every single television, computer or radio channel to spread the news. Inviting foreign guests to local events must also become a habit capable of disrupting the mantra that only globalization can guarantee freedom, pluralism and democracy.
ENAC, the National Institute for Cultural Activities in Italy, which I am proud to represent, is organizing a conference in Italy with the aim of re-establishing relations between Syria and Italy. Economic and cultural relations that were interrupted for mere political interests and have not been reopened even in the aftermath of the dramatic earthquake that caused thousands of civilian casualties in Turkey and Syria.
At this conference, in which we would be happy to welcome any of those present today, who would like to participate, we intend to send a clear and unequivocal message: While liberalism talks about peace and democracy causing wars and building walls, we respond with the strength of culture, the only one capable of guaranteeing and respecting individual differences while working on building a bridge made of friendship, solidarity and cooperation among peoples.
Luc Reychler – Prof. Reychler is Professor Emeritus of International Relations, University of Louvain; former Director, Center for Peace Research and Strategic Studies (CPRS), Beglium.
In my presentation I will share an analysis of the current war in Europe and reflect on how Desiderius Erasmus would deal with it.
As one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance, Erasmus highlighted the folly of religious wars (folly is the pursuit of a policy contrary to the welfare of the people of the states involved), and took on the establishment of his time, whether princes or popes. Their excuses for going to war, were criticized and satirized in writings, as “In Praise of Folly” and “The Complaint of Peace.” He gave peace a voice. His comments, of nearly 500 years ago, are still relevant today, because, although wars are unique, and historically and culturally different, they are universally similar. Wars and counterwars purposefully commit atrocities. (Counterwars are fought against the country that started a war). People, above all the soldiers, are still slaughtered, pierced, burned, shredded, suffocated, tortured, pillaged, etc. And, violence committed during war, is applauded, called righteous and patriotic; the soldiers, dead or alive, get praised with medals. Erasmus warned that wars are attractive for people who have no experience or knowledge about war. His disgust with war is well expressed in the citation “Dulce bellum inexpertis,” or “War is sweet for the inexperienced.”
Before zooming in to the war in Ukraine through Erasmus’s glasses, let me focus on some facets of the war, which are not part of the official discourse in the West. They however invite us to a more balanced, comprehensive and impartial picture.
1. The war was anticipated. Several diplomats and scholars, including myself, expected a war. For example, in 2008, during the George Bush Presidency, William Burns, Ambassador to Russia, who later served as director of the CIA, cautioned that the expansion of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine would have deadly consequences. It would be the brightest of all red lines and create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
2. The war could have been prevented. The West, especially America, made war prevention difficult by (a) her expansionist foreign policy, (b) reducing the art of diplomacy to coercive diplomacy and regime change, and (c) underestimating the risks and costs of an escalating proxy war. Hans Morgenthau’s political realism was replaced by neoconservatism that urged democratic states to establish a new international order through military power, sanctions and regime change.
3. Russia started the war and is the main culprit, but the West and Kyiv are co-responsible. There are several indicators of co-responsibility. In 1990 Ukraine defined itself as a neutral country; the country would not become a member of an alliance. NATO would not expand to Ukraine. During the first 24 years of the independence, Ukraine did not experience war. The American interference in the domestic politics of Ukraine, in the name of regime change, was well underway before the Maidan revolution. This meddling in domestic affairs and NATO’s stealthy expansion threatened Russia’s objective and subjective security. Russia spoke of its existential security. The US and NATO ignored the security issue, arguing that the alliance is peaceful and defensive. This public confession is painfully dissonant with the many wars that America, her allies and NATO waged in the 21st Century in the Middle East and Europe (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and in Serbia to support in 1999 Kosovo separatist movement). The increasing political and geographical expansion of NATO to the Russian borders presented Russia with a crisis and a dilemma: to allow this to happen or to stop the expansion in time and thus avoid a ‘fait accomplis.’
4. There is not enough space for an open discussion in Russia, Ukraine and in the West. An impartial, open and critical discussion about prevention and co-responsibility would have contributed to a sound analysis and forecast, and a rational and realistic policy. It would significantly increase the chances of serious peace negotiations. In Russia, a critical conversation about the war and the eight years of civil war in Ukraine that preceded it, is impossible. That is also the case in Ukraine. In the public spaces of the free and democratic West, all the noses are expected to point in the same direction. An open and critical discussion is discouraged by ‘groupthink.’ This is a political-psychological phenomenon that prioritizes agreement and discourages critical commentary and alternatives. Characteristics are: the illusion of infallibility, the conviction that one’s own morality prevails, the rationalization of one’s own decisions; the stereotyping or diabolizing the opponent, and pressure and sanctions to enforce conformity. This undermines the chances of successful and cost-effective decision-making and forms a one-sided and narrowly informed public opinion. In wars, pacifists and peace researchers tend to be sidelined, sanctioned and stigmatized as traitors, dreamers or psychological deviants.
5. The war in Ukraine is a vicious entanglement of an internal-war and a proxy-war with escalatory potential. It’s an escalation of an eight-year-long civil war in a pluri-national country. Fortunately, so far, it has remained a limited war, taking place within the borders of Ukraine. The war and counter-war has created a lot of suffering and destruction. It’s a mega media event. Diplomacy is down. President Zelinski turned out to be a stand-up diplomat and appears almost daily at conferences or in the living room. It is a cynical war, for which the population and the front soldiers are paying . The Donets Basin in the East has been, for nine years, the most blood-soaked area.
6. The costs are high. During a war it is always difficult to find good statistics; they are usually rude and not reliable. The numbers are part of the psychological warfare. For example, not much attention is given to the casualties and destruction during the preceding (internationalized) civil and secession war in the Donbas. On April 9, 2018, the Washington Post reported that the Donbas was one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. After five years of fighting, more than 10,000 people were killed, 2,800 of them civilians. The war destroyed the infrastructure and a third of the hospitals and schools, homes and election facilities. The number of refugees and displaced citizens was very high. For the current war, Pentagon documents published in April 2023 estimated that Ukraine suffered approximately 125,000 casualties, with up to 17,500 killed in action, while Russians had nearly 200,000 casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in action. The problem with wars, is not only the huge costs (physical, material, economic, social, political, psychological, spiritual and ecological) but also the real and expected benefits and profits. Wars last as long as they are considered profitable by the main protagonists.
7. The war logic prevails. No serious efforts have been undertaken to boost the chances of de-escalation and the building of sustainable peace. Humanitarians and hawks continue to ask for more guns and more war. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg’s one-liner, “Weapons are the way to peace,” is a fitting title for a surrealist painting of Magritte. The war looks like a huge cage fight, in which the outsider-supporters are safe spectators who empower the fighters and encourage them to win.
8. The war will probably end as a lose-lose operation. Violence may continue for a long time, intensify and even lead to a regional and a third world or nuclear war. The loss is not only for the Ukrainians and fighters on both sides of the battlefield (mostly young men, 40 to 50 percent of whom have no military experience), but also for the whole of Europe. For some spectators in the rest of the world, the war is a European tragicomedy.
How would Erasmus respond to the wars in the 21st Century, and especially the war in Ukraine?
I think he would criticize and satirize the excuses for ongoing war; for example, the misrepresentation of the war as the defense of democracy and of the democratic world. He would also tackle the propaganda on both sides. Above all, he would point at the stupidity of the war and the hubris and mediocracy of the warmongers. Only wise people build sustainable peace. Modern and smart weapons have not reduced the actual and potential atrocities of the war; and the weapons of mass destruction are waiting around the corner. Erasmus would also be a whistleblower and name the princes and kings, and the war profiteers who are responsible for the war. He believes, that what cannot be refuted by argument and fact, can be parred by laughter.
