Videoer af tre paneler, invitation og afskrift af Panel I:
Schiller Instituttets internationale konference lørdag den 27. juni:
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Et afskrift på engelsk af Panel I findes nedenunder.

Ovenover: Panel I: “Til erstatning for geopolitik: principperne for statsmandskab”

Schiller Instituttets stifter og præsident Helga Zepp-LaRouche og internationale diplomater, amerikanske valgte politikere, osv.

• Keynote speaker: Helga Zepp-LaRouche: “The Alternative to a Dark Age and a Third World War”
• Dr. Jin Zhongxia, Executive Director for China, IMF; Washington, D.C., United States: “The Fundamentals of East-West Philosophic Relations”
• Boris Meshchanov, Counselor, Russian Federation Mission to the UN, New York City, United States: “Russia’s Global Economic Perspective, Post COVID-19”
• Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon-General of the United States
• Ding Yifan, Deputy Director, Research Institute of World Development, China Development Research Center, China: “A Chinese Perspective on a Post-COVID Paradigm”
• Daisuke Kotegawa, former Executive Director for Japan at the IMF; Research Director, The Canon Institute, Japan
• Mayor DeWayne Hopkins (fmr); Former Mayor, Muscatine, Iowa; The Mayor’s Muscatine-China Initiative Committee, United States: “A View from the Iowa Farm Belt: the Muscatine-China Cultural Connection”
• Question and Answer session

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Panel II: ”Producenter i Verden, foren jer! Hvorfor et program for skabelse af 1,5 milliarder produktive job kan afslutte krig, hungersnød, fattigdom og sygdom”

Jacques Cheminade, lederen af LaRouche-bevægelsen i Frankrig og fhv. præsidentkandidat, og landbrug, fagforening og politiske ledere fra Afrika, Sydamerika og USA.

• Jacques Cheminade, President Solidarité & Progrès, France: “How Food Production Can Unite the World”
• Diogène Senny, Founder of the Pan-African League: “Thrive or perish: An Introduction to the Geopolitics of Hunger and Poverty”
• Walter Formento, Director, Center for Political and Economic Research, Argentina; “South America on the New Multipolar Road”
• Dr. Kirk Meighoo, political economist, broadcaster, and former Senator, Trinidad & Tobago: “The Caribbean’s True Importance in the Making and Re-Making of the Modern Global Economy”
• Mark Sweazy, former UAW trade union leader, United States: “Returning the U.S. Work Force to a Culture of Scientific Progress”
• Robert L. Baker, Schiller Institute, United States
• Mike Callicrate, Board of Directors, Organization for Competitive Markets, Owner Ranch Foods Direct, United States: “Food Unites People Around the Planet”
• Alicia Díaz Brown, Citizens Movement for Water, Sonora, Mexico: “Let Us Return to the Best Moments of the U.S.–Mexico Relationship”
• Question and Answer session

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Panel III: Ungdommens opgave

Daniel Burke, senatorkandidat i New Jersey, USA fra LaRouche-bevægelsen, og universitets og andre ungdomsledere fra Frankrig, Yemen, Colombia, Mexico, Tanzania, og USA.

• Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute, Germany: Opening Remarks
• Keynote: Daniel Burke, Schiller Institute, United States: “If You Sat Where They Sit, What Would You Do?”
• Carolina Domínguez Cisneros, Mexico; Sebastián Debernardi, Peru; Andrés Carpintero, Colombia; Daniel Dufreine Arévalo, Mexico: “Getting Back the Great Ideas That Were Stolen From Us”
• Franklin Mireri, YouLead Partnerships Coordinator, Tanzania: “The Greatest Want of the World is for True Leaders.”
• Sarah Fahim, Student from Morocco Studying in Paris, France
• Chérine Sultan, Institut Schiller, Paris, France
• Lissie Brobjerg, Schiller Institute, United States: “Are You a Large-Scale Geological Force?”
• Areej Atef, Education Committee Vice President of BRICS Youth Parliament, Sana’a, Yemen: “Youth of the World Face Two World Systems: The Old and the New”
• Jose Vega, Bronx, NY: “A New Space CCC”
• Youth Day of Action Invitation Video
• Question and Answer session

Invitationen: 

Efter vore vellykkede internetkonferencer den 25.-26. april samt den 9. maj på V-E-dagen, vil vores næste konference være den 27. juni, kl. 16:00. Hjælp venligst med at sprede denne meddelelse bredt blandt venner, sociale medier osv.

Siden januar har Schiller Instituttets formand Helga Zepp-LaRouche insisteret på, at USA, Rusland, Kina og Indien skal mødes. Deres ledere må vise det statsmandskab, der kræves for at overvinde åndsforladt koldkrigerisk propagandataktik og geopolitik, og tage del i en hastemission for at opbygge en fuldt funktionsdygtig sundhedsinfrastruktur for verden, især for Sydamerika, Afrika og dele af Asien, der kræver opførelse af hospitaler, vandværker, vejsystemer og uddannelsesfaciliteter til unge læger, sygeplejersker og lægeassistenter.

 I over 35 år, og især i de sidste syv år, har Schiller Instituttet kæmpet for netop den slags statsmandskunst.

 Verden må nu vælge mellem to modstridende syn på menneskehedens næste 50 år:

 Et synspunkt kræver at vende den forestående affolkning af jorden på grund af globale pandemier. Disse pandemier er uden undtagelse resultatet af mislykkede finansielle, økonomiske og militære politikker, og især af den fuldstændige deregulering af de finansielle markeder igennem de sidste tre årtier. Det andet, modstridende synspunkt, kræver en ‘Green New Deal’ -energipolitik, som umiddelbart vil forværre planetens nuværende sundhedskrise og kunne muligvis endda resultere i døden for størstedelen af den menneskelige race.

 Vi må tage afstand fra denne affolkningspolitik, organisere den transatlantiske verden for at tilslutte sig det nye kulturelle paradigme, der nu føres an af Kinas Bælte- og Vejinitiativ, og bevæge verden til det som Schiller Instituttet har kaldt ‘Verdens Landbroen’.

 Netop mens Kina igennem præsident Xi Jinping´s Bælte- og Vejinitiativ har engageret 150 nationer i et forsøg på at stoppe fattigdom i hele verden, har malthusianske økonomiske kræfter i USA og Europa, der er imod dette, stigmatiseret Kina som ‘virussets udspring’ – en slet skjult genoplivning af den racistiske doktrin for 100 år siden kaldet ‘den gule fare’.

 I 1923 skrev medlem af det britiske Overhus Lord Bertrand Russell:

 ”De hvide befolkninger i verden vil snart ophøre med at stige i tal. De asiatiske racer vil blive flere, og negrene stadig flere, før deres fødselsrater falder tilstrækkeligt til at stabilisere deres antal uden hjælp af krig og pestilens. Indtil det sker, kan fordelene som socialismen sigter mod kun delvist realiseres, og mindre reproduktive racer bliver nødt til at forsvare sig mod de mere reproduktive ved metoder, der er oprørende, selvom de er nødvendige”.

 Verden, og især vores ungdom, der skal opbygge planeten i de kommende 50 år, må så stærkt som muligt afvise sådanne ideer og politikker for at pålægge systemisk tilbageståenhed globalt, herunder i forklædning af “Green New Deal”. Der kan ikke længere være nogen tvivl om, at verdens mest avancerede teknologier – i rummet, i fremstillingsindustrien, i minedrift, i landbruget – straks, i kraft af hasteprogrammer, må anvendes mod den globale pandemi og den økonomiske krise, som ellers kan føre til snesevis af millioner døde og fordrevne på kort sigt. En sådan massedød forekommer allerede i Brasilien og andre nationer. ‘Verdensfødevareprogrammet’ advarer om, at vi om nogle måneder vil kunne se så mange som 300.000 mennesker dø af sult dagligt, primært i udviklingslandene.

 Et nyt dokument, ‘The LaRouche Plan to Reolen the U.S. Economic; The World Nees 1.5 Billion New, Produktive Jobs’, (LaRouche-planen til genåbning af den amerikanske økonomi; Verden har brug for 1.5 milliarder nye produktive job) skitserer, hvordan denne tragedie kan vendes ved at søsætte den største økonomiske ekspansion i menneskets historie, herunder 50 millioner produktive job i henholdsvis USA og Europa.

 Da den sydafrikanske præsident Ramaphosa lykønskede Elon Musk, der har dobbelt sydafrikansk-amerikansk statsborgerskab, med den vellykkede gennemførelse af den amerikanske mission til Den internationale Rumstation, udtrykte han den form for nationalt lederskab, der kræves for endeligt at bringe globalt tyranni med globalisering og geopolitik til ophør. De seneste gennembrud inden for videnskab, gjort tilgængelig for de mest nødlidende, kan nu indlede en ny æra, der kunne kaldes ‘menneskelig økonomi’. Som Lyndon LaRouche redegjorde: “I stedet for disse for nærværende fejlslagne ideer, må vi antage en forestilling om økonomi, hvis målestok er funktionelt i overensstemmelse med det afgørende særpræg: princippet om kreativ fornuft”.

 Denne stræben efter økonomisk retfærdighed, især for de af verdens børn, der er født ind i livstruende omstændigheder, vil have den yderligere fordelagtige virkning at tage fat på andre problemer med social retfærdighed, der for nylig har fået så megen international opmærksomhed.

Kontact os for at få tilsendt udgaver med tysk, fransk eller spansk oversættelse. Ring +45 53 57 00 51

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Panel I afskrift:

Panel 1: “Instead of Geopolitics: The Principles of Statecraft”

DENNIS SPEED: My name is Dennis Speed, and I want to welcome you to today’s international conference and webcast. We had a technical problem for a moment, and now we think we’ve solved that problem.

Today’s conference is called “Will Humanity Prosper or Perish? The Future Demands a ‘Four-Power’ Summit Now.” We’re going to begin today by the late economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche. He was keynoting a panel of the Schiller Institute — this was in Germany — and the name of the particular panel on that occasion was “Rescuing Civilization from the Brink: The Role of Classical Culture. An Imperative for Mankind.”

LYNDON LAROUCHE video:

This is truly the most important of all strategic questions we have to face today: the fact that the human species is absolutely unique in its capabilities. There’s no other known species in the universe, ever known to have existed, or could exist — even though we have not fully explored, of course, the Crab Nebula or similar parts of the great galaxy which we’re involved in, called the Milky Way. There may be many species with cognitive powers out there. Because the Solar System of which we are immediately a product, although always under the control of the galactic processes — and we know a good deal, today, about those kinds of things: Our organization in the United States has spent a good deal of effort on concentrating, inclusively, on just this question: How old is life? How long has life existed in this galaxy, or within some place in it? What is the nature of mankind, who’s been on this planet only for a few million years? There was no human being on this planet, to the best of our knowledge, until a few million years ago.

And yet, we’re talking about billions of years of this galaxy, during which all living processes known to us have come into existence. And all life is creative, but there’s a sad part: that over 95% of all known living species have been rendered extinct, as failures, in their time. The question, therefore: Why, in these times, when we have entered a period in which there will be more great kills of living processes, at this phase of the movement of the Solar System through the galaxy, why should we be so presumptuous as to imagine that human life is not about to disappear as the dinosaurs did in the last great kill?

What is there about human beings that says they’re not just another animal species, ready to get to the chop in the course of their time?

The answer is a very little-known question. Most people don’t have an inkling of what the answer is! As a matter of fact, our societies are run on the basis of people who have no inkling what the human species is! All they can come up with is an explanation of some kind of an animal, with animal characteristics of pleasure and pain, and things like that, that might control the behavior of this animal.

So why should we expect that we have a right to claim that the human species is going to survive the approaching point of a great kill in the course of the movements of the Solar System up and below and around the galaxy we inhabit? How do we know that this 62-million-year cycle is not going to take the human species away, as it’s taken so many away before? And then, before that, and then before that?

And here you have all these people talking about politics; they’re talking about issues of politics; they’re talking about “practical opinion,” and public opinion, and differentiations in customs, and all those kinds of things! And here we are: We’re approaching the time of the great kill, where everything about us may suddenly disappear; so what are we worried about? If we’re going to disappear, why do we worry? Why do we fight it? [laughter]

What is there in us, that is not in other living species known to us? That might, somehow, miraculously, pronounce a destiny for our human species which we grant to no other living species? The name for that specific quality, which we know in the human species, which does not exist in any other known living species: There’s a quality of creativity, which is absolutely unique to mankind. And if you’re not creative, and if you don’t understand creativity, you haven’t got a ticket to survival yet! Because creativity won’t save you, unless you use it. [end video]

SPEED: We’re continuing to experience highly unusual technical difficulties. There were some problems in some of our international connections….

