27. august 2025 (EIR Strategic Alert, Wiesbaden) — Den 22. august erklærede et FN-støttet organ »officielt«, at der hersker hungersnød i Gaza-provinsen. »Efter 22 måneders uophørlig konflikt står over en halv million mennesker i Gazastriben over for katastrofale forhold præget af sult, fattigdom og død«, og over en million flere står over for »nødsituationer«, ifølge konklusionerne fra Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Ikke desto mindre fortsætter det israelske regime med at begrænse leveringen af fødevarer og humanitære varer, samtidig med at det forbereder en fuldstændig militær overtagelse af Gaza City med den hensigt at »anvende alle sine kapaciteter«, som det hedder i en udtalelse fra forsvarets stabschef.

Schiller Instituttet opfordrer derfor FN’s Generalforsamling til at overveje at gennemføre »Resolution 377, Forenet for fred«, når den træder sammen i september. I henhold til denne resolution kan Generalforsamlingen, hvis FN’s Sikkerhedsråd blokeres af veto fra et eller flere af de permanente medlemmer (i dette tilfælde USA), anbefale foranstaltninger, herunder brug af væbnet magt, hvis det er nødvendigt, for at genoprette freden. Behovet for at gribe ind nu for at standse rædslerne understreges af data fra det israelske militær selv, som er rapporteret i Guardian og Local Call. Ifølge IDF’s klassificerede efterretningsdatabase var mindst 83 % af de palæstinensere, der blev dræbt i Israels angreb på Gaza i maj, civile. Dette er en chokerende stor andel af civile dødsfald i enhver krig i de seneste årtier. Alligevel hævder den israelske regering, at Hamas efter 22 måneders krig stadig ikke er blevet elimineret, og at gidslerne ikke er blevet frigivet.

Gaza-tribunalet, hvis formand er Richard Falk, den tidligere FN-specialrapportør for menneskerettigheder i de palæstinensiske områder (2008-2014), udsendte en »nødopfordring« med titlen »Tid til handling: Mobilisering mod Israels planlagte erobring af Gaza City og det centrale Gaza.« Richard Falk havde også drøftet sine synspunkter under mødet i Den Internationale Fredskoalition den 15. august. Erklæringen advarer om, at Israels nuværende optrapning, på trods af modstand fra nogle af sine egne militære ledere, med henblik på den endelige besættelse af Gaza City, »udgør en stor udfordring for FN’s medlemslande samt FN som organisation og andre multilaterale institutioner, som nu må træffe drastiske foranstaltninger.«

Gaza-tribunalet foreslår “intet mindre end en øjeblikkelig godkendelse af en væbnet intervention i Gaza for at standse folkemordet og tilvejebringe de nødvendige midler til at sikre succes…. I betragtning af alvoren og omfanget af den katastrofale situation i Gaza opfordrer vi Generalforsamlingen til på nødbasis at godkende den øjeblikkelige dannelse af en væbnet intervention, der er passende udstyret og finansieret til at sikre en afslutning på det israelske folkemord.» Dette kunne ske enten i henhold til resolution 377 eller i henhold til «Ansvaret for at beskytte”, der blev vedtaget i 2005. Tribunalet opfordrer også alle regeringer til at suspendere våbenleverancer til Israel og yderligere isolere landet fra verdensanliggender.

Billede: Displaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah line up to receive food provided by charitable organizations. August 2024. Ashraf Amra, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons

Billede: Møde mellem Modi og Xi i 2016

26. august, 2025 (EIR Strategic Alert, Wiesbaden) — Det er altid nyttigt for europæere at se ud over deres egen »boks« for at erkende, at der i andre dele af verden udarbejdes ambitiøse, optimistiske planer for at forme fremtiden.

Om få dage afholder Shanghai Samarbejdsorganisationen (SCO) sit største topmøde nogensinde med ledere fra over 20 lande og chefer for 10 internationale organisationer til stede i byen Tianjin, ikke langt fra Beijing. SCO’s 10 medlemsstater repræsenterer over 40 % af verdens befolkning (ca. 3,4 milliarder mennesker), og seks af dem (Hviderusland, Kina, Indien, Iran, Kasakhstan og Rusland) er også BRIKS-medlemmer, som spiller en ledende rolle i organiseringen af en mere retfærdig verdensøkonomisk orden. Deltagerne forventes at vedtage en 10-årig »udviklingsstrategi« for hele regionen.

Efter topmødet den 31. august til 1. september afholder Kina den 3. september en højtidelig fejring af 80-årsdagen for afslutningen af 2. verdenskrig i Stillehavet i nærværelse af mange verdensledere, herunder dette års æresgæst, Vladimir Putin. Bare en dag før vil præsident Xi Jinping og den russiske præsident have afholdt et bilateralt topmøde for yderligere at styrke samarbejdet på alle niveauer mellem de to lande.

Også den 3. september åbner det Østlige økonomiske Forum i Vladivostok i det fjerne østen i Rusland, hvor politiske og erhvervsmæssige ledere fra hele verden vil samles for at undersøge fælles infrastruktur og andre store projekter.

En afgørende faktor i disse udviklinger er den rolle, Indien vil spille. Dets herskende eliter har i årevis holdt sig tilbage med at indgå i et fuldt samarbejde med »den Globale Majoritet« af frygt for at forstyrre deres økonomiske og militære relationer med især USA og den engelsktalende verden generelt. Men den toldkrig, som Trump-administrationen har erklæret, oven i en stadig mere truende NATO-alliance og genopståen af den alliancefrie tradition, har ændret det.

Nu vil premierminister Narendra Modi deltage i SCO-topmødet, hans første rejse til Kina i syv år, og afholde et topmøde med præsident Xi i den forbindelse. Det forlyder, at han også vil deltage i 3. september-fejringerne, hvilket ville signalere en endnu mere markant ændring. Den kinesiske udenrigsminister Wang Yi var i New Delhi den 18. august for at forberede det kommende bilaterale møde. Det første punkt på dagsordenen er at løse den langvarige grænsestrid mellem de to lande. Det andet punkt er etableringen af grundlaget for et samarbejde til gensidig fordel, et samarbejde som Wang Yi har kaldt »elefantens og dragens dans«, der i betragtning af de to landes samlede befolkning på 2,8 milliarder mennesker og deres voksende økonomier bør fremskynde fremkomsten af den Globale Majoritet.

Desuden var den indiske udenrigsminister Jaishankar i Moskva fra 19. til 21. august for at styrke Indiens »strategiske partnerskab« med Rusland, hvor en række fælles økonomiske og videnskabelige projekter blev aftalt. Mens han var der, truede Trump-administrationen med, at der ville blive indført yderligere straftold på Indien – 25 % mere end de 25 %, der allerede er indført – på grund af landets køb af russisk olie.

Som svar herpå søger Modi-regeringen at øge sin eksport til andre lande, herunder i Mellemøsten og Afrika.

Billede: Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ingen afskrift endnu.

DIANE SARE: Good morning, good afternoon wherever you are. This is the weekly webcast with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is August 20, 2025. I think we’ll get right into it, because there have been some truly major developments which the British and their lackeys in Europe and the American intelligence agencies have wanted to stop; namely that we had at the end of last week the meeting in Alaska of President Donald Trump and President Putin. Helga, as you and I were discussing yesterday, I’m certainly finding here in the United States a great deal of confusion among the American people about what the significance is of this, what really happened. Was it a failure because they didn’t get a ceasefire right away? If you don’t mind, I’d like to start there, if you can elaborate for people your understanding and view of the significance of this meeting.

          HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it was a major breakthrough, because the real issue is not Ukraine. In the same way the war in Ukraine was not a war in Ukraine, but a proxy war between NATO and Russia. Therefore, the fact that President Trump and President Putin were able to have this meeting in Alaska and reestablish a direct communication between the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers in the world is of the highest significance. Everybody who is not blinded by ideological spectacles and prejudices should be happy about that.

       This morning, President Trump gave an interview to an American journalist—I think his name is Mark Levin—and he made the point that people can relax. We are no longer on the verge of World War III, which we would have been in the end-phase of the Biden administration, and that that immediate danger was no longer there. I tend to agree with that, although with some reservations. But I think anybody who is not a complete moron really should be happy first of all to recognize that we were on the verge of World War III, and if that danger is reduced significantly to the point that it’s no longer the most pressing topic on the planet, that is really the big news.

       Obviously the Ukraine issue is an important aspect of this discussion, and there I can say that things are moving relatively rapidly in a positive direction. Foreign Minister Lavrov just indicated that an official invitation to President Zelenskyy [she mistakenly says Putin] has been issued to come to Moscow, which President Trump had commented on, saying this will create a lot of trouble for him, but he thinks it’s possible. Obviously given Russiagate and the whole effort to demonize Putin, Trump knows that that will not be so easy; given the fact that the real problem is the mainstream media, because they are clearly in the pocket of what people on both sides of the Atlantic generally call the Deep State. But I think it’s an important step. Next, probably if President Zelenskyy agrees to it, he will go and meet with Putin. Trump said that if need be, he is willing for a trilateral meeting after that with Trump, Zelenskyy, and Putin. Obviously the fact that Trump no longer insisted on the ceasefire first before any negotiations, is very important. Because, as Trump emphasized, ceasefires are broken frequently. On the other side, he claims that he got several conflicts settled without going to a ceasefire first. Putin’s in my view justified concern was that if you just go for a ceasefire, if there is the intention by the so-called Coalition of the Willing to “defeat Russia,” which they have said many times; if that intention is not changed, a ceasefire would only serve to re-arm the Ukrainians with more lethal, far-reaching weapons. And therefore, it would be very much against any effort to settle this conflict. Russia, on the other side, has emphasized repeatedly, for anybody who was willing to listen, that what was necessary to be addressed was the so-called core issues. The core issues in the Ukraine crisis are not what people say; that this was an unprovoked war of aggression by Russia. It definitely was not. But the five-time NATO eastward expansion which occurred after the end of the Cold War despite the promises which were given to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze at the time by Secretary of State Baker and Foreign Minister Genscher that NATO would not move one inch to the east, was indeed the core issue. Because that meant that offensive weapons systems were moved into Ukraine up to the borders of Russia; meaning that the warning time for any pending attack would be reduced to four, five, six, seven minutes and therefore creating a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis.

       Anybody who does not put themselves in the shoes of Putin and the Russians. … You have to understand that given the fact that Russia has a long history of Western attacks: Napoleon tried to invade and conquer Russia, which was very bloody. It was an incredible military campaign which was launched. Napoleon was shamefully defeated. Then, naturally, Hitler and the Nazis tried likewise, and it was a horrible war in which 27 million or maybe even more Soviet citizens were killed. That was only 80 years ago, so that memory is still very vivid in Russia. The memory of the Great Patriotic War is very much alive in the minds of the people.

       Therefore, if you have now again NATO with a long history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the British intention to launch a preemptive war with Operation Unthinkable of Churchill; all of these are in the memory of Russia. Therefore, when they say that these core security interests have to be addressed, anybody who knows anything about history and about military matters will agree with Putin that he is absolutely right to say that that is what has to be settled. That is apparently what Putin got across to Trump in Alaska, because in Alaska Trump all of a sudden dropped the idea that there must be a ceasefire first. Because obviously, he recognized that Russia has a legitimate security interest—not only Ukraine, but also Russia has a legitimate security interest. So, basically he agreed to go for peace negotiations directly without a ceasefire.

        SARE: I wanted to just raise something, because you know of course yesterday here in the United States we had this very large delegation of Europeans showing up at the White House. I think Americans don’t really have any idea what that was all about. The media of course tried to say that they were all very unified; and perhaps some of the people there were unified—Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission and Finnish President Stubb and the head of NATO, Rutte, who is the one who calls Trump “Daddy.” They were all there, and the {New York Times} headline was, “Well, at least they stopped Trump from giving away everything.” My sense of this is that once the Alaska summit actually concluded, and it looked like Presidents Trump and Putin had come to some kind of understanding on the situation, Zelenskyy of course wanted to somehow get involved or be deployed to be involved; because I don’t think he does much on his own. There was a great panic among these warmongers and they quickly put together the most powerful delegation they thought they could come up with, and rushed to Washington to see if they could somehow derail this thing. I don’t think it’s a show of strength at all, but I’d like to get your thoughts on this. I don’t think there’s been anything like this in quite some time of this number of European heads of state and the European Commission and NATO all meeting in Washington. What was this all about?

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Ray McGovern, who has an unbeatable sense of humor, called it “Trump and the Seven Dwarves.” He emphasized that he does not imply that Trump is Snow White. So, these people—and as you say, they were not united, because I think there is a difference between some of them. Meloni is not exactly on the same line as Merz and Macron and von der Leyen. But I think they tried to “prevent the worst”; namely that Zelenskyy would be influenced too much by Trump. But I think they all felt compelled to pay lip service that this was a productive and wonderful discussion. However, that did not prevent them from returning and immediately once they were back in Europe, going back to their old lines. Merz saying “There must be a ceasefire first before anything more can happen.” Right now in Germany there is a mad debate which has broken out, talking about how there should now be European troops on the ground, German Bundeswehr troops. Even the British said they will do something, but they will not put their troops at risk. That is quite clever. 

This is ridiculous. If they believe their own ideology that this was an unprovoked war of aggression and that it would be true that Putin is planning to attack the next European country once he is finished with Ukraine, which is denied by any competent military experts, that Russia has no intention and no motive. Why would Russia want to invade Europe? It could not occupy Europe, for sure, because you need a lot of people to do that. I think the Russian population altogether is maybe 150 million or so, if I’m not mistaken. At best, they can mobilize 600-700,000 troops. They have a huge country; they have the largest country on the planet, with 11 time zones, which they hardly can populate. So, for them to then invade Europe and occupy with a lot of troops European countries, why would they even want to even? They have all the raw materials in their own country. There is nothing they would gain by doing that. Therefore, this whole thing is a NATO scare narrative which only has one purpose—to keep the population scared and agreeing to the militarization of Europe—but it is not founded in reality.

       I think people should really stop believing this, and think through the situation themselves. There are enough military experts—Colonel Macgregor, for example, in the United States; former head of the NATO Military Committee Gen. Harald Kujat in Germany; General Vad; General Mini [Italy], and many others in France and Italy and so on—who all say this is completely absurd. So, I would really urge people who are seriously concerned about this matter to do some of their own research and not fall for these narratives, because they could prove to be devastating.

       Anyway, so then Ischinger, the former head of the Munich Security Conference, this morning gave an interview, and said, “No, we have now to arm Ukraine, until it is like a—” how do you call—

       SARE: Yes, “a steel porcupine,” that’s what Ursula von der Leyen said.

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: If I would be a Ukrainian, I would really reject being called a “steel porcupine.” This is so derogatory, and it shows an ugly mind. How can you call somebody like that? But it shows you the degree of hysteria of these people. Unfortunately—I don’t think this is going to last very long, because first of all, this Coalition of the Willing do not have the military forces to carry through with what they say. Why would they even do it? Because up to now, it was very clear that to put NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine is a red line, it’s a {casus belli}. It would mean a direct war with Russia, a nuclear power—the largest nuclear power. So, they didn’t do it, because they knew that that was a war they could only lose dramatically. So, why would you put the equivalent of NATO troops on the ground? From the Russian standpoint, it doesn’t make a big difference if they are German, French, British, or other troops who call themselves French, German, British, or call themselves NATO: It’s the same people. So therefore, I don’t think this is a realistic proposition.

       I can only hope that Zelenskyy listens to what his own people want, namely, peace. He can only get that peace when he goes along with Trump and Putin, and not listen to the Coalition of the Willing who want to prolong the war on the back of the Ukrainians. I think the more quickly the people in Europe realize that it is them who are being isolated from the world majority, if they go along with this Coalition of the Willing, and that there is a completely different option in the world—namely to ally with the Global Majority—that way, we can get out of the crisis very quickly.

        SARE: In that regard, I wanted to ask if you’d like to say something about your initiatives; namely, the proposal that Trump, Putin, and Xi meet at the 80th anniversary celebration of the end of the War in the Pacific, which is occurring in Beijing; and also at the same time, the Vladivostok conference on the development of the East.

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: When the Alaska meeting became known, we immediately pulled out of the archives our previous work on the Bering Strait. Because my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and myself had fought for decades for the World Land-Bridge to connect all the continents through tunnels and bridges. The connection from Alaska to Siberia over the Bering Strait—which is just a few kilometers—you could build a corridor there with a tunnel or a bridge or both, and in that way connect the Americas with the Eurasian continent. That would obviously open tremendous economic potential; it would mean that the entire wealth of raw materials could be developed by Russia and other countries Russia is inviting. But the possibilities are that you have Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Global South countries all participating in the development of the Far East of Russia where all the raw materials and elements of the Periodic Table are located, but undeveloped. So, this potential I’m sure—even if that did not hit the news headlines—that was on the table in Anchorage as well. There are certain indications that that is the case.

       Now, the next step in that could be—and that’s what you are referring to—I issued an appeal to President Xi Jinping that he should absolutely invite President Trump to the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific at the commemoration in Beijing on the 3rd of September. President Putin already has agreed to be there, and this will be a huge event. Many leaders of the Global South will attend that as well. Prime Minister Modi from India will be there, and probably Lula and others. So, this would send a very powerful message to the world that if the United States, Russia, and China, and others are celebrating the victory over fascism and Nazism, it would really send a message of hope to the whole world that all conflicts can be solved through cooperation.

       I’m quite hopeful that this could happen. We are collecting signatures for this appeal, so if you agree with that idea, please sign this appeal. Get it around to all your contacts and networks and friends to also sign, because I think we should build up a momentum for this idea; that a peaceful solution would be easy if the great powers cooperate.

       It happens to be that on the same day, the East Economic Forum in Vladivostok opens. There, more than 6,000 firms are participating. On the table will be the development of the Arctic. So, I’m absolutely certain that in the aftermath of the conference in Anchorage, the issue of the development of Siberia and the Far East will be the hottest issue of that conference. I’m hopeful that this will then lead to a complete change in direction. If everybody would put their effort into this, I think we could see—if President Trump goes to Beijing and if the Vladivostok meeting takes up the development of this with international participation—we could be at the beginning of a completely new era of mankind overcoming all economic problems. Because if we should shift from military spending into real economic development; in the aftermath of which, you could see the United States building a fast train system connecting all American big cities through maglev and other high-speed trains. You could have a completely different spirit, like the one which you see right now in China and many other countries of the Global South that are determined to overcome underdevelopment and really start to have international relations in a completely new way.

       I think this is all very exciting, and I’m actually moderately optimistic.

        SARE: Well, that’s very good. I think optimism also comes from the work that you are doing, when one knows that you are going to fight no matter what, then you don’t have room for pessimism.

       I wanted to shift to a situation which has many people very despairing; which is, of course, what’s happening in the so-called Middle East-Southwest Asia-Gaza-Israel. I want to get your thoughts on the relationship between these two processes, because something that’s very hard for people to get their minds around is how you can have this really incredible breakthrough dynamic going on in one arena, and then you have the absolute atrocities being committed by the Netanyahu regime on the Palestinian people. It seems that the world is sitting there watching, although I understand I just saw the figures of the protest in Israel on Sunday may have been as high as over 2 million Israelis protesting Netanyahu’s invasion of Gaza City. But what are your thoughts on how we bring this to an end? And what’s the relationship between these processes? It is the same planet, after all.

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, but there seems to be a parallel universe where some people find themselves; like your Ambassador Huckabee, who I heard an interview with, who is out of this world. He claims that Israel has the right to take over the West Bank; he endorses the new settlements there, which, according to some of the Cabinet members of the Israeli government, are intended to make a two-state solution impossible.

       SARE: Yes, and I have to add, even killing American citizens while they do this, which makes it so unbelievable that the U.S. ambassador would condone it. Go ahead.

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah, it is unbelievable. But I think this is also, if I may dare that prognosis, going to be short-lived, because what is happening is so absolutely unbelievable that while it may look for now that the lives of 1 million Palestinians are in acute danger—actually 2 million, but 1 million in Gaza City. Because the IDF is preparing the military occupation which puts people in acute danger there. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of the governments of the world and the countries of the world are isolating Israel. The resolution for the two-state approach is gaining more and more support. Also, the momentum to reform the United Nations to pay tribute to the fact that the UN Security Council has not functioned because of the veto power of the five permanent members. They could block—essentially the United States and most of the time the British—just block any kind of an approach. That has led to a situation where the momentum for the Uniting for Peace Resolution #377 is gaining massive momentum. That simply says that if there is an acute danger to the world order, which I think this Gaza situation clearly represents, that then the power of negotiation and carrying the business further goes to the General Assembly. That would basically mean that with the annual session coming up in September, that the UN General Assembly could decide that, given the fact that the UN Security Council has proven to be incapable of addressing this, that the power of decision goes to them. And they could at a minimum decide to send Blue Helmets to the Gaza border.

       One can say, “What can Blue Helmets do?” But I just talked with a top UN expert about this matter just before our discussion here, because I wanted to have advice. I said, “What can we do?” He said that the simple fact that you would have a large number of countries represented in these Blue Helmets would make clear that Israel is getting completely isolated. It would impact the present ferment inside Israel. Given the fact that you cannot send a military force because you don’t want to get into a war with Israel and then the United States backing them up; it obviously doesn’t work this way, unless you get a change inside the United States. The United States could end it with one phone call. If Trump would call up Netanyahu and read him the riot act, it would stop. But that I think depends on the American people expressing clearly what they think about this.

       Short of that, I think this Resolution #377 and the UN General Assembly expressing the will and the view of the vast majority of the world population of 85% of the people living on the planet. Therefore, I think it’s very horrible for the Palestinians who keep dying, but I don’t think this can last very much longer. The more the atrocities go on, and everybody knows that every single day it does. Can you imagine, Merz said when these six journalists were killed, he said, “One has now to investigate if this killing was justified or not.” Can you imagine?

        SARE: Oh my gosh! Well, this is the guy who they’re getting ready for a war with Russia, so I guess he’s irrational in general.

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: He said the Israelis are doing the “dirty work” for the rest. This and the steel porcupine, or previously Borrell talking about the jungle and the garden; sometimes you get the real insight of the mind. Not by formal declarations, but by these sort of slips of the tongue, where they reveal their philosophical mindset. Sometimes you get insights you wish you would not have gotten, because they are so disgusting.

       SARE: I think that’s right. I just want to say, because we’re getting to the end of our time, that I do think you’re right on this shift. Yesterday, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, yanked the security clearances from another 37 people. I was speaking with one of our colleagues about this. I didn’t recognize the names; they were sort of less prominent people. But he was familiar with many of them, and many of them were directly involved not only in Russiagate, but the Ukrainian censorship of American social media and things like this. I think that her investigation is not going away, not only because of her loyalty to President Trump and the administration, but because she herself is a veteran of these wars and knows the human cost when you lie, as leaders in the United States and Britain did over the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I do think this is going to be a factor in shifting things.

       I just want to say that the {New York Post}, which is one of the most disgusting British-run, pro-war crazy newspapers—poor Alexander Hamilton would turn over in his grave. When they released her document, they actually left a phone number in it which was her direct contact for the implementation of this. That was later redacted, but I can’t help but think that some of these FBI intelligence operatives had leaked this right away to see if they could at least get some harassment going.

       Do you have any comments on what’s happening with the Russiagate unfolding? Particularly since your late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, was a target of exactly this operation. Many of these people, while they may have been too young to have been the ones involved, they certainly come out of the same tradition that railroaded Lyndon LaRouche into prison and tried to stop the progress and recruitment of his ideas.

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I can only applaud Tulsi Gabbard for her unwavering efforts to try to get justice in the United States. My late husband was slandered recently again by a Belgian newspaper for having been the first one to identify what was going on on September 11th. It is true that he recognized immediately what that was, because he was familiar with the air defense of the United States. He said this could not have happened without complicity by some of the rogue elements of our own security apparatus. This obviously is the problem, what Eisenhower was warning at the end of his term—the military-industrial complex. Some of these permanent bureaucracies are what have been carrying on all these policies. I’m actually relatively confident that sooner or later all of this will come out, because there is now a growing discussion among people and institutions and forces of the Global South in this country and that country about the number of wars conducted by the United States since 1945, and especially since the end of the Cold War. The number of people who have been killed; nothing of this has ever been admitted or tried to be put back on a just level. So, I think this idea of a dominant position in a unipolar world, where you have the right to protect your privileges by all these illegal means, has to come to an end. I think President Trump, by continuing on the course which he has now fortunately found his way back to after his first term, was almost destroyed by these networks. The Russiagate just put him in an impossible position. Naturally these forces are now completely freaked out that he has gotten back to talking to Putin directly, which is what they tried to prevent by all means.