As a constructive pacifist, he would add peace-work to his critical analysis. This implies demanding a cessation of the war, because he considers peace to be more precious than the pursuit of triumph, and a frozen conflict less destructive, less costly and less dangerous than a protracted war. The cessation of the war would go hand in hand with the re-establishment of communication and peace negotiations, but also with development. South Korea is a good example of a country that negotiated a cease-fire with North Korea in 1953 and decided (with the help of the US) to use its talents to become a prosperous country. South Korea reminds us that it is not who wins a war, but who wins the peace that determines their future. A cease-fire in Ukraine, combined with efforts to win the peace, could be a formula to end the war.
Erasmus stresses the relation between education and peace. He would recommend that the Erasmian program for education, training, youth and sports, also give attention to the education of sustainable peace building and the prevention of wars.
Finally, he would encourage people to take part in the building of sustainable peace. This may sound like a dream. But as he said 500 years ago, he would remind us that “there are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.
Diane Sare – Mrs. Sare is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York, USA.
Thank you! I am very happy to be with you here, because we must quickly improve ourselves and our approach to everything in a coordinated fashion. I would like to thank Jacques Cheminade for his important leadership of France and his recent statement, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her brilliant initiative to pull together all of the international peace movements onto the same page. There is hope.
Humanity is undergoing a transition, and it is a very dangerous one, because you have some shriveled-up old, evil people running some evil institutions, who don’t want to give up the power that they used to have—and I say “used to,” because they’ve already lost that power, and the danger comes from their failure to realize that important fact.
Lyndon LaRouche provided a pathway for the new order with his 1976 [1975—ed.] proposal for an “International Development Bank,” in which every nation would have the opportunity to achieve its full independence in the way the American President Franklin Roosevelt envisioned should occur after World War II.
Unfortunately, or by design, FDR had died just before the end of the war, and his vision for the post war world was unfulfilled.
In 1976, when Mr. LaRouche put forward his program, and launched his first US Presidential campaign, the financial and intelligence community interests tied to the British Imperial system still had too much power, and were able to prevent him from becoming President of the United States. They later assassinated Indira Gandhi and others, including two important German figures, Alfred Herrhausen and Detlev Rowedder, when we had another chance in 1989.
Now, these rotten institutions are totally and thoroughly bankrupt—and I mean, the World Bank, the IMF, NATO, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the ECB, the Bank of England, JP Morgan Chase, all of them! So everything they try to do, not only backfires, but it produces the opposite effect.
They intended to destroy Russia—in fact, President Biden announced that himself last year when he visited Poland. It is not “Russian propaganda’ (which I’ve been accused of spreading).
Has Russia been destroyed? No. The Russian economy is stronger than ever, and Putin is now even more popular since the Prigozhin/Wagner attempted insurrection was so quickly and efficiently put down. Contrary to idiot western propaganda, Putin is stronger, and his nation more unified. However, the arrogant, and perhaps also drug-induced, blindness of the so-called western leaders seems to prevent them from seeing this.
But it’s not only Russia. There is a powerful dynamic among many large nations, and they are joining into various groups, such as the BRICS, the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union, and now there are signs of unity coming in Ibero-America, and in Africa as well. The African Union has become a powerful player in world politics. Trade between Russia and China is now 85% in yuan and rubles, not dollars.
The grave danger is that the delusional west thinks that they can blackmail and threaten six billion people to change course, and go back to being slaves. If anyone has paid attention to recent speeches of South African President Ramaphosa, you know that this will never happen. So, we face nuclear war.
Please don’t think I am exaggerating, or Helga is exaggerating when she keeps saying this. Let me remind you that President Biden has already crossed several of his own boundaries in escalating this proxy war in Ukraine. He said, “no tanks”; we are sending tanks. He said, “No F 16’s”; we are sending F-16’s. He said, “No long range missiles;” we are now sending those as well. He also said, “NordStream will be ended…. I promise you.” And he delivered. Would he, would [British Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak, would [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg approve a strike on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant?
Now, those of us here, are here because we want to stop this. We want to move mankind into a new direction, but we face some obstacles. Perhaps most frustrating is that our governments don’t listen to us. Not only that, but our governments persecute truth-tellers. Because our societies have been so culturally degraded, it is easy to respond with violence. Before Helen Keller had access to language, if she needed or wanted something, all she could do was throw a tantrum. She caused harm in hope of getting a response.
The violence can be expressed outwardly as in the riots and looting just seen in France, and as happened in the USA a few years ago, or mass shootings—now we have one every few hours; or it is expressed inwardly, with drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and suicide. The rate of suicides among children in the United States, aged 10-19 years old, has tripled.
Everyone seems to believe that brute force, rather than poetry, is the way to “send a message.” What is the message? This is our challenge, because God has created each of us with an innate sense of Truth and Justice, but due to the willful degradation of our culture, like the young Helen Keller, we feel powerless to express these principles and to “be heard.”
The first thing we must remind ourselves is that the universe is created according to the same principles that exist in our souls, and this is why, if we temper ourselves—or tune ourselves to universal principles—we can defeat all evil. But this is hard work!
Let me give an example of the wrong idea about “justice.” You may not have this so badly in Europe, or maybe you do, but in the United States we are obsessed with punishment. It is a popular sentiment, that if a person does something harmful or illegal, they should be made to “suffer the consequences,” which is supposed to ensure that they don’t repeat the action. We even have a culture which blames people for being refugees—we call them “illegals.” There is no concern for whatever monstrous acts, even by our own governments, may have driven them to flee their country, but merely rage that they get a hotel room, limited medical treatment, maybe, and a cell phone!
This self-righteous indignation is fueled by the anxiety and frustration felt by millions of Americans, who themselves can’t afford medical care, or rent, or are hopelessly indebted, and I think it is designed to try to induce us to start killing each other—but that can be taken up later.
I have been reading a book by Dr. Homer Venters, who was the chief medical officer for NYC Jails. It’s called, “Life and Death in Rikers Island.” To give you a sense of the results of this attitude, of the need to punish, let me tell you the story of one 25- year-old inmate at Rikers Island, who died there in 2012. His name is Jason Echevarria.
On the evening before his death, Mr. Echevarria was being held in a unit for people with mental illness who failed to obey orders. It was then decided that he was “fit enough” to be subjected to solitary confinement as a form of punishment. According to Dr. Venters, “in order to escape the stress of solitary confinement, Mr. Echevarria swallowed a packet of industrial soap and then told correctional officers that he needed medical attention. Passing medical staff confirmed that he was vomiting and required medical attention, but the response of Department of Correction staff and their supervisor was to keep Mr. Echevarria in his cell overnight, intermittently taunting and ignoring him as he vomited blood, bile, and lye, screamed for help, and ultimately died with an eroded esophagus.”
Now, suppose they had allowed the medical staff to treat him before he died a horrible painful death, and they had saved his life, but he’d gotten to suffer a bit. Would that be an appropriate means to “teach him a lesson?”
“Well, everybody doesn’t think that way—it’s not how things are done most of the time,” many even here might say. But I am telling you that this is the institutional policy of our governments.
Take sanctions, for example. What’s the idea of sanctions? “Just starve the people, let them watch their babies die in their arms, and they’ll shape up. They’ll overthrow their leader, or their leader will finally start obeying us.” This is the exact same attitude as expressed by the corrections officers, but now made policy and imposed upon millions of innocent people.
Do you think that a society which tolerates and promulgates such barbarism will be capable of preventing nuclear war?
So, we must temper ourselves. We must remember certain fundamental universal principles, so that we can act in accordance—what a great word, with “chord” in the middle—with the universe, which will greatly amplify our voices.
[Video of a musical performance is shown.]
I apologize that that may not have been as beautiful as I’d like, but I think you get the idea. We have to sound a certain trumpet—or trombone—but not in an arbitrary way, but based on truthful principles. If I hadn’t bothered to find out that the note F is in first position, it would have been a very frustrating and ugly experience.