As soon as we have this technical problem somewhat under control, we’re going to go directly to our keynote speaker, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. We are about now 15 minutes behind schedule, but we’ll be able to do certain things to make that up. We want to apologize again, so that people have an idea, this is a highly unusual circumstance, we’re not going to talk a lot about that right now. Let me simply say so that the format is known, we are going to have first our keynote speech, followed by representatives from China and from Russia, and several others. The topic of the panel, as we announced before, is “Instead of Politics, the Principles of Statecraft.”

Let me say about the Schiller Institute and what we’ve been doing with this conference, or this process of conferences, because it actually began back in April of this year. April 25th and 26th, we held the first of what is now the three conferences. These conferences were devoted to the idea of the creation of a Four-Power summit — Russia, China, India, and the United States. There are various processes that have been able to move in that direction already, and we are in a process today. In fact, among many of the things we’ll be talking about today is a new proposal that has been put forward by President Vladimir Putin of Russia to that effect. Let me also say that for people in the United States in particular, the crisis that has been on people’s minds, as exhibited in the social and political crises in the streets of America, is merely one predicate of a broader international process. And that’s what why we’re starting today with this first panel, to give that broader overview, and to allow you and others to become part of an international operation to reverse that circumstance.

Now, as I said, I think the primary problem that we are dealing with is that we are trying to make sure that the international contacts are also connected. We have translators and we have a need to make sure that everything is moving in sync; that’s one of the particular problems of this kind of international operation.

Let me say one other thing concerning the excerpt that you saw from Lyndon LaRouche, which was done in 2011. LaRouche’s conception there concerning the idea that was strategy; the idea of thinking about strategy from the standpoint of a galactic process, and then looking then — and only then — at the various political episodes that were occurring on Earth, was a way of trying to actually look at what he often also referred to often as intelligence. He was the founder in 1974, of Executive Intelligence Review. And that publication, which is still published to this day, specialized in trying to make his method of intelligence and investigation available generally in American analysis.

This was very successful, in particular, in the drive for certain policy changes that occurred in the United States; most notably, that of March 23, 1983, with the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative. This was the product of a process of negotiation that LaRouche carried out as a back-channel negotiator with the then-Soviet Union, and with the knowledge of the National Security Council and then-President of the United States Ronald Reagan. That policy, and the creation of that policy, and that dialogue with the then-Soviet Union, is, in one sense, not a model for now, but is the same sort of process that must needs be allowed to continue and to happen between President Donald Trump, President Vladimir Putin, President Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others. The idea of the Four-Power summit is not exclusionary. It doesn’t say that other powers are not involved. In fact, recent proposals have amplified or expanded the number of persons that might, in fact, be involved.

But what is important to understand is that, as LaRouche once said in another document published in 1980 called “A Dialogue with Leonid Brezhnev,” then the head of the then-Soviet Union, “The Content of Policy Is the Method By Which It Is Made.” So, in the clip that you’ve seen, there, today, the idea of culture and the idea of what a culture actually is, is a strategic matter. In the case of the United States, and in the case of the present-day United States, these matters of a cultural paradigm-shift are actually often far more important than the particular political issues that people talk about. For example, if you look at today’s United States, the issue of our having gone away from being a productive culture, in fact the most productive economy in the world’s history, between the period in particular of the 1933 resurgence of America that occurred under Franklin Roosevelt, through the period of 1945, and then the subsequent period of 1944 through 1971 with the Bretton Woods system. It’s been the need to return to that, and to return to these ideas — those that had come into currency under Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency — that is the template for what we are saying should be the character of discussion between President Trump, President Putin, President Xi, and Prime Minister Modi.

I want to make one thing clear to everyone as we are about to transition, to get to the keynote, that in thinking about what we are all involved in today — namely, that global pandemic condition created by the coronavirus: Clearly what has happened is, there is a need for all of us to change our axioms. That the idea of international cooperation among sovereign, independent nation-states, for the purpose of creating a worldwide alternative to what’s otherwise going to be, perhaps, the destruction of civilization — not because absolutely everybody would die of the coronavirus or something like that — but the cascading effects and the interconnected effects of a global pandemic condition that we don’t really medically understand, plus the ongoing problem of the financial virus that has, of course, plagued humanity particularly since the time of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, this combination would create a circumstance in which only all nations working together can possibly achieve an actual reconciliation of this process.

I think we’re about ready to begin.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche is the founder of the Schiller Institute — that was back in 1984. She also, of course, is the wife of the late economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, who passed away in February 2019. She played a crucial, decisive role in a set of conversations and dialogues with the government of China during the period of 1993 to 1996; launching the process that became what we now know as the New Silk Road. And we’re happy and proud to present her to you now, to begin the dialogue again. The panel as a whole is, “Instead of Geopolitics, a New Form of Statecraft.” So, it’s always my honor to introduce Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

The Alternative to a Dark Age and a Third World War

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: After this difficult beginning, I’m all the more happy that I’m finally connected to you. And I’m going to talk about the alternative to a Dark Age, or the danger of a new world war. And even if it’s inconceivable for most people at this point, if we do not succeed in the relatively short term in replacing the hopelessly bankrupt financial system by a New Bretton Woods system, exactly as originally intended by Franklin D. Roosevelt, that is, to create an instrument for forcefully overcoming the underdevelopment of the so-called developing sector, then the current orientation of the world….

I don’t know if you heard what I said before because there were some technical problems, but I was saying that even if most people cannot imagine that that can occur, that unless we, in the very short term, implement a New Bretton Woods system, exactly as Franklin D. Roosevelt had intended it, that the current orientation of the world towards ever more conflicts, both domestically in many states of the world, but also on a strategic level, threatens to escalate into a great new world, a Third World War, which because of the existence of thermonuclear weapons would mean the annihilation of the human species — the “great kill” even if it is meant in a slightly different way than Lyn just was heard on this video clip.

Although it is absolutely astounding how many misguided people still believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is either no worse than the flu or a just conspiracy of Bill Gates, the much more likely perspective is unfortunately what epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm has said: namely, that we still have an incredibly long journey ahead of us. Until now, 10 million people have been infected, half a million have died from COVID-19, and we have still not reached the peak of the first wave. The almost non-existent health systems of many developing countries are already hopelessly overstretched. The pandemic has ruthlessly exposed the fact that the neo-liberal economic system not only depends on cheap production in the so-called Third World, but has even created in the United States and Europe slave-labor conditions, as can be seen in the outbreak of the virus in the many slaughterhouses in Europe and the United States.

The economic shutdown has thrown a spotlight on the fragility of what is called “globalization.” In the U.S., around 40 million jobs were lost in three months; the central banks pumped an unbelievable over $20 trillion into the financial system and various government support programs could just barely cover up the timebombs still ticking until expiring of the short-work programs. The IMF currently expects global production to decline by 4.9% this year, and only China is expected to have an increase in production of 2%, which is obviously is much less than it used to be, but nevertheless it grows. Sectors such as air traffic, catering, tourism, the car industry, have suffered massive declines, some of them long-term, but also a large number of medium-sized companies fear they will not survive a second wave and another economic lockdown. The result would be a huge increase in unemployment, poverty and price deflation, while at the same time the central banks’ liquidity pumping is creating hyperinflationary bubbles. Bail-outs of large systemic corporations and banks, as well as politically explosive bail-ins would be further desperate options for governments to implement, but they could not prevent a collapse of the global financial system. A plunge into chaos and anarchy would follow.

In the meantime, a continuation of the current policy would not only lead to increased death rates as a result of the pandemic, but would do absolutely nothing to counter the hunger catastrophe, of which David Beasley of the World Food Program is warning that it will soon take the lives of 300,000 people a day.

Whoever may have thought that a dark age could be ruled out in our modern times, is in for a reality shock. And last but not least, the hedonism acted out by demonstrators who confuse liberties with freedom, is reminiscent of the flagellants and the descriptions of the 14th century as they are given by the writings of Boccaccio, and the paintings of Breughel.

Against this background, it is to be expected that the attempt, originally instigated by the British secret services, to oust President Donald Trump from office by a coup, impeachment or assassination — such was the headline of the British publication The Spectator on Jan. 21, 2017 — or by a “Maidan” coup, as President Putin warned in 2016, these will intensify. The instrumentalization of the outrage resulting from the murder of George Floyd by violent groups funded by George Soros is part of this campaign. The reason for the relentless hostility of the neo-liberal establishment and the mainstream media on both sides of the Atlantic against Trump after what, for them, what his unexpected election victory, was, and still is, the intention he expressed at the beginning of his term, to establish good relations with Russia and a good relationship with China. And of course, Trump’s promise to end the “endless wars” of his predecessors, to bring U.S. troops home.

What followed was a three-and-a-half-year witch hunt against Trump. The war cry “Russia, Russia, Russia,” based on grounds for which not the least shred of evidence subsists, was followed by an attempt at an impeachment, followed by the no less malicious war cry “China, China, China,” although there is just as little substance to the charges against China as there was for Russiagate.

During all that, the representatives of the neo-liberal system were not ready for one second to consider that it was the brutal consequences of their own policies for the majority of the population worldwide, that had triggered the global wave of social protest, which included the Brexit and Trump’s victory, as well as the mass protests worldwide from Chile to the Yellow Vests in France. But this establishment is never interested in discovering the truth, only in controlling the official political narrative, in compliance with Pompeo ’s principle, as he explained in his speech in Texas: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole … we had entire training courses for that.”

NATO’s official narrative about Russia’s allegedly increasing aggressiveness, accused of “redrawing borders by force in Europe,” fails to mention of course the broken promises made to Gorbachov, that NATO would never extend its borders all the way to Russia’s borders, and the preceding color revolutions that can be described as acts of war, and finally the coup in Kiev with the open support of Victoria Nuland, which triggered the referendum in Crimea in reaction.

China’s “crime” is not only that it has lifted 850 million of its own citizens out of poverty, and has become, with an economic policy based on scientific and technological progress and a population of 1.4 billion people, the second most powerful economic nation, and in some technological areas, such as high-speed rail systems, nuclear fusion, aspects of space exploration and 5G telecommunications, already the number one. In addition, China’s offer for cooperation on the New Silk Road, and the Belt and Road Initiative, is the first real opportunity for the developing countries since the time of colonialism, to overcome poverty and underdevelopment by building infrastructure.

NATO’s response to China’s regaining its role as a leading nation in the world, a role it played during many centuries of its 5,000-year-long history, has been global expansion into the Indo-Pacific region. This is the stuff of which world wars can be made. And yet, that is exactly the direction that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has indicated in his outline for “NATO 2030,” which he just presented in a video conference with the Atlantic Council and the German Marshall Fund. German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer took part in another webinar last Wednesday with Anna Wieslander, director of the Atlantic Council for Northern Europe, who, in opening the event quoted Lord Ismay, NATO’s first general secretary, who said that the purpose of NATO is “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” But AKK (as she is nicknamed) did not even seemingly realize the insult in these remarks. The geopolitical scenario of a globalized NATO, which is openly designed to instrumentalize NATO for the purposes of the British Empire, on based on the Commonwealth, and which would also rope the EU into playing that role, and would finally position India against China, must be totally rejected by all those who have an interest in maintaining world peace.

President Putin has just written, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, a striking article on the pre-history of the Second World War and the course of that war, and called on all nations to publish all the up to now classified historical documents from that time, so that by studying the causes of the greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind up to that point, the lessons will be learned for avoiding an even greater catastrophe today. Putin writes in a very personal tone, he speaks of the suffering of his own family, of the immense importance June 22nd has for the Russian population, the day on which “life almost comes to a halt,” and why May 9th, the anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in which 27 million Russians lost their lives, is Russia’s most important holiday. But the indirect message is also that just as the Soviet Union defeated Hitler’s Germany with a gigantic effort, the Russian people will never surrender to renewed threats. Just as Napoleon was led through a long line of defense into the inhospitable Russian winter, and his army was finally as good as wiped out, the evacuation of the people and industrial capacity to the east from 1941 on allowed the Soviet Union to surpass the military production of the Nazis in only one and a half years.