       So, while the battle is obviously not yet over by any means, I think if Tulsi Gabbard is continuously unraveling this thread leading from one thing to the next, hopefully this whole policy can be ended. I think that would be the right birthday present the United States could give to itself for its 250th birthday.

        SARE: I certainly agree, and I would love to see some of these people actually behind bars. I think it would definitely send the right message.

       I guess we should wrap up. Thanks very much for your time and your insights. Please, if there are things that you think people should do, why don’t you take a minute to tell them what they should be doing?

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the one thing you should do is to come on the IPC discussion on Friday. This is a very important institution because we have in more than two years of uninterrupted weekly meetings, assembled experts and forces, parts of the peace movement from all over the world. It is a place to discuss every week where we stand and what needs to be done. So, go to the Schiller Institute website and register and participate in that. Because we need to build the peace movement until it is the dominant force in the world.

       And, please sign this appeal and get active with us. This is a period you do not want to sit on the fence and be passive and observe; you want to be an actor on the world stage of history, and you are with the right people with us to do exactly that.

       SARE: Great! Thank you very much, and the IPC is only two days away on Friday, so please visit schillerinstitute.com and sign up for that. Sign up to get our emails and to donate and support our work.

       Thank you very much, Helga.

af Tom Gillesberg

Denne danske resumé (nedenfor) er et redigeret sammendrag af en artikel »Vitus Bering and the Rediscovery of America« (nedenfor), der blev skrevet som et bidrag til et festskrift for Lyndon LaRouche i anledning af hans 85 års fødselsdag den 8. september 2007.

Med bygningen af en magnettogforbindelse mellem København og Århus over Kattegat, som den første del af et dansk magnettognet, bryder vi med opfattelsen om Danmark som et lille land, der blot kan følge i de større landes fodspor. I stedet er det os, der går foran og gør et afgørende teknologisk kvantespring muligt. Med bygningen af et dansk magnettognet revolutionerer vi ikke blot den danske økonomi, i og med at hele Danmark bliver til et sammenhængende lokalområde, men vi sætter også en ny standard, som vil betyde magnettog i hele Europa. Med det russiske initiativ til at bygge en tunnelforbindelse under Beringstrædet, vil vi med tiden kunne tage magnettoget hele vejen fra Aalborg til Los Angeles.

Det er et af historiens smukke sammenfald, at Danmark har fået mulighed for at spille denne historiske rolle netop nu, for derigennem går vi faktisk i fodsporene af den berømte danske skibsfører og opdagelsesrejsende Vitus Bering, der gennem sit modige lederskab ud i det ukendte genopdagede Amerika og lagde navn til Beringstrædet…. Læs mere:

Dansk resumé: Klik her.

English, full article: Click her.

af Megan Dobrodt (EIRNS) — 18. august 2025

Mandag den 18. august var præsident Donald Trump vært for den fungerende ukrainske præsident Zelenskyj og syv europæiske ledere i Det Hvide Hus til en række møder om afslutningen på konflikten i Ukraine, som opfølgning på hans topmøde i Alaska sidste fredag med den russiske præsident Vladimir Putin. I en erklæring efter drøftelserne rapporterede Trump om to primære resultater af disse møder: 1) fremskridt mod et bilateralt møde mellem præsident Putin og præsident Zelenskyj, efterfulgt af et trilateralt møde med deltagelse af præsident Trump, og 2) drøftelser om sikkerhedsgarantier for Ukraine, »ydet af de forskellige europæiske lande i samarbejde med Amerikas Forenede Stater«.

Før og under mødet var disse sikkerhedsgarantier [et krav] for de europæiske ledere, der var strømmet til Washington for at støtte Ukraine…. Det vides ikke præcis, hvilken slags sikkerhedsgarantier der blev drøftet bag lukkede døre, og som med så mange ting ligger djævelen i detaljen. Mens Rusland aldrig vil acceptere europæiske og NATO-tropper på ukrainsk jord – især med langtrækkende missiler – er det netop det, briterne har krævet, og det er ganske usandsynligt, at koalitionen af villige så hurtigt har skiftet mening.

Hvad verden har brug for, er ægte sikkerhed, som ikke opnås ved at forberede sig på krig og afskrække fjenden gennem militær magt… Det sande indhold af sikkerhed og fred er udvikling.

Dette ubestridelige faktum hviler på naturlovens autoritet: Menneskeheden er én – en samlet art, hvis grundlæggende kendetegn er kreativ opdagelse. Den maksimale udvikling af vores arts kreative evner på hele planeten er i alle menneskers interesse i alle nationer. Dette princip er nedfældet i den amerikanske Uafhængighedserklæring som Leibniz’ »stræben efter lykke«.

Den forandring i verden, der begyndte på topmødet i Alaska den 15. august mellem præsident Trump og præsident Putin, væk fra afgrunden af konfrontation mellem atommagterne, må ses på baggrund af den større tektoniske forandring, der finder sted i verdensordenen. Det geopolitiske, unipolære system er forbi, og flere og flere nationer i verden, såsom BRIKS+-landene, omorganiserer sig i nye former for samarbejde og samspil for at opnå en længe ventet udvikling.

Dette blev udtrykt i en erklæring fra præsident Putin på hjemmesiden for Vladivostok Eastern Economic Forum, hvis næste møde begynder den 3. september: “Vi har identificeret udviklingen af Fjernøsten som en national prioritet for hele det 21. århundrede…. [Den globale økonomis udviklingsvektor] orienterer sig i stigende grad mod Østen og det Globale Syd.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche har opfordret til, at der tages de afgørende næste skridt efter topmødet mellem Trump og Putin: Hun opfordrer Præsident Trump til at rejse til Beijing til 80-årsdagen for afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig den 3. september og der mødes med præsident Xi Jinping og Putin. For at cementere en ny retning for verden, væk fra det Britiske Imperiums evige krige, må disse tre præsidenter blive enige om at lede en ny form for økonomisk udvikling mellem nationerne, med Berings Strædet-tunnelprojektet som spydspids.

I sin opfordring til disse ledere om at indlede det, hun kalder den »perfekte politik til undgåelse af krig«, erklærer Zepp-LaRouche: “Men I kan gøre noget endnu mere ophøjet ved ikke kun at bekæmpe de trusler, der truer menneskeheden, men ved at give hele verden en smuk vision for fremtiden. I kunne blive enige om at bygge en korridor over Berings Strædet og med dette jernbane- og tunnelprojekt forene jernbanesystemerne i Eurasien med dem i Amerika. Dette projekt ville åbne for udnyttelsen af de enorme uudnyttede ressourcer i Sibirien samt de amerikanske arktiske ressourcer af olie, gas, alle former for ædle metaller og ferskvand. Sibirien og det russiske Fjernøsten rummer de største forekomster af råstoffer af alle de grundstoffer, man kan finde i Dmitrij Mendelejevs periodiske system, og en fælles udnyttelse af disse ressourcer, som mange andre ressourcefattige lande kunne inviteres til at deltage i, kunne blive det perfekte program til at undgå krig og i høj grad øge verdens velstand.”

Dette er ægte sikkerhed for menneskeheden.

Billede: president.gov.ua

På engelsk:

Aug. 15, 2025 (EIRNS)—What follows are the opening remarks, some remarks during the discussion and closing remarks of Helga Zepp-LaRouche at the International Peace Coalition meeting Number 115 today:

ANASTASIA BATTLE: Welcome everyone. This is the International Peace Coalition. This is the 115th consecutive meeting we’ve had. Thank you all for joining us. My name is Anastasia Battle; I’ll be your moderator along with my co-moderators Dennis Small and Dennis Speed.

I like to remind everyone why we created this forum 115 weeks ago, which was to unite the international peace movement. As everyone is well aware, there are many efforts to split us apart, divide us, and keep us from communicating. But if we actually want to achieve true peace in the world, we need to bring together people of many different philosophies, ideas, cultures, and religions in order to accomplish this goal. I thank you all for joining us in that effort. Please take a moment to share this invitation with other people who you know; other organizations, your friends, family, respectable enemies who can understand what we’re doing here today.

To start us off, we have Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who is the founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the International Peace Coalition. Please, go ahead Helga, and start us off for the meeting.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Let me say hello to all of you. Today is obviously an extremely potentially very fateful day, because today you have the meeting between President Trump and President Putin and their delegations in Anchorage, Alaska. A lot has been said, a lot of people have voiced either panic or hope, sarcasm, cynicism. I think we will know in a few hours from now what the outcome of this meeting will be. Let’s not speculate, because our approach is not the reading of tea leaves but rather an organizing approach. The reason we were totally excited when we heard the news about the location of that meeting, was because the location of Alaska brings forward the potential of building the tunnel through the Bering Strait to connect the Eurasian landmass with the Americas through an infrastructure corridor. If you look at the composition of the delegation on the Russian side, you have very powerfully, Lavrov, Shoigu, Ushakov, but also Kirill Dmitriev, who is the present president of the sovereign wealth fund of Russia. He has come out repeatedly in the past for the construction of the Bering Strait tunnel.

Why is this so important? Obviously, this is a project which goes back to the middle of the 19th century to the time of Lincoln. It has encouraged the vision of many people ever since, but in the recent several decades, this has been part of a program which was very much promoted by my late husband and myself. Namely in the context of the World Land-Bridge, the idea that eventually very soon one could connect all continents through infrastructure corridors—either tunnels or bridges—so that soon you would be able to travel with maglevs or other fast train systems from the southern tip of Argentina and Chile all the way up through Latin America, Central America, North America, Canada, Alaska, and then through the Bering Strait into Russia, and from there all of Eurasia, then through a tunnel at Gibraltar, or maybe from Sicily a bridge to North Africa, all the way through Africa to the Cape of Good Hope. And likewise, other connections through the Indian Subcontinent and tunnels and bridges into Indonesia and other countries in that region. So, eventually, the idea that we would be united through a network of infrastructure connecting the economies and civilizations around the globe into one interconnected one. Provided that we don’t have World War III, that is the natural course of events that will happen sooner or later. But if it happens now, it could be a very important piece of war avoidance.

I’m hopefully optimistic that this may be on the agenda, simply because it is such an obvious potential. President Putin has mentioned in the recent several years repeatedly—especially in the context of the Vladivostok Eastern Economic Forum—the incredible economic potential which lies in the development of the untapped raw materials in the Far East and Siberia, much of which is under permafrost conditions and therefore has not yet been developed. But if there would be such an infrastructure connection, even these climatic difficulties could be overcome. There are modern ways of building cities even under permafrost conditions.

Given the fact that also President Trump is known to be a real estate expert, he has for sure a sense of it; and I’m absolutely certain that that potential has not escaped his mind. It would be a perfect way to outflank all of his opponents, including the very strange Europeans who are presently calling themselves the Coalition of the Willing, who have tried everything to prevent Trump from ending the Ukraine war. The recent example being Chancellor Merz of Germany, who just two days ago had a meeting in his office in which the only other physical participant was Zelenskyy. But he was connected via Zoom with the other European heads of state who are part of the Coalition of the Willing. They said, “We have absolute conditions for what must come out of this meeting in Alaska. There can be land swap; there must first be a ceasefire.” Basically repeating the conditions, including Ukraine’s access to NATO, listing all the reasons why the war is happening in the first place, because it did encroach on the core interests of Russia’s security interests; and therefore it came to this very unfortunate development of the Ukraine war. I’m pretty sure that while ending the Ukraine is a very important topic, also for Trump and Putin, I don’t think it’s the most important topic. First of all, the military gains of Russia in Ukraine are spectacular, and all experts expect that that war will end anyway in a few weeks, simply because of the collapse of the Ukrainian forces. And just two days ago, Russia destroyed a factory which was building long-range missiles, the Sapsan missile which was financed by a consortium of European nations. It’s basically like the Taurus missile, but enabling Ukraine to build it on their own soil. That has been destroyed, and with it the option of equipping Ukraine with these long-range missiles.

I think much more important for Russia is the potential to normalize relations with the United States. I think if you study the recent Russian formulations, articles, statements, it is very clear that what matters to them is the immediate potential that the present crisis over Ukraine could escalate into a global nuclear war. Given the fact that you have a warmonger faction on the side of the Europeans in particular, I think they are looking at the potential of normalizing relations with the Trump administration as the primary desired outcome of the process of discussion. Hopefully going beyond Alaska, and having follow-up meetings also including the prolongation of the new START Treaty, which otherwise will run out in the beginning of 2026; maybe negotiating a new INF Treaty. These kinds of things are, in my view, much more the core security interests of Russia than even the battlefield situation in Ukraine, which I think Russia thinks they have pretty much under control.

So, I think that is the immediate situation there. As I said, we will know in a few hours.

But let me just bring in one more dimension of why this infrastructure development is so important. It’s not just a way to increase trade. If the tunnel in the Bering Strait will be built, it is the estimate of a railway expert named Scott Spencer that it will make possible the transport of 400 million tons of cargo every year, which is enormous. But more than just one specific aspect, I think if you look at the role of infrastructure in the development of the human species in general; just think back over the last 10,000 years. Then infrastructure developed from the coastlines, from the rivers, eventually with the development of railways, it went more into the interior of the continents. More and more it opened up all continents for human population. Friedrich List, who is probably the best German economist, the head of the Customs Union, who wrote very important books about the difference between the English system of economy and the American System of economy. He had a beautiful vision of what could happen if all of mankind would be united through infrastructure connections. He coined the notion in an article he wrote in 1837 for the French Academy of Sciences, in which he developed the notion of a space and time economy. He said that the permanent completion of the transport and communication systems would be the precondition for the progress of humanity, and enable them to fulfill all of their potentials and increase all areas of knowledge to inspire the sciences and arts to cause people to make inventions in all kinds of disciplines. The more quickly people could move from one place to the next, and the more closely space would come together in this way, it would increase the efficiency and development of all human powers and increase the living standard of the population for the benefit of all. He said it much more beautifully than I’m paraphrasing it now, but he gave to this development of infrastructure this civilizational quality that it uplifts people; it humanizes them and makes them work together more.

This is also important for the other crisis area which I want to address, and that is naturally the unspeakable situation around Gaza, where the genocide is fully going on. It makes you speechless, because one asks what more does it take until humanity intervenes in this genocide which is in front of the eyes of the whole world, because all the TV stations transmit it? There is now no more question that mass starvation, famine, malnutrition of thousands of children is going on every day. It seems that the General Chief of Staff Zamir is preparing the invasion of Gaza City. [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir is escalating the annexation of the West Bank, where new settlements have been ordered so that the option of a Palestinian state is made impossible simply by these mass settlements.

So, this is the situation where we absolutely have to escalate our campaign. But I think Francesca Albanese is absolutely to the point when she said that people should not be fooled by the sudden and very late recognition of many European and other leaders from Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, France, who all of a sudden call for the creation of a Palestinian state. That must not be a distraction from the ongoing genocide. That brings me to the point of the connection of infrastructure and solving the crisis for the Palestinian people. We have said the whole time that the only way you can solve it is not just a political solution which would be a Palestinian state. It must be combined with economic development: with the Oasis Plan which we have been promoting now for several decades. This was the idea of my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and which has now been discussed by many people in the Middle East. There are many forces who agree that if there is any hope for a peaceful future, it must be economic development; greening the desert in the entire region from India to the Mediterranean to the Caucasus to the Gulf States, to transform that region into economic prosperity. Connecting it with the tradition of the ancient Silk Road, when that region of the world was already once the hub connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe. That is what it has to become again in the future.

I think this is a very dramatic moment in history, and I’m very happy that we have very knowledgeable speakers today to enrich our discussion. We should really look at this whole situation not as something to comment on, but we plan to bring this idea of the World Land-Bridge as a solution to these crises to more and more fora. On September 3rd, there is not only the historic 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific in Beijing with a big parade. We have made an appeal to President Xi Jinping to absolutely invite President Trump to participate. President Putin will already be a guest of honor, and on the same day in Vladivostok is the start of the Eastern Economic Forum, where the issue of Arctic development will already be on the agenda. So, that is a perfect opportunity to bring in the Bering Strait development, but also the idea of a new security and development architecture, which I think is the precondition to finding a solution for the crisis in the Middle East.

So, let’s discuss all of that, because this gives us plenty of opportunity to intervene to try to shape the outcome of this historical moment.

Remarks during the Discussion:

I just would like to bring in one more consideration. That is that in observing how the international community has proven to be incapable of reacting to what I call a genocide before our eyes, that means that we, as humanity as a whole, are in a deep cultural and moral crisis. Not just the genocide going on in Gaza. I can go through all the different reactions, but the fact that we are not capable of doing something about it. You can say if you want to fight it, you have to fight the United States, and who can do that? But obviously the UN Security Council has been blocked: They were completely unable—even the provision that you can go to the UN General Assembly if there is an injustice which cannot be resolved by the UN Security Council did not resolve the situation. That creates a real problem which I think needs to be addressed very urgently.

The second thought I want to mention is that there is a need to separate, to get a clarity on the fact that we cannot allow—even in the face of the greatest evil—to in any way let that evil impact our souls. I know that many Palestinians say you cannot have an Oasis Plan, because first, you need justice. Well, that is true in one sense, but there is a very important line in Friedrich Schiller’s play, Wallenstein. I’ll say it in German, and then try to translate it. It says [in English], “It is the curse of the evil deed that it permanently has to give birth to more evil.” I think that is a very important consideration, because if we are not capable of breaking through the cycle of violence, of revenge, and doing justice in the name of justice, getting back at the other one, I think we have reached a point in the history of humanity where we have to be able to take the level of the Sublime. Nicholas of Cusa had this idea of the Coincidence of Opposites, that the human mind always has to be able, and is able, to conceptualize a solution which is on a higher plane than the lower plane on which the problem arose. I think that challenges us to make a cultural leap. We have to apply the principle of aesthetic education to solve this problem by bringing in relation to the best of the other. I know this is very difficult when you are dealing with a concrete situation like in Gaza, but I would like to bring in these considerations, because I think they are extremely important.

I’m not claiming that I have the final answer to them, but they seem to be extremely important to me.

[re role of British Empire in escalating crises and alternative of Alaska meeting] I also want to address what Mr. Berg said, that he doesn’t totally know what the Global South is up to. What the Global South is up to is a reaction, a blowback to the policies which you can take back 500 years. They want to end the colonial system of the last 500 years. What started in one way with the Non-Aligned Movement and the Bandung Conference in 1955 could not succeed at the time, because these countries were not strong enough to realize their intention and their right to global development. Then they tried it again in the 1970s, when we had a big role by my late husband Lyndon LaRouche making the proposal for a new development bank, the International Development Bank, which was adopted by the Colombo summit in 1976 of the Non-Aligned Movement.

But again, they were not strong enough to carry it through. There was an immediate blowback against Indira Gandhi, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandanaraike from Sri Lanka; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was even killed. It took a long time for them to come back. Even if you don’t agree with it, I still absolutely insist that it is because of the rise of China that these countries of the Global South now have, for the first time, a partner who provides them with economic cooperation so that they can develop some of their aspirations to become developed countries in the near future.

So, the British Empire in short, which is not limited to a country—it’s not Great Britain—what we call the British Empire is the remnant of the system of empire trying to suppress them; to build the power of colonialism, of imperialism. And which, after the Second World War, in the person of Churchill, started the Cold War at a point it was absolutely not necessary, by drawing up “Operation Unthinkable,” which was the idea of a preemptive [nuclear] attack on the Soviet Union, which had just courageously defeated the Nazis in the Second World War. The same British Empire, together with their partners in the United States, the neo-cons, decided to create a unipolar world with the not so nice means of regime change, color revolution, and whatnot. What you see right now in terms of the blowback coming from the Global South is that they do not agree to that system of oppression anymore. That in the recent period has very clearly put the British Empire in the form unfortunately also of the British government in total opposition to the emergence of this new system. They have been the key instigators of every escalation in Ukraine, and in many other parts of the world. So, I think that is just a short answer.

Then I just want to comment also that you attacked what you called the illiberal countries. I mean I find it quite illiberal to attack these countries in this way, because I think they deserve a much closer view. Since you said that it is the elected governments that should not be attacked, you had argued earlier, and now you are attacking all of them. All of these were democratically elected by their people. Their people obviously have the feeling that they are doing a very good job, like in the case of [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán, with whom I do not agree on his Israel policy, but with whom I fully agree on his policy towards the European Union. So, I think we need to have a little bit more differentiated view on all of this.

But I really want to come back to one key idea. I said in my initial remarks, and I agree with whoever mentioned this just now, maybe Dennis or Ray, that what is at stake in Anchorage is the potential for a new security architecture, which we are urgently in need of; because the old one has just fallen apart in front of our eyes. If you can have a government negotiating on the nuclear issue in Iran, and then at the same time preparing a military attack, that means there is no more order. It means that every rule and every decency in international law has just been abandoned and thrown out the window. In the same way as the condoning of the genocide in Gaza means the international order no longer exists. It’s a matter of the past. Therefore, I think we are in absolute urgency to establish a new security and development architecture which I have argued the whole time needs to take into account the interests of every single country on the planet; or else it will not work. There is a precedent for that—the Peace of Westphalia; where people came together to establish principles like the first one, that in order to have peace, you need to respect the interests of the other. That means all others. I unfortunately have come to the conclusion that as much as I think the Oasis Plan is the only way we can save the Palestinians and the whole region, I think that the Oasis Plan can only work if it is an adjunct to such a new security and development architecture. Because otherwise you don’t get the power combination to make it happen. So, that’s why I really urge people to think through these matters. I think we have reached a point where we need to establish a New Paradigm in international relations, or else we will not make it.

Closing Remarks:

I would like to now conclude with an emphasis on going back to the historic moment in which we find ourselves. Today probably in two or three hours, we will know what comes out of this Anchorage meeting; and that will be decisive. Because if it goes in the direction that there is no understanding, we are back to square one on the verge of World War III; because then the Ukraine war can go out of control in the short term.

If however, there is an understanding that there should be a return to disarmament discussions, to a normalization between the two largest nuclear powers in the world, then there is hope. It does not solve the problems; it does not remedy all the problems which were mentioned about President Trump and whatnot. That is a different matter. But if the idea of development is back on the agenda, as it would be in the case of the Bering Strait as the bridge between the Americas and Eurasia, we are in a different universe, or the beginning of a different universe. And therefore, given the urgency of the situation, I would like the participants in this panel to reflect on what can be done in the short term to formulate a policy which could save the lives of the Palestinians; because obviously time is running out.

The forum would be the United Nations General Assembly. I don’t know if the Uniting for Peace Resolution gives a handle on that; I think Mr. Falk you are the expert on that matter, so please come forward with ideas. Otherwise, I would say we have now two weeks until the coincidence of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. Part of the history which has been completely neglected in the Euro-centric view of history, is that China played a very important role in the defeat of the Nazis by fighting against the Japanese militarism and preventing a two-front war for the Soviet Union, because they tied down the Japanese in the Pacific. They lost all together about 30 million people, and that has been completely left out of history; at least European Western history. That will be remedied on this occasion of the military parade in Beijing on September 3rd. I think the fact that the Chinese choose the form of a military parade, where they will for sure display their most modern weapons systems—at least that’s what I would assume—is a message to the world to remember not to have world war ever again. That is still the big Damocles sword which hangs over all of us.

Therefore, I will call on the members of the International Peace Coalition—at least those who agree with that approach—to really try to put on the agenda of many people the idea of a new security and development architecture combined with the idea of a global development perspective as I suggested in my Ten Principles for discussion as to what such an architecture could look like, and that we really try to increase the IPC. We need to reach out to many more people, because if we manage to get President Trump to this event in Beijing, I think the impact of that will help to make things clearer not only for Trump, but also all the people who are watching this.

Secondly, at the same time—September 3rd—the Vladivostok Eastern Economic Forum will start. I would strongly advise you to put your eyes on that. I’m sure many countries of the Global South will be represented there, and they will discuss how to overcome colonialism by investing in development projects. I think people in the West have to start to really understand what are the aspirations of the countries of the Global South, because they do want to end the time of colonialism. People have to understand that much better.

So, to sum it up, get active with us, because we have a short window of opportunity to still save this poor human species and bring it to a better era. So let’s not miss it.

På engelsk:
DENNIS SMALL: Good morning everybody! Welcome to the 114th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition. My name is Dennis Small and I will be co-moderating this session with my colleague, Dennis Speed. Anastasia is with us, but she is feeling a little under the weather.