Similarly, if you have a mass movement for change, and you ask for the wrong thing —that is, your demand is not in coherence, as Confucius might say, with the laws of heaven, you might regret getting what you asked for in a way you never intended.
The fundamental principle of our universe, and of our relationship to it, is growth. That is—and we are learning this more and more with the Webb telescope—that contrary to foolish opinion, the universe is moving from lower order, lower energy-density to higher, and more complex order and higher energy-density.
Life on this planet used to be little single-cell organisms which went extinct easily, until photosynthesis occurred. Suddenly, more advanced life was possible, until we came to fish and amphibians which could propel themselves—no longer dependent on the ebb and flow of the tide. Then came mammals, which not only could regulate motion, but also body temperature, requiring a great increase in caloric intake per kilogram of body mass.
What is the link between a mammal and a salamander? I think you’d be hard pressed to find it—these are some of the great mysteries—like the link between life and non-life. There is not a linear connection—if you squeeze a rock hard enough, it will turn into a mushroom, for example. We don’t know how it works.
Then humans emerged, and suddenly, not only could they regulate their own activity and temperature, but they could change the environment around themselves! They could cook their food! They could plan into the future—sowing crops for later consumption. They could build houses to enable survival in extreme temperatures. People are able to improve their environment to make it possible for more people to live more happily. People can even improve the environment to make it possible for more animals to live more happily—some good and some bad, but I wouldn’t call increasing the rat population exponentially an improvement.
This means that the natural creative love of discovery in the human mind is resonant with the way the universe itself is unfolding. This means, that if we wish to survive as a species, we must create the conditions for each individual person to develop their innate potential as much as possible. Do you believe there is such a thing as “too many geniuses?” We need billions of geniuses! We are so very arrogant to imagine that we’ve mastered the secrets of the universe, and that now we should all just stop eating and using electricity and reduce our carbon footprint because we are complete.
It is precisely trying to halt growth which will kill us all, because it goes completely contrary to the laws of the universe. So far, the most efficient means we’ve discovered to foster the development of the individual, is the principle of the nation state. So, the sovereignty of nations must be respected, and the need for each nation to have ever increasing available energy and energy-density. We don’t all need to have the same language, religion, or appearance, but we do need to respect the principle that the measure of our success is the development of mankind.
This is why the one standard which gives any government legitimacy is the principle of the General Welfare. Any policy which seeks to degrade the humanity of any individual person, or any group of people, is wrong.
Mankind is now at a crossroads, as the United States was when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. The United States had reached a breaking point where it was unavoidably obvious that slavery was creating a harsh dissonance with the principles of our republic. The United States could not survive if that evil institution were allowed to continue. Similarly, the world has reached the point where humanity will no longer submit to a system which arbitrarily determines that one group is superior to another, and has the power to make its own rules, as if natural law and the created universe did not exist. The majority of mankind is no longer willing to pretend that snow is black.
If we wish to be heard, and have the power to change our own sorry governments, we will have to tune our trombones to that chorus.
[Transcript of video clip:]
So let’s talk a little bit about resonance, and I’m going to use a trombone as an example of how, if we are truthful, the universe can amplify our truthfulness, and it is a matter of principle. Now, to make a sound on a trombone, we have this, which is not an amplifier…. That not very beautiful, it is kind of labored and the sound doesn’t really carry…. When I put my mouthpiece into the trombone, then we get a great sound which carries, but you have to be precise in your tuning, because the trombone has a certain length … and if you adjust the length the resonance changes, for example, or the pitch changes. There you can hear, the longer the length, the lower gets the sound…. So, what happens if I decide I want to play, but instead of picking the right position in my trombone, I choose something arbitrary. I can get a note but it is not beautiful, and that won’t carry.
Hervé Machenaud – Mr. Machenaud is former Executive Director of the EDF Group (for engineering and electricity generation) and former Director of the Asia-Pacific Branch, France.
Mr. Ambassador, Madame President, Chairmen, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
I am particularly pleased and grateful to have been invited by the Schiller Institute to speak about what I believe, in all objectivity, to be one of, or perhaps even the finest cooperation project in international industrial history.
I’m talking about cooperation between France and China in the field of civil nuclear power.
In the early 1980s, France was chosen by China to help her launch its nuclear program. The contract signed in 1986 for the construction of the Daya Bay power plant was a pact of trust between France and China, between EDF and GNPJVC, the Guangdong Nuclear Corporation created for the purpose.
A pact of trust because, in addition to training dozens of Chinese engineers who have come to France to work in EDF power plants, China asked EDF to manage the project and guarantee its successful completion. I’m proud to have been the Chinese company’s first Technical Manager.
A pact of trust, because very quickly, the hundred or so highly-qualified Chinese engineers in charge of observing, monitoring and questioning our practices were, at their request, integrated into EDF’s engineering teams. We are no longer under surveillance, but partners, a truly integrated team.
A pact of trust, because when EDF studies the upgrading, after ten years of operation of the Gravelines power plant, the Daya-bay reference, it offers without hesitation to make available to GNPJVC the 110 modifications, the invaluable fruit of know-how acquired over hundreds of years[PU1] of feedback. China will appreciate this gesture.
As a further act of trust, shortly before Daya Bay was commissioned, GNPJVC asked EDF to take responsibility for the first few years of operation. EDF then sent some sixty operators to start up the plant and train the Chinese teams, who within a few years would be taking the reins of their plant.
In 1995, just as Daya Bay was coming on stream, CGNPC commissioned a second plant based on the same French model, on the same site. EDF will provide technical assistance and French companies will act as suppliers, but Ling Ao will be a Chinese power plant, built under Chinese responsibility by Chinese companies. China has acquired its autonomy in this area.
This will not prevent close cooperation between French and Chinese operators: exchanges of experience, spare parts, support in the event of incidents… Daya Bay and Ling Ao take part in performance competitions for French power plants, often winning first prize. This cooperation continues today between the operators of the 56 French reactors and the 36 Chinese reactors of the same technology.
In 2007, CGN invited France to build two EPR reactors on the Taishan site, and EDF to invest alongside it. This agreement, unique in China’s history, was signed for the plant’s fifty-year lifetime.
The next step, in 2013, will be CGN’s commitment to EDF to build and operate two EPRs at Hinkley Point in the UK, with the prospect of building two more at Sizewell and two HPRs, the Chinese Hualong model, at Bradwell.
This cooperation is set to last a century.
The partnership between France and China culminated in Premier Li Keqiang’s trip to France at the end of June 2015.The joint declaration on deepening Franco-Chinese cooperation on civil nuclear energy was made public on the occasion of his visit. It provides for comprehensive cooperation “from mining to reprocessing,” in all areas of operation, the design of new medium- and high-power reactors, their construction in China, France and third countries, the association of industrialists from both countries and the construction of a reprocessing plant in China. All French companies, starting with AREVA and Alstom, and the hundred or so members of the Partenariat France Chine Electricité (PFCE) association, are involved in this agreement, which opens up immense prospects.
Confidence is at its zenith.
The industrial alliance between France, which has the world’s most extensive operating experience, and China, which is going to build the biggest nuclear program in history, is an asset for both countries, and beyond, for the safety and progress of nuclear power worldwide.
This historic partnership is the fruit of the work of men and women who have put their faith in projects to be built together, and have given each other their trust. Today, they are tied by bonds of friendship.
In a field as strategic as nuclear energy, such a partnership is a cornerstone for building cooperation and peace between peoples and nations.
And if today, this cooperation has weakened somewhat under the effect of various negative influences, let us hope that it is revived. Its foundations remain intact, and it is certainly not only in the mutual interest of our two countries, but also a contribution to progress and peace in the world.
Julio Miguel De Vido – Mr. De Vido is former Minister of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services (2003-2015), Argentina.