But also the short-sightedness of the Versailles dictate, the support for Hitler from members of the aristocracy and the Establishment on both sides of the Atlantic, and above all the Munich Pact, which is simply called in Russia the “Munich betrayal” or “Munich conspiracy,” is considered as the real trigger for the Second World War. Because it was there, where not only the appeasement of Hitler, but also the joint divvying up of the booty took place, as well as the ice-cold geopolitical calculation, that focussing Hitler’s Germany on the East would inevitably lead Germany and the Soviet Union to tear each other to pieces.

According to Putin, what is the main message of the study of the Second World War for today? That it was the failure to take up the task of creating a collective security system that could have prevented this war was the most important piece! Putin’s article ends with an urgent reminder of the summit of heads of state of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which he has been proposing since January, and which should address precisely these principles of how to maintain world peace and overcome the world economic crisis.

The most important aspect of that is that this format will put the United States, Russia and China around the same table to negotiate the principles that must be the basis of international policy if mankind is to avoid wiping itself out! And yesterday after a long phone call between Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron, Macron said that he stands for a Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which opens not only the perspective of an integration of the European Union, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Belt and Road Initiative, but also the establishment of a common security architecture based on common economic interests.

However, if we are to meet the gigantic challenges of the pandemic, the global economic crisis and the profound social shocks that have destroyed the trust of large parts of the population in their institutions in many countries around the world, further steps are necessary. Obviously, cooperation between the United States and China, as the two largest economies, is indispensable. Even if this currently appears to be an insurmountable hurdle, the extremely tense relationship between the United States and China must be replaced by cooperation on the common aims of mankind.

Who, if not the governments of the strongest economies, the countries with the largest populations and the greatest military potential, should solve the problems? The Boltons must be removed from these governments and replaced by responsible people who are able to find, in the cultural phases of their respective cultures, the starting points for cooperation on a higher level. Benjamin Franklin’s admiration for Confucian philosophy and Sun Yat-sen’s orientation to the ideals of the American Republic are better advisors than Gene Sharp’s “How To Start a Revolution” or Samuel Huntington’s different scribblings.

One has to define a plane on which the solutions for these quite disparate problems become visible. There is one philosopher, born in the 15th century, known in Russia as Nikolai Kusansky, Nikolaus of Cusa, who developed exactly that method of thinking: the coincidence of opposites, coincidentia oppositorum. This concept expresses the fundamental quality of human creativity, which is able time and time again and at increasingly more developed levels to find solutions on a higher plane, where the conflicts that have arisen on the lower levels, are dissolved.

This can only be the immediate implementation of a credit system, that provides the global economy with credit for industrialization, and thus the real development, of all nations on this planet. The entire life’s work of my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, was primarily devoted to achieving this goal; he drew up his first plan for the industrialization of Africa in 1976, the Oasis Plan for the industrialization of the Middle East in 1975; then followed the 40-Year Plan for India in collaboration with Indira Gandhi, Operation Juárez with then Mexican President José López Portillo for Latin America; a 50-year development plan for the Pacific Basin; and then finally, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Eurasian Land-Bridge, as a peace plan for the 21st century. Many of these projects are being implemented today thanks to China’s New Silk Road, and all nations of the world are called upon to contribute to this World Land-Bridge! This is the blueprint for the creation of the 1.5 billion jobs, that are necessary today to overcome the crisis! It should begin with the establishment of a modern health system in every single country, in order to combat the current and future pandemics, which will not only benefit poor countries, but also the so-called developed countries, that can only avoid new waves of infections in that way. Most countries have a large number of unemployed or poorly employed youth, who can be trained as medical personnel and deployed to build up such health centers.

When millions of people are threatened with starvation, as the World Food Program warns, why can farmers not double their food production and be paid a parity price that guarantees their existence, including with regard to the expected increase in the world’s population to over 9 billion by 2050? Can we not consider ourselves as one single human species, and help to build mankind’s common construction sites with the same solidarity that the entire Chinese population helped the people in Wuhan and the province of Hubei? Is it not time that we stopped wasting trillions on military build-ups, as President Trump said he would soon take up together with Putin and Xi Jinping, when we could use those resources to overcome hunger, disease and poverty, and to develop the creative potential of the current and future generations?

I think it is time for us, as mankind, faced with an unprecedented disaster, to take the qualitative step of making the 21st century the first truly human century!

Thank you very much.

SPEED: Thank you very much, Helga.

Our next speaker is Dr. Jin Zhongxia, who’s the executive director for China of the International Monetary Fund, located in Washington, D.C.

DR. JIN ZHONGXIA: Thank you, Mr. Speed. I would like to thank Schiller Institute for the invitation to attend this important conference. Also, I thank Madame Helga for her excellent keynote speech.

2020 is a very special and challenging year. The trade war, the eruption and spread of coronavirus, the riots in the U.S., world economic recession, and escalated geopolitical tensions, I just name a few major ones. Global growth is projected by the IMF at negative 4.9% this year.

In the following discussion, some of my observations and comments are kind of thoughts in research and of academic by nature, I will speak in my personal capacity only.

Global challenge should be handled globally with a multilateral approach. No country will be safe until every country is safe.

When we start to discuss the multilateral approach in dealing with the pandemic and the global crisis, I recognize that there is a debate on the value of multilateralism and the multilateral institutions. Some people are talking about economic decoupling, a Cold War, and even a conflict of civilizations. Since I am from China, I ask myself: Is there any fundamental conflict between civilizations in the East and West?

Chinese civilization is unique in many aspects, but it’s not fundamentally different from Western civilization. One example: In the 6th century B.C., China had Taiji or Yin Yang concept, which is the co-evolution of two opposite forces. I found in surprise that this was also a core concept in physiological theory in Greek medicine in the same period of time. Another example: A core concept of Confucianism is the “middle course approach,” that also corresponds to the “doctrine of the mean” that was explored extensively by Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece.

In 16th century, the brilliant Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, recognized the striking parallels in Confucius and Mencius to the Christian concept of man in the images of the God and devoted his life to building an “ecumenical alliance” between China and the West.

During the evolution of trade tension between the United States and China, some opinions in the media have demonized China as an evil trade partner that is systematically engaged in illegal subsidizing, cheating and stealing. That reminds me of the overwhelming public opinion in the media against Jewish people in some parts of Europe before World War II. The truth is that after more than 40 years’ market-oriented reform and opening-up, China has already been transformed into a market-based economy. In fact, the share of fiscal resources in GDP mobilized by some European governments is higher than that in China due to extensive social welfare arrangements, but no body in Europe complain that this welfare has distorted the market.

China has profound tradition of market economy both in theory and practice. In the 6th century B.C., Laozi, a famous philosopher and the founder of Daoism, advised his government to “rule without intervention,” which is an ancient version of the invisible hand of Adam Smith. Another famous economist and philosopher Guanzi, in the 7th century B.C., suggested that in the years of economic depression, government could increase expenditure to implement seemingly wasteful projects for the purpose of creating employment. That is the ancient Chinese version of Keynesian economics. Financially, China was also highly developed. As early as in 11th century, China introduced the first official paper currency in the world.

On the issue of economic and technology decoupling, the attempt to block a major people and civilization from competing fairly with other countries and getting access to new scientific and technological knowledge is morally wrong, and will help China to win sympathy around the world.

On the other hand, China has the largest pool of educated labor force, including a largest pool of engineers. That will enable the country to be more innovative, professional, practical and rational.

Compared with other multi-country free trade zones, China has already become the largest single-country retail market by itself. It is more than equivalent to a free trade zone with a highly integrated infrastructure network, centralized fiscal and monetary policy, and deep and liquid labor and capital market. The authorities have also determined to further open its economy, greatly enhance intellectual property (IP) protection, and implement structural reforms, including introducing competitive neutrality for state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In the end, it is the effectiveness and efficiency of China’s domestic resource allocation that will determine China’s international competitiveness.

I am not specialized in geopolitics. But I learned that the scenario of decoupling and a new cold war is based on an old strategy called “divide and conquer,” or “offshore balance.” It is very smart from the offshore players’ perspective. But it will benefit the offshore manipulator at the expense of onshore neighbors. I wonder whether those equally smart onshore players are willing to buy this, and how high a price the offshore player wants to pay to convince so many countries to engage a long-term conflict with their major trade partner.

It is not objective to exaggerate China’s conflict with India at the border. It is important to recognize that the current border is largely a stable equilibrium. The common interest of these two ancient civilizations is to cooperate and develop their economies and achieve a joint historical revival. The two countries should benefit from their common cultural heritage based on centuries of peaceful and friendly cultural exchanges, particularly the exchanges in the form of Buddhism.

The history issue between China and Japan often looks like a deadlock, but a forward-looking approach is the key. China has largely recovered its self-confidence, and it is very clear that China’s revival does not mean revenge. When new generations from China visit Japan as tourists, most of them feel they like Japan. Japan is China’s only neighboring country that has maintained a lot of Chinese characters in their written language, and they use chopsticks, eat rice, use soy sauce, and practice calligraphy, all of these are the typical reflections of East Asian culture.

A healthy and stable Sino-Russian relationship can be much more sustainable than many people’s imagination. Their stable cooperative relationship can be attributed to many factors. It is not a coincidence that their combined territory maps the Mongolian Empire in history. Toward the end of last century, China and Russian leaders reached a wise and visionary agreement to delimit and confirm their common border. Their mutual respect and support to core interest of each other can go a long way.

The biggest loss the United States could incur from a decoupling and a new cold war is that many of the 1.4 billion Chinese people, who are otherwise very friendly toward America, could turn into opponents. By contrast, a friendly and cooperative China will be definitely the Americans’ greatest fortune in Asia.

I believe a constructive competition and cooperation between China, the United States and other countries under a rules-based multilateral system should be the right choice. Fortunately, the IMF is still functioning normally and has played a constructive leading role, which is also supported by the World Bank and other multilateral banks.

In just a few months, recently, the IMF has implemented debt relief to more than 27 countries, supported by contributions from a group of better- resourced members, including China. The Fund has augmented its lending instruments to low-income countries by more than 10 billion SDR, and approved emergency financing (RCF and RFI) of 47 billion SDR for more than 74 countries. It has created a new short-term liquidity line (SLL), and is pushing for approval of new agreement of borrowing of 365 billion SDR, and preparing for a new round of Bilateral Borrowing Agreement of 138 billion SDR. China has actively participated in all the above efforts and made its own contribution.

The Fund and the World Bank jointly proposed a Debt Service Suspension Initiative that has been endorsed by the G20. China has further called for an extension of this initiative to 2021. A fair burden-sharing and full participation of all creditors is critical for a successful implementation of this initiative.

China has made more efforts outside the multilateral framework, including 1) additional $2 billion grant assistance to most affected countries, especially developing countries, to combat COVID-19 and recover social and economic development; 2) establish a Sino-Africa hospital cooperation program covering 30 hospitals in Africa, China has recently sent five emergency professional medical teams to Africa, which is in addition to the existing 46 Chinese medical teams in Africa; 3) in addition to implementing the G20 debt moratorium initiative, China will provide more assistance to countries that have been most heavily affected, together with other stakeholders; 4) China has promised that once it completes developing and testing its own vaccine, it will provide this product to developing countries as global public goods; 5) China will establish a comprehensive storage and transportation hub to support global medical supplies, under the direction of the United Nations.

The merit of multilateral assistance is that it is rules-based, approved by a collective board representing all its member countries; and the recipient countries are facing the multilateral institution, rather than a particular country or country group, therefore it can reduce (although not eliminate) geopolitical sensitivity. Although there are different views on many different issues, and even bilateral tensions between some member countries, the majority of the Fund’s membership have been able to find common ground on many issues.

The Bretton Woods institutions could do two more things, in my view.

First, a general allocation of SDRs that will increase the supply of international reserve asset, reduce the burden of any single country to supply its reserve currency excessively and provide low-income countries necessary resources to alleviate their debt distress.

Second, the multilateral banks should greatly expand their lending to include not only developing countries, but also developed countries, including the United States, itself. That will fully utilize the low interest rate environment and greatly stimulate global demand and pull up growth in receiving countries.

In conclusion, I wish the after-COVID-19 world a more cooperative and peaceful one. Thank you.

SPEED: Thank you very much.