We will proceed with this rather important 114th gathering of the International Peace Coalition, which is all the more urgent under current circumstances that the original mission statement, so to speak, of the IPC be accelerated and broadened everywhere internationally. That is to bring together all forces independent of ideology or other political differences around a common commitment to peace and peace through development. The IPC was founded over 114 weeks ago at the initiative of the Schiller Institute’s founder, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She will be the first to address the meeting today, which occurs at a very dangerous moment, but also a moment of great potential. Today is August 8th; it’s 80 years since the August 6th bombing of Hiroshima, the August 9th bombing of Nagasaki. We meet today under the theme of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, never again.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche has personally written and issued a call for an urgent meeting of the Presidents of Russia, China, and the United States to meet at the soonest possible opportunity to take up the pressing issues which otherwise threaten the planet at this point. So, with that in mind, with the urgency of the moment as well as the potential, I now turn the floor over to Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her opening remarks.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Hello to all of you. As Dennis just said, we have today the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, and there are many comments around the world on that day; some with a clear worry and concern and anxiety that we are not safe from experiencing the use of nuclear weapons again. As a matter of fact, there are many people who are acutely aware that the world has never been as close to nuclear extinction as it is today. All the mechanisms which prevented a disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis are no longer there, and we are experiencing the old order and the new order is not yet in place. As a matter of fact, it’s not there. I think that fact, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened, and as we have done our own studies many years ago, it was not necessary if you can even say that concerning the use of nuclear weapons, because the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, was already in a process of negotiation with forces from the Vatican about surrender. So, it is now very clear that that bomb was—the order to drop that bomb was given by Truman; not because it was necessary to save the lives of 1 million American soldiers as the official line goes, but more as a demonstration of schrecklichkeit [terribleness] and the beginning of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. That part of history has urgently to be worked through, and historians are called upon to finally straighten the record on that matter, because we are so close to a similar but even much worse fate for all of humanity.

Now, we are in a dramatic situation; the situation seems to shift daily. A couple of days ago it looked almost hopeless, then in a big surprise—which we should almost expect these days—President Trump did signal that he is willing to meet Putin. This was after the meeting of his representative Witkoff for three hours in the Kremlin. It seems now that meeting (Trump-Putin) could take place three days from now on August 11th; maybe in the Emirates, maybe in some other neutral country so to speak which is not subject to the ICC ruling, because of the arrest order against President Putin. But if that meeting takes place, it obviously would be the absolutely necessary signal that the worst catastrophe in Ukraine can be avoided. There are also signs that Zelenskyy has said that he also thinks this war has to come to an end, and it is mooted that there could be a meeting among Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy afterwards.

That is obviously only one part of the strategic picture. The other one is naturally the unbelievable escalation of what can only be called genocide, and what is now being called genocide out of Israel from a broad spectrum of forces; the genocide in Gaza. Yesterday evening, the war cabinet of Netanyahu approved that the operation in Gaza will be expanded. Not the entirety of Gaza as Netanyahu had demanded, but “only in Gaza City.” I must say that there is now a growing awareness of what is actually happening. It took much too long, but now in the alternative media in Germany, there has appeared documentation which is quite breathtaking. A person named Willy Wall put up a comparison between what was said by the different members of the Cabinet and Defense Forces in Israel in respect to Gaza; comparing it to what Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the SS in Nazi Germany, wrote on October 20, 1941 to Heinrich Himmler about how Warsaw and Leningrad must be attacked much more brutally because the destruction of these two cities had been insufficient so far, and there should be a use of firebombs and explosives. These cities had to be exterminated. All of this is documented very well in the Nuremberg Tribunal, which brought to justice at least some of the main criminals. This is then being compared step by step with pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto, from Leningrad, with the pictures from Gaza. All of this is prefaced with a picture of the Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine Chapel about the Final Judgment; implying that many of the forces which are condoning this genocide eventually will be brought to justice.

For normal people, this is what they call “heavy, heavy stuff,” but I think it is what is determining the picture. I think that also goes for the situation; and people who are condoning the war mongering which can only lead to a catastrophe for all of humanity. This is extremely dramatic. President Trump is very difficult to read these days. He made this sudden move, and hopefully this summit will take place. At the same time, President Xi Jinping just had a telephone call with President Putin. Obviously this is a matter of strategic concern for every head of government. But another action which Trump is doing is also having potentially gigantic effects; namely, that he did go ahead and impose these tariffs against 70 countries on the planet—the EU, Switzerland, anywhere from 10% to 50%. All the BRICS countries and many more have been affected. This is now meeting massive resistance. President Lula from Brazil is not backing down; he is now in contact with Prime Minister Modi. The BRICS countries are coordinating their actions, and Trump may involuntarily trigger by his actions exactly what he claims he wants to prevent—namely the de-dollarization. Because he is forcing the countries of the Global South into a joint action, and that may actually lead to things which Trump has not intended.

There are many other things which one could discuss, and maybe we will get to it in the discussion. For example, there is a quite incredible report in Le Monde which says that there was massive pressure from the United States, Israel, Great Britain, and Germany harassing the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Ahmad Khan, to take back the arrest orders against Netanyahu. All of this signifies that there is a breakdown of any rules that any treaty, any arrangement, disarmament treaty, Helsinki Accord, all of these things have basically gone into disarray; they don’t exist anymore. This is why I issued this call; an appeal to the three Presidents of the United States, China, and Russia, that they must make a step; and the most obvious place would be the upcoming 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. On September 3rd there will be a big military parade on Tiananmen Square, which President Putin has already agreed to attend. Obviously, if President Xi Jinping would invite President Trump to attend, that would be the appropriate setting commemorating the fact that China also lost millions of people in the Second World War; a fact which has been almost forgotten in the history accounts. But it is a fact that by fighting against Japanese militarism, China played a very important role in bringing about the result of World War II. And then to make a solid renewed commitment for never again war, never again fascism. If these three Presidents would meet at such an historic occasion, they could indeed agree to settle all of these problems I touched upon before by diplomacy, and by starting a new era for all of mankind by cooperation. Because the only way we will get out of this crisis is to convince the countries of the West to cooperate with the Global South, with the Global Majority; then everything will become relatively easy.

So, those are some of the subjects we should discuss, and we should absolutely mobilize, because the danger of the world going into a final catastrophe has never been more clear than right now.

Remarks during the Discussion:

[re presentation by Lt. Col. (ret.) Anthony Aguilar] I just want to thank you, because it is always patriots who step forward who make sure that there is a future honor for your country. I just want to thank you for what you are doing.

[just before open discussion period] This is a very wide field of topics, which all would deserve in-depth discussion. I just want to mention one thing concerning Palantir, that their AI programs have been used in targetting some of the Palestinians. I think that’s a whole other chapter to be investigated, because talk about dehumanization—when machines give orders about killing people using programs to lure them on the basis of offering food; luring them out of their houses to shoot them. As I said, there is no time now to go into it in depth. I fully agree with you, Kirk, about the danger of this; because if there is no awareness, people are defenseless against it. I can only say there is a common thread in all the topics which have been brought up, and that is the dehumanization of what people call the enemy. That started with Hiroshima and Nagasaki; that was the basis for Churchill’s Operation Unthinkable, which ended a fruitful cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States in defeating Nazism and opening the Cold War. This is what was the basis of all these interventionist wars. If you think about the millions of people who have died as a consequence of lies, like the Iraq War, which was based on lies; Afghanistan; Libya; it’s a long list. I think one cannot try to remedy all of these situations one by one; it’s in any case the past.

But I think what it requires is an urgent change of the image of man. It always starts with the fact that if you think that only some people are human and others are not, it’s not only colonialism, racism, imperialism, all of these things, but it goes against the very nature of man. Because we are supposedly and hopefully, and I fully believe that we are, the only species capable of creative reason. When you deny that ability of creative reason of some other human beings, you are destroying your own humanity as much as you deny the rights to this other person or group. And I think we have reached in the history of mankind the point where we must redefine that every human being on the planet is as human as we are. We have to really start to reorder a new security and development architecture which starts with the idea of the image of man that man is good by nature, and all evil is the result of a lack of development, and can be overcome by development. If you start with that image of man, everything else falls into place.

I really would urge that we do discuss these matters, because with all the many problems mentioned, you have to agree on principle if you want to find a solution.

Closing Remarks:

I think that the discussion for the last 2.5 hours makes very clear that we are in an extraordinary moment in history which is very dangerous to the existence of the human species. So, I’m asking all of you to indeed get active; get active with the Schiller Institute; make the IPC grow. Let’s make the IPC the voice which is so strong that it cannot be drowned out. And by having total programs like today, it’s already convincing more and more people that that is the institution internationally where you have to be once a week to be informed on the breaking developments and solutions.

But I also ask you to consider all the aspects which were discussed. The genocide going on in Gaza, which is a threat to the moral existence of humanity. The fact of what Prof. Starr was saying, that we are at best 7 minutes away from nuclear war; all the human errors and failures and intentions as a possibility. Mankind is in peril like never before. We have the blow-out of the system looming over the situation. Trump does not know that the biggest threat to de-dollarization is crypto, Stable Coin, all of these things which take the power of credit creation out of the hands of government into the hands of private people who will listen to the client and not say no to the client if push comes to shove. The complexity of the situation is such that I think that we absolutely need a New Paradigm; we need a new security and development architecture which must take into account the interests of every single country. That is why I am asking you to sign the petition where we are appealing to the three Presidents—President Xi Jinping, President Trump, and President Putin—to all convene on September 3rd on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific in Beijing. Because I think the world has reached such a point that you need the voice of history, the voice of everything the human species ever produced which is embodied in that moment, reflecting about World War I, World War II. Hopefully, these three Presidents can then forge a basis, a platform to solve all of these problems. They are all solvable; but it does require an attitude of cooperation. So, please sign this appeal; get it around, especially to all people who have access to Trump, to Xi Jinping, to Putin, so that we create an environment where indeed Xi Jinping offers an invitation, and the three men meet on September 3rd, which may be the last opportunity for a solution without catastrophe.

These are my questions and demands and requests to all of you.

På engelsk:
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Hello Larry Johnson, I’m happy to greet you for our discussion on a very important topic. Larry Johnson, for those who don’t know, is a cofounder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a longtime CIA analyst and expert, and very active observer of strategic events today. So I’m very happy to welcome you today.

LARRY C. JOHNSON: Thank you for the invitation to be with you. Normally we don’t have a chance to chat, just one-on-one like this.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: As I said, the whole world has been looking at the upcoming summit in Anchorage, Alaska, this coming Friday, and I would like to discuss this with you today, because it is of the highest strategic importance what comes out of it. Because, on the one side, you know, when President Trump came into office, there were a lot of expectations that he would make good on all of his election promises to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, to normalize relations with Russia. And now, more than half a year later, a lot of hopes had somehow been put in question because of—also, one has to say, in all fairness, because of an enormous effort by some people to prevent Trump from accomplishing what he claimed he wanted to do: Namely, the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” in Europe who want to prolong the war in Ukraine, with all kinds of arguments.

Let me just preface our discussion with a short description of what we are trying to do, because we are not looking at this event, just as passive observers: Because as the fates sort of gave us the chance that this summit is taking place in Alaska, naturally, what this brings to mind is a campaign which we were engaged in for decades, one can say, namely, that the possibility to connect Alaska with Russia via the Bering Strait, which is only a short distance of less than 100 km, and we have been promoting to build a tunnel or a bridge, or maybe both—a corridor connecting the Eurasian landmass with the Americas. This was a very favorite project by my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and we did a lot about that: We participated in discussions in Russia about it. And naturally, I issued, therefore, a call to President Trump and President Putin that they should not only end the Ukraine war in this discussion, or at least start to discuss how to end it, but they should also, in a positive way, put this vision for the future on the agenda, with the promise to build the Bering Strait corridor.

Now, this is an enormously important topic, and already, the initial responses to my open letter to Trump and Putin were quite interesting: We had positive responses from Russia, from Mexico, from Brazil. And also in the past, many countries had expressed interest to participate in such a project. Because the Bering Strait corridor would potentially open up the vast areas, not only of Alaska oil and gas, and rare earth assets to be explored, but also open up the Far East and Siberia for development. Much of it is under permanent frost conditions, but you find there, all elements of the Periodic Table, and therefore, this would be a vast resource, not only for Russia, but also for every country that would want to invest in this. And this was a topic in the Vladivostok Economic Forum many times.

So, this is a very interesting prospect, and before we go into more economic aspects of it, what is your take on this perspective?

JOHNSON: Well, you know, I had never really thought about it until actually I heard it discussed within your organization. And it’s one of those sort of out-of-the-box thinking kind of ideas, because, if for no other reasons, to put the United States and Russia working together on something, to build something together rather than destroy each other, is just—it brings with it, I’ll call it a “positive karma.” You know, it’s the kind of thing, you know, inevitably, when you put people working together on a project, particularly on something of that magnitude, they can’t help but end up developing a respect for each other. And one of the greatest challenges I think we face right now, at least from the standpoint of the West, is this inexplicable hatred of Russia, this Russophobia. And yet, we have had joint projects in space, where the United States was virtually dependent on Russia for more than 20 years to ferry its astronauts to and from the Space Station. Yet, despite the cooperation of that, it was largely kept out of sight.

So, while I think it’s an unlikely outcome of the meeting this Friday, it would be remarkable if they did emerge from that meeting, and say, “You know what? We’ve agreed that we’re going to begin working on a plan to either build a tunnel or build a bridge, or build some combination of the two, to join our two lands.” So, I think you’re to be commended for at least having that vision and being able to support it to your own actions, in writing to the leaders.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you know, that when President Xi Jinping put the New Silk Road on the agenda in 2013, we updated all our development projects which we had worked on over the decades: the Africa development plan, the Eurasian Land-Bridge, the plan to develop Latin America with Operation Juárez, where we had worked López Portillo on. And so, all these projects we had worked on for, really, decades, we put them together and we called it “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge.” And in it, you have the idea that if you look at the longer development of mankind, infrastructure developed from the coastal areas to the interior of the continents, and eventually grew more and more to the inside of the continents, so the World Land-Bridge would be basically the last phase of that, whereby you would integrate all continents through bridges and tunnels, to become, indeed, World Land-Bridge, so that soon, you could go by rail, by fast train, all around the world. And what this Bering Strait project would do, you could soon, maybe in a few years, maybe five years, ten years, maybe twenty years, but not more, you could travel by fast train from the southern tip of Argentina and Chile, all the way up through the Americas, Latin America, Central America, North America; and then cross through the Bering Strait into the Eurasian Land-Bridge. And that would then go from Europe, you could build (and that is also on the agenda) a tunnel through the Strait of Gibraltar, and now the Bridge of Messina from Italy is back on the agenda, with a corridor or tunnel to North Africa, so you could travel all the way to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. And naturally, another line would go through India, through Indonesia with a mixture of tunnels and bridges, so eventually you would connect the whole world. And that is very much associated with the economic basis for the kind of new paradigm of thinking, which I think is the only way how we will avoid to end up in a geopolitical confrontation between the nuclear superpowers. And by building these bridges and tunnels, you end up with a new era of mankind, which, if we are reasonable will come anyway.

So we have now the choice of either going to a nuclear extinction, by trying to prevent the emergence of a new system, or we make the jump and say, “We are part of the one humanity, and why don’t we make that transition now?” So I think the more people can start thinking about that, the more it can actually catch fire.

JOHNSON: Yes, I think it’s a very bold vision.

You know, what bothers me, is I’m not sure who’s driving the ship or driving the car when it comes to foreign policy, and particularly in the United States. This recent signing of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, so-called “peace agreement” that was orchestrated by Donald Trump, or it’s presented as if it’s a Trump initiative: It makes absolutely no sense. Because, you’re wondering, who is behind the scenes organizing and prioritizing some of these things? Because a year ago, if you talked to Donald Trump about Armenia and Azerbaijan, he wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about! He couldn’t find it on a map.

So, when I step back and look at this, this is an effort to extend U.S. colonial power, and it’s both an attack on Russia and an attack on Iran. And I raise that in the context of the vision you’re presenting of this interconnection of the different continents, is not based on confrontation, it’s based on cooperation. And yet there is this force that’s out there, that is constantly promoting confrontation, destruction, and death. And so, in a sense, your project is a push-back against that.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, just today, probably as we are talking here, there is still this virtual meeting going on in the Chancellor office, of Chancellor Merz in Berlin. Zelenskyy [cross talk 13:20] … is [inaudable] there and I think they will have online Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. But, basically, they’re trying to sabotage the Anchorage meeting before it takes place, by convincing Trump to agree to their conditions. And those conditions are: absolutely, a ceasefire first, no other agreements, no territorial swaps; and assurance that Ukraine will join NATO. And these demands are the reason for the war! I mean, the reason why the war is taking place in the first place is because of the NATO expansion to the East, and the Russians have made a zillion times clear that that is a red line for them, because it’s the reverse Cuban Missile Crisis, because it brings offensive weapons systems close to their border with a warning time of a few minutes. So, for the Europeans to keep pushing this—I must say, to the honor of the Europeans, it’s not all of them. It’s the British, the French, the Germans, the Polish, and Scandinavians, and Baltic countries, but it’s not, emphatically, the East Europeans, it’s not Hungary, it’s not the South Europeans. But in any case, it’s that so-called “Coalition of the Willing.”

And behind that, I have been asking myself that question also: Why is it? And I think they are just freaked out about losing control of a system which is emerging, trying to end colonialism, the BRICS countries: You know, the BRICS have always said, they are not an anti-Western bloc, they don’t want to compete with NATO; they are open if the United States and European nations would say “we want to join them,” they would immediately welcome them. But I think it is being tied to an oligarchical outlook, and I think the leading role in that is definitely Great Britain.

What do you think?

JOHNSON: Well, before responding to that, can you explain—it appears there’s a complete disconnect between the majority of the German people and the current government, with the current government pursuing this aggressive posture towards Russia. Whereas, it strikes me that if the actual voice of the people was expressed, they wouldn’t be seeking confrontation, they would be seeking cooperation. Is that correct?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The reason, Larry, is that Merz only has 29% approval rating, and that, after only a few months being in office, which is abysmal. The AfD [Alternative for Germany] is now leading in the polls, with 26%, and the CDU-CSU only 24%. And I can only say, from our own action with segments of the population, people are freaked out in Germany, in ways I think the rest of the world does not even comprehend yet, because the German economy is in a free fall! I see that we are going into weeks of social explosion, because when you take the economic bottom out of the German system, all the social programs cannot be financed any more. And, therefore, I think, we are in a very short-term phase, and that’s why I think an initiative like the Bering Strait would send a signal of hope—also to the population in Germany—if it’s voiced strongly enough that it cannot be overturned. You know, I think that would really make a difference.

JOHNSON: Well, yes, Germany’s gone through that, let’s call it the “green phase,” where it was obsessed with green energy, wind power, solar power. And you know, I spent a lot of time in Germany, in a 20-year period, when I was working with the U.S. military. And the idea of solar power as an effective alternative for producing energy in Germany, particularly when you get into the months of October, November, December, January and February, night comes pretty early and the Sun comes up pretty late. But the fact that Germany has sort of rolled over on this whole energy issue, when, allowing the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, cutting itself off from cheap natural gas and petroleum that was provided by Russia, it’s almost like it’s committing suicide economically! And I’ve been shocked that nobody stood up to scream, “Stop! We can’t be doing this.”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it’s because the mainstream media are promoting this, one could say, the oligarchical line of NATO, the European Union, von der Leyen; so there is a big disconnect between the mainstream media and those people who believe that that is true what they say, and increasingly, a larger segment of the population who feels completely left without leadership, left in the dark. And concerning the alternative energies, Merz, or the new government made a promise in the coalition papers which they signed, that they would make Germany a key place for artificial intelligence and digitalization: But they don’t have the energy, they don’t have the grids! So I think we are in for a big awakening.

And the only problem is, if you think back that the Russians are now targetting Germany, because of what Merz is pushing, the Taurus; and they just signed a treaty with the British called the Kensington Treaty, by which Germany and Great Britain committed themselves that they will build long-range missiles, even longer range than the Taurus, against Russia. So all of that has led to a situation, where the Russians are now talking about Germany as the “Fourth Reich,” and all of Europe as the “Fourth Reich.”

And that should really ring the alarm bells for anybody who knows anything about history, because, if you think how deep in the conscience of Russia is their experience of the Second World War, what they call the “Great Patriotic War,” in which Germany, naturally, played a very unwholesome role. And for them to now say that the present-day Germany is the “Fourth Reich,” and that they take that into their planning accordingly, anybody who thinks that through means that any more actions like the Taurus, or any such deployments, will make Germany a prime target in what could become the beginning of a large war. And that is something which I’m trying to cope with, because I cannot understand the historic amnesia going on in Germany! Because I was born in the post-war period, but I remember what my relatives were telling me about how bombed-out the German cities were, what happened during the war, the horror of the bombing nights, where people had to go into the cellar every second night because of the bomb attacks—and that seems to be all erased!

And what do you, as an American, think about all of this?

JOHNSON: I would first note that the people responsible for bombing German cities and killing German civilians with those bombs, were England and the United States, not Russia. To my knowledge, Russia did not have a campaign of dropping tons of bombs on German cities. I mean, they were fighting the ground war, in particular.

But this brings up, really, this broader issue of the hypocrisy of the West, when it comes to using civilians as cannon fodder, that, on the one hand, we want to criticize and accuse Russia, today, of recklessly killing civilians, yet, when you look at the actual numbers, yeah, there have been some actual civilians who have died, but Russia has gone out of its way to avoid killing civilians. Whereas the West stands by silently, while Israel carries out a genocide, murdering, the minimal number is 60,000, and the more likely number could be up around 200,000 to 250,000. And the world stands largely mute against that!

So, what I see at the heart, this struggle, this is not a war between Russia and Ukraine: This really is—and it’s not really an economic struggle between Russia and the West. I think there’s also, if you will, a spiritual dimension to it, a moral dimension to it, because the West, the history of colonialism going back now five centuries, has been one of pillaging, exploitation, death, not one that’s built on empowering people to realize their abilities.

And that’s what I see coming out of, if you will, BRICS, sort of a new vision of how people around the world can interact. And I know that’s been at the heart of your movement, trying to promote that kind of vision that is based upon building, not destroying.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I’m of the deepest conviction that there is only one way how we can avoid World War III: If we cannot get the West, that is the powers behind the military-industrial complex of both sides of the Atlantic, because the absurd aspect is that now all the military firms in Germany, their stocks go up and they say they want to solve the problem of huge job losses, and bankruptcies of firms, by rearming Europe, which is really threatening to become a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to war: The only way how we can, in my view, avoid that this will end sooner or later, be it over the Ukraine crisis or some escalation in the Middle East, or even a war in the Pacific, ending up in World War III, would be that we really have to draw the line and say that the Western countries of Europe, United States and others aligned with them, that they should stop this geopolitical effort to contain Russia, contain China, and start to reach out and cooperate! Because it would be so easy! I have had enough discussions with people in China, in Russia, in India, and other countries from the Global South, there would not be one minute’s hesitation, to welcome this! And I think that the only thing the BRICS countries should do better than they are doing, is to make that once again very clear, so that the effort by the mainstream media, and the warhawks to portray them as a threat, would be countered by them making a more positive message and invitation to the West. Because, I’m absolutely certain that that is the only way how we will avoid the annihilation of all of mankind.

JOHNSON: No, yeah, I agree with that. One of the reasons—you know, people now consider me a “pro-Russian puppet.” But if you look at the experience of Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the depth of despair that seized Russia in the 1990s, with the two periods of hyperinflation, that were akin to what Germany experienced in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, and the number of suicides; the decline in life expectancy particularly among men; the complete collapse of the middle class, and the poverty that ensued; and then, if you were positioned then, and you wanted to say, “Look, let me tell you what Russia’s going to be like in 2025, let me tell you that it’s going to be the fourth largest economy in the world, let me tell you that it’s going to have full employment; let me tell you that the cities are beautiful, they’re clean, they’re safe; that public transportation actually works; that the stores are filled with everything that people could want or need. And, that even though it is a Christian nation, it is founded on Christianity that dates back more than 1,000 years in the Russian experience, nonetheless, they welcome and embrace, people of other faiths, and live in peace with them.” Now, some may accuse me of being incredibly naïve, but I can only tell you, that’s what I have seen!