I would like to begin this presentation, which I titled “Planning for Integration, Cooperation and Growth with the BRICS: Missteps and Risks,” by first thanking the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Dennis Small for the honor of being invited to this conference.
The disappearance of the global financial system as we know it today, depends on the success of the BRICS, conceived of as the possibility of putting together a platform for intercontinental integration of economies that paradoxically have, as an advantage, large natural resource reserves and a determining role in the global supply chain (energy, food, water and biodiversity); and, as a disadvantage, that they bring together very powerful real or potential economies, but very unequal ones. A simple review of the social landscape of many of these countries provides the evidence of these asymmetries.
Therefore, my view is that, in addition to the agenda of speaking honestly and taking a stand about the war between Ukraine and Russia, and the agenda of domination itself that perpetuates dependence on the world financial system (thanks to organizations such as NATO), it is necessary to build that platform for integration which is the BRICS with an eye to and respecting the sovereign views of those countries, connecting their willingness to cooperate, to trade ties and definitions in foreign policy issues that go along with it.
The situation today is one of a “delicate balance.”
There are many of us who agree with the need for a new way of participating in the institutions of global governance, especially among the countries that share a common history of struggle against imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and underdevelopment. But there are many missteps and risks, if the foreign policy and the insertion strategies are not clear in their characterization and are erratic. In addition, the agreements and commitments to represent the so-called “Global South” must be balanced and firm within each of the countries—those that today make up the BRICS and those, like Argentina, that seek to join that bloc.
The historical moment and the context should encourage us today.
Dennis Small writes that “The only way the Argentina-Brazil-BRICS vs. IMF conundrum will be solved, is by getting China’s Belt and Road Initiative actively underway in the region—to put ‘shovels in the ground’ and start building the long-awaited bi-oceanic rail corridor(s) across the continent, in particular, based on multi-billion non-dollar credit lines.”
I would like to recall here that Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela—led at that time by Néstor Kirchner, Evo Morales, Lula da Silva, Rafael Correa, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, Tabaré Vázquez and Hugo Chávez, respectively – we signed in 2007 the Founding Charter of the Bank of the South, guided by the purpose of developing, promoting and fostering the economic and social integration of the member nations of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations).
The process of creating this Bank of the South was part of the joint commitment to create a new regional financial architecture. It was a way to prevent national savings from flowing to more developed economies, instead of being invested in regional projects. In a way, it was for us a first step to get out of the financial and trade globalization of the time, and to be able to revitalize investment, correct asymmetries, and develop integrating infrastructure. In short: the goal was to mitigate the foreign vulnerability of our region.
Unfortunately, we recognize it today as a failed experience of the UNASUR regional block. The non-collaborative technical-administrative superstructures during the first years of UNASUR’s life, with their procrastination, opened the door to a reconfiguration of forces that, by 2011, had an impact on the integration process and, of course, on the project of the Bank, as a result of the political changes in the region.
The effort and political will of many of us with experience in government administration, to break the U.S.’s hegemony and enter fully into multilateralism and into a change in the International Order, has to aim at:
First – Define what we mean by the Global South. I find it necessary to characterize the subject. Today we know the potential of the G7, with low representation in terms of world population (10%) and an economic size of 31% of world GDP. We know the potential of the BRICS, with high population representation (40% of the world’s population) and an economic size of 24% (in terms of world GDP). The open question is to estimate its geopolitical weight in order to establish joint positions regarding world political and economic functioning, to counterbalance a G7 that today includes industrialized countries, with a BRICS composed of countries that appear to be in political and economic crisis as a result of submission to the “prescriptions” of the multilateral credit institutions.
Second – Urgently address the shared vulnerabilities of the economies of the Global South. We have seen that the assessment of the so-called Agenda 2030 in these countries, which the U.N. imposed as part of the world order, is that it was a failure. I am talking about poverty, inequality, climate change. As presented in the Agenda, “sustainable development” went over the top. As a result, and by way of example: extractivism, as a fundamental tool for the concentration of wealth that limits development, and also for the export of natural resources, which in my country is a way of obtaining dollars to pay the debt to the IMF, are clearly very dangerous ways of acting in disregard of sustainable development (environmental and social).
This recognition of the reality within countries should be the platform from which the BRICS work for the global economic recovery which we seek to lead from there, to position these emerging economies on the path of development and self-sufficiency, which, along with the type of proposals being analyzed in this forum, will allow us to define a New World Order.
One such proposal, to quote Small and Freeman when they pose the need for a new currency: “Productive credit must be issued in that new currency to finance great development projects, with a heavy emphasis on science and advanced technologies, in and among participating nations, to quickly boost the physical economies and thereby provide the only possible solid backing for the value and stability of the new currency.”
In that light, we must bring a new international order into being that is truly inclusive, equitable, fair and sustainable, one that allows for reforms to be agreed upon and planned in the areas of energy, transportation, and infrastructure; as well as the greatest possible investment from the BRICS in the economies of its partner nations to allow for the growth of local industry in each of them, as well as the real improvement in the indicators of the Agenda 2030 guidelines and an ongoing improvement in foreign trade and market access.
In the short term, the BRICS platform must help member countries resolve their debts with multilateral credit institutions, supporting the growth of each of them, the creation of genuine employment, and the improvement in the living conditions of their inhabitants; and over the long term, establish new financing mechanisms outside those institutions and the mandates of the United States and its allies.
My understanding is that that is the path to launch the new world economic agenda, so that the world financial system, as we know it today, disappears, and so that the BRICS can create a counterweight in global geopolitics under conditions of respect from the West for the so-called “Global South.” Thank you.
H.E. Ilia Subbotin – Mr. Subbotin is Minister-Counselor of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in France.
Dear participants of today’s International conference, organized by the Schiller Institute,
Dear Ms. Zepp-LaRouche, Dear Mr. Cheminade,
Dear friends,
I’m stressing the word friends, because I really hope that this morning I speak in front of people, who are at least ready to listen and who do not have a “pre-cooked” vision of the international reality, like the one broadcast by the mainstream Western media.
From what I was able to find in open sources about the Schiller Institute and its founder, Lyndon LaRouche, I conclude that this audience will be able to think critically and to make its own conclusions.
The topic of today’s panel is “Peace in the world through architecture of security and mutual development, to the benefit of each and every country.” I will present to you a view, based on the official position of my country and on my personal experience, including 23 years of diplomatic service.
I remember vividly my first contacts with US high school students in 1990-91, during the last years of existence of the Soviet Union. There was a program called “Friendship Caravan,” under which young Americans were visiting Soviet schools, spending several days in Russian families. After decades of the Cold War it was a breath of fresh air. We were happy to make new friends. The future seemed bright and marvelous.
In July 1989 then-President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev visited Strasbourg and spoke in front of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In that historic speech he put forward the idea of the “common European home” and called for substituting “the geopolitical balance with the balance of interests” in order to create the wide economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok. I see here a link to Point 7 of Helga’s “10 principles for tomorrow’s world.”
That was the turning point of the Russian foreign policy. For 30 years after that speech, my country spared no efforts to build the common humanitarian, legal and economic space, which would cover Greater Europe. Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe from 1996 until March 2022 was the most visible proof of that course.
Before I continue on the track of European integration, allow me to draw your attention to one circumstance, which is key for understanding of the later developments. After the failed coup d’état of August 1991, in December of the same year the Soviet Union was peacefully dissolved. Let me stress the two opposite versions of what happened—the US leadership (namely President Bush, the father) already during the 1992 electoral campaign started to talk about the victory in the Cold War, and the collapse of the USSR because of that “victory.” For us in the former Soviet Union, the perception of the events was radically different. We never felt we had lost the Cold War. In fact, it was our President who stopped it. The disintegration of the USSR became a kind of “collateral damage” of the titanic shift in Russian policy. And, believe me, when it was happening, almost nobody understood what exactly was happening. Most of the people in former Soviet republics, except the Baltics and Georgia, wanted to continue living together. And I remember very well the feeling of the first months of 1992 that some kind of new union of the same republics would emerge very soon. The reality unfortunately turned out to be different. Deep economic crisis, unemployment, criminality, interethnic conflicts in a number of post-Soviet republics….