Now we will hear from the Hon. Boris Meshchanov, Counselor, Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

HON. BORIS MESHCHANOV: Dear and distinguished Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche,

Dear colleagues and friends from so many countries,

Our video broadcast audience,

The problems put in the center of today’s discussion are of high importance. We welcome highlighting acute questions of international relations through the prism of development, building physical infrastructure, cooperation between major powers in the interests of the poorest and most vulnerable, in accordance with the United Nations Agenda 2030. We fully share the crucial significance of industrialization, eradication of poverty, reforming of international credit-generating institutions and ensuring food security. Those are basically in the spotlight for the whole global community. We emphasize that the right to development persists as a basic human right. Development beats inequality, contributes to peace and is an indispensable condition for building just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

I would like to start my presentation, citing the report by the United Nations Secretary-General saying: “As we are facing multidimensional and multifaceted impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, global solidarity with Africa is an imperative — now and for recovering better. Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.” In the context of this challenging crisis we all seek to re-assess the model for development with the needs of the most vulnerable at its cornerstone. I would like to address this issue with respect to how our country deploys relations with the African continent.

It is justified that today more than ever before, our eyes are directed to the regrettable fortunes of populations in remote corners of the world, where governments are grappling with triple crisis of health and finance, trying to avoid widening social disparity and future economic distress. Aware of its historical responsibility for the formation of the modern system of international relations and its further improvement, the Russian Federation considers international development assistance as an effective mechanism to solve global and regional problems, and to respond to new challenges and threats. Our priorities have been the eradication of poverty and promotion of sustainable socio-economic development of partner states; influencing global processes in order to form a stable and just world order based on universally recognized rules of international law and partnership relations among states as well as responding to natural and man-made disasters and other emergencies.

In doing so, as it can easily be seen through the ideals of Russian philosophers and artists and classical Russian literature, assisting our friends abroad has always been based on the respect of the other’s dignity. It has been reflected in our national policies and priorities, and technical and humanitarian assistance has always been delivered at the request of the recipient side. We have proceeded from the assumption that any approaches in the spirit of colonial rule, like the General Act of Berlin of 1884, bringing about the principle of “effective occupation” that prejudiced the freedom of the Africans themselves, attempts to come to an agreement behind one’s back and act solely from the standpoint of mercenary calculation, will most likely not be accepted by these peoples themselves. On the contrary, we value and promote equitable partnership on the international arena ,upholding the principles of truth and justice, respect for the civilizational identity of each people, the path of development chosen by each people themselves.

As the Russian President Vladimir Putin recently emphasized, the development of relations with the countries of the African continent and their regional organizations is one of the priorities of Russian foreign policy. Links between us are based on the friendly relations between the Russian Federation and African states and the traditions of the joint struggle for decolonization and achieving the independence of African states, as well as on the rich experience of multifaceted and mutually beneficial cooperation that meets the interests of our peoples.

Dear colleagues and friends,

One of the main lessons learnt from this pandemic is an urgent need for international solidarity and cooperation, without exclusions and exemptions. In line with this objective, we have committed to giving Russian-African interaction a truly systemic and integrated character. African states are confidently gaining political and economic weight, affirming themselves as one of the important pillars of the multipolar world, and are taking an increasingly active part in working out the decisions of the international community on key issues of the regional and global agenda. We need to respect their rights to benefit equally from globalization, whatever shape it will take following the impacts of the pandemic.

In our strong opinion, the world needs Africa not just like a pantry of valuable minerals or a bread basket, but strong and sovereign region, developing an equal dialogue with its partners in accordance with the norms of the national legislation, based on the multilateral nature of the world order. Today, when proposals are made to reform the global governance system, we are consistently upholding the need to reflect the role of Africa in those structures that are engaged in global governance.

Our fundamentals are not only ensuring the wide global participation of African states, but also resolving conflict situations, on the principle of “African solution to African problems.” Together, we are able to counteract political dictatorship and currency blackmail in the course of international trade and economic cooperation, in order to put pressure on objectionable countries and unfair competition. Introduction of unilateral coercive measures not based on international law, also known as unilateral sanctions, is an example of such practices. Joint efforts are needed to promote trade, investment and sustainable development in order to make the global economic system more socially oriented, to oppose any manifestations of a unilateral approach, protectionism and discrimination, to support the world trade, based on the rules of the World Trade Organization.

Under this paradigm the first Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum took place in October 2019 in Sochi, with 92 agreements, contracts, and memoranda of understanding, worth $12 billion signed and problems of trade, investments and banking, industry and construction, transport and logistics, energy and high-tech addressed, among others.

We paid special attention to identifying promising areas of economic, trade and investment partnership of the Russian Federation, as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, with the African Union, as well as with the leading regional organizations of Africa — the Arab Maghreb Union, the Sahel Five, the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for East and South Africa, the East African Community, Economic Community of West African Countries, Economic Community of Central African States, and others.

In our movement towards Africa we need to be creative and promote new mechanisms for partnership, encourage active participation of business in exhibitions, fairs, and congress events, and develop the practice of exchanging business missions.

Moving towards Africa in this new old world would be impossible without learning each other better, taking into consideration local customs and traditions for our partners, rich cultural and linguistic variety. In Sochi in 2019, we have committed to develop cooperation in the field of education, implement vocational training, and academic exchange programs to promote social stability by protecting people, especially youth, women and persons with disabilities, and expand their capabilities by increasing the availability of education, technical and vocational training. Participants in the Russia-Africa summit confirmed that obtaining quality education and developing skills by young men and women can become a driving force for structural economic transformation and industrialization in African countries, as well as the basis for strengthening the industrial potential necessary to diversify the economy.

It so happened that our country has already contributed to the development of the African continent, in particular, in industry, infrastructure and energy security, areas promoted by the Schiller Institute as the fundamentals of the so-called physical economy, so I would focus on them briefly.

So far, Russia has been involved in the creation of the Russian industrial zone in Egypt. Among the key competencies of Russia for Africa, one cannot overestimate the role of rail infrastructure for the development of Nigeria, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola. Under current conditions, it is important that the use of technologies such as medical trains in Africa will prevent the spread of infectious diseases and fight epidemics.

In energy, we count on the future construction of the first nuclear power plant in Egypt and the Russian Center for Nuclear Science and Technology in Rwanda facilitating the development of integrated solutions in the field of nuclear energy in agriculture, health, education, science and industry. Those two are not the only countries in Africa that intend to develop nuclear energy. Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Sudan and Zambia are also on this growing list. Most African countries suffer from severe electricity shortages. Accordingly, in the near future they should double their generating capacity to meet current needs. The current pandemic-caused crisis, apparently, has aggravated this challenge for them.

In saying this we should not forget about stepping up efforts to combat climate change in Africa, transfer relevant technologies, build the capacity of African states. Meanwhile, general greening of the economy, in our approach, needs to be based on responsibility, consistency and realism. Key to that is technological progress. Serious efforts are being deployed to improve energy efficiency in industry, agriculture, housing and transport. In our country, we have launched national project “Environment” to create incentives for Russian business to implement best “green” technologies, to ensure the environmentally friendly low-emission development. And we will proceed to provide assistance to developing countries, including Africa, to help them meet their own climate goals without prejudice to the objectives of ensuring inclusive and sustainable economic growth, industrialization of economies and leaving no one behind.

The pandemic is spreading across the world, threatening to backslide the efforts applied to build a more resilient architecture. It’s high time for humanity, responsibility and spirit of partnership to be demonstrated. A truly systemic issue with reference to today’s discussion, is food security, which holds a special place among Russia’s priorities in its efforts to achieve sustainable development globally. First of all, we believe that it has to be addressed at the level of supplying the world enough high-quality food to stabilize international markets, and make it more accessible and affordable for a maximum number of people. At the same time, the zero-hunger goal must be addressed as a matter of urgency for those countries that are food insecure. To that end, over the last 20 years, Russia has been steadily and consistently increasing its own production and export of food — grain, cereals, pulses, meats, poultry, oils, milk and dairy products, etc. Russia has become one of the world’s largest exporters of food.

During the pandemic, food supplies were transferred to the Union of Comoros (172 tons) and Madagascar (about 500 tons).

Apart from tackling the problem of food security, Russia donated hundreds of KAMAZ trucks, together with the necessary parts, equipment, and technical support, for key World Food Program operations in Africa. Starting from 2020, $10 million are being reserved exclusively for Africa. It is the first time that Russia assigns a geographic priority for its voluntary contribution to the World Food Program.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, East Africa is experiencing its largest invasion of desert locusts in decades, and our country is making a $10 million contribution to support FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda.

In connection with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia received requests from a total of 29 African countries, as well as from the African Union, asking for assistance in combatting the impacts of COVID-19. To date, units of laboratory supplies and personal protective equipment have been provided to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; multi-purpose medical modules, tents and accessories to Djibouti; test systems to South Africa and Guinea.

At the same time, we believe that helping a sick person with a virus is paramount, but only part of the problem is solved. A fundamental factor is the availability of an effective preventive and educational system in the countries affected by the epidemic. As an example, I refer to the example of the Republic of Guinea, where two mobile hospitals have been deployed, and where mobile laboratories based on KAMAZ vehicles were transferred, and medications were delivered. With the participation of Russian experts in this country, more than 800 specialists have passed specialized training since 2015. Russia makes a significant contribution to the scientific research of the Ebola virus. With the support of one of the flagships of Russian business, the United Company RUSAL, the Russian-Guinean Research Center for Epidemiology and Prevention of Infectious Diseases was established in the Guinean city of Kindia.

Last, but not least, long and intensive discussion is ongoing concerning the unbearable debt burden of African states. Russia actively contributes to alleviating it under the debt-for-development program intergovernmental agreements. Those between Russia and Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania, are being implemented. For instance, as part of these arrangements, the Government of Mozambique in cooperation with the World Food Program, has launched a multi-disciplinary national school feeding program. It provides for the conversion of a part of the county’s debt to Russia amounting to $40 million during 2017-2021, into activities that address malnutrition among sick children and foster primary education in Mozambique.

With that, I deeply thank you for your attention, and look forward to your questions.

SPEED: And we want to thank you very much, also, Mr. Meshchanov, because we had some problems with the video as you were speaking. We’re going to first of all make sure the entire speech is made available immediately in terms of the actual text, and we’d like to also apologize. We’d like to have, at some point and I want to say this publicly, if we can actually re-do your video, because it was not quite in synch. The audio was fine, people could hear it very clearly and it was an extremely important message. And so, I want to thank you, again, very much for what you just did.

MESHCHANOV: Thank you.

SPEED: Our next speaker is Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon General of the United States.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: Hello. I’m Dr. Joycelyn Elders, and I am happy to speak to the Schiller Institute conference today, whose theme is “Will Humanity Prosper or Perish?” I hope, as I am sure you all do, that humanity prospers.

Ironically, a lethal disease, the coronavirus pandemic, may be the only way to unify the world to reverse what might otherwise appear to be a sure slide into disaster.

We are here to discuss a new paradigm for the whole world—not just for the richer or more well-off nations. Helga Zepp-LaRouche has proposed that a world healthcare platform must be constructed to respond to the present crisis. She has circulated a short memo to this effect, calling for a Committee of Opposites to be formed to implement it. I would like to respond to one passage of that memo in particular. Here is what it said.

“A very large number of youth in the U.S. and the European nations coming from the economically disadvantaged segments of society are presently looking without a perspective into the future and are therefore exposed to an entire specter of perils. They could be educated through a training program in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s CCC program to become medical auxiliary forces and could be deployed together with doctors and medical professionals in the building of first temporary, and then permanent hospitals and hospital wards in African and other developing sector nations. For the countries of the Southern Hemisphere the support from the industrialized nations is existential: Therefore it will be possible to find cooperating institutions, such as governments, religious and social organizations, as well as youth organizations, who can help to set up such facilities and win the trust in the population for such an approach. In the industrialized nations, for example, hospitals could set up partnerships with existing hospitals in the developing nations, which then could be used as affiliates for the construction of an expanded health system. One can also draw in nongovernmental organizations with experience in so-called conflict areas, such as the Peace Corps, catastrophe protection organizations, and various relief organizations.

“In the U.S. and European nations retired doctors, helpful individuals, and social and religious organizations could work in a Committee to put together teams of medical personnel and apprentices for this deployment….”

