ZEPP-LAROUCHE

Schiller Institute Conference Keynote: The New Silk Road Spirit Is Contagious

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institutes, gave this keynote address to the Schiller Institute conference, “Dona Nobis Pacem—Grant Us Peace, Through Economic Development,” convened in New York City on Saturday, June 9, 2018. Her keynote opened Panel 1 of the conference.

Dennis Speed: The idea of this conference is expressed in the graphic that was created for the concert that will follow the conference tomorrow. It features Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Choosing creativity as opposed to tragedy has been the hallmark of the Schiller Institute as it was created by the woman who you are about to hear.

Back in 1984, when it appeared that the world was also on a tragic course to war, this institution was proposed to the United States. But the United States rejected it, and the founder of this organization then independently created it in collaboration with her husband, Lyndon LaRouche. Many of us were privileged to be part of that when it began. The idea of this organization, the Schiller Institute, is to change thinking; change the method by which people deliberate on policy. As Lyndon LaRouche once stated in a document he wrote, “The content of policy is the method by which it is made,” and that means the conceptual method by which it is made.

We find ourselves today in a very interesting situation internationally, and you’re going to hear all about that. But I just want to say in introducing the woman who founded this organization, that throughout the world now, we find the conceptions and the seed crystal of the conceptions that she recognized and fought for: the need to uplift, in the form of talking about a cultural paradigm shift; that you couldn’t simply have a set of programs or policies, you had to have a new set of individuals.

The conception that we want to give you of what we are trying to do here today, is that you also are part of that New Paradigm, and how you think and how your thinking changes, together with many other people from around the world who are part of these deliberations, is really the subject of how the changes that we’re seeing right now all over the world are going to be effected.

Our first panel, “A New Paradigm of Global Relations: Ending Geopolitics,” is an idea that, particularly since 2013 in the case of New York City, we’ve been doing forums around. We tried to force the situation to happen, and we now have that possibility, including the Presidency of the United States, being integrated into that with Russia, China, and India. So, to tell us how Earth’s next fifty years and how this policy of a new cultural paradigm and an ending of geopolitics can happen, we’re presenting the founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends of the Schiller Institute, I’m actually very optimistic about the situation. I think there is the absolute possibility that we will, in the very near term, see the emergence of a completely New Paradigm of civilization. Because a majority of nations are gathering around the idea that there is only one humanity which is of a higher order than national interests and even geopolitical confrontation. Never before has the contradiction and the openness of the fight between the New Paradigm and the old paradigm been more obvious than right now. This conference was originally planned to speed this process up and to urge in particular a summit as early as possible between President Trump and President Putin, as the only way to outflank the ongoing British-initiated and -conducted coup against the United States, by simply shifting the level of the discussion to the the two Presidents directly.

There is great hope that such a summit will take place in the near future. There is talk that it could take place in July. This was initiated when President Putin just concluded what I would say is an historic visit to Austria, where it was proposed that Austria, as a neutral country and as a country which very consciously understands itself as a bridge between East and West, be the venue of such a conference. President Putin just expressed today that he is looking forward to it very much and thinks it would be a very productive event.

Now, the important changes which are taking place are best illustrated by the two parallel conferences and summits that are taking place this weekend; one, the G-7, taking place in Canada; and the other, the SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, meeting, in Qingdao, China. At the G-7, most of the countries, or at least some of them, want to defend the status quo of the neo-liberal, geopolitical old paradigm; and at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the attending nations are trying to establish a new order—a win-win cooperation of all nations on this planet.

On the G-7 meeting: Trump arrived late and he’s leaving early, he refused to meet the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Theresa May—which I think is a good thing—in order to go quickly on to Singapore to have his summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Trump made his concern clear, saying that he thought the grouping of people at this G-7 summit was not the right combination because Russia was not there, and that the G-8 should be reconstituted. President Trump stated that this may not be politically correct, but after all we have a world to run.

I think that that is exactly the right spirit. You could see the disunity in French President Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau getting into a fuss with Trump beforehand, even saying if the tensions with Trump on the trade escalate, the G-7 will become only a G-6+1. But then something very interesting happened, namely that the new Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, backed up Trump’s demand that the group should return to a G-8; so maybe it’s now only the G5, after all. What Conte did there is a very clear break in the unity of the European Union.