With all these difficulties Russia still stood firm in its desire to become a part of the Western world. In 1996 we joined the Council of Europe with its Court of Human Rights and many other institutes and instruments. In 2002 the NATO-Russia Council was created. As of 2003 we agreed with the European Union on the creation of four common spaces, which would cover economic issues; issues of freedom, security, and justice; external security; and, finally, research and education.
Meanwhile, in 2000 I graduated from the MGIMO University—the well-known Russian diplomatic school, and was appointed to my first diplomatic post, in Chile. Here I would like to recall one more personal episode from the late ’90s. In spring, 1999 I was doing a Master’s [degree] in international relations in Madrid, Spain. I lived in a shared flat with some other students, including a Yankee boy, called Stephen. We were going along quite well until NATO started to bomb Yugoslavia. For me this is another turning point of European history of the last 30 years. Russia today is accused of bringing the war back to Europe. As if the aggression against Yugoslavia never took place! On the night when Russian paratroopers took control of Pristina airport, we had a physical fight with my US neighbor. He started the fight, shouting something about “Russian pigs.” The US might be successful in Yugoslavia but not in Madrid flat…
In terms of Russia-West relations, the Kosovo crisis is well known by the U-turn of the Prime Minister Primakov’s plane over the Atlantic (24 March 1999) and the beginning of a U-turn in global Russian politics—although, as we know now, it took my country 20 more years to do the complete U-turn. The former prime minister and foreign minister Primakov was a truthful partisan of the concept of a multipolar world. In his active years in politics, he advocated for the multipolar system, which is becoming reality before our eyes now.
In 2007, I was for the first time appointed to Strasbourg, to the Russian permanent mission to the Council of Europe (CoE). Since then I have been dealing with the CoE file in different capacities. On February 10, 2007, President Vladimir Putin delivered his landmark Munich speech. He spoke about the indivisible nature of security, of the failure of the unipolar world (may be it was too premature, but seen from today, that was the right conclusion), of the excessive use of force by the US and NATO… Recalling the events of the late ’80s, President Putin stated clearly: “[T]he fall of the Berlin wall became possible thanks to [the] historic choice of [the] Russian people in favor of democracy, freedom, openness and sincere partnership with all members of the big European family.” And of course he was advocating for the more balanced system of security (Point 1 of Helga’s principles —international security and development architecture as a partnership between sovereign Nation-states).
Was my President heard in Munich? Judging by the events which followed, he was not. In August 2008 Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili attacked civilians and Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinval. Together with my colleagues I spent long hours of discussions in the Committee of Ministers to prove the obvious, that the attack was started by the Georgian side. An international inquiry commission headed by the Swiss Ambassador, Heidi Tagliavini, came to the same conclusion. However, none of these conclusions was able to correct the fact that an armed conflict between the Russian army and a US-trained and -equipped Georgian armed forces took place. Luckily, the war lasted only few days and, as we see now, became a very good vaccine for the Georgian society and leadership against any future attempts to start an armed conflict with Russia.
In 2009 we celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the Council of Europe. Former [Soviet] President Gorbachev was invited to pronounce the main speech at the solemn ceremony. On that occasion, I was lucky to spend three days with the man who had changed history. He is often seen in my country as too pro-European, but allow me to quote some key messages from his 2009 speech: “Europe hasn’t fixed the key question, namely, creation of the solid basis for peace, of the new security architecture.” President Gorbachev, not Putin, 2009. Another quotation: “[T]he roots of actual problems are in the wrong assessment of the events, related to the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union.”
Sorry for the prolonged excursion into the modern history, but I’m deeply convinced that to understand today’s reality, we must have a clear picture of what happened yesterday.
In 2012–2015 I was working as a seconded political advisor of the Council of Europe’s Brussels office. It was a unique chance to learn the “Brussels bubble.” Moreover, it was a period of time when foundations for the current Ukrainian crisis were laid. You might remember that the EU and Ukraine were negotiating an Association agreement with a free trade zone, which would enter into conflict with the already existing free trade zone between Russia and Ukraine. My close colleague and friend was among the top negotiators on our side at the EU-Russia talks to find way out of the dead end. According to him, there was no will [shown by] the EU side to come to mutually beneficial agreement during these talks. The refusal by [Ukrainian] President Yanukovich to sign the Association agreement was used to spark the Maidan coup d’état, which led to the civil war in Ukraine. And again, we witnessed the unwillingness of the Western leaders to implement the Minsk agreements, which stopped the open hostilities from 2015 till 2022.
Now we all have heard the confessions of [former French President] M. Hollande and [former German Chancellor] Mme Merkel that they had no intention to implement the Minsk package and that the only goal of the deal was to give Ukraine more time to re-arm and conquer the rebel regions by force. What was the intention of the Russian leadership? For me the answer is quite clear—my President, supported by political class, wanted a genuine peace deal, of course on the decent conditions, where the key is recognition of Russia’s leading role in providing security in Europe. The guys in Washington, D.C., apparently did not see such a role for my country. To a large extent, this explains why we’re still in open conflict.
Let me go back to 2017. I took the post of Deputy Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, responsible for the Council of Europe file. My biggest headache was the institutional crisis. The Russian delegation in PACE was deprived of its key rights, and consequently my authorities decided to stop paying our contribution to CoE budget until these rights were fully restored. By Summer 2019, working closely with Secretary General Jagland and the reasonable part of the members of PACE, we were able to fix the problem. The Russian delegation returned to the Assembly with full rights. The Russian contribution to the CoE budget was fully paid. Would all this be possible without the genuine desire of my President, of our political class, to keep Russia as part of the Greater Europe? Definitely not! We were also lucky to have at that moment of history the responsible and independent leadership in the CoE (Jagland).
What happened next? Russia realized that the United States in Ukraine were preparing the worst scenario. We made the last effort—the “diplomatic offensive” of December 2021 – January 2022. It happened that I was able to discuss these events personally with two main Russian envoys—Deputy Minister Riabkov (he worked with the US) and Deputy Minister Grushko (he was in charge of NATO track). The parallel conclusion of both esteemed colleagues: there was no wish on the US/NATO side to seek any compromise with Russia.
In these circumstances, the special military operation became the just and non- alternative step to guarantee Russia’s security and to protect Russian people, whom the Kiev regime wanted to deprive of their language, religion, culture, values. What was the reaction of the West—hatred and mantra that the only way out is a “strategic defeat of Russia at the battlefield.” And no effort is spared to reach this aim—according to open sources, more than $150 billion has already been spent to arm Ukraine. By the way, a couple of years ago the G-20 agreed to accumulate $100 billion to help the green transition of the developing countries—this commitment has never been implemented!
Let me stress that it was not Russia that broke relations with Europe (that was exactly the case with our withdrawal from the Council of Europe). The breakup was the initiative of the Western countries (the second part of the title of our session, the essential strategic autonomy of the European states). I will not discover America if say that now there is no such autonomy and that the European political class is almost totally controlled by the US. Can this situation change? I hope so, and the fact that such organization as Schiller Institute exists, makes this hope stronger.
The Multipolar world is emerging. It’s a fact of life. New centers of economic [development] are here. The financial growth in China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and Gulf countries’ power and political influence go along with the economic success. The share of the G7 in the world’s GDP is already less than that of BRICS. The hegemon which loses its dominance reacts maliciously, by staging internal conflicts and wars between brotherly nations, like those in former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Will Washington be able to change the course of history? I do not think so. I am sure most politicians in the West understand this. The open question is, when will Europe—Germany and France primarily—wake up and free themselves from the shackles of US control? When and if this happens, Russia will be ready for mutually beneficial dialogue of equals, on the basis of our fundamental interests. We are not looking for self-isolation.