Now, I think that this can be done, but we must think about how we would do it. It will be very important, for example, in the countrysides of Africa, just as it is important in the cities of the United States, for people from these neighborhoods and communities to be very involved in this process. Therefore, young people from Africa should be paired with young people from America, and be trained together from the beginning. We should remember that they are significant communities of African-American youth that are in the United States, whose parents came from Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Senegal, and many other nations. Importantly historically black colleges and universities could be used, as well as high school campuses in the urban centers, as central coordinating points, to assemble volunteers that want to participate in such a program. More broadly, various land-grant colleges, community colleges, and churches, and other organizations already deeply involved in such outreach, need simply be encouraged by young people who want to assist in doing what perhaps only they can do—save the lives of their peers in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and elsewhere through demonstrations of hope and health.

First, we will need many community healthcare workers. We can take a page out of what was done in the American Civil War in 1861 in New York City, with what was called the Sanitary Commission. We just take some people in the community, give them some basic health education, and develop them as medical assistants and medical technicians. Most importantly, they will be very well known in their communities. They can communicate very well with the people in their communities. You can have supervisors of these community healthcare workers, who are also trained, and of course coordinate with nurses, nurse practitioners and doctors. But this gives you a far larger force to work with, which is what we need.

We can’t teach what we don’t know, and we can’t lead where we won’t go. We have to have tiers of people who are from the community, healthcare workers who understand the community and know the community, as well as immediate supervisors, to people with enough medical training, all the way up to nurse’s assistants, practitioners, doctors, and others, right up to the level of super-specialist. We often do too much special care, and not enough public health. We do not do enough of the basic public health which would do far more to maintain the health, more than 100 surgeons.

This is not an attack against specialization, but it is an assertion that we are in a condition like that of a world war, which requires something that Martin Luther King and others have often talked about—creative, nonviolent directed action, but in the field of health. And we need volunteers, just as the American civil rights movement had volunteers. They will be the backbone of this effort. In this case, we need to establish brigades and battalions of courageous young people, who may even risk their lives, but in a responsible way, to save the lives of others, both here and in other countries.

This is not, by any means, completely new. Many nations have tried elements of such programs, which have worked relatively successfully in the past, and members of the African Union , or WHO, are well aware of these measures. This, however, is a circumstance that requires the equivalent of a wartime alliance, but this is truly a wartime alliance for progress. Here we can count successes, not in the numbers of enemies killed through combat, but through the numbers of lives saved through healthcare. We will also be aided by the omnipresence of certain social media capabilities that can provide means of close coordination that would otherwise be unavailable.

The fight against this virus must have a human face. There is no section of our population we can afford to ignore. For example, our already-overcrowded and often abusive prisons will see an explosion of infections. Should such people who have been accused of a theft or other non-violent crime, or anyone else, for that matter, be given a de facto death sentence, or be put in harm’s way, solely because the rest of us have decided to forget who they are? What about the families that visit them? What about the children, or spouses, or parents attachéd to those people? And I believe that this can be a mobilization that replaces the image of young people as a problem, or a potential source of unrest, with the image that they are the healers, those dedicated to preserving life, not destroying it.

There may be more than 2 million American young men currently held in prisons for non-violent offenses who could be more than willing to become part of this solution, to help bring health both in their communities here, as well as to other nations. And it would only be in such an emergency as this, that this sort of bold thinking would be attachéd to an urgent, dire, but resolvable crisis.

I pray that this moment may find us equal to this challenge to our normal way of thinking. All the world is at stake, and all the world is in need. Thank you.

SPEED: Thank you very much, Dr. Elders.

We’re now going to hear from Dr. Ding Yifan, Deputy Director, Research Institute of World Development, of the China Development Research Center of China.

DR. DING YIFAN: Dear Friends,

It’s a pleasure talking with you on this very important, historical moment. The COVID-19 pandemic has caught the whole world by surprise. Not only have the economies been paralyzed and human life threatened, but all life habits have changed also. Moreover, in many countries, people have not been able to effectively curb the spread of the virus, because they have no experience. Although many institutions have tried to produce vaccines, but are now afraid that the vaccine would be short-lived because the virus evolves so quickly.

In the face of an epidemic, we humans are very vulnerable. If we’re not enlightened and work together to fight the virus, the time for the virus to spread will prolong, and the longer we will suffer. So, here, I’d like to highlight four points:

Firstly, when China’s epidemic broke out, many countries helped China and provided China with various materials for prevention and to fight the virus, in creating masks. Countries, such as Japan, have picked up sentences from ancient Chinese classics, and write on the boxes for transferring those materials to China, to show the close relationship and cooperation between East Asia area’s countries. Once the epidemic situation had been brought under control in China, and the situation became intensified in Japan and South Korea, China sent a lot of materials to Japan and South Korea, to help people there fight the virus.

Secondly, many such token stories have also been staged between Chinese and American companies. Once the epidemic situation got worsened in the United States, many Chinese companies had sent materials for prevention and to fight the pandemic in the United States, as well as masks, protective clothing, protective glasses, ventilators and even [s/l ratings] for nucleic acid detection. So this cooperation showed that our humanity in society is really a community of common destiny.

Thirdly, unfortunately, the political opinion and the political spirit in the United States have made China unintentionally a scapegoat. Radical Congressmen and Senators try to compete with the hoax in the Trump Administration to show off who has the hardest line toward China. These attitudes cannot help Americans fight the epidemic, on the contrary it can only exacerbate the mistrust between China and the United States, making cooperation even impossible between the Chinese and the American governments, within an obstinate pandemic.

Fourthly, in fact, the world economy has not come out completely from the last financial crisis in 2007, and then, a new crisis happened. The pandemic might make this crisis deeper and more difficult to deal with, because we are faced with a dilemma: Restoring the economy and preventing the virus from spreading. The largest economies in the world need to expand their cooperation and take joint measures to fight the virus, and to boost economic growth. We have to use a stimulus package not only to alleviate the problem of the population in trouble, but also to use this stimulus package to invest in infrastructure, not only in traditional infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, or telecommunications means, but also in the development of new infrastructure, such as means of prevention of epidemics for the masses, and the treatment of these masses in pandemics, also including the remote means to check the temperature of the masses.

Only by rebuilding trust among big powers can we unite and fight the coronavirus with success. Then we can bring humanity back to the harmonious development path again. So, I think we have to unite our forces or strengths in the middle of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and then, we could try to find a way to common development, after the pandemic.

Thank you.

SPEED: Thank you very much Dr. Ding.

Our next presentation is by former Mayor DeWayne Hopkins, mayor of the town of Muscatine, Iowa. And he represents the China-Muscatine Friendship Society.

FORMER MAYOR DEWAYNE HOPKINS: Good day, everyone. My name is DeWayne Hopkins. I’m the former mayor of a small community in eastern Iowa, located right on the Mississippi River.

And I have a story to tell you. But in order to tell this story, where it begins I’m going to have to move the clock back in time to 1985. Back in that timeframe, the country of the People’s Republic of China, sent four individuals to Iowa. These individuals had never been in the United States before, but through the Sister Cities and Sister States organization, these individuals came right directly to Muscatine, Iowa. One of these individuals was Xi Jinping, and of course at the time, he was pretty young, and he was a provincial official in Hebei province.

Well, they came to Muscatine, and they toured some of our plants around town, and so on and so forth. They even enjoyed a barbecue with spareribs and corn on the cob and things of that nature. In any case, they spent three days in Muscatine, and then moved on to Des Moines, Iowa, where they met with then-Governor Terry Branstad.

Now, I’m going to fast forward a little bit to 2016. Our governor was on a kind of an agricultural mission trip to Beijing in the People’s Republic of China. And he was meeting with Xi Jinping, who at the time had moved up in the ranks to the position of Vice President. Xi Jinping just happened to ask Governor Branstad, because he had known him for that length of time from 1985 to 2016, he asked him how his friends Sarah and Roger Lande were. Well, Sarah and Roger Lande are residents of Muscatine. Roger is a retired attorney. Back in 1985, Sarah was the President of the Sister States organization here in Iowa. Well, Governor Branstad responded that they were in good health and everything was fine, but that’s what started the wheels in motion about a revisit to Muscatine from then-Vice President Xi Jinping. That happened on, I believe it was February 12th. He was on a trip from Washington, D.C., then to meet President Obama in Los Angeles, California. He thought he would have time to stop by Muscatine, Iowa, which he did.

We all greeted him on the porch of the Lande residence. We all went inside, and enjoyed snacks and conversation, and sort of rehashing old times, thus become the title “old friends.” So, a great number of his old friends — that is, Xi Jinping’s — were in attendance at the Lande residence, and they all had just a marvelous time. Xi Jinping’s time came about, he had to leave, and that was OK.

But a short time after returning to China, Xi Jinping suggested via email to Sarah Lande, that we engage a community in China about having a sister city relationship. So, that’s what started the wheels churning for that adventure. That city in China became Zhengding. The rest is kind of history. I went to China and visited with the folks in Zhengding; their mayor, Mayor Yang, came to Muscatine and visited with our folks. We sat down and signed a letter of intent to become sister cities. So, that’s kind of how that went.

As time went on, Xi Jinping became the President of the People’s Republic of China, and Sarah Lande is still in Muscatine, and they stay in contact every now and then. But it’s a relationship that started here in Muscatine, and it’s ongoing.

I will say that we have moved hopefully into the future, and we now have in our high school, four years of Mandarin language. We also have an orchestra that is fairly well-versed in the usage of Chinese instruments, which as you may know, are all stringed instruments. They have sent us some of these instruments, and we’ve learned to play them. And of course, every year, here in Muscatine, is a concert put on by an orchestra either from Beijing or from Shanghai. I believe we’ve done four of those already. And we’re done with this pandemic of the coronavirus, I look for more of those kinds of events to be scheduled.

That’s just another element of the relationship that we have with the People’s Republic of China. They’re outstanding musicians and they communicate with those in attendance at their concerts very, very well. It’s a pleasure to have them here. It’s a pleasure to know that they’ll be coming in the future, and we enjoy having them very much.

I guess, what I’m saying to you is, we’re a small community, and we have a friendly relationship with the People’s Republic of China: That isn’t going to change, and we really don’t care a lot about what they do in Washington, D.C., or what they do in Los Angeles, California. We have a relationship with the People’s Republic of China. They’re great people, they have a good sense of humor; and I wouldn’t mind having one of them as a neighbor.

[Mr. Hopkins then played a short clip from a very lively concert by the Chinese orchestra.]

SPEED: Just one correction: Former Mayor Hopkins misspoke: Actually, when Xi Jinping returned to Muscatine in 2012, he was the Vice-President, not the President at that time. And he came back, and that’s when the meeting was, and it was in 2012, not in 2016. We apologize, and the Mayor apologizes for that unintentional misspoken phrase.

Our final presentation is by Daisuke Kotegawa, Research Director at the Canon Institute, and former Executive Director for Japan at the International Monetary Fund.

“Recollection My Involvement in Economic Assistance”

DAISUKE KOTEGAWA: 1. In the mid-1980s, when I worked as a staff member of the World Bank, I had an opportunity to complain about the slow development of African countries despite a large amount of aid to Africa to a British and a French staff, both of whom had devoted their lives to economic development in Africa. Their answer was amazing. “Mr. Kotegawa. It is wrong to expect fast economic growth in Africa which can be compared to those in Asia and Japan. Because Africa is trying to achieve what humanity has done in 2000 years within 100 years.”