In fact, just thinking today, something that had dawned upon me—I hadn’t really appreciated it: The West, we’re very much oriented towards a hierarchical, pyramid system, that there’s always sort of this person at the top, who controls and directs, whether it’s the Catholic Church, or the Pope, or the heads of the banks, Jamie Dimon with JPMorgan Chase; or the President. One of the curious things that struck me about the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church in general, is, it’s not hierarchical. Yes, they have senior clerics, but it’s not a power structure, in the same way that, say, the Catholic Church is a power structure, where you’ve got these cardinals who select the Pope, etc. And what I’ve seen in terms of Russia’s interaction, like when I attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, they really have perfected the art of treating other people from other countries with respect! They’re not patronizing it. There’s no condescending manner. It is one built on respect, and the people, whether they were from Africa, or from other Asian countries, or from Latin America, they sense that! They realize that, and they respond! It’s such a positive thing. And that is what, I think, actually, Russia has to offer to the world, a vision of how to do that, without becoming a slave to an ideology.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Some people in the West have a hard time of understanding why the countries of the Global South did not buy the NATO narrative on why the Ukraine war occurred. And it has a lot to do with what you were just saying, because the experience of the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, with Russia, but also with China, is exactly what you are describing: That they are being treated with respect, and they also remember who helped them in their anti-colonial fight, earlier.

So, I think people should reflect about that, and not take the high ground, sitting on a high horse and looking down on other people, because the whole world is right now not going to take this any longer. And I think we really have to make an effort to convince—I don’t know what else we should be doing, rather than talking about it like on programs, organizing conferences, having as many webcasts as we can; interaction. But I think we are really in this window of history, where either we cause this change to occur, or the window will close!

Now, that is why, I think we have a great opportunity just in front of us, not only the upcoming Anchorage meeting between Putin and Trump, but just two weeks later, there will be another great occasion, which is the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. And there, in Beijing, you will have an even on September 3rd, with a huge military parade, where Putin will participate, and naturally, Xi Jinping; Lula will go, Modi will go. And I have issued an appeal to the three Presidents, President Xi Jinping, President Trump and President Putin, that they should absolutely make sure that President Trump is invited, that President Trump should go, and in that historic setting, where the end of World War II in the Pacific is being thought about: And in the West, the role of China in bringing the Second World War to an end is much underestimated and not mentioned. But the fight against Japanese militarism was as important as the fight against the Nazis in Europe, and the Italian Fascists.

So, I think that that that setting, having the whole world look moment, remembering the enormous implication of what World War II really was, making that conscious again, I think that could also be—if the Anchorage meeting is a first step, if there would be a meeting of the three Presidents in the context of the other BRICS leaders there, that would be such an historic opportunity, that I think President Trump, under no circumstances, should miss that. Because he could really earn the Nobel Peace Prize, which he seems to want so badly, if he would do that. Because it could really be the beginning of a new era of mankind.

I have issued a call, and if you, the listeners, and you, naturally, Larry, if you agree, please sign that call, because we want to make that heard all over the world as loudly as we can.

JOHNSON: Yes. In fact, Trump missed a tremendous opportunity, had he attended the May 9th celebration, commemoration of the victory over Nazi Germany in Moscow. Again, he could have been there with Xi Jinping, and with Putin—he missed that.

I think you’re exactly right, that this is an opportunity that he should embrace.

But the United States has created an entire mythology surrounding World War II, that places the United States at the center of that. And that we’re the ones that “won the war.” We are the ones that were victimized the most. What the average American doesn’t understand is that between China and Russia, or the Soviet Union, those two countries alone, accounted for about 80% of the fatalities that occurred in World War II: I made it between 47 and 55 million just between Russia and China! Staggering numbers! You know, the United States doesn’t have anything in its experience to compare with that, to begin to even comprehend what that means.

And I told this story before, but I was in Moscow in March, with Judge Napolitano, and we were having lunch with five other Russians, and I asked them at the time, I said, “How many of you had a direct family member, father, grandfather, uncle, that died in the Great Patriotic War?” and every single one of them raised their hand! Every single one. Whereas, I turned to the judge and said, “Hey, Judge, did you have any family members perish in World War II?” “No!” Not for him; not for me! No even distant relative. And that’s the difference.

The Russians and the Chinese, I think, understand the sacrifice of blood, and how terrible that cost is, which is why they’ve actually been more reluctant to engage in war, and I would argue, it’s that lack of having paid a terrible price in human loss, that the West has been so eager to embrace war, and to engage in it!

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, that obviously is not the case for Germany, because, Germany was very—you know, the Dresden bombing. I met several people who lived through the Dresden bombing, and that’s why it’s all the more incomprehensible that people like Merz would be such warhawks right now. And I always thought that given the fact that the German unification took place only a few decades after the end of that World War, given the fact that the Russians had such an incredible loss, that it was really incredibly generous of them to agree to the terms of the German unification, whereby Germany was allowed to be part of NATO, all of the unified Germany, with one condition: That there would be no foreign troops deployed on the territory of the former G.D.R. And that is being violated right now: You have in Rostock, which is on the Baltic Sea, you have now a headquarter which was formerly only German, but in reality it’s rotating NATO troops all the time.

So, I think that the sacrifice of the Russians in the Second World War, and then, their generosity in terms of the German reunification, makes the behavior of the present leadership in Germany all the more despicable, really. Because it is as if they have no historic memory. I mean, the Holocaust has been discussed many, many times, and it is well-integrated into the German consciousness, the guilt feeling and everything; but they leave out, what was the guilt towards Russia! And that is why this whole history—I really think we need, probably in all countries of the world, it would be very valuable to re-study, what happened, how did it come to the First World War? How did it come to the Second World War? What were the real motives behind it? Because I think the official narrative of all of these wars is quite painted, to get across a certain version. But if you think about who helped to bring Hitler to power? It was Montagu Norman from the Bank of England; it was Averell Harriman; it was Prescott Bush—so I think a lot of addition, it would be very valuable to understand.

And going back to the question you asked earlier, of who is driving this evil? Who is always trying to pursue it? I mean, like in the Potsdam Declaration, you had while they were talking about the reorganization of Germany, politically and geographically, Churchill was commissioning and overseeing the Operation Unthinkable, which was for a preemptive attack against the Russia, and Truman had already given the order to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! And these bombs were politically, completely unnecessary, because, as now becomes clear, the Japanese had already indicated that they wanted to surrender; they were in negotiations with the Vatican about it. So the killing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a political message to the Soviet Union, rather than a punishment of the Japanese.

So I think we really need historians, who go to the sources, who go to the archives, and have an unbiased, real research of what actually happened in all of this. Because I think this historic record must be set straight, if you want to avoid future catastrophes.

JOHNSON: I must confess my ignorance previously, but thanks to a friend, Ryan Dawson, who published what Dwight David Eisenhower said about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What Douglas MacArthur said about it. What Hap Arnold said about it: He was Army Air Corps, involved with a lot of the bombings that took place in Germany and Japan. And what even Curtiss LeMay, whose son later described as crazed—but all of them, all of them said the bombings were completely unnecessary, not needed to win the war. Whereas I had been raised and propagandized for 60 years to believe otherwise. So you’re exactly right.

And we’ll have to see, now, what comes out of the history of this Friday. I think Donald Trump is looking for a way to exit—at least, I hope he’s looking for a way to exit the Ukraine war. Russia is not going to surrender, and I think the most likely outcome is that Trump and Putin will agree, that the United States will recognize the four new republics of Russia: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, along with Crimea. That Russia, Putin will say we’ll withdraw from Dnepropetrovsk, Sumy, Poltava, Kharkiv. That’ll be the offer, and then, if you will, the de-NATO-ization of Ukraine. And that’ll be presented to Ukraine, and it’ll be rejected. But at that point, Trump will say, “Hey, we put a legitimate offer. If Ukraine now is refusing to find a peace,” and Russia will press on with its military campaign, which really appears to be on the verge of breaking the entire defensive line of Ukraine. So, I think we could actually see, as some in the general staff of Russia predicted, an end to this war within two to three months.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think that the majority of the population in Ukraine, right now, is in favor of ending the war, because it simply is so unbearable. That I’m hopeful, because the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, he actually came out in favor of the Bering Strait, and he has been a proponent of the Bering Strait, building of the tunnel and the bridge corridor, because he looks at it, obviously, from the standpoint of the incredible economic potential, which would open up if a decision would be made. And my hope would be that there are enough people around Trump, and Trump himself, who is always described as a developer and a real estate knowledgeable person, that he would see the economic potential. So, I think the best thing we can do is to spread the idea of how that could be a game-changer as far as possible: Today we have Wednesday, so if we would get this around in the next two days to as many circles as possible, maybe we can create an environment to reverse what the British like to do, “flooding the zone” around Trump with bad ideas—that we flood the zone with positive ideas: And let’s just try to do that!

JOHNSON: I think that’s a great idea. I’ll do what I can.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: We will put the links under the broadcast. We have two old pamphlets in German and in English from 2007, when this issue was already big on the agenda. And people are welcome to download it and distribute it as far as possible. And let’s try our best.

So, thank you very much for your very insightful knowledge, and hope to talk to you soon on this channel.

JOHNSON: It’s an honor, a privilege, and pleasure to be with you and have this intimate chat with you, Helga. Thanks so much!

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Till soon! Bye-bye.

10. august 2025 (EIRNS) – Den 11. august offentliggjorde Schiller Instituttets grundlægger, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, følgende åbne brev til præsident Donald Trump og præsident Vladimir Putin. Brevet er sendt i kopi til den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinping.

Brevet ledsages af tre artikler fra tidsskriftet {EIR} fra 4. maj 2007 om anlæggelse af en tunnel under Beringstrædet, hvorigennem der vil kunne føres en jernbanelinje, der forbinder jernbanesystemerne i Eurasien med dem i Amerika. Adresserne til de tre {EIR}-artikler, der ledsager Helga Zepp-LaRouches brev, findes nedenfor:

“Russisk-amerikansk team: Verden har brug for en tunnel under Beringstrædet!”;
“Mendelejev ville have været enig;”
“Oprindelsen til Beringstrædet-projektet.”

Fru Zepp-LaRouche skriver i sit brev:

Til præsident Donald Trump og præsident Vladimir Putin:

Når I mødes i Alaska den 15. august, ligger menneskehedens skæbne i jeres hænder. På trods af alle forsøg fra fredens modstandere, kan I ikke blot bringe krigen i Ukraine til ophør og dermed fjerne Damoklessværdet i form af den atomare udryddelse af menneskeheden, i det mindste i forbindelse med denne konflikt, men I kan også genindføre diplomatiet i forholdet mellem de to mest magtfulde atommagter på kloden.

Men I kan gøre noget endnu mere ophøjet ved ikke kun at bekæmpe de trusler, der truer menneskeheden, men ved at give hele verden en smuk vision for fremtiden. I kunne blive enige om at bygge en korridor over Beringstrædet og med dette jernbane- og tunnelprojekt forene jernbanesystemerne i Eurasien med dem i Amerika. Dette projekt ville åbne op for udnyttelsen af de enorme uudnyttede ressourcer i Sibirien samt de amerikanske arktiske ressourcer af olie, gas, alle former for ædle metaller og ferskvand. Sibirien og det russiske Fjernøsten rummer de største forekomster af råstoffer af alle de grundstoffer, man kan finde i Dmitrij Mendelejevs periodiske system, og en fælles udnyttelse af disse ressourcer, som mange andre ressourcefattige lande kunne inviteres til at deltage i, kunne blive det perfekte program til at undgå krig og i høj grad øge verdens velstand.

I en ikke så fjern fremtid vil man kunne rejse med højhastighedstog rundt om jorden, fra de sydligste spidser af Argentina og Chile i Ushuaia og Puerto Williams, hele vejen gennem Amerika, derefter gennem Beringstrædet, tværs over Eurasien og med en tunnel under Gibraltarstrædet, hele vejen gennem det afrikanske kontinent til Kap Det Gode Håb.

Beringstrædet-tunnelprojektet er blevet undersøgt og fremmet i årtier af førende videnskabelige og politiske personligheder i USA, Rusland og Kina, som det er dokumenteret i vedlagte artikler fra tidsskriftet EIR, der går tilbage til 2007, samt en 8 minutters video udarbejdet af Dr. Victor Razbegin, næstformand for SOPS, Ruslands Råd for undersøgelse af produktive Kræfter, som vandt Grand Prize for Innovation på Shanghai World Expo 2010.

Beringstrædet-tunnelen og relaterede store infrastrukturprojekter kunne også danne grundlag for yderligere indgående drøftelser mellem præsident Trump, præsident Putin og Kinas præsident Xi Jinping, hvis præsident Trump bliver inviteret og accepterer at deltage i 80-årsdagen for afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig, der afholdes i Kina den 3. september – som jeg tidligere har foreslået. [link]

Dette projekt for en integreret infrastruktur for hele verden som grundlag for udvikling vil lægge grundlaget for at afskaffe krig som middel til konfliktløsning for altid. Menneskets håb hviler på jer!

Med venlig hilsen

Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Stifter, Schiller Instituttet

11. august 2025

cc.: Præsident Xi Jinping
——————————————-

Historisk baggrund:
Læs Tom Gillesbergs 2007 artikel, “Vitus Bering og rejsen til Amerika”.Klik her.
Resumé på dansk, fuld artikel på engelsk.

Skrevet den 4, august 2025 af Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Hvis man foretog en undersøgelse blandt verdens befolkning, villeman sandsynligvis finde, at langt størstedelen af borgerne i de fleste nationer er bange for fremtiden, at de ser store katastrofer truende, såsom en ny depression, fattigdom, sult, tab af arbejdspladser og vigtigst af alt: en ny – denne gang atomar – verdenskrig, som kan betyde civilisationens undergang.

Blandt verdens militæreksperter er mange overbevist om, at den militære strategiske situation i dag er farligere end under Cuba–krisen, i betragtning af det næsten fuldstændige sammenbrud af tilliden mellem nogle af atommagterne, ophævelsen af alle våbenkontroltraktater, og faren for at flere geopolitiske kriser, såsom krisen i Ukraine, Mellemøsten og en truende krise i Stillehavet, kommer ud af kontrol.

Hvordan kan det ske, at kun 80 år efter afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig, hvor de overlevende højtideligt svor: »Aldrig mere fascisme! Aldrig mere krig!«, befinder menneskeheden sig igen ved helvedes port, som om mindet om de millioner af døde i den verdenskrig var glemt, og at de havde kæmpet, lidt og døde forgæves?

Vi står over for en stor historisk mulighed, hvor lederne af tre store nationer kan sende et magtfuldt signal til verden. Hvis præsident Xi Jinping inviterede præsident Trump til den militærparade, der er planlagt til den 3. september på Den Himmelske Freds Plads i Beijing for at markere 80-årsdagen for afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig, og præsident Trump accepterede invitationen, da præsident Putin også forventes at være til stede, kunne verdens befolkning finde håb om, at disse tre ledere ville åbne et nyt kapitel i menneskehedens historie. Fra 1941 til 1945 var USA og Sovjetunionen allierede mod tysk nationalsocialisme, mens Kina og USA i samme periode var allierede mod japansk militarisme. Hvis de tre præsidenter ville deltage i militærparaden den 3. september og sammen fornyer den hellige ed »Aldrig igen!«, ville det sende det stærkeste budskab til hele verden om, at en ny æra med fred vil begynde.

Præsident Trump blev valgt for anden gang med et mandat til at skabe fred og afslutte sine forgængeres evige krige, og det er, hvad den Globale Majoritet forventer af præsident Xi og præsident Putin.

Vi, underskriverne af denne appel, appellerer til jer om at trække menneskeheden tilbage fra udslettelsens afgrund og blive grundlæggere af en ny æra i menneskehedens historie!

Underskrivere:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, grundlægger, Schiller Instituttet

Følgende kronik blev offentliggjort i Toronto Star den 5. august 2025. Her er linket til begyndelsen af artiklen på Toronto Stars hjemmeside. Forfatteren har givet os tilladelse til at offentliggøre den.

Gaza doesn’t need empty statements. It needs food, dignity, justice and action — now

By Izzeldin Abuelaish, Contributor

Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian Canadian medical doctor, was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip and is an author and professor emeritus, clinical public health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.

The images of Gaza tell us everything we need to know: charred children, weeping mothers clutching lifeless infants, fathers burying their children in plastic bags and entire families erased in a single airstrike have been shown repeatedly alongside the long lines of thirsty and hungry people waiting for what will never come.

What more must Gaza show for the world to act? It’s what countless experts, and a UN special committee have named a genocide. And it’s happening in real time, livestreamed on the internet. The world knows and the response from the international community has failed a moral test.

The destruction of Gaza is a deliberate and direct policy of the Israeli government, which is being enabled by the silence, indifference, or endorsement from the many governments that fund, arm, or politically shield Israel from accountability.

For nearly two years, Gaza has been dying in slow motion and burning. And before that, for many years, it has been suffocating. Today, many people in Gaza are closer to death than to a loaf of bread.

Gaza is a moral mirror. It reflects the fragility of international law, the hypocrisy of global diplomacy and the dangerous elasticity of human empathy. When children are starving to death in full view and are still not being rescued, we must ask: What have we become?

The people of Gaza are not statistics, they are human beings, students, doctors, musicians, mothers, people who dream. They are trapped by an international order that sees their lives as expendable.

What is happening in Gaza today is an engineered humanitarian collapse executed in full view of the international community. This is not war — it is annihilation; an unarmed, captive population being erased.

The most unbearable aspect is global inaction. The world is failing every day when it settles for another statement calling for calm, or “we are monitoring the situation,” “expressing concern,” or “urging restraint.” Gaza doesn’t need monitoring. It needs mercy, food and an end to impunity. The gap between Gaza’s suffering and the world’s response is no longer just injustice, it is complicity.

Far too many people no longer have water, medicine, electricity of shelter. The people there are not asking for the impossible. They simply want food and water, a moment of peace to bury their dead, a chance to sleep without fear of bombardment. They want to survive.
What Gaza needs is an immediate lifting of the siege. It needs open crossings. It needs unrestricted access to food, water, medicine and fuel. It needs protection — not just from airstrikes, war crimes, but from the slow, daily violence of hunger, disease and despair.

What Gaza needs most off all from the international community is accountability. The Israeli government’s deliberate policies of destruction must not be rewarded with silence, weapons, or diplomatic cover. Those responsible must be named, investigated, and tried under international law — not applauded or excused.

Canada, as a country that claims to uphold human rights and international law, must stop enabling this injustice through political complicity. It must support binding mechanisms of accountability, including referrals to the International Criminal Court and advocate for immediate humanitarian access, protection of civilians, and an end to impunity.

The people of Gaza are not asking for your pity. They are demanding your action. They are calling not just for life — but for a life with dignity.

History is watching. So are the survivors. And so are the children who remain — not yet buried, not yet starved, but still waiting for the world to choose justice over delay and humanity over politics. History will remember not only the atrocities, but also the apathy. Not only the bombs, but the indifference and silence.

Gaza will rise — not by miracle, but by the unbreakable will of its people. And even if Gaza must start from zero, let that zero not be seen as emptiness, but as possibility.

Gaza’s rebirth must be global in solidarity and Palestinian in spirit. It must honour the lives lost, uplift the survivors, and proclaim that never again is now — and it applies to every child, every mother, every dream buried beneath the ruins.

Gaza will rise because it must. Because its people still breathe, still believe and still belong to a future where they are no longer caged, starved, or erased — but free.

Oprindeligt udgivet den 24. marts 2013
I Poesiens Californien taler Andersen lidenskabeligt for videnskab som den gyldne kilde til poetisk inspiration, en lampe, der kaster lys  på vejen til fremtiden, holdt højt af digteren, »Lysbæreren for Tider og Slægter.«

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English versions:

Complete version:

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Abridged version as published in EIR, Executive Intelligence Review on April 19, 2013:

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Følgende artikel af Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish blev offentliggjort i Toronto Globe and Mail den 1. august 2025. Dr. Abuelaish er gynækolog og fertilitets ekspert, der er født i Gaza og nu er professor ved Toronto University’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Forfatteren har givet os tilladelse til at offentliggøre debatartiklen.

Dansk resumé: 

Denne krig udkæmpes ikke kun med bomber og kugler, den udkæmpes i kroppene af kvinder, der bærer liv, mens de er omgivet af død, hvor den endda kan ændre, hvordan gener udtrykkes…
Gennem sult, fordrivelse, frygt og vold forankrer den sig i livmoderen og siver ind i de ufødte børns gener…

Hvor er den globale erkendelse af, at hvert missilangreb ikke kun kan dræbe nutiden, men også skade fremtiden?

Verden må huske, hvad Gazas børn ikke kan glemme. De fortjener mere end blot at overleve. De fortjener retfærdighed, lighed, frihed, at stå til ansvar og en fremtid uden arvelig sult og frygt.

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2. del: 26 min.

Diskussion i dialog med Jens Jørgen Nielsen (historiker, forfatter, journalist, lærer), og Mrutyuanjai Mishra (fra Indien, journalist og lærer.)

Se videoerne fra Schiller Instituttets Berlin-konference her:

Video links (4), talerlisten og invitation til Schiller Instituttets internationale konference i Berlin og online den 12.-13. juli 2025:
»Mennesket er ikke en ulv for mennesket«
For et nyt paradigme i internationale relationer!

Læs og del gerne Schiller Instituttets udtalelse:

Oase-planen for Palæstina og Israel: Fred gennem gensidig udvikling!
Ny Schiller Institut erklæring i forbindelse med FN konference om en to-statsløsning for Israel og Palæstina

12. juli 2025 — H.E. Dr. Naledi Pandor var Sydafrikas udenrigsminister fra 2019 til 2024. Hun var også medlem af parlamentet (MP) for African National Congress (ANC) fra 1994 til 2024.

Dr. Zepp LaRouche, medarbejdere i Schiller Instituttet, ærede talere og paneldeltagere, deltagere, mine damer og herrer:

Godmorgen. Mange tak, formand. Jeg er også den nuværende og nye formand for Nelson Mandela-fonden. Jeg vil gerne minde alle delegerede tilstede på mødet om, at den 18. juli er ’Den Internationale Nelson Mandela Dag.’ Det er dagen, hvor Nelson Mandela bad hver enkelt af os om at bruge en time på at gøre noget for en anden person eller et samfund i nød. Så jeg håber, at I alle har planer for den 18. juli, hvor I vil ære den afdøde præsident Nelson Mandelas ønske, som kun bad os mennesker om denne ene ting.

Lad mig begynde med at takke Dr. Zepp-LaRouche og teamet i Schiller Instituttet for at have inviteret mig til at deltage i denne meget vigtige konference i Berlin. Jeg beklager, at jeg ikke kan være tilstede, da jeg i øjeblikket befinder mig i USA. Jeg mener, at dette møde i Berlin er yderst vigtigt. For afrikanere kan ideen om en Berlin-konference, som i sikkert ved, være en skræmmende påmindelse om vores koloniale fortid, og den rolle Berlin spillede i sanktionen af kolonialisme i det 19. århundrede.

Jeg bifalder derfor Schiller Instituttet for at bringe en stemme for frihed, retfærdighed, fred og sikkerhed til Berlin. Og jeg håber, at Berlin vil tage føringen i at skabe betingelser i verden, der kan udgøre en modvægt til det nuværende fjendtlige miljø, som er skabt af de mest magtfulde i verden.

Schiller Instituttet har påtaget sig den meget vigtige opgave at skabe nye og velinformerede samtaler om vores verden i dag. Alle tilstede her er klar over, at vi som globalt samfund befinder os ved eller nær et vendepunkt, især med hensyn til det mulige udbrud af en ukontrollabel global konflikt og global krig eller en faktisk handelskrig, der vil forårsage enorme skader, især for udviklingslandene.

Instituttets initiativ til oprettelsen af en international fredskoalition vil være et vigtigt bidrag til udviklingen af et nyt globalt partnerskab og en frisk tilgang til multilateralisme. Jeg vil gerne stadfæste, at Sydafrika og mange lande på det afrikanske kontinent fuldt og fast tror på en multipolær verden. Og vi mener, at multilateralisme bedst støttes gennem et effektivt, velfungerende og reformeret FN – især Sikkerhedsrådet, som skal spille sin rolle i at sikre fred og sikkerhed.

Det afrikanske kontinent støtter alle initiativer for fred. Fred er godt, og fred er tæt forbundet med udvikling. Vores kontinent, Afrika, er fortsat udfordret af dårlig eller utilstrækkelig infrastruktur, lavt niveau af industrialisering, lav produktionskapacitet og mangel på teknologisk innovation, der kan tilføre værdi til Afrikas rige naturressourcer.