H.E. Lu Shaye – Mr. Shaye is Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in France.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, I would like to thank the Schiller Institute for inviting me to Strasbourg, the “second capital of Europe,” to share my thoughts on the international situation.
At present, changes unseen for a century are taking place at an accelerated pace, giving rise to unprecedented transformations of our world, our times and history. The ongoing conflict on the European continent is attracting worldwide attention. More than a year after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, where does the outcome lie? The answer to this question is being sought not only by the countries involved in the conflict and the European countries with a close interest in it, but also by peace-loving people the world over.
Depending on the positions and interests of the various parties, there are two diametrically opposed options: the first is to continue hostilities until one side prevails over the other; the second is to promote peace talks to find a solution acceptable to both antagonists.
The world is thus divided into two camps: the pro-war camp, led by the United States, which, under the guise of defending justice, is prolonging the war by constantly supplying arms and other forms of military assistance to Ukraine; and then the pro-peace group, which is actively engaged in shuttle diplomacy in favor of reconciliation and peace talks.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict highlights two ways of thinking in today’s world, pitting two strategic choices against each other: that of confrontation and conflict versus that of dialogue and cooperation, or that of the zero-sum game versus that of mutual benefit and win-win. Moreover, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is itself the disastrous consequence of America’s obsession with the logic of bloc confrontation after the end of the Cold War, reflected in NATO’s continued eastward expansion to restrict Russia’s strategic space and drive it into a corner.
And today, the USA is trying to launch a “new Cold War” against China. On the political front, it is sticking ideological labels on other countries, calling China an “authoritarian dictatorship” and rallying “value allies” under the banner of defending “democracy” to launch a “new crusade” against China. On the military and security front, the US is busy creating “little clans”: from bilateral military alliances to the trilateral partnership (AUKUS), from the quadrilateral dialogue (Quad) to the Five Eyes alliance, via the “Indo-Pacific version of NATO.” On the economic, commercial and technological fronts, projecting its own model onto China by assuming that any great power practices hegemony, the US is building “little courts surrounded by high walls,” and seeking to decouple and break supply chains in order to crack down, comprehensively, multi-sectorally, intensively and continuously, on China’s high-tech enterprises and critical industries such as semiconductors.
European countries have been forced to choose sides. On the Russian-Ukrainian issue, from participation in sanctions to the current dispatch of fighter jets and pilot training, Europe is becoming more involved in the conflict by the day, while the prospects of resuming dialogue with Russia and rebuilding a new European security architecture grow ever more remote. As for relations with China, the United States is deliberately linking China to Russia and playing on the false narrative of “today’s Ukraine, tomorrow’s Taiwan,” fanning anti-Chinese hatred in Europe and poisoning Sino-European relations.
Against this backdrop, it’s worth noting that some European countries have demonstrated a stronger commitment to strategic autonomy, refusing to choose sides between China and the USA. They have stressed the need to defend their strategic and economic sovereignty on the basis of their own interests, to maintain channels for dialogue and to play a role as a balancing force between China and the United States.
Developing countries have also largely refused to fall into the logical stereotypes and discursive traps of bloc politics and confrontation of camps. They reject the blind wave of condemnation and sanctions against Russia, and pursue their policy of friendship towards China. Peace and cooperation remain the aspiration of the peoples and the general trend.
At the same time, confusion and anxiety on all sides are far from over. Some countries, anticipating an escalation of confrontation and an “eventual war” between China and the USA, are betting on both sides geopolitically, and economically, they are erecting trade barriers and practicing investment screening, industrial relocation and blocking of critical technologies vis-à-vis China, insisting on “dependency reduction” and “derisking.”
In a turbulent world, China remains as clear-sighted and determined as ever. Ten years ago, President Xi Jinping innovatively put forward the vision of a community of shared future for humanity and the Belt and Road Initiative, and since 2021 he has successively presented the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. These are Chinese proposals for solving global development problems, meeting international security challenges and promoting mutual enrichment between civilizations
An African proverb says: “Alone we go faster, together we go further.” Those who ignore the interests of others will never get far, those who want to rely solely on their own strength by getting rid of others are living in illusion, and those who think only of blocking the development of others will not be able to fundamentally solve their own problems.
In presenting the Global Development Initiative, China advocates solidarity and cooperation. Aimed at rapid implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the initiative identifies eight key areas of cooperation, including poverty reduction, food security, development financing and the digital economy. It has received the support of over 100 countries, as well as the United Nations and other international and regional organizations, as it corresponds to the broad common interests of the international community.
Thanks to the joint efforts of all parties, the Global Development Initiative has come to fruition very well, with many early results to the benefit of different peoples. For example : mechanisms such as the “Special Action to Promote Food Production,” the Global Alliance for the Development of Technical and Vocational Education, the International NGO Cooperation Network for Poverty Reduction, the China-Africa Alliance for Poverty Reduction, the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Action Cooperation Center, and the Center for the Promotion of Global Development; more than a hundred concrete cooperation projects are on the Initiative’s project list, benefiting nearly 40 developing countries, and offering more than 20,000 training places via 1,000 capacity-building projects; China has launched the world’s first scientific satellite dedicated to the 2030 Agenda, shared its data with the rest of the world, and donated several data products to the United Nations.
As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, more than 3,000 cooperation projects have been signed, generating almost $1,000 billion in investment, creating 420,000 jobs and helping almost 40 million people out of poverty…. The facts prove that what the world needs is not “decoupling” or “broken supply chains,” but open, inclusive, win-win cooperation. China is ready to continue sharing development opportunities with Europe and other countries around the world to promote common prosperity.
Attached since ancient times to the primacy of peace and concord between all states, the Chinese nation has no genes in its blood for aggression or hegemony; on the contrary, it has always sought peace, harmony and concord. Faced with a profoundly restructuring international landscape and complex security challenges, China advocates a common, integrated, cooperative and sustainable security concept, and pursues a new security path based on dialogue rather than confrontation, partnership rather than alliance, and win-win rather than zero-sum game.
Last February, China published the Concept Paper on the Global Security Initiative, which lists 20 priorities for cooperation, including: firmly supporting the central role of the United Nations in security governance; promoting consultation and healthy interaction between major powers; actively promoting the peaceful resolution of burning issues through dialogue; effectively addressing conventional and unconventional security challenges; and continuously strengthening the world’s security governance system and capacity development.
On the question of Sino-American relations, we have no intention of challenging or supplanting the United States, nor of becoming a new United States, nor of waging a “new Cold War” of bloc confrontation. Recently, when he received US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed that “the world needs an overall stable Sino-American relationship,” that he is “confident that the two great powers can overcome all difficulties to find the right way to get along in mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation,” so as to “stabilize and improve the Sino-American relationship.”
On China-EU relations, China and Europe have no fundamental conflict of interest. On the contrary, we both benefit from each other’s development, both advocate strategic autonomy and multilateralism, and we have a broad consensus on global issues such as the fight against climate change. China and Europe should strengthen mutual trust, remove doubts through fruitful cooperation, and work hand in hand to inject stability, certainty and positive energy into the world.
On the question of Ukraine, in the document entitled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis” published last February, China put forward 12 points of proposals, including respect for the sovereignty of all countries, rejection of the Cold War mentality, cessation of hostilities and the opening of peace talks. These proposals take into account the concerns of all parties and can constitute the highest common denominator for negotiations. China has also made concrete good offices efforts to promote reconciliation and peace talks. We are convinced that there is no winner in an armed conflict and that the only viable issue to the crisis is dialogue and negotiation. We hope that the EU will work with us to promote the earliest possible launch of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, so that peace can be restored to the European continent as soon as possible.