The problem with the European establishments is that they completely resist learning. They don’t learn from or understand the increasing failure of their model of the world order—which they developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is a model based establishing a unipolar world to which all countries must submit—those nations that do not want to do submit get regime changed through color revolution or so-called humanitarian intervention wars, as happened in Iraq, in Libya, as was attempted in Syria, and as is ongoing in the Ukraine. Part of that world order idea was also to encircle Russia and China, ultimately imposing regime change in those two countries, to get rid of President Putin and to get rid of the Communist leadership of China—as unlikely a proposition as that might be.

Another part of that collapsing world order is the neo-liberal system which went for the complete deregulation of the financial system, which increased the gap between the rich and the poor. What we have been seeing now is a revolt, actually on a global scale against that neo-liberal dying old system of the British Empire. It was expressed through the Brexit vote; it was expressed through the election of President Trump and defeat of Hillary Clinton; it was expressed in the vote against the change of the Constitution in Italy last year; it was becoming clear in the election of the present Austrian government; and now, of the new Italian government.

Something very noteworthy just happened in Italy, which I think it is important for the whole world to understand; because it is a reflection of why the European model does not function. The two parties which were just elected—the Lega and the Five Star Movement—were so-called “euro-critical” parties which were expressing the same absolute discontent with the neo-liberal paradigm as expressed in the election of President Trump, the Brexit vote, and the Austrian election.

That a euro-critical government would come into power in Italy caused a big uproar in Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union. EU Commissioner Oettinger, who is quite a character, said openly “The markets will teach the Italians how to vote.” That is not exactly in the spirit of democracy, but here you have it. Following Oettinger’s remarks, the European Central Bank, as reported by the Financial Times, started to enable the speculators to speculate against the Italian state bonds by reducing the amount of state bonds they had been buying on a monthly basis, and therefore causing the so-called spread to increase to up to 300 points with respect to German bonds. That was the pressure which was then used by Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella to refuse the first proposal for Giuseppe Conte to become the new Prime Minister.

Mattarella gave a speech which is really noteworthy, because he said that the foreign investors don’t like the proposed Finance Minister Savona; because he is known to be critical of the euro, and wants to reform the Eurozone system. Mattarella refused Savona. Savona is an establishment economist; he was the head of the industrial association in Italy; he had been a minister in a previous moderate government. He was pro-euro in the beginning, but only after he realized the consequences of the Maastricht Stability Pact of austerity imposed on Italy by Brussels, that it totally ruined the Italian economy, that he became critical and demanded that Italy should develop a Plan B in case that it would not work and conditions for the Italian people did not improve. He demanded that the Maastricht rules be renegotiated.

Merkel Values: Warships to South China Sea

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, earlier had said, “Yes, we have a democracy, but it is a democracy in conformity with the markets.” Now, this Italian case where the President bends under pressure from the ECB [European Central Bank] and the European Union to refuse a prime minister candidate proposed by those parties which have just won the majority, is really an absolute scandal. It means that democracy does not exist. I think it’s a very severe development, because it shows you where we are really in terms of the famous “Western values” which they always are talking about. The head of the Italian metal trade union made a noteworthy comment. He said that the fact that an establishment person like Savona is being regarded as subversive, shows you how much to the right the European Union has moved in the last decades under the rule of neo-liberal policies. That is exactly the problem.

Obviously this tactic failed; it boomeranged. The effort to impose a technocratic prime minister also did not work. Now, you have the same Giuseppe Conte as Prime Minister of Italy. In his inaugural speech to the Italian parliament, among other things he said, “We will support opening up to Russia . . . We will push for a review of the sanctions system, starting with those that risk humiliating Russian civil society.” That sentiment was echoed by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz from Austria, who will chair the European Union beginning the 1st of July. Conte promised that he will, step by step, move to reduce the sanctions and actually get out of the sanctions regime all together. He also announced that there will be a big investment program to recover the industrial development of Italy.

Let’s look at this. European unity is only wishful thinking of people suffering from European group-think. Look at the condition of Europe: the Visegrad countries—that is, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia; the Eastern and Central European countries—all want better relations with China, and most of them with Russia. The same goes for the Balkans states; it goes for Southern Europe—for Greece, for Italy, for Spain and Portugal—all want to be hubs of the New Silk Road policy.

So, there is no unity. Brussels, on the other hand, is insisting on a system which is a super bureaucratic huge apparatus; Mrs. Merkel demands that Germany and Europe take fate into their own hands. German Foreign Minister Maas is demanding that Europe form new alliances. The question is, what countries do Merkel and Maas want to form new alliances with, since they are against Russia? Merkel just opposed Russia being brought back into the G-8. In fact, Russia doesn’t even want to be in the G-8; why join such an obsolete grouping? Brussels and Germany are also trying to block the influence of China’s New Silk Road, so where would new alliances come from?