Derudover lider Afrika under interne konflikter, manglende demokrati i mange lande og utilstrækkelige menneskerettighedspraksisser samt offentlige institutioner, der ikke kan udføre deres offentlige servicefunktioner effektivt. Alt dette bidrager til de betydelige problemer Afrika har.

Men heldigvis er Afrika begyndt at fokusere på løsninger. Digitale teknologier og innovation er ved at slå rod i afrikanske økonomier som Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda og Sydafrika. Øgede investeringer i landbrug og fundamentale sociale ydelser inden for sundhed og uddannelse understøtter også betydelige fremskridt.

Efter min mening er det vigtigste led i udviklingen Den Afrikanske Unions ‘Agenda 2063’ med henblik på det Afrika, vi ønsker i 2063. Agenda 2063 tilbyder en struktur for udviklingen af Afrika, som er implementerbar, til et Afrika, som alle afrikanere ønsker sig i 2063. Den Afrikanske Union styrer og leder implementeringen af af denne dagsorden og søger partnerskaber med internationale samarbejdspartnere for at sikre, at vi gennemfører de 17 prioriterede initiativer, der er fastlagt i Agenda 2063.

Konflikten i Sudan samt en forsinket tilbagevenden til demokrati i flere vestafrikanske stater har forsinket bemærkelsesværdig fremskridt med Agenda 2063. Men på trods af dette er det en plan, der nyder bred tilslutning på det afrikanske kontinent.

Oase-planen, som er blevet offentliggjort af Schiller Instituttet, supplerer Afrikas ambitioner, og der bør være samarbejde om gennemførelsen af disse udviklingsplaner. Efter vores opfattelse kan Europa spille en yderst vigtig rolle i et sådant samarbejde.

Desuden hænger både Oase-planen og Agenda 2063 meget fint sammen med FN’s mål for bæredygtig udvikling. Alle disse udviklingsplaner bør stå i centrum hos det globale samfund, og det er meget bekymrende, at den aktuelle globale diskurs slet ikke refererer til udvikling. Den aktuelle diskurs er meget maskulin, meget konfliktorienteret og står i skarp kontrast til FNs mål for bæredygtig udvikling (SDGs), Afrikas Agenda 2063 og Oase-planen. Det er afgørende, at deltagerne på denne konference finder måder at nå ud til verdens ledere, ledere, der er en del af G7, en del af BRIKS og en del af G20, og med én stemme bør vi skabe tilstrækkelig fremdrift til at overbevise disse ledere om, at vi vil opnå mere vækst, mere udvikling og mere sikkerhed, hvis disse planer udgør kernen i en globale indsats.

Vi er nødt til at gøre det klart for verdens ledere, at vi forventer, at de bevæger sig væk fra den nuværende kurs og dedikerer deres opmærksomhed til global udvikling. Det negative og giftige geopolitiske miljø, hvor militær magt og økonomisk mobning er dominerende, kommer aldrig til bidrage til opbygningen af en bedre verden. Indsatsen for at sikre globalt samarbejde skal intensiveres; øget opmærksomhed på at opbygge respekt for multilateralisme og respekt for international lov er de eneste veje til at skabe en verden, hvor ulighed, fattigdom og eksklusion kan adresseres. Disse tre problematiske områder er de centrale fokusområder, som det globale samfund bør forene sig om.

Den konference I afholder i dag, er nødt til at nå frem til Berlin-konference konklusioner, der stadfæster samarbejde, som støtter investeringer i de sårbare og marginaliserede, og som kraftigt afviser konflikt og øget militarisme.

Jeg håber, at de drøftelser i har i dag, vil sætte en ny dagsorden for det globale samfund og indlede en proces, der vender lande væk fra en tilgang, hvor man søger at ødelægge hinanden.

Vi har oplevet tilbageskridt på grund af det konfliktfyldte miljø med hensyn til fremskridt indenfor ligestilling mellem kønnene, samt fremskridt inden for bekæmpelsen af racisme og fremskridt inden for udvikling. Det er derfor bydende nødvendigt, at vi alle i det globale samfund går sammen om at skabe en mere retfærdig og fredelig verden, der fokuserer på at sikre, at alle lever i velfærd og kan nyde godt af udvikling. Jeg er sikker på, at det er muligt at forfølge disse mål. Sydafrikas historie med bekæmpelsen af apartheid har bevist uden tvivl, at det globale samfund kan stå sammen i international solidaritet for at bekæmpe et onde, en forbrydelse mod menneskeheden, for at sikre, at alle mennesker nyder frihed og retfærdighed. Verden hjalp Sydafrika i den internationale anti-apartheidbevægelse med at opnå frihed efter mange årtier. Verden kan i dag gå sammen om at skabe et fundament for at sikre fred, retfærdighed og udvikling for dem der ikke nyder disse rettigheder. Vi er nødt til at ændre verdens fokus i en positiv retning. Verden bliver ledt af Dr. Zepp-LaRouche såvel som teamet i Schiller Instituttet og giver os et klart grundlag for at forfølge de mål, jeg har nævnt. Jeg håber, at i vil slutte jer til Schiller Instituttet i denne vigtige indsats, og jeg ser frem til at se konklusionerne for en massiv vækst i Den Internationale Fredskoalition og vi vil – fra land til land – definere, hvordan vi vil handle for at sikre, at vi får en positiv indflydelse på verdensbegivenhederne i dag.

Jeg vil gerne sige tak for jeres opmærksomhed, og ønsker jer held og lykke med jeres drøftelser under konferencen.

 Mange tak.

Helga Zepp-LaRouches tale er på dansk.

ANASTASIA BATTLE: Hello everyone! It’s been a real joy at the various conferences in the United States and in Germany. This is the International Peace Coalition, this is our 111th consecutive meeting. Thank you for joining us. We’re coming off a very exciting conference that was held in Berlin, where there were many top speakers from around the world. I also got to meet many of you who have been participating in these meetings over the last two years.

Today is a very special day. Today is the birthday of the late South African President Nelson Mandela. It’s officially the Nelson Mandela International Day. He declared that on this day, people should devote at least one hour to doing something for another person or a needy community. I’m sure I do not need to tell all of you to go and do that; I’m sure all of you are already doing those things. But you should encourage other people to do those things, especially in honor of Nelson Mandela’s birthday; it’s really a wonderful day to bring everyone together.

I like to remind people why we created this forum 111 weeks ago, in order to bring the peace movement together from around the world. People of many different philosophies, they could differ; many different languages, cultures, religions. But we’re all coming together around the concept of one mission: That we want to create true peace in the world, and we’re going to accomplish that with the collaboration of our organizations and our joint efforts. So thank you to everyone who has been participating in this, and welcome to new people who have joined this week.

To start us off, I’d like to have Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who is the founder of the Schiller Institute and the initiator of the International Peace Coalition. Please, go ahead Helga.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Velkommen til jer alle. Vi er netop kommet fra en yderst vigtig konference i Berlin, arrangeret af Schiller Instituttet. Først vil jeg gerne opfordre alle, der endnu ikke har lyttet til det, til at tage sig tid i weekenden eller om aftenen til at lytte til alle paneldeltagerne. For dette skulle ikke bare være en engangs-konference, men vi forsøgte – og jeg tror det lykkedes – at præsentere et alternativ til den nuværende geopolitiske konfrontation. Jeg synes, at vi ud over at have haft fremragende talere fra alle dele af verden – virkelig top-talere, der hjalp os med at advare verdensbefolkningen, eller dem vi kan nå, om den umiddelbare fare for 3. verdenskrig. Men vi præsenterede også et alternativ til samarbejde ved at appellere til landene i Vesten – hovedsageligt Europa og USA – om at gå sammen med landene i det Globale Syd, den Globale Majoritet, for at engagere sig i reel udvikling; industrialiseringen af Afrika, Mellemøsten og andre dele af det Globale Syd. Og vi præsenterede en rapport, som I kan få adgang til sammen med konferencens dokumenter. Jeg vil bede jer alle om måske at gøre det til jeres Nelson Mandela-gode gerning, som Dr. Naledi Pandor har bedt os om. Hun er tidligere minister for internationale relationer i Sydafrika.

Grundlæggende ønsker vi at gå ind i en kampagne for at sige, at der virkelig er et alternativ til 3. verdenskrig, at vi er nødt til at overvinde geopolitik og begynde at samarbejde om udvikling. For det nye navn for fred er udvikling. Det kunne ikke komme på et mere presserende tidspunkt, for det ser ud til, at nogle af de vestlige ledere er fast besluttede på at føre verden ind i en atomar katastrofe. Da dette ikke kommer fra én stemme, men fra alle hjørner – fra massemedierne, mange politiske hjørner – er der ingen tvivl om, at der i baggrunden, eller ikke længere så meget i baggrunden, er en aktiv plan for et opgør. Næstformanden for den ældste britiske tænketank, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Malcolm Chalmers, havde allerede i maj 2022 foreslået, at NATO skulle overtage Krim og på den måde forårsage en atomkrise med Rusland og få det, han kaldte en cubansk missilkrise på steroider. Derefter, på højdepunktet af en sådan atomopgør, ville det forhåbentlig skabe betingelser, hvor Rusland kunne tvinges til at forhandle. At have en sådan tankegang er yderst bekymrende.

Den samme herre foreslog i marts 2025 i et interview med The Economist endnu en sådan bravado-operation ved at foreslå, at der skulle affyres en atomraket fra en britisk ubåd, ikke mod en stor russisk by, hvor det ville medføre for mange tab. Nej, målet skulle blot være en militærbase, som skulle angribes med en atombombe. Ikke en rigtig stor bombe, siger han nådigt, bare en lille bombe på størrelse med den, der blev kastet over Hiroshima, det ville være nok. Og han håber, at det ville have samme effekt og få Rusland til endelig at forhandle. Det ville alt sammen bare være en akademisk luftboble, men desværre forlader denne samme person, Malcolm Chalmers, nu sin stilling i RUSI-tænketanken for at blive strategisk rådgiver for den britiske forsvarsminister John Healey. Så det ville bare være en bekymrende begivenhed, hvis man ikke havde en meget ildevarslende opgradering af den såkaldte koalition af villige. Det er et udtryk for den kendsgerning, at der indenfor NATO, selv om ikke alle medlemmer af NATO er enige i den nuværende kurs med optrapning, såsom at sende landtropper til Ukraine og forsyne Ukraine med alle former for langtrækkende våben, imidlertid er denne koalition af villige, som nu anføres af Storbritannien, Frankrig og Tyskland.

I sidste uge var der et møde mellem Macron og Starmer, hvor de aftalte at koordinere deres atomarsenaler bedre, for de er trods alt de to atommagter i Europa. I går var kansler Merz også i London, hvor han sammen med Starmer underskrev det, de kalder en tysk-britisk venskabstraktat – den såkaldte Kensington-traktat. Kensington er en henvisning til et palads og dronning Victorias rolle. Merz nævnte hende faktisk ved navn, hvilket viser, at denne kansler ikke er ved sine fulde fem. Victorias regeringstid var den tid, hvor briterne aktivt planlagde 1. verdenskrig, hovedsageligt mod Tyskland blandt andre. At henvise til dette viser helt klart, at kansler Merz har en forkærlighed for det

Britiske Imperium, som han nu gladeligt underkaster sig. Men det er også en yderst bekymrende udvikling.

Jeg mener derfor, at artiklen i Times of India, der beskriver vores konference i Berlin, hvor der står: »Er Europa ved at blive slagmarken for den kommende konfrontation med Rusland?«, er en præcis beskrivelse.

Desværre er dette, som jeg sagde, ikke den eneste yderst bekymrende udvikling. Samtidig havde man den amerikanske hærchef for Europa og Afrika, Christopher Donahue, der for blot et par dage siden holdt en konference i Wiesbaden, hvor Donahue stolt meddelte, at NATO nu er parat til fuldstændigt at afskære den russiske enklave Kaliningrad, hvilket er en snubletråd. Der er ingen tvivl om, at russerne har gjort det meget klart, at de har Iskander-missiler udstationeret i denne region for at imødegå at afskære denne region Kaliningrad i form af en blitzkrieg. Så jeg kan kun sige, at hele diskussionen om at fortsætte med at optrappe på denne måde, fortsætte med at sende langdistance-missiler til Ukraine til brug langt inde på russisk territorium, betyder, at vi er på en meget kort vej mod en optrapning til 3. verdenskrig, hvis dette ikke stoppes.

Nu vil vi senere høre om situationen i Mellemøsten. Situationen i Gaza er fortsat et symbol på Vestens moralske forfald, og hvis der ikke gøres noget ved det, tror jeg, det er et tegn på, at al folkeret er ved at bryde sammen. Heldigvis mødtes Haag-gruppen af udviklingslande i Bogotá, Columbia, og de har en handlingsplan for, hvad der skal gøres. Jeg kan kun håbe, at der i FN på kort sigt kan findes passende støtte til denne aktion.

Der er andre vigtige udviklinger, der går i den modsatte retning. Det er sikkert, at Rusland sender aktive signaler og tager skridt til at genoplive RIC-formlen – Rusland, Indien, Kina. Det var ideen, at disse tre atommagter, en gruppe, der blev oprettet af premierminister Primakov i 1990’erne, skulle genoplive denne kombination. Jeg synes, det er et meget godt skridt. Min afdøde mand, Lyndon LaRouche, havde på tidspunktet for Primakovs forslag foreslået, at USA skulle være en del af denne kombination, og at alle problemer så kunne løses. Det synes ikke at være den retning, præsident Trump går i lige nu, men det er den mulighed han har, hvis han ønsker at blive kandidat til Nobels fredspris, ikke blot som en symbolsk gestus, men i den virkelige historie.

Præsident Lula da Silva fra Brasilien er stærkt imod det, Trump nu kommer med i form af en 50-dages frist for at indføre en told på 50 % mod Rusland og sekundære mål, men også mod alle andre lande. Det er stadig den samme form for økonomisk krigsførelse, som kun kan føre til et tidligt sammenbrud af det finansielle system. Lula mindede også Trump om, at han ikke er blevet valgt til verdens kejser, men til præsident for USA, og afviste dermed sådanne forslag.

Vi har også til hensigt at bruge tiden mellem nu og den 28. og 29. juli, som er meget kort, til at genoptage vores kampagne for Oase-planen. For den tostats-(Palæstina og Israel)-konference, der blev aflyst i juni, skal nu finde sted i slutningen af denne måned. Jeg vil opfordre alle tilhængere af Oase-planen til at genoptage jeres bestræbelser på at bruge alle de kanaler I har i FN, i denne tostats-konference, til at sige, at den eneste måde, hvorpå der kan være håb om fred, er en kombination af det, som Bogotá-Haag-gruppen foreslår, og Oase-planen som den virkelige plan for fred og udvikling.

Jeg tror, vi har meget arbejde foran os. Dr. Pandor opfordrede alle i forbindelse med vores Berlin-konference til at gøre IPC til den største organisation nogensinde. Få folk til at melde sig ind; det er mere presserende end nogensinde før. Krigsfaren stiger praktisk talt for hvert minut, og selve civilisationens eksistens står på spil som aldrig før. Men gør det med den pakke vi har, for at få de

vestlige lande til at samarbejde med den Globale Majoritet om at sætte reel udvikling på dagsordenen for Afrika. Vi har fremlagt et udkast til forslag om industrialisering af Afrika, vi har Oase-planen. Begge disse planer er i overensstemmelse med den afrikanske dagsorden for 2063, og det er den vej, vi skal gå. Vi må lægge geopolitik bag os og gå efter reel udvikling som grundlag for fred. Det var det, jeg ville sige til jer i begyndelsen.

Remarks during the Discussion:

På engelsk:
[1] I think the description of the conference we had was quite accurate in different aspects. I think the organizing from Paris also gives people an idea that we are not talking about academic presentations, but we really want to engage many institutions and also so-called ordinary people. Because the more you look at how the world is going, we are in such an unprecedented danger of civilization, and therefore my appeal to you, and obviously what other speakers have said is, become active! Don’t look at the IPC process as a thing to just watch. Become active, because the world is more in need of peace activists. I can only repeat what Dr. Pandor said. We have to work to make the IPC the most powerful peace organization on the planet by uniting everybody. The problem is that there are many groups even in Germany—I say even in Germany because Germany is still one of the most controlled and occupied places. There are many people who are really so absolutely frightened and concerned. When they realize that they are not the only ones, that there are many co-thinkers, it gives them courage to speak out. I think we need to change the policy. I think what Chancellor Merz is proposing in Germany is really going in the wrong direction. I am really calling on all people in France, Macron being in a similar orientation. But let’s really move Europe in the direction of cooperation with the Global South. Then all the problems could be solved very easily. The United States has their 250th anniversary next year, and America could go back to its own anti-colonial tradition of the American Revolution, the American War of Independence which was the first anti-colonial war in history. All problems would be easily solved, and that is not an empty promise. I know the BRICS countries would receive Europe and even the United States with open arms if they would just say we want to stop this insane geopolitical confrontation. So, contact Anastasia after the call, and let’s broaden our outreach by several orders of magnitude.

[2] I want to pick up on what Dmitri Trenin said in his conference presentation. That was actually mentioned in the Times of India article. He is one of the eminent spokesmen of Russia; a strategic thinker. He used to be with the Carnegie Foundation; he’s now in all kinds of important think tanks and positions. He said that Russia will react to the present NATO provocations, and he said it will not happen in the Far East, it will happen here in Germany. There are many other analysts now who say, “When is the Oreshnik moment for Russia coming?” I think there is a general discussion among analysts around the world as to what will be the appropriate reaction coming from Russia. It is generally estimated that Russia, and Putin in particular will try everything possible to not go into the trap of being entangled in something which could get out of control and end civilization. But Russia will be reacting in a very measured way. The Oreshnik moment would be the moment when they are sending the equivalent of an Oreshnik missile, however without a nuclear warhead because that could be put on the Oreshnik. But just by the kinetic energy of this new type of hypersonic missile, they could demonstrate that there are new physical principles at work. Such a reaction has to be expected soon.

Now, I think this will happen, because if the West is continuously upping the ante, as with the Malcolm Chalmers appointment to be strategic advisor to the British Defense Minister, this should get everybody alarmed. Because these people are in a Cuban Missile Crisis on steroids mindset; or breaking the emergency glass, just break the rules and go completely out of control. That will be the moment when we have really the existence of civilization at stake. So, I would really urge people to get active now. We are in that very short window of opportunity where something still can be done. For Merz to go to London and make this Kensington Treaty is a demonstration of the absolute lack of any historical instinct. If you know what the role of the British was in bringing about the two world wars—which would require a whole other discussion—it is just unbelievable. It is one thing to be the slave of the United States and the underling and colonial entity of the United States, but to go like that into the den of the lion and submit to policies which have already led to two world wars, is either a complete lack of political instinct, or it is what Merz also did. He had a meeting in the Chancellor’s office a couple of days ago, where the content of the discussion was not revealed, but after much pressure by journalists, they got the spokesman of the government to admit that one of the key individuals meeting there with Merz was a key representative of BlackRock. Maybe that’s the answer to the whole mystery, because BlackRock is in weapons companies all over the world. Maybe that is the connection which makes this whole thing tick.

But we need an active response to that by increasing the peace movement and many demonstrations of it.

Re comment: “The internet is not enough; we need outreach together with all parties who stand for peace, left or right, confessional or atheistic.” And Q from Denise Ham: “Please address the idea that evil is not a force, but the problem is the lack of the good. What is needed is to get people to do the good. That is what people need to do: Wake up and act as world citizens.”

I think concerning the comment, I can only agree, and we need activists. I think we made a big step forward with the Berlin conference, because people realized that as Stephan mentioned in the beginning, the Schiller Institute has demonstrated over the decades that we can bring forces together from all over the world. That is not a miracle; we didn’t go and pluck a rabbit out of a hat, and bring all these people together. The reason why the Schiller Institute can do that is because it is a reflection of our work for half a century. We have organized in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia since the early part of the 1970s, but in earnest since 1975. The fact that we have worked with the Non-Aligned Movement, with Indira Gandhi on a 40-year development plan; with López Portillo, President of Mexico, on Operation Juárez, which was a plan for the economic integration of all of Latin America. We have worked on a 50-year plan for the Pacific Basin; the Oasis Plan, the Africa development plan, the Eurasian Land-Bridge. We published “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge.” We had literally hundreds of conferences and seminars over the decades on five continents. So, that is why people trust the Schiller Institute; why we are much more known to people internationally than let’s say in Germany where the mass media is really not at all our friend. In fact, if they ever did publish something, it was a calumny, a slander, or some idiotic description which had nothing to do with our work.

Fortunately, as I keep telling my German associates, Germany is not the navel of the world, and I absolutely refuse to look at the world picture from an inner German point of view, because you get depressed. If you look at Germany as Germany, it looks almost hopeless—or many people think so—and then people get depressed. So, the best thing is to really try to see the world dynamic as it is developing right now and take that as your starting point.

Therefore, I call on people listening and watching to get in contact with us. We are prepared to amplify the impact of this recent conference many-fold. I’m absolutely certain that what we are saying in terms of the perspective of cooperating with the countries of the Global South, is in the real interest of Germany. It’s in the interest of the German industry, the German mittelstand, the German trade unions, the German civil organizations. Is it in the interest of Germany that the health budget gets cut? No, it’s in the interest that we bring a health system to every country on the planet.

Anyway, all I’m saying is, there are a zillion things we can do. Everything really depends on whether we can multiply our efforts in the very short term. I think there is hope.

Now to Denise, I want to say, I fully agree naturally with you. Evil is not a force, because in the tenth of my proposed Ten Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture, I maintain that man is good by nature, and that evil is the result of a lack of development, and therefore can be overcome by development. It is my experience that there is a very small percentage of human beings who have decided to be evil, to be a force of evil. Depending on how old they are, you can’t do much about it because they are set in their ways. But they are just a tiny percent, and the reason why it is good to be optimistic about the Global Majority is because while naturally if you have a country of several hundred million inhabitants, not everybody is on the same line, but look at the trajectory. The trajectory of a country is what counts. If a country is moving upwards, it tends to pull its citizens in a positive direction.

I give you one example. I don’t know if I mentioned it here in this program, but when I grew up it was in the postwar period. And I played with my fellow children many times on rubblefields; because Trier, my hometown, was pretty much bombed out due to General Patton—who I still hold a grudge against. In any case, there were many rubblefields. But we played, and because the general direction of the country was characterized by the German Economic Miracle, we all felt it was going forward. So, we all thought we had a great time, even if the environment was maybe a rubblefield.

Likewise, the countries of the Global South, who have the feeling that things are going forward because of China, because of the BRICS, their general outlook is positive. While if you go to Europe or the United States, it’s more in the opposite direction because people have the sense that the future of their children and grandchildren will be worse than that of themselves; and therefore the trajectory is going downward. Subsequently, people are pessimistic.

I think it is very important that we really have the idea to turn this around by a mass movement: Optimists of the world unite! Then we can beat the evil.

Re Q on how can I contribute to this struggle as an African since Africa is somewhat removed from international conflicts; instead we face terrorism, etc. within our community. I think we have a lot to contribute though not directly affected like the Middle East.

I’m very happy about this question, because it allows me to elaborate a little bit more of what we plan to do. We have presented at the conference a short report, a work-in-progress, in which we outline certain absolutely necessary investments and parameters for the development of Africa, starting with electrification. Some 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity. That can be remedied not in one day, but maybe in a few years if we really get our act together. We have defined certain game-changer projects like the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia, which is a very fine example of Chinese-Italian-African cooperation. It is providing water and electricity. Likewise the Inga Dams for the Congo, and the Transaqua project also starting with some water from the Congo River; bringing it through a system of canals and rivers to Lake Chad, to refill Lake Chad and provide water for the Sahel zone. This Transaqua project was already agreed upon by six governments of the Lake Chad Commission in Abuja. There was such a conference, and right now, that would be something which could be started and transform 12 countries along the route of these waterways.

I would suggest that you immediately download our report and if you have contacts among engineers and scholars and various such people, we can fill out the details. This is just the beginning of a report. We have to think about a transcontinental infrastructure plan for all of Africa, where you start with the idea that you want to have an integrated continental infrastructure which integrates roads, railways, high-speed rail, waterways, with energy production and distribution, with communication. And you look at the map of Africa as a whole, and think if you would forget all the difficulties and political obstacles, but just say this map of Africa would be like Europe. The European transport ministers meet at least once a year, and they always discuss how to have an integrated infrastructure grid. We need to do the same thing for Africa, because then we can start building different parts of this continental grid simultaneously, and it all will grow together nicely; especially if we put it on the agenda.