As a Chinese saying goes, “the secret of making a good dish is knowing how to combine flavors.” The beauty of our world lies in the mutual enrichment of civilizations. China is against the dualism of black versus white, and the distinction between superior and inferior civilizations. Through the World Civilization Initiative, we advocate respect for the diversity of civilizations, promotion of humanity’s shared values, commitment to the transmission and innovation of civilizations, and the strengthening of intercultural exchange and cooperation. We respect all civilizations in their differences, and support their right to development. We are convinced that individual countries can find their own development paths and institutional models adapted to their national conditions, and that through human and cultural exchange and cooperation, the radiance of all civilizations will produce a magnificent symphony of splendors.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Humanity is a community of destinies, sharing both good times and bad. More than ever, nations are interconnected and interdependent, and more than ever, they are called upon to work together to meet challenges and achieve progress.
Europe was the main battleground of the two world wars and is the scene of the current conflict. Europe should therefore have a more direct experience and a deeper understanding of the importance of peace and development. As we stand at a critical new crossroads in history, I hope that Europe’s far-sighted leaders will engage in deep reflection, actively play their part and contribute their wisdom and strength to lead their respective countries and the whole of humanity to make the right choice.
This is Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s prepared text for her presentation to Panel I, “Peace in the World Through a New Security and Development Architecture for Each and Every Country: The Indispensable Strategic Autonomy of European Countries,” of the Schiller Institute’s July 8–9 conference, “On the Verge of a New World War—European Nations Must Cooperate with the Global South!” It was translated from the German and edited for EIR magazine. (Subheads have been added.)
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche is the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute.
Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear friends of the Schiller Institute!
What a joy to welcome people from so many nations here in Strasbourg in person, after circumstances forced us to hold our Schiller Conferences only virtually for over three years! But we used this time well to bring together so many new forces worldwide, with which we can intervene together at this crucial moment in world history to create a new paradigm for the future of humanity!
Let me say it straight away: Even if our continent is in an existential crisis, we will not allow its demise. Rather, we will revive the best of what European culture has produced, and what is now buried under the speech balloons of a decadent counterculture and the barbarism of the diehards of the past, and we will bring that into the shaping of the New Paradigm!
Unquestionably, we are now in the most dangerous moment the human species has ever faced, as we are extremely close to extinction as a species on this planet, because that would be the consequence of a global nuclear war. And contrary to what the propaganda of the trans-Atlantic mainstream media claims, the danger is not due to “Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression” nor to “China’s increasingly aggressive imperial power grab,” but to the trans-Atlantic forces who are unscrupulously playing with nuclear fire, while attempting by all means to exert unipolar dominance over the world when it has long since been moving in a multipolar direction.
While the mainstream media in unison slander as a “Putin sympathizer” anyone who dares to think that history did not begin on Feb. 24, 2022, and while NATO and the U.S. government fund organizations that put people on lists that put their lives in danger, the nations of the Global South have very much gained an independent view of things.
The sixfold expansion of NATO to the East, coming a thousand kilometers closer to the borders of Russia, despite promises to the contrary, can be as little covered up as the efforts of the Northern “ATLANTIC” defense alliance to expand in the Indo-Pacific region as Global NATO. Above all, with the increasingly blatant and arrogant appeals with which representatives of the “rules-based order” demand that the whole world submit to their intrigues and their “indulgences” in modern garb (such as a carbon tax or CO2 emissions trading), they have crossed the Rubicon. But by such means they hope to prolong the existence of the hopelessly bankrupt neoliberal financial system at least a bit longer.
We are currently experiencing a change of epoch, albeit not of the kind that Chancellor Scholz referred to on Feb. 24, 2022, which amounts to the militarization of Europe as a protectorate of the United States. Rather, we are seeing the end of some 500 years of colonialism, which the countries of the Global South are determined to finally shake off with the help of China and the BRI. For example, at the recent Global Financing Summit in Paris, President Ramaphosa demanded that the international community provide investments for the Grand Inga Dam project:
“Let’s get that done and then we will be convinced that you are serious with the promises that you make…. “
It is estimated that the cost today would be perhaps $120 billion, and that it would generate at least 44 gigawatts of electricity, which would have an absolutely revolutionary impact on the entire continent’s energy supply and economy.
More than 30 nations have applied for membership in the BRICS, which would then include the world’s most populous countries. The attempt, coming mainly from the U.S. and the UK, to “decouple” from China or to “de-risk,” as this foolish phrase has come to be called—when all these countries are closely linked with China—can only lead to economic suicide, or to an equally suicidal formation of geopolitical blocs, which would carry the seeds of a world war.
In the face of this tectonic shift of power, which occurs at most once or twice in a millennium, the European nations—but also America—must decide whether they want to cooperate productively with this emerging world order, or whether they (with NATO, the U.S., and the UK) will opt for total confrontation and the attempt to oppress the absolute majority of the human species. The decision between these two options will test, at the same time, our moral fitness to survive: Are we, as rational beings, able to give ourselves, together with the Global South, an order that guarantees the coexistence of us all and, as Leibniz would put it, allows the happiness of future generations? Or are we soulless human machine guns, hatefully directed only toward the destruction of the supposed enemy?
Nuclear War ‘Options’
This is not an academic question, as will become obvious in four days at the annual NATO summit in Vilnius, at which the Hungarian government—thankfully— announced that Ukraine’s admission to NATO will remain out of the question for as long as the war continues, which should actually be self-evident. Now, however, there are recent statements by Berlin’s two leading think-tanks—Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP), both are close to the government—about possible security guarantees for Ukraine outside of formal NATO membership. Even if these are only ideas from think-tanks, and not necessarily the policies of the Berlin government, these papers deserve the closest attention, because their authors are typical of the so-called “experts” who speak non-stop on the talk shows, and in this way influence the views of the population.
It is not only in France that there has been a great deal of concern recently about Germany’s seemingly complete loss of all sovereignty (which was never very good), as could be seen in the German government’s lack of response to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
Now, it must be taken into consideration that the SWP, which advises the government, the Bundestag, the EU, NATO and the UN among others, was created on the initiative of the BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s foreign intelligence service], which, when it was founded under the aegis of the American occupying power in 1962, incorporated personnel from the military intelligence service Fremde Heere Ost and the Gehlen Organization. The SWP was initially based in Ebenhausen, a small town near Pullach, where the headquarters of the BND was located. The much larger DGAP (the German Council on Foreign Relations), 2800 members, was founded as early as 1955 in cooperation with, and modeled on, the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the British Royal Institute for International Affairs, known as “Chatham House.”
In an SWP paper of June 29, 2023, entitled, “From ad hoc support to long-term security guarantees as a NATO member,” it is stated that there are two options, apart from full NATO membership, that would really guarantee Kiev’s security. The first is “demilitarization” of Russia by reducing its armed forces and arms industry to a level that rules out “offensive operations.” This would only be possible through “external shocks,” a clear defeat of the army, a renunciation by the leadership of its “neo-imperial understanding of its role,” which would require a change of regime, and the simultaneous denuclearization of Russia’s military potential. That, however, they say, is “currently unrealistic.” The second option would be for Ukraine to build up its own nuclear arsenal.
Just in case, the DGAP provided yet another option, circulating under the keyword “hedgehog,” as an animal symbolizing such a massive rearmament of Ukraine—into a super armory so to speak—that it would deter all future attacks. This includes the variant proposed by the chairman of the British defense committee, Tobias Ellwood, which envisages support from a coalition of the willing and a powerful task force, a Joint European Defense Initiative (JEDI). Germany’s Rheinmetall Group has already announced plans to build a modern tank factory and other weapons factories in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, U.S. defense contractors Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin sponsored champagne receptions at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, not least to celebrate the MoU [memorandum of understanding—ed.] that the world’s largest financial services firm, BlackRock, which manages $10 trillion in assets, landed with the Ukrainian government. JEDI is only intended to help bridge the gap; in the long term, NATO membership is indispensable. The goal is to anchor Ukraine irrevocably in the Euro-Atlantic structures. The priority, therefore, is to proactively communicate to their own populations the “meaning, purpose and goals” of NATO membership for Ukraine and to take action against institutions that claim to be part of civil society but are in fact controlled by the Russian state. For the record, we are not controlled!