2. When I returned to Japan in 1987, I became the budget examiner in the Ministry of Finance in charge of the budget of the foreign economic assistance. We reviewed Japan’s basic policies regarding economic assistance to Africa, and we started to try to create a country that will become a model for development in Africa, that is, “Japan” in Africa. I was convinced that it was very important to create a Japan in Africa, because at my days at the World Bank, I realized that Asian countries found Japan as their model and hope, having come to believe that Asian countries can reach the level of Western countries if they work diligently like the Japanese.
3. The first step is to select the target country. The target country had to have a moderate economic scale, but small enough not to have internal contention such as tribal conflict. We chose Ghana, Cameroon and Malawi. As for Ghana, young and clean leader Rawlings were also a major factor. We poured all three kinds of economic aid into three countries: concessional loans with focus on the construction of economic infrastructure, grants focused on construction of social infrastructure in the medical and educational sector, and technical assistance with the aim of technology transfer through dispatching experts and inviting trainees.
4. A backlash from the former colonial powers was expected, and Japan, which had historically little relationship with African countries, lacked the know-how to build aid projects there. So, we made an arrangement with Crown Agents, a British aid agency, for consulting our projects in Africa. As a result, about one-third of its total annual income in the early ’90s came from Japan. Ghana, in particular, has achieved great economic growth and if we had continued to do so, a “Japan” in Africa could have been realized within 1990s.
5. However, having watched the success of such Japanese aid, the British and French began to be vigilant. Ms. Cresson, who became French prime minister in 1991, made such remarks as, “Japanese are yellow ants” and “The Japanese are enemies and are plotting to conquer the world without obeying the rules” and repeated such remarks as “Japanese economic assistance is Jurassic.” Against such criticism, Japan was forced to review its aid policy and had to reduce aid to Africa before Ghana became a Japan in Africa. Since then, proposals for UN Millennium 2000 Target, including the debt relief, which mainly targeted Japan’s yen loans, have been drafted mainly by the U.K., and Japan’s presence in the world of economic assistance has gradually been lost.
6. I think that there is a fundamental difference between Western concept of economic assistance and that of Japan. The underlining idea of Western aid is a charity. This leads to the emphasis on “humanitarian aid,” and the idea of economic independence of recipient country is scarce. On the other hand, the basic idea of Japan’s aid is recipient country’s economic growth and independence. This is the idea that flows to the root of Japan since the Meiji Restoration, which has been trying to catch up with and overtake the West, witnessing the plight of Asian colonies under imperialism.
7. On the issue of economic assistance policy, I had to fight with the Western countries wannabe scholars, critics, and mass media at home, as well as those abroad, with friends of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who had the same sense of mission. Mr. Ishikawa, who wrote several books at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was my greatest collaborator.
8. One day, a Japanese journalist came to me and started to criticize Japan’s aid policy. His argument was not original which echoed the well-known Western criticism of Japan. For example, he said that Japan built hospitals in developing countries, but only some wealthy people in the country can use such hospitals, and it is not for the poor general public. Or he said that Japan is building telephone network in developing countries where most people do not have a telephone, or that Japan has built international airports in the capital in order to advertise its aid. It would not benefit at all the general public in the developing country who did not have the chance to go abroad. He also took the example of the Philippines, claiming that “It is wrong that Japan has built a hospital for the rich in Manila. Sweden built apartments for the poor in the slums of Manila.” I asked him, “By the way, what would you be most worried about if you were asked by your company tomorrow to go to Manila next week?” He replied, “Whether I can call up Tokyo smoothly, whether is the airport there is fine, or whether there is a proper hospital.” So, I told him, ” What you said are exactly what foreign companies which make investment in the Philippines are concerned about. If there are no problems on such matters, overseas companies will build factories in the Philippines in search for cheap labor and hire people with low wages with minimal education. In this way, employment increases, and the gap between the rich and the poor decreases. I visited to the Smoky Mountain in Manila, which is the core of slum where Sweden built an apartment. The place is a garbage dump, and residents sleep on the bench on the pile of garbage and they protect themselves from rain by the roof made by tablecloth. It stinks very bad. People living there dig out what can be used from the pile of garbage and sell it in the city. The apartment built by Sweden became a slum again in less than six months. Because residents don’t have regular employments, and no income. It is not possible to maintain the apartment no matter how splendid the dwelling is. Japan’s aid help companies increase employment by building economic infrastructure such as railways, ports, airports, roads, power plants, and telecommunication networks with yen loans, creating preconditions for overseas companies to enter the country, and help provide facilities for basic education as a social infrastructure. Gradually, technology will be transferred from the foreign company to the local company, and the industry will grow in the developing country. Just as we were providing economic assistance to Asian countries with this way of thinking, the value of the yen doubled as a result of the Plaza Accord, and the relocation of factories to Asia began by Japanese companies that were no longer able to stand up to labor costs in Japan. The relocation began in Malaysia, where politics were stable and the power generation capacity built by yen loans was firm, and proceeded to Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and the so-called geese-type economic growth started in Asia. This steady economic development continued until the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s.

I allocated to my Japanese colleagues to join the Belt and Road Initiative as proposed by China, especially when they proposed the establishment of AIIB, and also with the United States. Because I thought the cooperation among these three countries are the best mix to build up economic infrastructure in the developing countries. Because, in my view, the Chinese have a shortfall in their capacity to build up the new projects, which is actually the major part of the advantage for Japanese bankers as well as American bankers.

So United States and Japan can draw up a kind of blueprint for economic development and China should be in charge of financing and also actual construction of those projects. And after the completion of those projects, Japan would like to take the lead in maintenance and the rehabilitation of those completed projects, if they are needed. Because this is the kind of area that Japanese companies are quite good at.

So I believe this is the best way of collaborating, for these three countries for the future of this globe.

Thank you.

SPEED: Thank you very much, Dr. Kotegawa.

We’re about to go to the questions and answers. What we’re going to do is to allow the panelists who are with us live, to have some cross-talk, to discuss things and to respond to what they have all heard. Not everyone is with us live.

And just prior to doing that, I’d like to introduce my colleague Diane Sare, who has something to say.

DIANE SARE: Right now, we are going to have a greeting from the leader of the LaRouche Society in South Africa by video — Ramasimong Phillip Tsokolibane.

RAMASIMONG PHILLIP TSOKOLIBANE: From the Republic of South Africa, I offer my greetings to those of you gathered virtually around the globe for this important conference. My name is Ramasimong Phillip Tsokolibane, and it is my great honor to lead the LaRouche Movement in South Africa.

The matters upon which you are deliberating will determine whether or not mankind survives our turbulent times. Around the globe, people are in the streets, rising up to protest the intolerable injustice of the dying neo-colonial order that has enslaved all of us. It is a deadly monetarist order that values pieces of speculative financial paper above human life. The collapse of this global British financial empire is certain. What will replace it is not. What must be brought into being is a New World Economic Order based on the unleashing of the greatest power in the universe: the power of human creativity to build on this planet a world of hope, peace, and posterity, where we will be truly, finally free.

We shall extend our dominion beyond Earth into the vast expanse of the universe beyond. This was the mighty dream of the great Lyndon LaRouche, who taught us that the final conjunctural crisis of the old evil British Empire was coming, and that we must, as revolutionaries, be prepared to seize the moment to shepherd the great change for the good.

As we deliberate today, we must remember the teachings of Mr. LaRouche. It is now truly his time, a time in which troubles can be turned into opportunities. To do otherwise, would be to allow those evil people, who lorded over us as the masters of the old empire, to continue their rule in an even more brutish and deadly form. A global fascist order whose policy intention it is to kill more than three-quarters of all people on Earth — that is, if they don’t stumble into a general thermonuclear war that kills all of us. As the COVID-19 virus slashes its deadly path across my continent, which will leave tens of millions dead in its wake, if not more, we see the results of the British Empire policy of enforced underdevelopment, combined with the equally deadly famine and attempts to start wars here and around the globe. We can count more millions murdered through the Empire’s policy.

It does not have to be this way. LaRouche’s policies and programs for development and jobs point the way to the future. For Africa, it is go with LaRouche, or die with the old neo-colonial empire. Africa wants to lead, and we have, with some help, the means to survive and prosper. My country, the only full-set economy on the continent, can help produce both the machinery and the machine tools required for the industrialization of Africa. We can help train the hundreds of millions of new productive workers that will be needed. We have one of the most advanced nuclear energy industries on the globe, which is under constant attack from London.

So, it is our future and the future of billions of Africans to come, that this conference is discussing. Best wishes for the success of your deliberations.

Panel 1: Questions & Answers

SPEED: Thank you very much, Phillip Tsokolibane.

So, now we’re going to go to our live panelists: That will be Helga Zepp-LaRouche, I see Dr. Elders who is there; and Mr. Meshchanov is there — great.

I just want to first ask any of the panelists if they have any response or any thoughts about what they’ve heard? Helga, I’d like to start with you.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the reason why we wanted to have this conference is to show a way how governments can actually work together; how people can support that, and in that way help to create an environment where the absolute urgent question of a new world economic order, a new financial system can actually be put on the table.

I’m very encouraged, because what Dr. Jin did is very much our approach; that you need a dialogue of cultures. That you need to look for those ideas which resonate in the other culture even if the predicates are different. I think he did an excellent job in doing that.

I think the fact that Mr. Meshchanov chose to focus on Africa is a sign of the times, because I believe that the fate of the Africa continent is really what will decide if we are morally fit to survive. If we cannot get our act together and work together as nations to help to overcome the dangers coming from the locusts, the famine, the pandemic, I think that this is the most crucial focus. Also, to put aside all kinds of geopolitical contrary interests and really work together in the common task of getting humanity into a different age, really into a different era.

I was very happy with what Dr. Elders said, because I think this idea to call on the youth; that they have to have an absolutely important role, because it’s their future, it’s their world. Young people always like to talk to other people from other countries and work together, so I think that is one of the leverages how we can influence the governments to go in the direction in which they need to go.

Naturally, very delightful was what Mayor Hopkins demonstrated, because it really beats back the idea that small communities can’t do much. He has demonstrated that it can be done, and the fact that the great community of Muscatine has a relationship to Xi Jinping, it just is very bold and is a very good example. I think especially in the end, when he blended in these musical performances, it touched off exactly what needs to be touched off — namely, love between different cultures. Because different cultures are not a threat, they are actually an enrichment once you start to know them and to encounter them.

I also want to thank Ding Yifan, who is an old acquaintance of ours going back to the 1990s, and so is Mr. Kotegawa. So, I think this was really a very powerful and very useful demonstration of how you can work together on different levels and set an example.

SPEED: Counselor Meshchanov, I have a particular thing I’d like to ask you, because we had a question which is going to come your way, and also your speech very much dealt with the question of Africa. But one of the questions that came in, I think you can maybe answer as you give us your own reflections is: “What is President Putin’s thinking in calling for a P5 summit [Five-Power summit], and how does this compare with Mrs. LaRouche’s proposal?”

MESHCHANOV: Thank you for your question, but first off, thank you for inviting us. Again, thank you for the opportunity to speak and deliberate on very acute and intelligent problems of the current moment.

Actually, at the United Nations, we have been involved in organizing the summit even before the pandemic, and we’re still looking forward to having it under the new circumstances. We proceed from our President Vladimir Putin’s own statements earlier this year from Jerusalem, when proposing the summit of the United Nations Security Council Five. The rationale for organizing the summit is not to miss, as he said, new sprouts of hate and discrimination between people and peoples.

According to our President, the country’s founders, the United Nations, and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, that the responsibility for preserving civilization lies with them. These countries are called upon to become an example for other states in this regard. So, such a summit would demonstrate loyalty of countries to their responsibilities; countries that combatted together back to back against Nazism and fascism, back 75 years ago. [http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62646]

So, this is how we see it, and how we see the objectives of this summit. We believe that this current moment unfortunately has contributed to this rationale, because borders and discrimination and inequality between countries are getting worse. That is why we have selected the issue of Africa for our presentation at this event of the Schiller Institute. Because we are strongly convinced that, as one of the previous speakers has stated, and it’s commonplace in the United Nations, no one is safe, if someone is not safe.

Reflecting on my colleagues’ presentations, I was highly impressed by our friend from Muscatine’s presentation on the cultural links between the peoples of the United States and China; specifically because my previous posts were somehow associated with promoting direct links between people, between human beings, in consular posts in Greece and Mongolia. It’s very timely now to speak about culture, about eternal values that unite peoples and actually can overcome the politicizing trend in international economic relations.

We also, to conclude, speak of Africa, and many thanks to our colleague from South Africa, a member country of the BRICS association, an association that we’re trying to build on principles of dignity and respect for sovereignty, and promoting independent ways of making decisions. That is the only way our new multipolar world is capable of saving humanity from new conflicts and new wars. Thank you.

SPEED: Thank you very much. Dr. Elders, we’re going to ask you for your comments, but I also see someone who is a colleague of yours, who I think is up there on the screen. If I’m not mistaken, that is Dr. Kildare Clarke from New York City. I know Dr. Clarke has sort of a short time, and he’s been waiting in the queue. Dr. Clarke, is there something you’d like to say, before we hear from Dr. Elders?

DR. KILDARE CLARKE: I would like to say a lot, and I don’t think I probably have the time here. So, for the 4 o’clock youth meeting, I hope I can get by. I agree a lot with Dr. Elders. The problem to me is that I recognize that we’ve got to fundamentally change the educational system in this country, if we really want to get out of the problems we are facing. And we cannot continue to have groups upon groups, planning groups and proposals — we’ve got to act emergently. We’ve got to change educational systems; we do not have to wait until he tries to get to high school or college, before he knows that he’s going to go to medical school. These things can begin in the elementary school. You’ve got to expose people. When they are exposed, they get interested. We are selectively excluding a large part of the population who can become excellent healthcare workers. They might not start in medical school. They could be assistants, learn, understand what it takes to get there, and go back to school. But if we do not expose them now, we’re going to lose a whole generation of excellent physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, because we don’t think it was OK to educate them now….