Now, I can only very roughly say that the idea of it is to overcome any poverty and under-development in Africa within really a few years, and make every African nation a middle level income country; providing for new cities, new science centers, education, universities, just everything you need to transform the population. By the year 2050, Africa will have 2.5 billion people, most of whom will be young. That’s a tremendous asset. Africa is the only continent which has demographic growth of significant percentages, which will be an enormous advantage; provided we can create a billion or more productive new jobs. That is what this program is all about.

So, we have to fill out this program; we already have published many previous plans which we can integrate with our present approach. Part of the World Land-Bridge is the transformation of Africa. Then we have to get discussions in universities, in think tanks, in academies like yours, across the entire continent and get everybody inspired. The Chinese economic miracle has inspired not only China, but the rest of the world. Many years ago, 70, 80 years ago, the German economic miracle inspired many people around the world. They said, Germany could rebuild from the rubblefield; that has unfortunately been gone for a long time, but there was a period when people were admiring the German economic miracle. Likewise, I think if you put this development perspective on the table and have it discussed in universities, in conferences, in think tanks, and get especially the young people as a fighting force to get that kind of program, we can turn the whole world around and make it happen.

So, I would suggest you download this report and then we have a follow-up discussion on what we can do between your academy, the Schiller Institute, and other such organizations. But it is something which is now a complete game-changer on the table.

Closing Remarks:

I can only support what President Ramotar just said about this money thing. These people who have dollar signs in their eyes when you look at them; one of them is clearly Ursula von der Leyen. She just came out with a new budget for the European Union for seven years from 2028 to 2034 or ’35. She wants to have a budget of $2 trillion, so even the German government—which is on the same trajectory—said no, that’s too much. All the German industry associations came out and said, “How can you put up such an armaments budget when the industries are already collapsing?” These people have no sense of reality, and I think the contradiction between what their greed demands and what people in the real world can do, that gap is becoming bigger by the day.

Now, let me conclude with again reminding ourselves that today is Nelson Mandela Day, and the call that today everybody should spend one hour today doing something for somebody else. I think this is very important. The Schiller Institute likes this approach because of aesthetic education—a method developed by Friedrich Schiller about how people can self-improve their own emotions to be on the same level as reason by educating your emotions. You can will yourself to be loving. Lessing said that; Confucius said that; Schiller said that. I think you think you should, as part of your own self-perfection, decide that you will be a loving person for at least one hour today, and do it with some good deed, whatever you feel like, but do it. If you make that a habit every day, you will see that in a very short period of time, you will have gained a whole world. Because whatever you love, you gain; and whatever you hate, you lose. So, the more loving you are, the more rich you become, in a true, human sense. 

22. juli 2025 — I dag har Schiller Instituttet i Frankrig udsendt følgende erklæring til bred international distribution:

Den 28.-29. juli 2025 indkalder Frankrig og Saudi-Arabien til en konference i FN i New York om en to-statsløsning for Israel og Palæstina.

Denne konference er nødt til at skabe rammerne for fred mellem palæstinensere og israelere ved denne gang at nå frem til konkrete initiativer i overensstemmelse med de humanistiske principper i de abrahamitiske traditioner (islam, jødedommen og kristendommen), med folkeretten og FN’s charter.

I dag er menneskeheden i den virkelige verden, som den formidles af verdensmedierne, direkte vidne til et forfærdeligt skue: en israelsk regering, der i navnet af retten til at »forsvare sig mod terrorisme« begår krig mod menneskeheden og barbariske handlinger, der kan sammenlignes med folkemord. Denne regering holdes kunstigt i live af regeringerne i Washington og London gennem tilførsel af milliarder af dollars og stadig mere dødbringende våben.

I den sammenhæng er det absolut nødvendigt at anerkende og oprette en palæstinensisk stat. At give den suverænitet over sine vand- og energiressourcer vil være en af de uundværlige søjler for at gøre en drøm til virkelighed. Det er vores forslag til en »Oase-plan« for gensidigt fordelagtig udvikling.

Dette perspektiv må vedtages til gavn for alle deltagere i Sydvestasien, som skal definere dets modaliteter og midler til dets gennemførelse.

Allerede i 1975 havde den amerikanske statsmand og økonom Lyndon LaRouche (1922-2019) foreslået Oase-planen for at håndtere de geologiske realiteter for befolkningerne i Israel, Palæstina og Jordan, der bor i en tør region, hvor tre kontinenter mødes. Den essentielle udvikling af vandinfrastruktur for at få ørkenerne til at blomstre og transportforbindelser for at muliggøre voksende handel og produktion var centrale elementer i hans vision for de økonomiske udviklingsplaner, der er nødvendige for at nå frem til politiske løsninger.

En sådan plan er i strid med britisk geopolitik og kolonimagter. Oase-planen definerer et udviklingsperspektiv, der går ud over Verdensbankens planer, de franske forslag og forslagene fra Den Arabiske Liga, hvilket er nødvendigt.

Den er inspireret af den forsoningskommission, som Nelson Mandela oprettede for at overvinde apartheid.

Schiller Instituttet opfordrer til

• øjeblikkelig våbenhvile

• frigivelse af gidsler og fanger

• øjeblikkelig genoptagelse af humanitær hjælp og forsyning af vand og elektricitet

• øjeblikkelig anerkendelse af en palæstinensisk stat som fuldgyldigt medlem af FN.

Oase-planen er hjørnestenen i skabelsen af et nyt paradigme for »détente, entente og samarbejde«.

YouTube link til panel 1: Klik her. 

YouTube link til panel 2: Klik her.

YouTube link til panel 3: Klik her.

YouTube link til panel 4: Klik her.

12. juli 2025 (EIRNS) – Schiller Instituttet holdte en to dage lange internationale konference, »Mennesket er ikke en ulv for mennesket: Et nyt paradigme i internationale relationer!«

Panel 1: Samarbejde mellem BRIKS og Europa om at gennemføre Oase-planen for Sydvestasien og Agenda 2063 for Afrika

Panel 1 åbnede i Berlin i morges med en koropførelse af African National Congress’ hymne »N’kosi sikelei« i en firestemmig bearbejdelse af Benjamin Lyloff.Stephan Ossenkopp fra Schiller Instituttet introducerede derefter temaet for den nye dynamik for skabelsen af en ny global økonomisk og sikkerhedsmæssig arkitektur som vejen til at overvinde Vestens inkompetence og dets neokoloniale aggression, en aggression, der, hvis den ikke stoppes, vil eskalere til atomkrig.

Hovedtalen blev holdt af Schiller Instituttets præsident Helga Zepp-LaRouche, der fremhævede Friedrich Schillers begreb «punctum saliens», det historiske vendepunkt, der rummer potentialet for alle aktiviteter, der skaber betingelserne for et nyt paradigme. Dagens situation er resultatet af årtier med forværring af den strategiske situation siden 1971, fortsat med NATO’s udvidelse mod Sovjetunionens grænser, på trods af løfter fra vestlige politikere om ikke at gøre dette. Sovjetunionen stolede på disse løfter, men de blev forrådt. Jeltsin-æraen, hvor den russiske økonomi blev indskrænket af IMF’s »chokterapi«, Maidan-kuppet i Ukraine og dets udvikling til krig mod Rusland, i overensstemmelse med det vestlige dogme om, at Rusland skal ødelægges, at Rusland skal tabe krigen mod Ukraine, eller for at citere den daværende amerikanske formand for Joint Chiefs of Staff, general Mark Milley, der i slutningen af 2022 sagde, at der ville være krig i mange år fremover … Det tyske folk må indse, at deres egen overlevelse ikke er en prioritet, at den vil blive ofret, hvis denne politik ikke stoppes. Og ideen om en begrænset atomkrig fungerer ikke, som Theodore Postol har påpeget: Den vil straks blive til en generel krig – 80 år efter Anden Verdenskrig, hvor »Aldrig mere krig« blev proklameret. Tyskland er udsat for en eksistentiel trussel om at blive ofret af den anglo-amerikanske fraktion.

Aldrig før har det været så presserende at skabe en ny global arkitektur, og det, der blev erklæret på Bandung-konferencen i 1955 af Den Alliancefrie Bevægelse, nemlig afslutningen på 500 års kolonialisme og krige, må nu blive til virkelighed. Kina har givet et lovende eksempel på, at et nyt paradigme er muligt: Det har løftet 800 millioner kinesiske borgere ud af ekstrem fattigdom og har konsekvent udviklet sin økonomi, så det i dag ifølge en australsk undersøgelse er førende inden for 57 ud af 63 globale banebrydende teknologier. Bælte- og Vej-Initiativet, der blev søsat i 2013, samarbejder i dag med 150 nationer. Dets økonomiske aktivitet involverer mere end halvdelen af menneskeheden, og intet af dette er rettet mod Vesten; i stedet er det rettet mod at overvinde underudvikling – hvilket Vesten bør samarbejde om.

Schiller Instituttet er i gang med en rapport, der tager fat på potentialet i et euro-kinesisk-afrikansk samarbejde om store projekter for økonomisk udvikling, efter eksemplerne fra nogle projekter, der allerede er foreslået for Afrika: Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Transaqua-projektet og Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project. Europa har ekspertisen til sådanne projekter. Parallelt hermed skal Oase-planen realiseres for at give Sydvestasien en fredelig og produktiv fremtid. I modsætning til Vestens konfrontationsmetoder er det nye paradigme et tilbud til alle nationer om samarbejde.

Igen: Som Friedrich Schiller skrev i 1786, befinder verden sig ved et punctum saliens, der rummer potentialet for en overgang til frihed, hvor menneskets eksistens bliver større end omstændighederne. Dette er et revolutionært øjeblik i menneskehedens historie, hvor sværdet erstattes af ønsket om at forbedre tingene, ikke kun for sig selv, men tillige for andre.

Den anden taler var professor Zhang Weiwei (Fudan Universitet, Kina), der præsenterede aspekter af »Vestens relative tilbagegang og resten af verdens fremgang, især BRIKS-landene«, hvis BNP allerede overstiger G7-landenes. Hvad angår udviklingen i Afrika, handler Kina, mens Europa taler. Derfor er den kinesiske tilgang relevant for Afrika. Kinas projekt for at opdyrke Taklamakan-ørkenen er en model for Afrikas kamp mod ørkenerne. I modsætning til Vestens »hårde magt« er Kinas tilgang »at diskutere sammen, bygge sammen, drage fordel sammen«. I stedet for Vestens »del og hersk« tilbyder Kina »enhed og velstand«. En sådan tilgang giver mulighed for et optimistisk blik på fremtiden, og det er yderst gode nyheder for verden.

Dernæst var der en videopræsentation af Dr. Naledi Pandor, tidligere minister for internationale relationer og samarbejde i Sydafrika, der understregede, at denne konference i Berlin ville være begyndelsen på noget helt andet end Berlin-konferencen om Afrika i slutningen af det 19. århundrede. Det ville være begyndelsen på en bevægelse, der, mens verden står på randen af atomkrig og handelskrig, ville skabe et nyt system. Pandor henviste til Schiller Instituttet og dets aktiviteter i den Internationale Fredskoalition som vigtige bidrag til dette nye system. Afrika står over for betydelige problemer, men også betydelige fremskridt. For eksempel er Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda og Sydafrika på vej til at realisere Agenda 2063 – udviklingspotentialer, som suppleres af Oase-planen. Efterhånden som den internationale diskurs bliver mere bekymrende, må disse planer blive fokus for den globale diskurs. Det er muligt, sagde Pandor, da der engang blev skabt en international solidaritet for at bringe apartheid til ophør, at en sådan ny solidaritet kan gøre disse planer til virkelighed.

På baggrund af sine 27 års tjeneste for FN, bl.a. som assistent for FN’s generalsekretær, talte Hans-Christoph von Sponeck fra Tyskland om »De strategiske udfordringer og den nye verdensorden, der er ved at opstå«. Nu, hvor vi befinder os i den største geopolitiske krise, bør man huske drømmen fra Jalta, drømmen om oprettelsen af FN, om at der efter afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig ville begynde en æra med samarbejde. Denne drøm var meget kortvarig og blev afløst af et mareridt af frygt og konfrontation, men FN-pagten fra 1944 er stadig et tilbud til en menneskehed på 8 milliarder mennesker. FN har brug for reformer: FN’s Sikkerhedsråd er en fiasko, USA’s unilateralisme lammer FN, mindretallet i FN’s Sikkerhedsråd underminerer Generalforsamlingens flertals vilje, og FN’s institutioner skal gøres uafhængige af indblanding. Manglende respekt for folkeretten må have konsekvenser. Der må ikke længere være en vestlig centreret verden, men et system bygget på en multilateral holdånd, der afspejler viljen hos FN’s 193 medlemsstater, som det blev udtrykt på et særligt topmøde i september 2024 med en »pagt for fremtiden«. Den nuværende geopolitiske situation antyder, at vejen til en ny, retfærdig verdensorden er lang, med mange forhindringer, huller og landminer, men det er muligt at opnå noget i overensstemmelse med denne pagt. Alle nationer bør acceptere denne pagt, ikke af geopolitisk pragmatisme, men af humanitære årsager. »At skabe noget nyt betyder at yde modstand. At yde modstand er at skabe noget nyt,« citerede Von Sponeck den store franskmand Stéphane Hessel.

Den næste taler i panelet var Dmitri Trenin, akademisk leder af Institut for militær verdensøkonomi og Strategi, Higher School of Economics University, Moskva. Trenin gav en nøgtern vurdering af de dybtgående forandringer, som Europa og især Tyskland har gennemgået. Europa er fast besluttet på at blive frontlinjen i den militære kamp mod Rusland. Denne konfrontation tjener som en samlende faktor for Europa, der vil erstatte USA som strategisk aktør mod Rusland, mens USA fokuserer på Kina som sin næste fjende. Alt dette sker under den latterlige påstand, at Rusland planlægger at angribe NATO, en påstand, der skal retfærdiggøre militære forberedelser til et angreb på Rusland i løbet af de næste fem år. Fokus på langtrækkende systemer og planer om at sende tropper til den ukrainske front er baseret på illusionen om, at Rusland ikke vil gøre gengæld. Situationen er nu farligere end under Cuba-krisen i 1962, men der er stadig håb om, at det værste kan forhindres ved relevante handlinger i denne 11. time, sagde Trenin.

I en videooptagelse præsenterede Daqi Fan, vicepræsident for Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies, et uddrag af en rapport udarbejdet i samarbejde med Schiller Instituttet. Arbejdstitlen på rapporten, der udkommer i september, er: »Kina-EU’s økonomiske og handelsmæssige samarbejde«. Rapporten er baseret på vurderingen, at Kina og Europa, som er hinandens vigtigste handelspartnere, kan bidrage meget til skabelsen af en ny multipolær arkitektur og dermed yde et stort bidrag til verdensfreden og stabilitet, udvikling og velstand. Dette sker med henvisning til de nu 50 års diplomatiske forbindelser mellem EU og Kina. Partnerskabet mellem dem bør karakteriseres som et partnerskab, der har samarbejde som hovedtræk, uafhængighed som en nøgleværdi og win-win som retningslinje for de næste 50 år.

Den tidligere CIA-analytiker Ray McGovern (USA), medstifter af Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), var den næste taler, som fortalte konferencen de »gode nyheder« om det personlige møde mellem den amerikanske udenrigsminister Rubio og den russiske udenrigsminister Lavrov, der drøftede en interessant køreplan for Ukraine. Selv om detaljerne fra mødet naturligvis ikke er blevet offentliggjort, må man gå ud fra, at fokus var på at forhindre en stor krig – og det er en god ting. USA må indse, at verden har ændret sig, at en unipolær verdensorden ikke længere er mulig, at der er to andre magter – Rusland og Kina – på scenen, hvor kineserne spiller en særlig rolle. Det står nu 1 mod 2, og kineserne ved, at hvis Rusland taber, bliver Kina Vestens næste mål.

Problemet er, og det indrømmer de russiske ledere, at Rusland stolede på de amerikanske løfter om, at NATO ikke ville udvide sig mod øst – et løfte, der blev givet mundtligt, men ikke skriftligt. Så NATO udvidede sig mod øst. Var sovjetrusserne naive, som Putin har sagt? I det mindste kan man stole på, at Trump ønsker at forhindre en stor krig. McGovern fortalte en anekdote om en kirke i Tyskland, der blev genopbygget efter 2. verdenskrig, men hvor Kristusstatuen ikke havde hænder. Statuen blev alligevel sat på sin plads, og præsten sagde: »Nu er der ingen andre hænder end dine …«

Denne præsentation blev efterfulgt af et indlæg af professor PLO Lumumba, tidligere direktør for Kenya School of Law, der påpegede, at Afrika består af 54 stater, der alle lider under kolonialisme og efter Anden Verdenskrig under USA’s overherredømme. Afrika er stadig en legeplads for andre magter; der er i bedste fald smukke ord, men virkeligheden er en anden. Afrikanerne må overvinde deres egne svagheder, som er udviklet i dette system; de må styrke deres svage institutioner, det er kampens realitet. Der findes løsninger, men diplomati består af høfligheder, som ikke svarer til virkeligheden, som f.eks. de sanktioner, USA netop har indført mod fem afrikanske stater. Afrikanerne har brug for regeringsførelse, ikke nogen urealistiske demokratiske ordninger, hvor andre bestemmer deres skæbne. De stærkeste må ikke få lov til at bestemme, og grusomheder som Tony Blairs ”numre” i Gaza må ikke accepteres. Afrika skal sidde med ved bordet, hvor beslutningerne træffes, og ikke acceptere at blive udelukket. Der skal træffes beslutninger i Afrikas interesse, herunder om gældsspørgsmålet. Vil BRIKS-landene arbejde sammen med en ny overherre, eller uden?

Den sydafrikanske journalist Abbey Makoe var næste taler, som berettede, at han havde lært meget af George Bizos, Mandelas juridiske forsvarer, der reddede Mandela fra at blive hængt under apartheid og i stedet fik ham og hans kammerater idømt livsvarigt fængsel. Journalistikken har gennemgået en dybtgående forandring siden tiden med den amerikanske præsident George W. Bush og den britiske premierminister Tony Blair, hvor »fastlåst« journalistik tjente invasionen af Irak og dens iscenesættelse gennem løgne. Tendientiøse journalister følger reglen: Hør intet ondt. Se intet ondt. Sig intet ondt. Derfor er der ingen rapporter om, at Netanyahu er ond, at Hamas er ond, men at selv efter Israels ødelæggelse af Hamas vil krigen fortsætte.

Ægte journalistik er forpligtet til at følge sandheden. Dette er også netop blevet italesat af Brasiliens præsident Lula på BRIKS-topmødet: »International lov eksisterer kun på papiret.« Hvad angår LaRouches »genopbygning af den globale økonomi« og de »næste 50 år«, synes det at være langt væk, på grund af det faktum at Europa ønsker krig, at det for NATO »er lettere at investere i krig end i udvikling«, som Lula netop har anklaget. Når Lyndon LaRouche (1922-2019) ser på tingene fra himlen, er han måske modløs, gættede Makoe.

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Panel 2: Voices of Sanity from the Western World

The second panel, moderated by Claudio Celani, editor of the {E.I.R. Strategic Alert Service}, began with a musical offering: Tenor John Sigerson, accompanied by pianist Martin Kaptein, presented two songs by Robert Schumann, {Belsazar} (to a text from Heinrich Heine), and {Der Himmel hat eine Träne geweint} (to a text from Friedrich Rückert).

Then, Jacques Cheminade from France, President of Solidarité et Progrès, discussed “A new beginning to avoid human annihilation”. He started out quoting Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s “tenth principle”, that man is fundamentally good. “This has to be the position, from which to meet the strategic challenge. No way to hide, no place for romantic despair. In such a world, to take refuge in the coward comfort of pessimism would amount to cooperate with the evil.” We have to confront the worst danger in human his tory, he said, because it is based on its control of the most ad vanced technology deployed worldwide, “to rule the world with digital weapons.” But, their policy is self-de structive, “like a casino player who continues betting against the reality principle.” Their system is “doomedtodrownfor lack of energy,” and the devel opment of the generative artifi cial intelligence (AI) has reached its limit: “To steal data from the web andonline human activity has reached its limit, and to face this scarcity in the real world, the tech masters are issuing artificially generated data by the algorithms from … AI itself!… Of course this creates the conditions of a model collapse: increase of biases, loss of diversity and amplification of mis takes and errors.”

“From Intel Officer to Peace Activist,” was the theme of Elizabeth Murray, former U.S. Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East. Since retiring, she has become an activist and taken part in several protests, including one at a Raytheon facility which manufactures nuclear weapons. She faces charges of criminal trespassing for entering this facility on Ash Wednesday with a sign that said “Raytheon nu clear weapons will turn all of us into ashes.” She organized at another military base, as part of an action that had been going on for 40 years, respectfully planting seeds of doubt. “Never underestimate who will be influenced with your actions,” she ended.

Ali Rastbeen, president of the Académie de Géopolitique de Paris, France, which co-sponsored the conference, described the frontlines of the conflicts in the Middle East, since 1970: “On the one hand, a pro-Western axis formed by Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt; on the other, an ‘Axis of the Resistance,’ composed of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas, often backed by Russia.” In this context, he raised the question, “What theoretical and practical perspectives allow us to think about peace in the Middle East today?” He answered: “Peace cannot be thought of without law, without justice, without the sovereignty of peoples. It can only exist if the balance of power is governed by common, universal rules that are applied fairly. It requires a rebuilding of trust, based not on domination, but on cooperation and mutual recognition.” He warned: “Multipolarity, if not accompanied by shared norms, will only result in disordered chaos. It will only become an opportunity for peace if it allows for the emergence of a cooperative, non-conflictual balance.”

Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana (2011 2015), stated that U.S. and European policies “are based on wars and threats of wars,” including sanctions “against countries and international organizations, and even against individuals…. There is a genocide taking place, in the plain sight of the world, but no attempt to stop it is being done.” The United States and NATO members in particular, he said, “are not just complicit in this barbarism, they are participants and facilitators. They have even moved to destroy inter national law and international institutions.” But there is hope, he said, because of “the rise of the Global South,” as a result of the decisions taken by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to come together, in order to create a more fair and more equitable system and prosperity. “This win-win philosophy of mutual benefit is what we have to look forward to. New institutions are being created, like the BRICS bank, and hopefully other institutions that look for justice and prevent wars, by creating development.” But: “We have to continue to be on guard against the machinations of the West.

Italian trade unionist Alessia Ruggeri, a representative of the Southern Italy Party, read a short message supporting the Schiller Institute’s call for a new international security and development architecture.

Diane Sare, president of The LaRouche Organization and former independent candidate for one of New York’s seats in the U.S. Senate, asked: “We have been accustomed to measure our success with arbitrary standards, like number of votes, numbers of social media likes.… But how does the universe measure ‘success’?” “Why does this matter?” she asked. “Because we are up against an enemy that believes it can disregard the principles of the creation of the universe, including the nature of man.” But “the controller of the narrative does not win the war. The Truth always has the final say, even if we can’t predict the precise moment that will occur.” Here lies the importance of what is happening in Gaza. “For the last year and a half, I have been saying that the children of Gaza will save the United States.… Because a mass strike isn’t just when people protest an injustice which has been done to them. The change occurs when people are moved to risk their own safety and security for another.… This is what is moving the young people who are protesting the murderous policies of their governments throughout the world. The power of the children of Gaza is located in their physical weakness.” She concluded: “So, speaking here as an American, I would like to propose that instead of emulating the barbarian hordes of the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, the fascist scourge we defeated 80 years ago, or the Modern ‘Global Britain’ of King Charles III, that we … swallow our unjustifiable arrogance, and join forces with the Global Majority, whose dedication to the advancement of the human species is in perfect harmony with our true ideals.”

Dr. Jérôme Ravenet, professor of philosophy and sinologist from France, gave a very thought-provoking speech on “Lyndon LaRouche as a Precursor.” His basic thesis was LaRouche`s placing of human creativity at the heart of a productive physical economy. This is the way to overcome a concept of the economy where man becomes a wolf against man, while according to the logic of the dominant paradigm of economic “reason,” the possession of a good by some implies its deprivation for others. LaRouche, he stressed, opposes the paradigm of rivalry with the promise of creativity. He underpins his hope with a rereading of ancient, Re naissance and post-Renaissance authors ranging from Plato to Schiller and Nicholas of Cusa. LaRouche used the idea and concept of potency “to philosophically ground his approach, for example through the concept of ‘successful survival’ developed in his text In Defense of Common Sense [1989].… LaRouche never ceased to criticize empiricism and logical-deductive reason as inferior or limited modes of knowledge, to emphasize the superior fruitful ness of a ‘creative reason’ placed at the service of a ‘common sense’:he exalted this intelligence capable of seeing with the eyes of the future, of immediately grasping the arrangements or compositional relationships likely to help life prosper.”