What a nightmare! The largely destroyed Ukraine is to be transformed into a mega-armed country, a “hedgehog,” or rather into a permanent cash cow for the military-industrial complex on both sides of the Atlantic; it will become a “frozen” conflict that can be activated at any time, as a permanent crossing of the red lines defined by Russia which, in the meantime, is supposed to be “ruined” according to [German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena] Baerbock, or permanently weakened (according to [U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin, RUSI [the British Royal United Services Institute], [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg, etc.).
There’s not a single thought about ending the war through diplomacy, no peace negotiations, no positive vision for the Ukrainian people, and certainly not a peace order for the world as a whole! What an ugly, destructive spirit rears its head here, no human emotion influences the thinking, it’s cold as a robot which is steered by a worm-eaten algorithm!
A New Economic Order
But the arrogance that leads some to claim that they belong to the camp of the “good people,” and can therefore suggest the most horrendous things with impunity, also blinds them. The reality is by no means that the Russian economy is collapsing, quite the contrary. Economic growth in May was [when annualized] 5.4%, while Germany is officially in recession, and Russia was forced by the sanctions to build up many branches of production for its own benefit and redirect trade patterns from the West to Asia, where the momentum of the world economy is anyway.
The trans-Atlantic financial sector, on the other hand, is sitting on a bubble of 2 quadrillion dollars of outstanding derivative contracts—that’s a 2 with 15 zeros—which ultimately means hopeless systemic debt. Central banks are switching back and forth between QE and QT [quantitative easing and tightening—ed.] in apparent disorientation. But Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, takes the cake. He recently stated with utmost arrogance at the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, that Europe is a garden, while most of the rest of the world is a jungle that could intrude into it.
Such a point of view will find no sympathy among the 5,000-year-old cultures of the peoples of Asia, who together with the other countries of the Global South have long been putting into place a New World Economic Order—and where Mr. Borrell is now regarded as a comedian but not one to invite for a visit—or among the nearly 50 percent of German companies that are fleeing the country, due to the mismanagement of the German government and the unaffordable energy prices.
Hearing Borrell’s misplaced comparison to a garden, one is reminded of Scene X in Act II of Schiller’s play Don Carlos, when the Marquis of Posa, who sees himself as a citizen of the world and carries the liberation of Flanders from the Spanish yoke in his heart, confronts King Philip II, the absolute ruler of Spain, the empire on which it was said at the time that “the Sun never sets.”
Phillip says something very similar:
“Behold my Spain, see here the burgher’s good blooms in eternal and unclouded peace. A peace like this will I bestow on Flanders.”
And the Marquis answers:
“The churchyard’s peace!… And do you hope to end …
The universal spring, that shall renew
The earth’s fair form? Would you alone, in Europe,
Fling yourself down before the rapid wheel
Of destiny … Vain thought!”
The absolute majority in Germany, for example, has lost confidence in the government, and according to recent surveys, 79% are not satisfied with the government’s policies. Here in France, we have just seen what state the social fabric in this garden is in. No wall can be built high enough to protect the garden, Borrell says? Well, we see at the external borders of the EU, what these walls look like. Pope Francis described the reception camps for refugees in the border countries of Europe as concentration camps, which are surrounded by high walls topped with NATO barbed wire, and are repulsive enough to deter people from venturing in small boats over the Mediterranean Sea, which itself has long since been turned into a horrendous mass grave.
No, Mr. Borrell, this Europe is not a garden, it is a continent that competent politicians, such as Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, wanted to bring out of the rubble of the Second World War into a better future, and which a thoroughly decadent political caste, having thrown out the window its duty of peace, is now leading into a renewed catastrophe that threatens to far surpass the horrors of the Second World War.
And if large parts of the world outside Europe resemble a jungle, it’s because Europe has not developed Africa in the past centuries, but well-known families in the trans-Atlantic world have built their fortunes on the slave trade, drew profits from the opium trade, or are profiting from the modern successor of colonialism—the casino economy—in which the wealthy determine the rules of our oh-so-fantastically-organized rules-based order.
Or maybe other regions are a jungle because the trans-Atlantic interventionist armies took up residence there, as NATO did for 20 years in Afghanistan, during which time nothing was built, and then left the country in ruins. Or as in Iraq, where a country rising to modernity was bombed back into the Stone Age, and concerning which Madeleine Albright said the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was a fair price to pay for the right to continue ruining the country. And the list of why some countries of this world are not gardens could go on: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Haiti, etc.
But there is a way out. The nations of the Global South, whose existence was just recently discovered by the G7, and which represent the overwhelming majority of humanity, have long been shaking off the shackles of modern colonialism and creating a new international currency, new development banks, a new credit system. Over 30 countries have applied for membership in BRICS-Plus; the SCO, AU, ASEAN, EAEU, Mercosur and other organizations have moved to carry out their trade in national currencies. One hundred and fifty-one countries cooperate with China’s BRI [Belt and Road Initiative], which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary, and managed during that decade to make sure the term “developing countries” really does apply to the countries of the Global South.
Europe and the ‘Global South’
We in Europe, and even in America, have to give up the already doomed attempt to contain the rise of these countries by decoupling or “de-risking.” We have to replace confrontation, which in any case only benefits the military-industrial complex, with cooperation. Germany, France, Italy, and all other European nations must become part of the new paradigm in international relations; our middle class, now bankrupt under the old paradigm, can not only help build the Inga Dam, but realize the Transaqua project that will provide electricity to twelve more nations in Africa. We can cooperate with China to provide the entire Global South with a high-speed rail system, we can build ports and waterways, green deserts through large-scale desalination of seawater, and build new cities.
Yes, and while we’re at it, we can also modernize our own ailing infrastructure. Instead of enriching the defense industry and impoverishing the population, we can repair our schools, make the health care system functional again, intensify international cooperation on the ITER fusion project as a crash program in order to achieve commercial use of fusion energy faster, and we can spare ourselves all the pollution and the destruction of our landscapes with those unspeakable wind turbines. We can also rebuild Ukraine as a bridge between Central Europe and Russia as part of the new Silk Road.
To bring Europe, and America, onto this path, is our commitment. And let us remember what Posa said to King Phillip, and what we, together with Schiller, say to the many Borrells of today:
“Geben Sie die unnatürliche Vergöttrung auf,
die uns vernichtet!…
Sie wollen pflanzen für die Ewigkeit,
Und säen Tod? Ein so erzwungnes Werk
Wird seines Schöpfers Geist nicht überdauern…
“Geben Sie, was Sie uns nahmen wieder!
Lassen Sie, Grossmüthig, wie der Starke,
Menschenglück aus Ihrem Füllhorn strömen—
Geister reifen in Ihrem Weltgebäude,
Geben Sie, was Sie uns nahmen, wieder.
Werden Sie, von Millionen Königen, ein König!”
~ ~ ~
“Give up the unnatural deification that destroys us!…
You would plant for all eternity, and yet the seeds
You sow around you are the seeds of death!
This hopeless task, with nature’s laws at strife,
Will ne’er survive the spirit of its founder….
“Restore us all you have deprived us of,
And, generous as strong, let happiness
Flow from your horn of plenty—let man’s mind
Ripen in your vast empire—give us back
All you have taken from us—and become,
Amidst a thousand kings, a king indeed!”
Today, we no longer need a king, but as a variation on Posa’s words today,