SPEED: I need to tell you, Dr. Clarke, your audio is bad. I think we got the basic thrust of what you were saying, which is you were pointing out that the entire educational system has to be changed. If you didn’t know this, we’ve been having some technical problems all morning. Dr. Elders, were you able to make out what he was saying?

DR. ELDERS: Yes.

SPEED: Dr. Clarke, I’m going to ask you to let her respond, and also get her reflections, because I think she knew clearly what you were getting at. So, Dr. Elders?

DR. ELDERS: I thank first of all, the Schiller Institute for putting on this conference. I think it’s been excellent in bringing up some problems that we all have. One of the things we all have to know is, whatever we’re talking about doing, you can’t do it unless you’re healthy. So, I feel very strongly we’ve got to have healthy populations, and we’ve got to start early. I agree with Dr. Clarke. I always tell people that children are half as tall as they’ll ever be by the time they’re three. They know half as much as they’ll ever know by the time they’re four. Hope, will, and drive has been determined by the time they’re five. So, we’ve got to start early. Children can’t be what they can’t see. So, we’ve got to make sure that they’re exposed, and we can start them early. They don’t have to start out being a brain surgeon, but they can start out being what they can be.

And most of all, we’ve got to keep them healthy. All human beings feel that the three things that they need to be, more than anything else, they need to feel that they can be successful. We need to make sure they’re healthy, educated, motivated, and have hope for the future. I thought, that’s where we can start, and every country can start with that. What we’ve heard about what we’re doing for countries, but we’ve got to start with health. And we’ve got to educate them. You can’t keep an ignorant population healthy. So, we’ve got to start with educating the population, and we’ve certainly got to start with doing everything we can to keep them healthy. We have to know that we’ve got our trust and global solidarity. If we don’t trust each other to do the things we need to do, we can’t get it done. We have to go out and work in the communities. Find out what the communities need, rather than giving them what we think they need.

I especially enjoyed the Counselor from Japan’s talk on the things that they were doing. Sometimes you think you’re doing exactly what a country needs. Going into Africa and doing what they needed; but maybe they needed something else. Involve the African nations to find out what does the nation feel that they need, and help them develop what they think they want and need. And we may have to start in our small communities, starting out with the young people; training them to be community health workers. Later, they grow up to be nurses, and nurse-practitioners, physicians, and then to being super-specialists. But we want to improve the health of the world, which we’ve got to do, because we all know this coronavirus has taught us that anytime one country is not healthy, all the rest, we’re all at risk. So, we’ve got to make sure that we help every country to be healthy and improve their health. We’ve got to start with the young people who are going to determine what the world’s going to be. We have to do everything we can to train them to be the best that they can be.

I never fail to go to an old Chinese proverb that says that “The society grows great when old men and old women plant trees under whose shade they know they’ll never sit.” To me, this institute, what you’re trying to do with the Schiller Institute is pull the nations together in solidarity, globally, so that they can plant trees for the bright young people of the future to sit under. Thank you.

SPEED: Helga, do you have anything you’d like to say at this point, either to Dr. Clarke, or in response to this?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: No, I just feel very — my heart is moved by what you are saying, because it is that kind of human spirit which is needed now to move mountains. And these mountains need to be moved quickly, because the dangers are many. So, I’m very happy that you are saying what you are saying.

SPEED: So Dr. Clarke, we’re going to move on, because we have other questions. But I need to know if you will be able to join us for the later panel, when we will have a panel of youth. That’s going to be later this afternoon. I don’t know if your schedule allows it, but it would be important.

DR. CLARKE: I’ll make myself available.

SPEED: And we have to do something about your audio over there on the other side, too. Thank you.

Diane, we’re going to come back to you now. Do you have something for us?

SARE: Yes. I have a question from the Ambassador from Ghana to Canada. But I actually wanted to bring up one thing, since it turns out Mr. Meshchanov has been involved in cultural affairs, which is to express my desire that at some point, somehow, the city of St. Petersburg, which apparently had an absolutely phenomenal chorus, was the location of the premier of Beethoven’s sublime work, the Missa Solemnis. I know the chorus there must have been excellent, because our chorus is working on it, and it’s very difficult. This being the Year of Beethoven, and Beethoven being a composer who I think really embodies the love of mankind as a whole, I think it would be something we have to figure out how to commemorate, if not this year because of the COVID, then as soon as possible.

So now, having said that, I have a question from Ambassador J. Ayikoi Otoo, who is the High Commissioner from Ghana to Ottawa, Canada. He writes:

“I think the suggestion for four leaders to meet to brainstorm on the effects of the pandemic in order to find universal solutions is a brilliant one. But, with President Trump reeling under pressure for not having taken the pandemic seriously, and with this leading to several deaths, with President Trump pushing the blame on China and making derogatory remarks about China — Can you see these two leaders working together? Considering the fact that President Trump recently withdrew from a Zoom conference organized by leaders of the EU and China, on the subject of the raising of money to fight the pandemic worldwide, what are the prospects for the four leaders, whom you cite [I think he’s referring to Mrs. LaRouche], to come together?”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: First of all, I want to make one important correction in your question, because it may be true that President Trump was not picking up on the warnings coming from China quickly enough, but neither did the European countries. They also lost precious time. But I want to emphatically make the point that this pandemic would not be a pandemic if there would have been a good health system in every country. And that is a provable fact because, in Wuhan and Hubei province, the Chinese were able to contain it, to put strict quarantine, and then after two months it was under control. That approach, if you had a similar health system in every country in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, in Europe, you could have stopped this from becoming a pandemic. Therefore, I think it’s very important to say that the blame of all this is the neo-liberal system which prevented the building up of infrastructures and health systems in the whole world.

This was a point made by my late husband already in 1973. He warned, and actually set up a biological holocaust taskforce to investigate the effects of the IMF policies at that time. And in the following years, of the so-called IMF conditionalities, which prevented developing countries from investing in their health systems, because they were forced to pay their debt burden first. These conditionalities actually created the condition that the pandemic even could arise. Naturally, the predecessors of Trump, such as the Bushes, such as Obama, they did much more to contribute to create the conditions than President Trump in his admittedly slightly delayed reaction. So, I just wanted to correct that, because it’s very easy to say it’s the guilt of Trump, but he definitely did not cause the problem 50 years ago.

I think that unfortunately, I believe that this situation will get so much worse. I think the surges which you see now in more than two dozen states of the United States, you see it in Brazil, in India. In general, it is estimated that this is not even a second wave; this is still the first wave which has not yet peaked. Several of the American epidemiologists and virologists said it’s no point to talk of a peak; the peak is not yet here.

So, I fear that the kind of collapse which we are seeing right now in terms of the effects of the economic shutdown, is also just the beginning. I think the situation will worsen in the short-term, long before the election takes place in November, and that the kind of social ferment which exists right now — which in part is due to the murder of George Floyd and others, but it’s also naturally manipulated and taken over by people who just want to create social trouble in the same way like President Putin warned that Trump would be faced with a “Maidan.”

So, it definitely has absolutely elements of that as well. I think this will get worse, and that means our intervention in the United States, but also around the world will be absolutely crucial. Because it is my absolute conviction that if you have more examples like that of the Mayor of Muscatine, people who just start relationships and create an environment which counters the absolutely malicious lies in the mainstream media and the crazy talk by such people as Marco Rubio or Menendez, or such people who just are completely irresponsible in what they say. There should be a standard of truth that you shouldn’t say things which are made up; but some of these people have lost all hesitations to just, for their own purposes, lie.

So, I think it’s very important that this is being countered by a lot of citizens. And I think if we can get this initiative, which I proposed with this taskforce to find solutions on the level of the coincidence of opposites, that can become an important factor, because the idea that you have to replace geopolitical confrontation with cooperation to solve this pandemic and all the other problems together, must become the steamroller in the population. I also think that if there is a chorus of countries — from Africa, from Latin America, from other places — and individuals of positions, who demand that the problems of humanity are so big that they only can be solved by the leading countries; the most powerful economically, the most powerful militarily, and those countries which have the most population, that they must get together. Because where else should the solution come from?

I think if we all work together, we can orchestrate an environment where these ideas are being picked up, and all the advantages which lie in that may convince even those countries which seem to be at loggerheads right now, to actually come together and work together, because it will benefit them more than to keep the confrontation going.

SPEED: Thank you. Our next question is from Isaiah K. Koech, Counsellor for the Kenyan High Commission [embassy] in Ottawa, Canada. I think this question will be largely for Helga and for Mr. Meshchanov.

“Whereas there is advocacy for the world’s powerful countries to meet in the ‘Four-Power’ Summit to discuss solutions that would mitigate global crises, how sure are we that the powerful leaders will incorporate issues that directly affect African countries? (This question is based on the premise that the Four-Power Summit will not have any representation from the African continent which is equally large and full of potential).”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, Mr. Meshchanov, if you want to go first?

MESHCHANOV: OK. With this, I will try to briefly focus on several questions posed before, starting with a positive conversation of our colleague referring to cultural links. We would like to reiterate our deep understanding that culture is stronger than politics, and we are availing of this opportunity to thank the Schiller Institute for issuing brilliant chorus song in Russian associated with Victory Day in May, which we would highly encourage everyone to see a brilliant and bright presentation of cultural links and culture bridging gaps between our countries. We are deeply appreciative of this work by the Schiller Institute. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcLGy8yIOVM&t=5s]

And of course the Year of Beethoven deserves to be commemorated. Our embassies, consulates, and missions all over the world are open, especially in these difficult times, to any proposals of collaboration in the cultural sphere. So, thank you very much for your remarks.

As for the four leaders summit proposal by the Schiller Institute, we believe it’s a great idea, and not contradicting the Russian President Vladimir Putin. I would like once again to reiterate the idea of five countries, specifically the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, was issued and proposed in association with the 75-year anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War — the Second World War, talking globally. It is addressing the idea of recollecting the common responsibility of our countries for preventing discrimination, hated, hatred on borders between countries, bearing in mind the responsibility lying with these specific countries, which are founders of the United Nations, and winners in the Second World War.

So, that was the rationale to reiterate, but that doesn’t prejudice against deliberating on any alternative forums. I’m speaking in my personal capacity of course now, but that reminds me of the rationale behind the establishment of the BRICS association, which somehow started back in the 1990s from the ideas of our outstanding and well-known academic and diplomat, and former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Yevgeny Primakov, who tabled the idea of Russia, India, and China collaboration and systemic cooperation, meetings, and summits. That was sort of an idea that could also be taken into consideration, because our great predecessor Mr. Primakov foresaw the rising role of India, and the rising role of African countries, as a natural process of moving forward the multipolar world after the collapse of the bipolar system. That is why we strongly believe in multilateralism, multilateral forums.

Coming to the third question of the United States and China, and the possibility of cooperation, and all the controversies and conflicts that we see now. We also do not have very smooth and easy relationships with the Western world and the United States, as you are, of course, aware. But still we try to find mutual interests; that we did even under the Cold War situation back many decades. Now, something that contributes to finding solutions is the pressure of business circles, investors, diasporas, cultural links, parliamentary relations. Even being oppressed by coercive measures by several Western countries, we stick to the policy of cooperation and collaboration with our Western partners. China is also objectively interested in developing relationships with the United States, as well as the United States cannot do without China in the modern economic system. That is why we are sort of optimistic on U.S.-China reconciliation.

To focus briefly on African countries, we believe that the development of the African continent recently, not only in terms of economic growth, but also diversifying trade and investor partnerships, and maturing political collaboration between African countries, will contribute to their capability of speaking in one voice. That probably opens good perspectives of African countries joining the global governance system which is going to be revisited and reformulated. As I also stated in my presentation, our country has always spoken on raising involvement of African countries in any global forums. It should be inclusive, not exclusive.

With this, I thank you.