He was followed by Achim Bonatz, vice president of the East German Board of Trustees of Associations (Ostdeutsches Kuratorium von Verbänden, OKV), which was a co-sponsor of the conference, speaking on “5% of GDP for the Defense Industry: A Redistribution of National Wealth—Too Great a Demand on Society.” He started his speech, quoting from Friedrich Schiller that “The best merchant is war. It turns iron into gold.” He referred to the latest June 25 NATO summit. This summit decided on bypassing national parliaments to spend 5% of NATO countries’ GDP on armaments. He stated that his math teacher often said that you cannot compare apples with oranges. “This is done deliberately here to deceive the population. Five percent of GDP can account for almost 50% of a country´s national budget. This puts massive pressure on all other budget items, especially social spending.” Five percent of Germany’s GDP is €215 billion. In 2024, the German national budget amounted to €476.8 billion. The calculation for the cost of the planned reintroduction of military service ended up at €500 billion, which is more than the entire budget of 2024. Mr. Bonatz went on to calculate the cost of rearma ment, with more and more shocking figures, showing that even with massivecuts, the state will still be unable to meet its obligations. The armaments and interest payments are eating up all other budgets.

Cornelia Pretorius, of the Mothers against War Berlin-Brandenburg, reported about their affiliated peace groups in different townships in Berlin. Some groups have as many as 30 youths participating. These youths are very well-informed when they join. That is a cause for optimism, she said.

Then, a number of former German and French military officers addressed the audience. Wolfgang Effenberger, a former officer of the German Bundeswehr, who has published books on the pax Americana, among others, discussed “International Law and the so-called ‘Values-Based Order’ of the U.S.A.” He started out presenting core concepts from Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795): that no unjust peace should be concluded that contains the seeds of future conflicts (such as the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War); that national territories cannot be exchanged or ac quired; that standing armies must be disbanded; and that no state debts should be incurred in relation to external state affairs. Then, Effenberger listed the numerous wars the United States has begun, during the recent 30 years, in violation of international law, with the intent to gain perpetual advantage over Russia, China, and anyone else. “This is precisely why we should remember Kant’s principles,” Effenberger concluded. “A unipolar world will always end in des potism. Respect among states allows only a multipolar world order.”

Major (ret.) Florian D. Pfaff, a representative of the Darmstädter Signal, an association of active duty and former soldiers who are active in the peace movement, reported on how school administrations invite Bundeswehr recruiters to address school classes, but try to keep him and other opponents of war away from the students. 

Colonel (ret.) Jacques Hogard, a former officer of the French Foreign Legion and the French Special Forces, reported on how he, a career officer coming from a military family, resigned his commission when he recognized, during the Kosovo War, “that the U.S. were our ‘best enemy’.… We were in a false position since we were coming to help an Albanian rebellion … [that] was considered until 1997 as a terrorist movement, included on the list of terrorists by the United States of America, and strangely suddenly passed into the camp of our best allies.” He called for a return to General Charles de Gaulle’s concept of a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.… That Europe would make sense. Because it would be a balanced Europe, between two poles. To the West, one pole would be France, and to the East, Russia.” He then quoted Chateaubriand: “When Russia and France are allies, are close, well, Europe does well. And when they are divided, Europe
does badly.”

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Concert: A Musical Dialogue of Classical Cultures

A highlight of the conference was the concert on Saturday night, titled „The Beauty of Cultural Diversity“. The performers were professional musicians, as well as members and friends of the Schiller Institute, from many countries and ages from 25 up to 90 years. The combination really radiated cultural diversity, with a Swedish-Finnish soprano, an Albanian-Danish-German soprano, an American tenor, a Chinese baritone, a young Dutch-Russian-German pianist and the Schiller-Institute chorus bringing together singers from Paris, Copenhagen, several German cities and the U.S., directed by a French as well as a German member. A professional conductor from Berlin who had years ago led one of our performances helped in the preparation and joined the chiors.

The concert was a little over an hour long, beginning and concluding with the chorus, whose members were excited to sing together again after a long pause.

We got many positive reactions from the audience. Two of the professionals praised the „profound sound“ of the chorus. Three contacts from France, with no acquaintance with Classical music ever before, were enthusiastic, and one of them expressed the wish to learn to sing.

There was an arc between the opening, with the 2nd movement of Haydn’s great work „The Creation“, ending on beautiful harmonies to the words „A New World Sprang Up“, and the end, with two songs about freedom, the spiritual „Oh, Freedom“ and the famous German song „Thoughts Are Free“ (Die Gedanken sind frei). The audience thanked with great applause.

—– Box —–

The program:

Joseph Haydn – From “The Creation”:

Nun schwanden vor dem heiligen Strahle … Und eine neue Welt

(Now vanish before the holy beams … A new created world)

Choir of the Schiller Institute, conducted by Werner Hartmann,

John Sigerson, tenor, Martin Kaptein, piano

Lola A. Gjoka – Eja Vashe (“Come, girl”), Albanian song

The Brocade Lute, Chinese song

Kanding Love Song, Chinese duet

Feride Gillesberg, soprano, Fan Xu, baritone, Martin Kaptein, piano

Robert Schumann – From the Heine Songs, Op. 24

Es treibt mich hin, es treibt mich her (“It drives me here, it drives me there“)

Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden (“Beautiful cradle of my sorrows“)

Anfangs wollt’ ich fast verzagen (“At first I almost despaired“)

Mit Myrten und Rosen (“With myrtle and roses“)

John Sigerson, tenor, Martin Kaptein, piano

Alexander Siloti – Prelude in B minor after J.S. Bach

Sergei Rachmaninoff – Prelude in G major, Op. 32,5

Martin Kaptein, piano

Franz Schubert – Die Götter Griechenlands (“The Gods of Greece“)

Peter I. Tchaikovsky – Adieux Forets (“Farewell, Mountains”), Aria of Johanna

Giuseppe Verdi – Ave Maria from “Othello”

Leena Malkki, soprano, Werner Hartmann, piano

Oh Freedom, Negro Spiritual

Die Gedanken sind frei (Thoughts Are Free), German folksong

Choir of the Schiller Institute, conducted by Johanna Clerc

—–

Panel 3: The Scientific Challenges in the New Paradigm

The third panel of the conference, on Sunday morning, began with a presentation of Franz Schubert’s song, {Ganymed}, by Leena Malkki (Soprano) and Werner Hartmann (pianist). Moderated by Michael Gründler of the Schiller Institute, the panel addressed Lyndon LaRouche’s conception of what a scientific method of inquiry should be. The panel also presented a challenging and humorous critique of current policies that are driven by false scientific dogma, especially in the field of energy.

Jason Ross, the keynote speaker, went through evidence of the uniqueness of the human species pathway of evolution compared to all other forms of known life. Humanity has been able to increase its demographic potential exponentially, through the use and development of fire, sciences such as chemistry, and the developing mastery of electricity and nuclear power. Ross outlined a few fields where the new frontiers of science are, such as fusion energy; a solution to the Plank-Einstein contradiction; understanding how galaxies move and the universe expands, etc. He then quoted from Lyndon LaRouche on how “information theory,” precursor to modern AI, has replaced scientific teaching in schools and destroyed education, and on the subject of “metaphor,” which LaRouche adopted from the field of poetry as a “crucial feature of those thought-processes bearing upon the geometrical fundamental of physical science.” Ross then announced a series of classes, starting next week, to learn how to think scientifically, going through the thought-process of Plato, Kepler, Fermat, Leibniz, Gauss and Riemann.

He was followed by Prof. Franco Battaglia, former professor of physical chemistry at the University of Modena, who was connected from Italy. Prof. Battaglia showed how “No energy transition is occurring, or is going to occur.” First, Battaglia showed that solar energy is the energy of the past, when, before fossil energy sources were discovered, humanity depended on the sun and most were slaves. He said that the dream of 100% non-fossil fuels, pursued by the EU, is a chimera. Battaglia showed a chart of daily energy demand in an Italian city, which is representative of all cities in the world. Energy demand peaks at 7 PM, when solar panels produce zero electricity. This peak demand must be satisfied with fossil and nuclear sources, and to some extent with hydroelectric. He then showed that the costs of solar energy per kWh produced, is much higher than nuclear power. Finally, he compared solar and fossil energies with the bicycle and the car. People like to use the bike, which consumes no gasoline, but it works only for short distances, with good weather and good physical condition. The car, in contrast, can always be used. Battaglia’s proposal was that governments should scrap all subsidies to solar plants.

Prof. Carl-Otto Weiss, speaking also in the name of his colleague Horst-Joachim Luedecke, demolished the fiction of climate emergency. He demonstrated that 1. Climate change depends on the activity of the sun, and 2. it is impossible to decrease CO₂ amounts in the atmosphere. He also warned against the “time-bomb” represented by CO₂ storage schemes.

Prof. Weiss contended that current climate emergency claims are supported by no scientific measurement. Out of 3000 papers based on measurement, zero of them have found any evidence of significant influence of CO₂ on climate. The atmosphere is a recipient that tends to constantly balance inflows and outflows. If CO₂ is taken away, it will be recovered from the oceans. As to CO₂ storage projects, called “carbon capture and storage,” the high pressure needed to store CO₂ is of 200-300 bar, such that no stone could resist. In case of a pipeline leak, CO₂ would come to the surface and build a 7 meter high layer which could kill every form of life. CO₂ storage is such a weird idea, that Prof. Weiss raised the suspicion that perhaps someone has pushed it as the best way to achieve population reduction.

From nuclear fission to nuclear fusion: Dr. Robert Lechner-Schobel, from Austria, ran a slide-show as a quick introduction to fusion power, the energy of the future that fulfills LaRouche’s concept of energy flux-density. He said there are two kinds of fusion energy: the “hot one’ and the ”cold one.” Whereas there are 45 projects worldwide on the former, the latter, also called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, exists already, but must be further explored.

Lyndon LaRouche’s scientific discovery in economics was presented by Dennis Small of the Ibero-America desk of EIR. Dennis listed several of LaRouche’s major economic forecasts, starting from the one on August 15, 1971, to Lyn’s famous “Typical Collapse Function” curve, or “Triple Curve,” which prophetically forecast the collapse of the financial system in 2008. He then went on to compare Nicholas of Cusa’s demonstration of the “subjectivity” of science, and LaRouche’s correlation of applied creativity in scientific discoveries with the increase of relative potential population-density. LaRouche’s “Triple Curve” function is still useful today to explain why the system has taken a path of self-destruction recently, with the

decision to expand a bubble of privatized money into unprecedented dimensions. The system must be urgently put into bankruptcy reorganization, as LaRouche demanded.

The last speaker in the panel was a young farmer from Kenya, Jusper Machogu, who has founded an organization called Fossil Fuels For Africa. Jusper explained why Africa needs to use its fossil resources to develop agriculture, and won’t allow anyone to prevent that. African farmers need fertilizers, as they use them much less than their colleagues in Europe or in China. This is the key reason for the lower yield of African crops. Then, an increase in water use, mechanization, and industry is required in order to process their own food products. Finally, there is a need to produce cement, steel, etc. for other industrial activities required to support a self-sufficient agriculture. He praised the Schiller Institute for its fight in defense of African interests.

In the remaining short time for the discussion, the question on the safety of nuclear power was raised from the audience, to which both Weiss and Lechner-Schobel answered. Whereas the latter emphasized fusion as the solution to radioactive waste, Weiss pointed to advanced methods for significantly reducing the waste, mentioning as an example Bill Gates’ natrium reactor project.

Professor Battaglia was asked by the moderator to comment on the fact that, whereas Europe tries to reduce CO₂ emissions, in the rest of the world they grow. Battaglia exposed the insanity of the EU target for zero emissions, which will never be achieved.

Finally, Ross had a few words on the damage done to science by climate ideologues and activists, who claim they speak “in the name of science.” To remedy that, we should not be defensive and react by referring to “traditional” science, as tradition can be good or bad, but rather resume “classical” science, about which he will have more to say in the upcoming international seminar series that begins next week.

Panel 4: The Beauty of the Diversity of Cultures…

If humanity is to establish continuity, then it is crucial that its future be put up for serious consideration and deliberation. This has been the central theme to Lyndon and Helga LaRouche’s life work. This is why Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who moderated this panel, started off the fourth panel, by stressing the importance of the return to Classical European Culture, and the role of the youth in rediscovering the classical culture and developing the necessary milieu, a seed crystal of a dedicated youth cadre, to execute such a feat, which is admittedly very difficult in the present situation in the West. Helga posed this as a challenge and a necessity to escape the current crisis.

To that, the floor was passed off to Harley Schlanger, who noted that we are dealing with a British oligarchy that harbors a disdain toward humanity, promoting geopolitics and dividing humanity into warring nations and parties. The oligarchy also pushes pessimism onto populations to make them believe in the alleged futility to take on the oligarchy, despite the emergence of a global rebellion against the oligarchical establishment.

Humans are, Schlanger stressed, created with a unique quality of creativity, by being the image of that creator. However, because of the gross cultural decadence, many of us lost that knowledge of innate creativity and the universality of humanity.

Now it is the time to completely put aside and discard any laws or axioms that were arbitrarily formed from some “authority”. Instead, the State has to respect and follow provable universal laws that can be applied to humanity as a whole. Unless it follows that criteria, and serves the general welfare of the people, the state is illegitimate.

Therefore, we need a liberation struggle – a Third American Revolution – to liberate the American people from their status as herded cattle, who are slowly walking into butchery by the oligarchy. Harley posed the challenge for us, the harbingers of a new Renaissance, to revive humanity and move us away from mass slaughter.

He then showed a video of Lyndon LaRouche, on how he created the Youth Movements of the 1970s and the 2000s, and a caution on how cultures are destroyed by Dark Ages, and the necessity of creating a new Youth Movement.

In the era of the New Silk Road, which the Schiller Institute supports Western integration into, Helena Chang from SINOpress brought up a critical point of the Old Silk Road: The most important aspect of the Old Silk Road was not the fact that it facilitated trade of goods between civilizations, but its importance for the transfer of ideas and technologies. If the Old Silk Road proved to be a vector of ideas and technology from East to West, what could a New Silk Road with paved roads for motorized vehicles, rail lines, sea ports, new airports be like in that regard, at the current level of technology we enjoy today?

We have to break from the current lattice of endless wars and geopolitics to move to a new and less familiar system, where harmony between the Civilizations can easily be fostered. She brought up the problem of persisting Western bias towards the non-western parts of the World. But the natural inclination between human civilizations is to interact, rather than to clash. The insistence towards “The Clash of Civilizations” is artificial, and predicated on a top-down intellectual canonization of geopolitics.

Then, Maurizio Abbate, President of the National Institute for Cultural Activities (ENAC), Italy, brought to light, in passionate terms, the problem with the ubiquity of war on our planet, as well as the systemic economic and financial crisis that, to this day, has remained unresolved. Governments have cut funding to hospitals, schools and programs that are supposed to help people, instead have decided to commit more resources to war. The institutions established for the purpose of mediation, such as the United Nations, are now dead, and we must move beyond them and adopt alternatives to a dead, or necrotic system.

Jens Jorgen Nielsen, of the Russian-Danish Dialog organization talked about the importance of dialogue with Russia, with lines of dialogue between heads of state of the two nations. He also gave an overview of the religions of Russia, focusing on Orthodox Christianity and a view that is more critical of the Renaissance.

… and the Role of Young People in Shaping the Earth’s Next 50 Years

The final part of this panel brought a number of representatives of the youth to the podium, to add their take on what is needed to create a future for all of humanity.

Pianist Martin Kaptein gave a presentation on how the piano in particular plays a key role in uplifting the mind. He gave an interesting presentation on the melody and the harmony from the piano, and that a competently composed piano piece is like a well-designed architecture, and not merely a collection of notes. The piano is key in helping a free people find their balance and organize their thoughts.

Anastasia Battle, editor of the Leonore cultural magazine and co-initiator of the International Peace Coalition, gave a presentation on how to educate a moral citizenry. Starting out by a quote from Lyndon LaRouche’s article “The Death-Agony of Olympus”, she explained why an understanding of Classical tragedy is key to the transformation of the population, from a mere rough existence to being shaped into citizens that can contribute to republican society. Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio, was used as an example. At the end of the opera, Florestan, despite his hardships, found his strength and continued to persist.

Carolina Dominguez reported on her organizing with the LaRouche Youth Movement on University Campuses in Mexico, and their interventions and the proposals they have made at BRICS events. She ended her segment with the statement: “If we are part of something really big, DO THE WORK, become a magnet.”

Kynan Thistlethwaite posed the question: “Why do people get suckered into believing the lies that lead nations into catastrophes, such as wars based on lies?” As an answer, he pointed to the importance for the citizenry to improve their capacity of imagination, as opposed to acting upon sense perception. He used the example of the “Muse of Fire” prologue from the Life of King Henry the Fifth”, as well as excerp

the problem of Venetian Society in that play and how Portia demonstrated the principle negating sense perception through the lead casket, was able to bring to light the quality of mercy in the play to Shylock in the court scene.

Ashley Tran discussed the problems facing Germany: the lackluster, or even absence of recognition, toward Germany’s classical cultural heritage, particularly of Friedrich Schiller. She asked: “Where did Schiller’s Germany go?” She described how Schiller was forbidden, by the Duke of Württemberg, to write any more theater plays, and decided to rather leave Württemberg than his calling as an author. She then discussed Schiller’s famous “Ode to Joy”, which was was inspired by the inception of the American Republic after the Revolution and would later be used to invoke the same American revolutionary spirit in the European people.

Cherine Sultan from France then had an enticing segment titled “Schiller, a non-academic teacher”, where Cherine tears into the academia and reported how the obligation in French schools, to read Balzac, Moliere, and Madame de Lafayette, stymied free inquiry into books or authors that may be more interesting to a young mind. But with a little curiosity and patience, one can find non-academic teachers. As an example for that, she chose Friedrich Schiller, who at 30 gave his inaugural lecture as a professor of history. Schiller had a very unique style. He did not allow himself to be shackled by “facts” and the opinions of academia of his style. She then called on the youth who are to build the next 50 years, “to nourish themselves with the great authors, to pursue great historical and philosophical research. Like Schiller, as long as you draw on the impatient gaze of future generations, no academician or other expert will be able to tarnish your enthusiasm with their ‘benevolent’ corrections of your ‘errors’ and ‘ approximations’.

Daniel Burke gave the final speech, on where he identified Vox Populi, or “The Voice of the People”, or more accurately, manipulation of public opinion through mass psychology to control the population to achieve the oligarchs’ aims and desires. Daniel then posed the question: “Will we transform and uplift the world, or abandon our powers of discovery, thereby becoming a shrunken people, so easily devoured by the seemingly giant and mighty green oligarchs? Or as human cattle being led to genocidal slaughter through the designs the oligarchs have for us?

This will be an effort for all of humanity. Helga ended the conference with this statement. Germany alone will not solve the crisis, and I do not believe the U.S. alone will either. But they are centers of the crisis, and it will take an effort for all of humanity to avert it, and turn the crisis into opportunity.

(Contributions to this report came from Alexander Hartmann, Rainer Apel, Christine Bierre, Christine Schier, Ulf Sandmark, Claudio Celani and Harrison Elfrink.)

Her er linket til artiklen i Times of Indias netversion den 18. juli 2025.

Times of India er det tredjestørste avis i Indien målt på oplag og det mest solgte engelsksprogede dagblad i verden.

af Mrutyuanjai Mishra
(Forfatteren kom til Schiller Instituttets konference i Berlin den 12.-13. juli 2025. Han er fra Indien, men bosat i Danmark. See mere under artiklen.)

The 18th of July holds deep significance for human rights activists across the world. It is Nelson Mandela International Day: his birthday. Had he been alive today, Mandela would have turned 107. He passed away at the age of 95, but his legacy continues to inspire global conversations about justice, dignity, and reconciliation.

Mandela was the first black head of state in South Africa and the first to be elected through a fully democratic process, after spending 27 years in prison for opposing apartheid. He was deeply inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. South Africa’s long, painful journey toward freedom mirrors India’s own decades-long struggle for independence, finally achieved in 1947.

Mandela once urged each of us, regardless of nationality, race, or background, to dedicate at least one hour on this day to doing something meaningful for someone else or for a community in need.

Those who admire his values and wish to honor his legacy can always find a way to help, even in small acts of kindness. These gestures, however modest, reflect a deeper commitment to our shared humanity. And yet, today, that very humanity is under increasing strain.

After attending a peace conference in Berlin on July 12–13, I left with a sobering realisation: Europe is in urgent need of clarity, courage, and political sanity.

Participants from across the globe had gathered to voice growing concern about the escalating political and military tensions in Europe and beyond. The conference brought together peace activists, academics, students, former diplomats, politicians, military officials, economists, musicians, and other professionals. Hundreds more joined virtually.

The opening session bore a striking title: “Man Is Not a Wolf to Man: For a New Paradigm in International Relations.”

In her keynote address, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, traced the historical forces that have led us to this dangerous precipice. She warned that we are at a “punctum saliens”, a critical inflection point in history, comparable to the years preceding the First and Second World Wars.

The message is clear: we must act. We can draw strength from the South African philosophy of Ubuntu, which teaches: “I am because you are.” This simple but profound truth reminds us that our fates are intertwined. Peace in one region fosters peace everywhere. Conflict in one region sends tremors throughout the entire world.

It was deeply moving to see American peace activists standing shoulder to shoulder with others from around the world, united by the conviction that a more cooperative and just global order is still within reach.

One of the most powerful voices at the conference was Ray McGovern, former senior CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Now in his eighties, McGovern spoke with the authority of someone who has witnessed generations of geopolitical shifts. He asserted that the United States had fundamentally betrayed Russia after the Cold War.

Recalling a conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev’s secretary, McGovern recounted asking, “Why didn’t you get it in writing from U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that NATO wouldn’t expand an inch?” The response was tragic in its naivety: “We trusted you all.”

Mandela Day reminds us that trust, once broken, is extraordinarily hard to rebuild. Today, Russia views American military intentions with profound suspicion. One emerging flashpoint is Denmark. The Danish government has invited the US to build military bases on its territory, without holding a referendum or even consulting the public.

Many Danes now fear that their country could be compelled to accept nuclear weapons and relinquish control over what the U.S. military does on Danish soil.

Who would have imagined, just a few years ago, that Denmark could be transformed into a frontline state in a major war, one that might spiral into a third world war? Critics argue that Danish politicians have all but surrendered their national sovereignty.

This brings us to one of Russia’s leading strategic thinkers: Dmitri Trenin, Academic Leader at the Institute for Military World Economy and Strategy, Higher School of Economics, Moscow. Speaking from Russia at the Berlin conference, Trenin delivered a stark warning about the direction into which Europe is heading.

“Europe is intent on becoming the frontline of the military battlefield against Russia,” he said.

Trenin argued that this confrontation is being used to create a new cohesion in Europe, positioning the continent as a replacement for the United States in the strategic standoff with Russia, while Washington shifts its focus to containing China. According to Trenin, the justification for this military escalation is built on a false premise: that Russia is preparing to attack NATO.

He warned that this narrative is being used to rationalize a long-term military buildup, including long-range weapons systems and the deployment of troops to the Ukrainian front, based on the dangerously misguided assumption that Russia will not retaliate.

“The current situation,” he said, “is even more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But there is still a narrow window of hope, if meaningful action is taken at this eleventh hour.”

So, what can we do for humanity on this Mandela Day?

Perhaps we can begin by urging more Europeans to choose dialogue over confrontation, cooperation over coercion, and peace over militarization. Europe must not allow itself to become a vassal state of the United States, nor should it attempt to pressure nations like India, China, or Brazil into adopting a unipolar vision of world order.

Instead, Europe should reclaim its independent voice, one rooted in diplomacy, dignity, and balance. It must help shape a multilateral world where all nations are heard and respected, and where the Global South is finally given the space and justice it needs to heal from centuries of colonialism, exploitation, and racism.
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Times of Indias beskrivelse af forfatteren:
Mrutyuanjai Mishra is a commentator with Politiken, Denmark’s largest newspaper. He also comments on Asia on Danish TV and radio channels. He has authored many analytical articles on Asia and India in several Danish newspapers. He has studied anthropology at Copenhagen University and has specialized in human rights and democratization. Mrutyuanjai Mishra has spent half of his life in India and the other half in the Scandinavian countries Denmark and Sweden. Mrutyuanjai Mishra is also a consultant lecturer on issues related to India and Asia at institutions of higher education. He is currently working on a book on India to be used for higher educational purposes in Scandinavian countries.

