THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL
Now, 20 Years Later, Germany
Must Demand a `System Change'
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche is the chairwoman of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), the political party of the LaRouche movement in Germany. She issued this leaflet, entitled "Learn from Schiller: Think Only the Highest! System Change Now!" on Nov. 7, in commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. It was translated from German, and subheads were added.
[PDF version, including graphics]
Dear Citizen!
The 250th birthday of our great Poet of Freedom, Friedrich Schiller, and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, are very much internally connected with each other. At that time, in November 1989 and in the months afterwards up to the reunification on Oct. 3, 1990—thus in Germany's great moment—we indeed faced Schiller's yardstick: Would the great moment find a great people? Would we succeed in establishing a new, more human society and an actual order of peace, from the peaceful revolution?
In retrospect, one must unfortunately answer this question in the negative. The reasons are many: Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand tried everything to prevent reunification, and then agreed with George Bush, Sr., to do everything to contain the reunified Germany within the EU structure. The West Germans have themselves to blame that in the face of this geopolitical manipulation, they were all too ready to contribute their share to subjecting the new Federal states to the brutal rules of globalization. Those East Germans who seriously sought a "third way," did not recognize the only plan that would have made this possible, and were very rapidly pushed aside by the unification bureaucracy.
In that year, from November 1989 to October 1990, I warned in countless speeches against replacing bankrupt communism with the likewise bankrupt market economy. Wealth could perhaps be extracted from the states of the former Comecon for a few years, through primitive accumulation: but then after a certain period, an even greater collapse would occur. And we are precisely at this point today. Only this time, the bad debts with which the taxpayers are saddled are the toxic waste of the banks, which the gambling speculators produced.
The system of so-called globalization is more bankrupt today, by several orders of magnitude, than the economy of the G.D.R. and the Soviet Union had been. The systemic crisis, which has destroyed enormous industrial capacities in the real economy since the end of July 2007, and in which the governments of the G20 states have proven to be the henchmen of the banks and financial institutions, will go on until a fundamental reorganization is undertaken.
You, the citizens, must wake up immediately!
The Destruction of Germany
Don't you see that our beautiful Germany is being completely destroyed? The new Federal states are more and more depopulated. The average age is over 60 years in not a few villages and municipalities. The lack of prospects, above all for the youth, is expressed more frequently in senseless violence; confidence in politics is disappearing.
But also the old Federal states are in disintegration: more and more traditional companies—Woolworth, Hertie, Karstadt, Quelle, perhaps soon Opel and hundreds of suppliers, not to mention the tens of thousands of medium-sized companies—are following those thousands that have already vanished. The farmers are struggling for survival. Poverty is growing. And the costs for the gambling are to be passed on to the population! Germany is in existential danger!
The propaganda line that the worst is already over, is only window-dressing by those who want to continue the casino economy. And why should the gambler worry? If things go wrong, then the governments are ready for battle to save the system's key banks, using taxpayers' money. After all, the banks are "too big to fail." The reality is that the casino is running today even more excessively and more wildly than before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers about one year ago. And the next mega-crash is immediately forthcoming.
A Four-Power Agreement
This must come to an end now. We cannot permit the financial oligarchy to drive our nation completely into ruin. We need a system change!
The current system of monetarism and of globalization must be replaced by a credit system, which is oriented towards the General Welfare and which finances the real economy. Lyndon LaRouche has presented the argument for a long time, that only the alliance of the four most powerful nations of the world, namely, the U.S.A., Russia, China, and India, is strong enough to put a new financial architecture on the agenda.
In this regard, there are certainly very positive developments. On Oct. 3, during a three-day state visit of Prime Minister Putin to China, 12 comprehensive cooperation agreements were concluded between Russia and China, above all for infrastructure and advanced technology, with a volume of $500 billion. This means that China's otherwise potentially worthless dollar reserves would be covered by investments in the real economy. This accord can be the beginning of a new credit system, provided that other nations get involved, together with Russia and China, in similar long-term development programs.
That is the concrete form of the "third way," of which the civil rights activists spoke in 1989. And it is also the beginning of the implementation of the program that Lyndon LaRouche and the BüSo proposed at that time, initially called the Productive Triangle Paris-Berlin-Vienna, and, after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the construction of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. The central idea of this program consists in connecting the industry and the population centers of Europe with those of Asia through development corridors. Through this integration of infrastructure, the landlocked regions of Eurasia can be developed, the productivity of the economy of these nations and the living standards of their populations can be raised.
The way out of the economic crisis for Germany also lies in investment in the construction of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. In our small- and medium-sized companies, mechanical engineers and other skilled workers still possess enough know-how, and we have the industrial capacities which are urgently needed in the gigantic expanses of the Eurasian continent. Conversely, Germany is dependent on long-term cooperation agreements of 50 or 100 years, with which we can secure our raw material and energy supplies.
If Germany participates in this new credit system among sovereign nation-states, we can once again achieve productive full employment on a very high technological level. We must return to the awareness, that the only relevant source of wealth lies in the development of the creative capacities of our own population, and not in free trade's maxim of "Buy cheap, sell dear." Therefore, the construction of a strong, productive domestic market and the best possible development of the cognitive potential of our citizens, are the best preconditions for making a German contribution to the reconstruction of the world economy in the new system.
A Paradigm Shift
But we also need a system change in our heads. We must not only dispose of the toxic waste of the banks, but we must also dispose of all the mental crap which came along with globalization: for example, the pursuit of profit and vacuous entertainment; maximizing enjoyment in the Here and Now; and propounding the counterrevolutionary proposition, "You can't do anything anyway!"—which we should delete from our vocabulary forever.
If we want to use the great chance of a system change in economic policy and in our heads, if we want to implement the great vision of an order of peace for the 21st Century, then there is no better mentor than our great poet Friedrich Schiller. In his works, we find all the sublime ideas, which can give us the inner strength for such a change. For example, the idea that each person has the potential to develop into a beautiful soul and into a genius.
In 1989, the Germans' potential great moment was lost. Today, when we are dealing with an even more dramatic system collapse, we must use the opportunity that lies in the fact that the neo-liberal paradigm of globalization has failed. The LaRouche Plan for a just, new world economic order must be put on the agenda.
In this sense, let us celebrate the 250th birthday of Friedrich Schiller and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall!
Alle Menschen werden Brüder....
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt![1]
Yours,
Helga Zepp-LaRouche
[1]From Schiller's "Ode to Joy," in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which was peformed across Germany in 1989 in celebration of the fall of the Wall. "All men become brothers.... This kiss, from the whole Universe."