SPEED: OK, very good. Helga, do you have anything?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I would like to add that there is probably not any problem globally, both regionally and economically and otherwise, which could not be solved if the geopolitical confrontation between the United States, Russia, and China in particular, would be eliminated. Because the entire game plan of what we call the British Empire, which is really the City of London, Wall Street, the financial institutions which are behind the neo-liberal system; their entire ability to keep the rule over the world’s institutions depends on the geopolitical game to divide the United States and Russia and China. People don’t realize that it is exactly the same forces financial, media, political, who are behind the coup attempt against Trump; who are behind the anti-Russia campaign; and who are behind the anti-China campaign. Once you realize that, you have a completely different view, and the reason why my husband originally many years ago picked up on the idea of Prime Minister Primakov, and added the United States to this combination of Russia, China, and India was the recognition that you need a combination of states which are powerful enough to be stronger than the City of London and Wall Street. Once these four, or especially those three, get together, then you can solve any other problem. I have said many times, this summit is not going to be only one summit. Because the problems are so deep and many, that you probably need a whole summit process, where you start to put the kinds of mechanisms like for a New Bretton Woods system into motion; you start to take care of the cultural question, the health system. So, I look at it more that once you have this format, that the presidents of those countries start to cooperate to solve the common problems of mankind, you can develop it to become an integrative process where naturally other countries, other continents, other states are absolutely welcomed to support that process. But I think it’s important to first put together the core of power which can actually change the world, and not just have it like many conferences where you have a democratic kind of back and forth and nothing gets accomplished. I think this is also why President Putin wants to keep the veto power in the Permanent Five countries so that it doesn’t degenerate into just a debate where no results can be accomplished. It should be open; we are organizing that countries such as Japan or Germany, Italy, France, countries from Africa. They should absolutely support that. The best thing is to it now; to add your voice that such a summit must take place, and I think it can be done. I think it’s absolutely doable, but we need a worldwide mobilization to accomplish it.

SPEED: We’re getting a lot of questions, and that’s very good. But we have the problem that we lost some time at the beginning of the broadcast. So, what we’re going to do here is, first of all, we’re going to encourage people to keep going with the questions. Several of them are with respect to the coronavirus pandemic and related matters. The next panel, which will begin at 1:30 p.m., will continue to cover that, and we will try to refer some of the questions there. Also, we certainly will refer all of your questions to any of the panelists to have them answer.

We’re going to take two more questions, one of which will come from me, and then the other one will be from Diane. We’ll then ask the panelists to conclude.

This is a question from Dr. Abdul Alim-Muhammad of Washington, D.C.; well-known to the Schiller Institute, and very important in our work over the years. This one, I believe, is for both Dr. Elders and for Helga: “How can the rest of the world learn and benefit from the Chinese and Cuban collaboration in flattening the curve of the epidemic centered in Wuhan? How can those lessons be applied here in the United States and elsewhere, like Brazil and countries in Africa, to flatten the curve? Why isn’t Cuba’s interferon alpha-2B available to save American lives? Should there be an international standard of criminal public health neglect?” Then, he just appends to this “The Crime of Tuskegee”; he’s talking about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. “Was the deliberate withholding of known effective treatments to suit a racist agenda? Is history repeating on a global scale?”

So, that’s his question. Either Dr. Elders or Helga, whichever would like to start.

DR. ELDERS: I think we all realize that we have a global pandemic now. But as in all pandemics, we’ve got to have the right leaders if we want to come out of this, and I think what the Schiller Institute is doing, we’ve got to have the kind of leaders who are willing to lead. And they have got to make the sacrifices and do the things that they need to do to lead and move forward. Our public health system has not been well funded. We’ve got to invest more in our public health, but when we think of public health, we’ve got to always remember, that public health is not just about individuals. It’s about the whole community; it’s all of us. We’ve all got to be involved, and you can’t keep our people healthy if we don’t educate them to be healthy. I think that that’s an important issue that all of our communities have to be aware of. The reason? I won’t say the reason, I don’t know the reasons. Some of the reasons why we in the United States, our curve is not flattened as well as that in China and some of the other countries is because of our culture and the education of our people. We’re not willing to do the things; we know we need to do them, but we just didn’t do them. Like our social distancing, which we could do. Handwashing. Wearing a mask. Then, everybody wanted to get back, and start socializing again. So, these are things the Chinese were willing to do and did. They enforced it, and we did not do it. That was partly related to our leadership, that we’ve not done.

If we think about the Tuskegee Institute, I think that was a public health, leadership mistake. We’ve worked through that now. I do not feel in any way that anybody was trying to take anything away or trying to not provide therapy or treatment. And I do not feel that we’re not trying to do everything we can now to make sure we do what we can to eliminate the coronavirus. But we do not have a vaccine; we do not have adequate medications. All we have are the public health issues that we know we need to follow in order to get it done. We’ve got to educate our people. The reason why we’re seeing more problems in our very low-income, less well-educated people is because of what’s happened. We know that we’ve got to address those issues if we’re really going to make a difference.

And I think the same is true for Brazil. I think Brazil is behaving much like America; we’re not doing the things we know we need to do.

SPEED: OK. Helga, do you have anything, or should we continue?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I just would like to add briefly that if people remember, in January, when China started to take these very rigid measures — quarantining people, tracing contacts, cutting out social contact by allowing families to go shopping only once every three days and only one member of the family — all of these things. There was a huge freak-out in the West, saying “This is a dictatorship! See how horrible! They’re violating human rights again.” But in reality, what helped them to contain is aided by a deep cultural difference between Western and Chinese culture. In the West, it was a big accomplishment that the rights of individuals were held high. This is a good thing, but unfortunately, this individuality became excessive. People mistook freedom with liberties and hedonism. What Dr. Elders just said, people wanted to go back to the beaches, they wanted to go back to partying. You have these really insane behaviors which are an expression of such exaggerated individuality. While the Chinese culture — and all Asian cultures, for that matter — have traditionally much more focus on the common good as the primary thing. And that the individual right is sort of subsumed under the right of the community and the cultural good. The individual cannot prosper if the community does not prosper. I think this is a cultural difference which I think is very much worth to study. Because we will come out of this pandemic with the need to adjust some of our values. They may not be exactly what people tout to be the so-called “Western values”; because these Western values — that’s a whole other subject. But I think we have to really think how we can give humanity principles for our durable survival. And that is part of this process that we are trying to do with these kinds of conferences; that people start to really reflect and say, “How can we become a species of rationality and creativity, and not compete with some piggies who are trying to get to the trough the quickest?” I think it’s really a fundamental question of identity, of moral values, which has to be addressed.

SPEED: OK. Last question for this panel will be from Diane Sare.

SARE: This question is from Dr. Katherine Alexander-Theodotou of the Anglo-Hellenic and Cypriot Law Association. It is in four parts.

“1. What do you suggest to do in an effort to bring the European nations together to reflect on democracy, basing the institutions on democratic lines, creating a real democratic union, including Russia? The vast culture of the civilization of Europe will be the fortress of prosperity and peace.

“2. How can the Schiller Institute assist? The Schiller Institute can assist by continuously advocating unity, cooperation, education, and preventing the undermining of nations’ sovereignty of Europe by others ruled by undemocratic institutions such as Turkey, threatening the sovereignty of its neighbors such as Greece and Cyprus.

“3. There is a need for European health policy and coordination of the health authorities in order to have common standards of health policy and provide competent healthcare to the peoples of Europe.

“4. There is the question of slave populations throughout Europe, especially in the U.K., where there are almost 1 million people living for almost 15 years with no identity, as they are immigrants [I think she means no legal identity] whose voice is being suppressed by the immigration laws. There are also others in other European countries. How can we stop this system of slave labor?”

Those are the questions.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think this present EU needs to be changed, because I think the EU has developed into a gigantic bureaucracy which is very little in touch with the interests of its member states. I could cite you a whole list of examples for this. I think we have to really think how to integrate Russia. I think one of the lessons Putin said in his article was that there was a failure before World War II to develop an integrative security system. I’m quite interested — I’m putting it carefully — I’m quite interested about the report that between Putin and Macron in a long phone conversation yesterday, Macron said that he stands for a Europe which goes from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which obviously would mean that you really talk more about the Eurasian Economic Union, the Belt and Road Initiative integrated into one body. I think I’m a firm believer in the principle of sovereignty. I think this present crisis has demonstrated that in any case the EU did nothing. It was the nations which jumped in and recognized that you need food security in a nation; you need sovereign control over your production of medicine and health equipment.

Nicolaus of Cusa, who I quoted earlier, was the first one to develop the concept of why only a sovereign nation-state which has a reciprocal relationship between the government and the governed, which I think is the only way how you can guarantee how the common good is being defended; especially under conditions of crisis. So, I think this present EU, which is trying to attach itself to a NATO globalization, to play all kinds of geopolitical games, is not necessarily the vehicle with which Europe should be reformed. Maybe that should be the subject of a whole other webinar, because this is a very complicated question. But I think an alliance of sovereign nation-states in the spirit of de Gaulle would make much more sense to represent the interests of all the people.

As for the slave labor, I think that has come out, that this present neo-liberal system depends not only on the exploitation of cheap labor in countries like Bangladesh or some other countries, but that you have slave labor conditions inside the Western countries. Like in Germany, where it’s now seven or eight slaughterhouses which have all Romanians and people from other East European countries, who are living in horrible conditions. They have become the breeding ground for COVID-19 break-outs, because there is no health system, no social distancing is possible. I think taking care of the health system is the first precondition for everything to function, exactly as Dr. Elders says. If you are not healthy, you cannot do anything. So, protection of the health of the citizens has to really start in every country, not just in some.

SPEED: All right. So, we’re now at the conclusion. We’ve got about one minute per person for responses. I’d like to get kind of a summary idea. We’ll start with you, Mr. Meshchanov, if you have any remarks that you’d like to make in conclusion.

MESHCHANOV: Thank you. I had some technical problems, and unfortunately couldn’t catch the last part of the discussion. But now, wrapping up what has been laid out in this very important discussion, I see in an optimistic way what is happening. Meaning that when the situation is up-ending, and this is something that has been happening in any crisis in history, the word crisis derives from the Asian-Greek word of krisi, which means taking decisions; taking choice. So, we need to take the right decision, the right choice; and I fully support Mrs. Helga LaRouche’s statement on changing values after this crisis. We believe that in this crisis, constructive forces such as the Schiller Institute and many others in our country as well, are heard better. That’s probably one of the systemic significances of this crisis. Briefly, speaking on our President’s article, which you have repeatedly referred to, Mr. Putin underscores in his article devoted to the 75th anniversary of the war end, the Munich conspiracy. That is something that he starts with, but he finishes his article by underscoring the significance of cooperation, collaboration, and shared responsibility of great powers. That is why we are optimistic on this future cooperation which sometimes crises and great systemic catastrophes can contribute to.

SPEED: Thank you, Counselor. Dr. Elders, any concluding remarks?

DR. ELDERS: This has been one excellent conference, and I think what is talked about is how in all conferences we need to trust each other, we need to learn to work together, and that our cooperation and trust is going to do more to overcome this virus and the health of our people than anything else. The more we squabble among each other, the more this virus grows, divides, and spreads. So, the first thing is, we want to improve our economy, educate our people. We’ve got to first do everything we can to keep them healthy. We just can’t develop an excellent working society unless we have a healthy society. We know how; and it’s time we began to use the knowledge we know and make our leaders stop squabbling about where, when, and how it started. Let’s look at what we can do to make a solution. We need to get all nations that we can involved, so we can all work together to try and make a healthy global world. That’s how I feel we’re going to also address our economy.

SPEED: Thank you. Helga?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I would like to bring people’s memories back to what we saw in the beginning — the video of Lyn; who focussed very much on the fact that we are the creative species. At least, the only one which has been discovered in the universe so far. I think if we strengthen that quality of our species which distinguishes us from all other ones, the creativity, then also the question of trust will be easy. Because a human being who relates to the creativity of another one, doesn’t have prejudices. At best, you have a wish to increase the creativity of the other one for the common good of all of humanity. I think it is that rethinking of trying to make people better people, to make them do more good, to really get rid of all of this hedonistic decay of our culture which prevents people from being creative. Because if people just want to go partying and get drunk and have dope, they are ruining that which makes them human. I think may be hopefully one of the outcomes, because I believe absolutely that we need a renaissance of cultural values, of Classical culture. That we all have to learn to think like Beethoven, and to think like Lyndon LaRouche. Then we are best equipped to deal with this and any other problem.

SPEED: Thank you. I want to thank all of the panelists who were with us today. We’re going to conclude this first panel. But I think we managed to soldier through all of the difficulties that may have some metaphorical importance to what we’re going to have to do in the world as a whole to make this dialogue work as well.