Schiller Instituttets grundlægger og leder Helga Zepp-LaRouche holdt åbningstalen ved instituttets to-dages internationale konference i Berlin, Tyskland, den 12.-13. juli 2025. Det første panel havde titlen »Samarbejdet mellem BRIKS og Europa om at gennemføre Oase-planen og Agenda 2063 for Afrika.«

Kære konferencedeltagere, kære venner af Schiller Instituttet, her på stedet og overalt i verden, hvor I end måtte se med, kære venner af menneskeheden!

Vi er samlet her, fordi vi ønsker at vise en vej ud af en meget truende strategisk situation og modvirke den udbredte pessimisme – ja, fatalisme. Det er faktisk muligt at gribe ind i historien, forudsat at man har en god plan og kan mobilisere tilstrækkelige kræfter til at gennemføre den! Jeg vil derfor gerne indlede vores konference med dette citat fra Friedrich Schillers værk om »Historien om det nederlandske oprør«:

“Stor og trøstende er tanken om, at der trods fyrsternes trodsige formodninger stadig findes et middel, at deres mest beregnede planer vil blive gjort til skamme af menneskets frihed, at hjertelig modstand kan bøje selv en despots udstrakte arm, at heroisk udholdenhed til sidst kan udtømme hans frygtelige ressourcer.” Lad os give et ”nyt og ubestrideligt eksempel på, hvad mennesker kan vove for en god sag, og hvad de kan opnå gennem enhed.”

For at gøre dette må vi imidlertid først vække vores samtidige fra deres tilsyneladende søvngang, som de synes at være faldet i, især her i Tyskland. Verden har aldrig været tættere på et punkt, hvor der ikke er nogen vej tilbage, på et potentielt slutpunkt i historien, hvor den endelige katastrofe i form af en global atomkrig bliver uundgåelig.

I mange af sine værker brugte Friedrich Schiller udtrykket punctum saliens, som i drama og historie beskriver det øjeblik, hvor alt begynder at bevæge sig ubønhørligt. I sit »Fjerde brev om Don Carlos« skriver han: »Enhver handling har sit punctum saliens, hvor den springer fra mulighed til virkelighed.« I relation til historien kan vi udpege disse punkter, hvor der ikke er nogen vej tilbage – f.eks. da det var for sent at forhindre 1. og 2. verdenskrig. I relation til den nærmeste fremtid er denne indsigt imidlertid overskygget af mange usikkerhedsfaktorer – når det bliver sikkert, at en tredje og denne gang endelige verdenskrig, denne gang en atomkrig, vil bryde ud, vil det være for sent. Menneskeheden og dermed vores historie vil blive udslettet.

Sammenbruddet af verdensordenen

Vi er i øjeblikket vidne til sammenbruddet af den verdensorden, der opstod efter Anden Verdenskrig og derefter igen i en modificeret form efter afslutningen af Den kolde Krig. En af de mest betydningsfulde

milepæle i denne udvikling var den 15. august 1971, da den amerikanske præsident [Richard] Nixon indledte den fatale vej mod dereguleret monetarisme med indførelsen af fleksible valutakurser, hvis konsekvenser Lyndon LaRouche profetisk forudsagde ville føre til en ny depression, en ny fascisme og en ny verdenskrig, medmindre der i tide blev skabt et helt nyt verdensøkonomisk system. Det er præcis, hvor vi står i dag!

For at forstå, hvordan vi kunne nå hertil kun 35 år efter den tyske genforening, skal vi se tilbage! I en kort periode mellem Berlin-murens fald og genforeningen oplevede vi en guldalder for menneskeheden, et af de sjældne øjeblikke i historien, hvor kursen kan nulstilles fuldstændigt: Den tidligere amerikanske ambassadør i Moskva, Jack Matlock, understregede på en nylig konference i Schiller Instituttet, at Sovjetunionen allerede før sin opløsning i 1991 ikke længere udgjorde en trussel, så der var ikke længere nogen fjende. Det ville derfor have været fuldstændig muligt at etablere en ny fredsorden for det 21. århundrede med afslutningen af Den kolde Krig. Lyndon LaRouche foreslog oprindeligt det økonomiske grundlag for denne fredsorden med sit program: »Den produktive trekant Paris-Berlin-Wien« og derefter med Eurasian Land Bridge (den Eurasiske Landbro). Dengang kæmpede vi for vores ret til suverænitet, som også er nedfældet i To plus Fire-aftalen om [Tysklands genforening], men vi er blevet fuldstændig snydt for denne suverænitet, ikke kun i de nye delstater, men i hele Tyskland!

Amerikanske, russiske, tyske, britiske og franske dokumenter, der siden er blevet frigivet og nu er tilgængelige i de amerikanske nationalarkiver, i udenrigsministeriet, Pentagon, præsidentbiblioteker og forskellige nationale arkiver og universitetsbiblioteker, beviser ikke blot én, men en veritabel strøm af sikkerhedsløfter mod NATO’s udvidelse mod øst, som blev givet til [Sovjetunionens præsident Mikhail] Gorbatjov og [sovjetisk udenrigsminister Eduard] Shevardnadze af [amerikansk udenrigsminister James] Baker , [amerikansk præsident George H.W.] Bush, [tysk udenrigsminister Hans-Dietrich] Genscher, [tysk kansler Helmut] Kohl, [fransk præsident François] Mitterand, [den britiske premierminister Margaret] Thatcher, [den britiske udenrigsminister Douglas] Hurd, [den britiske premierminister John] Major og [NATO’s generalsekretær Manfred] Wörner.

Disse dokumenter viser klart, at løftet om ikke at udvide NATO en tomme mod øst var så centralt, at de russiske klager over at være blevet bedraget er helt berettigede.

Udenrigsminister Hans-Dietrich Genschers hovedtale på en konference i det protestantiske akademi i Tutzing den 31. januar 1990 spillede en afgørende rolle. Genscher understregede: “Vi ønsker ikke enhed på bekostning af tredjeparter … Det er NATO’s ansvar at gøre det klart: Uanset hvad der sker i Warszawa-pagten, vil der ikke ske nogen udvidelse af NATO’s territorium mod øst, dvs. tættere på Sovjetunionens grænser. Disse sikkerhedsgarantier er vigtige for Sovjetunionen og dets adfærd.” Det er bemærkelsesværdigt, at Genschers tale stort set er forsvundet fra internettet og kun kan findes med en vis teknisk indsats.

»Tutzing-formlen« udløste en storm af vigtige diplomatiske forhandlinger i de følgende ti dage, der kulminerede i det afgørende møde mellem Kohl og Gorbatjov den 10. februar, hvor Gorbatjov gav sin principielle tilslutning til den tyske genforening.

I betragtning af omfanget af disse løfter kan der ikke være tvivl om, at de spillede en afgørende rolle i at overbevise den russiske ledelse på det tidspunkt om at udvise enorm generøsitet i forbindelse med den tyske genforening – og det var kun 45 år efter afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig! Det gør det desto mere forståeligt, at Rusland betragtede Vestens efterfølgende politik som et enormt tillidsbrud.

Neokonservative sejrer

Motivet for denne kursændring lå i, at neokonservative og deres Wolfowitz-doktrin sejrede i USA, som havde til formål at konsolidere USA’s førende rolle i en ny unipolær verdensorden. Ifølge denne doktrin forbeholder USA sig retten til alene at beslutte, hvornår og hvor der skal interveneres militært, herunder forebyggende angreb mod opfattede trusler. På trods af skiftende regeringer fastlagde de politikken som et udtryk for et permanent bureaukrati. Det, der fulgte, var [den britiske premierminister Tony] Blairs afvisning af det westfalske fredssystem i sin tale i Chicago i 1999, erstattet af politikken om »ansvar for at beskytte«, de »humanitære interventionistiske krige«, der fandt sted efter 11. september 2001 – som LaRouche profetisk havde forudsagt som den kommende Rigsdagsbrand den 3. januar – der blev ført under banneret »krigen mod terror« i Afghanistan, Irak, Libyen, Syrien samt farverevolutioner og regimeskift sammen med NATO’s udvidelse mod øst, ledsaget af ensidig ophævelse af alle våbenkontrol- og nedrustningsaftaler: ABM, INF, Open Skies og KSE [traktaten om konventionelle væbnede styrker i Europa].

Mens de amerikanske regeringer ikke havde noget problem med [den russiske præsident Boris] Jeltsin, der villigt underkastede sig IMF’s chokterapi og dermed tillod, at Ruslands industrielle kapacitet blev reduceret til kun 30 % mellem 1991 og 1994, stod [den russiske præsident Vladimir] Putins bestræbelser på at genoprette Ruslands status som verdensmagt i vejen for visionen om en unipolær verdensorden. Maidan-kuppet i 2014 [i Ukraine], hvor [assisterende udenrigsminister] Victoria Nuland spillede en uforglemmelig rolle, markerede den alvorlige begyndelse på en stedfortræderkrig fra NATO mod Rusland. Tysklands forbundskansler Angela Merkel og den franske præsident François Hollandes indrømmelse af, at Minsk-aftalen kun havde tjent til at [give tid til] at træne ukrainske styrker efter NATO-standarder, har bidraget væsentligt til det nu totale tab af tillid.

Vestlige militæreksperter har påpeget, at den relativt lille russiske troppeudstationering i februar 2022 beviser, at Putin ikke havde til hensigt at angribe hele Ukraine, men ønskede at komme den russisktalende befolkning i det østlige Ukraine til undsætning. Den 31. marts i år offentliggjorde New York Times en 13.000 ord lang artikel, der præsenterede resultaterne af en etårig undersøgelse baseret på 300 interviews, som dokumenterede, at USA havde ledet krigen i Ukraine direkte fra Clay Barracks i Wiesbaden [Tyskland] siden mindst midten af april 2022 – praktisk talt samtidig med [den britiske premierminister] Boris Johnsons intervention i Kiev, der saboterede den diplomatiske løsning, der var nået i Istanbul mellem Rusland og Ukraine.

Mens den officielle fortælling om en »uprovokeret aggressionskrig« fortsat er det dogme, som selv NATO-kritiske politikere føler sig forpligtet til at indlede deres taler med, er NATO’s fulde involvering i denne konflikt overvældende dokumenteret. David Ignatius, det berygtede talerør for det permanente bureaukrati i USA, afslørede allerede i 2022 i en række artikler i Washington Post, hvor overbevisningen kommer fra hos politikere, der trods alle beviser på slagmarken og i økonomien uophørligt gentager, at »Rusland vil blive ødelagt« eller, som den tyske kansler [Friedrich] Merz siger, »Putin må tabe«. Bag dette ligger troen på, at den nye revolution inden for krigsførelse, der har fundet sted i Ukraine, hvor skyttegravskrigen fra 1. verdenskrig kombineres med »de mest moderne våben i det 21. århundrede«, nemlig brugen af AI til at spionere på fjenden, har sat Rusland skakmat.

Alex Karp, administrerende direktør for Palantir, ser det sådan: “Kraften i de mest avancerede algoritmiske krigsføringssystemer er nu så stor, at det svarer til at have taktiske atomvåben mod en fjende, der kun har konventionelle våben. Den brede offentlighed undervurderer dette. Det gør vores fjender ikke længere.» Og den amerikanske general Mark Milley, formand for Joint Chiefs of Staff, sagde

i slutningen af 2022: «Vi er i øjeblikket vidne til, hvordan krige vil blive udkæmpet og vundet i mange år fremover.”

Er Tyskland undværlig?

Vi er en del af en militæralliance med NATO, hvor Tysklands overlevelse ikke er en prioritet. Den 20. november 2024 erklærede admiral Thomas Buchanan fra det amerikanske STRATCOM ved en begivenhed i Washington med titlen »Report Launch: Project Atom 2024«, arrangeret af Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), at USA ville være parat til at indlede en atomkrig, hvis USA’s globale lederskab stod på spil. Hans eneste forbehold var, at USA skulle sikre, at det beholdt nok atomvåben til at opretholde USA’s overherredømme bagefter.

Admiral Buchanans bemærkninger var ikke en fejl i talen; de blev bakket op af »Nuclear Posture Review« (NPR) 2022, hvor præsident Biden (eller den, der havde ansvaret i de sidste år af Biden-administrationen) forbeholder sig retten til at bruge atomvåben præventivt, hvis USA’s eller dets allieredes »vitale interesser« trues, selv om anerkendte eksperter som Dr. Ted Postol [professor emeritus i videnskab, Teknologi og International Sikkerhed ved MIT], samt deltagere i NATO-manøvrer, påpeger, at Tysklands overlevelse ikke ville blive taget i betragtning i en nødsituation.

Ellers er Buchanans opfattelse om, at taktiske atomkrige kan finde sted og vindes, ren fantasi. Postol har overbevisende påvist, hvorfor en sådan »begrænset« brug ville føre til brug af alle atomvåben. I øvrigt, kun en dag efter Buchanans foredrag, demonstrerede Putin med opsendelsen af det første Oreshnik-hypersoniske missil i Dnipro [Ukraine], at Rusland nu har et ikke-atomart atomvåben – der udelukkende bruger kinetisk energi på grund af sin høje hastighed (op til Mach 10-11) – som der ikke findes noget forsvarssystem imod, mens Karp og Milleys forudsigelser på det tidspunkt ikke var blevet bekræftet på slagmarken.

Det er utænkeligt: Kun 80 år efter nationalsocialismens sammenbrud i Tyskland og afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig, og under indtryk af ruinerne og det dengang ganske alvorlige slogan »Aldrig mere!«, skal dette land igen gøres »krigslignende« på alle niveauer i samfundet. Og det mest skræmmende ved dette er, at en stor del af det tyske samfund enten synes at have accepteret den fortælling, som mainstream-medierne har spredt om årsagerne til dette, eller føler sig lammet. Mellem EU’s »ReArm Europe«-program og den såkaldte »forsvars- og modstandsdygtighedsklausul« (også kendt som »sikkerheds- og forsvarsundtagelser«), som er en slags bemyndigelseslov, er vi nu på vej mod et våbenkapløb, der tillader ubegrænset låntagning til forsvarsudgifter.

Dermed ofres det tyske folks eksistensinteresser, som alle regeringsmedlemmer har svoret i embedsed at beskytte mod skade, fuldstændigt på alteret for transatlantisk underdanighed.

Formålet med vores konference er at vise en vej ud af denne blindgyde. Vi må i god tid sætte en ny global sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur på dagsordenen, som tager hensyn til alle staters sikkerheds- og økonomiske interesser på denne planet.

Og det er absolut muligt, for den geopolitiske opfattelse, at man absolut har brug for en fjende, har for længst fundet et alternativ. Forsøget på at etablere en unipolær verdensorden har i nogen tid lidt et alvorligt tilbageslag, fordi nationerne i det Globale Syd efter 500 års kolonialisme på ingen måde var parate til at underkaste sig en unipolær verdensorden. Erfaringerne med ensidige sanktioner mod mange stater, brugen af dollaren som våben, kredit- og handelsvilkår, der opfattes som uretfærdige, og meget mere har alt sammen bidraget til at aktivere Bandung-ånden, en milepæl i historien om Den Alliancefrie Bevægelse.

Kinas hidtil usete økonomiske fremgang, der har løftet 850 millioner af landets borgere ud af fattigdom på omkring 40 år og udryddet ekstrem fattigdom inden udgangen af 2021 – hvilket betragtes som uden fortilfælde i historien om global fattigdomsbekæmpelse – samt Kinas kometagtige fremgang inden for videnskab og teknologi – som ifølge den australske tænketank ASPI har gjort landet til verdens førende inden for 57 af 64 banebrydende teknologier – har gjort det til den største trussel i øjnene hos de angloamerikanske neokonservative, men har vist sig at være en sand velsignelse for landene i det Globale Syd.

Siden præsident Xi Jinping i 2013 erklærede Den Nye Silkevej for at være Kinas officielle politik, et program, der havde stor affinitet med vores Eurasiske Landbro fra 1991 og i stigende grad konvergerer med vores Verdenslandbro-program fra 2014, arbejder Kina nu sammen med næsten 150 nationer om Bælte- og Vej-Initiativet. Kina havde en samhandel med landene i det Globale Syd på ca. 2,5 billioner euro i 2023, og selv det er kun en brøkdel af potentialet i de projekter, der er iværksat.

BRIKS’ fremkomst

BRIKS, som nu omfatter ti medlemsstater og ti partnere, der repræsenterer mere end halvdelen af menneskeheden, har netop afsluttet [den 7. juli] sit årlige topmøde i Rio de Janeiro, Brasilien. Og alle talere, herunder mange fra gæstelande, udtrykte entusiastisk og fast deres intention om at opbygge et retfærdigt økonomisk system, der giver alle deltagende nationer udsigt til endelig at overvinde fattigdom, opbygge deres økonomier og udvikle sundheds- og uddannelsessystemer samt deltage i menneskehedens videnskabelige og teknologiske fremskridt på grundlag af arbejdsdeling og lighed. BRIKS-landene ser udtrykkeligt ikke sig selv som et alternativ til NATO og bestemt ikke som en blok; de er åbne for samarbejde med alle lande i verden. Præsident Trump tager derfor fejl, når han hævder, at BRIKS blev grundlagt for at skade USA; de blev grundlagt for at overvinde den Globale Majoritets underudvikling!

Tro ikke et ord af det man læser i de vestlige medier om BRIKS! Angiveligt er de splittede, fordi Xi og Putin ikke deltog i det seneste topmøde, og at momentum er gået tabt. Det modsatte er tilfældet: Selvom alle BRIKS-landene er under enormt pres og reagerer på dette pres på meget forskellige måder, er tendensen mod en ny æra for menneskeheden uafvendelig. Nationerne i det Globale Syd er fast besluttede på at realisere deres ret til lige økonomisk udvikling, ikke længere at være leverandører af råvarer, men at opbygge værdikæden i deres egne lande, udvikle industri og landbrug og blive mellemindkomstlande i den nærmeste fremtid.

Schiller Instituttet har udarbejdet en undersøgelse til denne konference, som er under udarbejdelse, om, hvordan Europa sammen med Kina og andre BRIKS-lande kan støtte landene i Afrika og Sydvestasien, især gennem joint ventures i denne udvikling. Vi har i første omgang fokuseret på de tre nøglelande, Tyskland, Frankrig og Italien, og de øvrige lande vil følge efter, for at vise, at et sådant samarbejde ikke kun hjælper Afrika og Mellemøsten, men at disse joint ventures også kan blive drivkraften til at overvinde den dybe økonomiske krise, som Europas økonomi i øjeblikket befinder sig i.

I stedet for at hælde billioner af euro i oprustning, som ødelægger produktionskapaciteten set ud fra realøkonomiens synspunkt, bør vi gå sammen med Kina om at investere i områder, der altid har været i front med en vellykket industrialisering: udbredt energiproduktion og -distribution, grundlæggende kontinental infrastruktur og derudover investeringer i nogle såkaldte »game changer«-projekter, såsom Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, som er et udstillingsvindue for samarbejdet mellem Afrika, Europa og Kina, der tager fat på to af de mest presserende problemer – vand og elektricitet. Desuden er der Transaqua-projektet, der muliggør vandforvaltning, vandkraft, transport og agroindustrielle udviklingsprojekter for 12 lande i hjertet af Afrika, og endelig Grand Inga-vandkraftprojektet, der vil generere mere end en tredjedel af den elektricitet, der i øjeblikket produceres i hele Afrika.

Trods den økonomiske krise har de europæiske lande stadig den videnskabelige og teknologiske knowhow, som der er så stort behov for i Afrika. Europa vinder stadig flere markeder med stadig mere velhavende kunder og løser flygtningekrisen på den eneste humane måde, nemlig ved at skabe gode grunde til, at især unge mennesker bliver i deres egne lande i stedet for at drukne i Middelhavet eller vegetere i lejre, som pave Frans har beskrevet som koncentrationslejre. For Sydvestasien foreslår vi Oase-planen, der begynder med kanaler mellem Middelhavet, Det Røde Hav og Det Døde Hav, afsaltning af store mængder havvand til kunstvanding i ørkenen, og i sidste ende en grøn omstilling og økonomisk udvikling af hele Sydvestasien som centrum for den gamle Silkevej mellem Asien, Afrika og Europa. Også her kan samarbejde mellem Kina og andre BRIKS-lande med Europa og landene i regionen gennemføre pave Paul VI’s mandat: »Det nye navn for fred er udvikling.« Pave Leo taler også om »udvikling som et våben« for varig fred i regionen.

Dagens konference i Schiller Instituttet er starten på en kampagne i hele Europa, Afrika og Asien for at gennemføre dette program for joint ventures som en motor til at overvinde den økonomiske krise og som et perspektiv for fred. Og jeg er særlig glad for, at vi har fået samarbejde med det kinesiske akademi for studier af det moderne Kina og verden (ACCWS), hvis vicepræsident, Daqi Fan, vil tale til os i en videobesked.

Denne form for samarbejde om at løse de mest presserende problemer, som menneskeheden står over for, svarer også til den tankegang, vi er nødt til at lægge til grund for en ny global sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur, der tager hensyn til alle landes interesser på Jorden. Kun ved at realisere et sådant nyt paradigme i de internationale relationer kan vi undslippe konsekvenserne af det vidtrækkende sammenbrud i folkeretten og de internationale relationer, som er resultatet af tolerancen over for folkedrab i Gaza og de nylige angreb på Iran, nemlig en generel nedsynken i anarki.

Et Punctum Saliens i historien

Vi er nået til et punctum saliens i historien, men intet kunne være længere fra Schillers tankegang end at forstå dette udtryk fatalistisk; tværtimod. Meget tidligt, i sine Filosofiske breve, »Julius til Raphael«, skrev han i 1786: »Der er et vist punctum saliens i fornuften, hvor alle planer vendes på hovedet, hvor sjælen flyver ud over sansernes data …« Det er overgangen fra frygt til frihed.

Jeg, og sikkert mange andre, har ofte spurgt mig selv, hvordan det tyske folk, der har frembragt så mange fremragende digtere, tænkere og opfindere, kunne tillade sig at blive frataget sin suverænitet på denne måde. Schiller viste vejen ud med sin plan om det »sublime«. I »Om det sublime« (1793) skriver han: »Der er et kritisk punkt, hvor naturens kraft undertrykker ånden lige netop nok til, at den redder sig selv med et pludseligt spring ind i frihedens sfære.« Dette øjeblik er punctum saliens, hvor mennesket kæmper sig ud af lammende frygt til moralsk selvhævdelse.

Gennem hele sit liv beskæftigede Schiller sig med dette spørgsmål om det sublime, om hvordan mennesket gennem æstetisk uddannelse lærer at agere større, end omstændighederne synes at tillade det. I et brev til Goethe den 7. januar 1795 skrev han: »Der er et punctum saliens i enhver kunst, hvor det mekaniske forvandles til det frie, og dette punkt skal findes af geniet«. Og i »Om nåde og værdighed« siger han, at mennesker viser værdighed, når de finder det afgørende øjeblik af selvkontrol i konflikten mellem pligt og tilbøjelighed. Punctum saliens er det revolutionære øjeblik i historien, hvor vi erkender vores menneskelighed.

Vi vil derfor gøre alt, hvad der står i vores magt, for at ære vores navnebror og vise os værdige til det smukke billede, han havde af menneskeheden: Jeg vil gerne afslutte med et par linjer fra hans fragment kaldet »Tysk storhed«:

Det er ikke den tyske storhed

At erobre med sværdet

At trænge ind i åndens rige

At kæmpe mandigt mod vildfarelse

Det er hans iver værdig.

…

Han har opnået en større sejr

Han, der svingede sandhedens lyn

Han, der befriede ånderne selv.

At kæmpe for fornuftens frihed

Betyder at kæmpe for alle folkeslag

Værdigt for evigheden.

Min uundgåelige konklusion er blevet, at Israel begår folkedrab på det palæstinensiske folk. Da jeg er vokset op i et zionistisk hjem, har boet den første halvdel af mit liv i Israel, har tjent i IDF som soldat og officer og har brugt det meste af min karriere på at forske i og skrive om krigsforbrydelser og Holocaust, var det en smertefuld konklusion at nå frem til, og en konklusion, som jeg modsatte mig så længe jeg kunne. Men jeg har undervist i folkedrab i et kvart århundrede. Jeg kan genkende det, når jeg ser det.