Germany is sending, for the first time, military forces to maneuvers in the South China Sea, where German ships, with French soldiers onboard, will violate the territorial waters of Chinese islands. What is this? What is this idea of Europe playing a new imperial, global role, as German Defense Minister von der Leyen is promoting all the time? This is an old model. I do not expect any positive changes to come from the core countries who want to defend the status quo. I do expect a lot of positive changes to come from those countries in Europe who want to cooperate with the New Silk Road.

News from Asia

Contrast the condition of Europe at this point with what is going on in Asia. It could not be more dramatic. You have a new model of win-win cooperation, of acting in the interest of the other, of respect of the sovereignty of the other country, of non-interference, of respect for the different social system of the other country, and of the idea to be united for a higher purpose of the one mankind. That policy, the result of China’s New Silk Road policy on the table for almost five years, has developed the most incredible dynamic ever. It is already become the largest infrastructure project in history, and it is clear it will define the new rules of the world.

Let’s look at these new rules. At the core of the new strategic realignment going on in the world, is the comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and China, cemented by a very deep personal friendship between President Putin and President Xi Jinping. Putin, who just made a state visit to China before his appearance at the SCO meeting, was awarded the Friendship Medal of China in a big celebration in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square.

Putin just conducted his annual question and answer session with the Russian people. He answered eighty-seven questions, taking somewhere between six and eight hours to do so—an extensive dialogue with the Russian people. Russian media reported that 91.3% of Russians think that wisdom is the most important trait of President Putin. Obviously, he has a tremendous charisma. People also voted on what would be their dream encounter with Putin: 37.8% want to have their picture taken with Putin; 29.9% would like to get a puppy from this dog-loving President—I would choose that option, naturally; and 22.47% want a big hug from their President.

I’m telling you all this because I know it’s upsetting to those who are used to the demonizing of Putin by the mainstream media. I can assure you that this admiration for Putin does not only exist in Russia; it also exists in China. There was just an article in the Chinese media reporting that the reason why tens of millions of Chinese—actually more than ten million—have formed a Putin fan club on the Internet. They said the reason for the Chinese friendly attitude towards Putin is that they share a disgust for the arrogance of the West. The Chinese people note that the treatment of Putin and President Xi by the West is the same: demonizing, slandering. Actually, it is the same against President Trump concerning the way he is treated by the neo-liberal mainstream media.

But there are also other Asian countries that are affected by the New Silk Road Spirit. During the Obama administration, the policy of the United States was the “Asia pivot”; which was nothing but a geopolitical manipulation of the India-Pacific countries—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and India—to form an India-Pacific bulwark against China. The argument was to have India, the so-called “world’s largest democracy,” lining up with the Western democracies against the authoritarian China. That is no longer the case.

There was recently a two-day summit in Wuhan in China, where Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping, in six sessions over two full days, discussing all kinds of bilateral and multilateral issues, contributing to a reset of the Indian policy towards China. Modi just gave a very important speech in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, where he outlined a completely different conception and made an appeal to the world to rise above competitiveness, and to work together in unity. He made several references to the Vedanta philosophy and the Vedas and the Upanishads. Modi said that the essential idea of the oneness of all is the basis of the new alliances in Asia:

“Asia and the world will be having a better future if India and China work together in trust and confidence, sensitive to each other’s interests. This world is at a crossroad. There are both the temptations to repeat the worst lessons of history. But there is also the path of wisdom. It summons us to a higher purpose: To rise above the narrow view of our interests and recognize that each of us can serve our interests better when we work together as equals in the larger good of all nations. I am here to urge you to take that path. No other relationship of India’s has as many layers as our relationship with China. I firmly believe that Asia and the world will have a better future if India and China work together with trust and confidence, keeping in mind each other’s interests.”

India and China are now moving together, not apart. There is also a change in Japan in its relationship to Russia. While previously, Japan was pretty much of the Washington Consensus, in the recent period a complete change has occurred in the attitude of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toward Russia. Russia and Japan are now working together in the economic development of the Kuril Islands, and Abe hopes, while he is still in office, to be able to sign a peace treaty with Russia, finally bringing to an end the technical state of war which still exists between Japan and Russia since World War II.

In the beginning, Japan was skeptical of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. But then Abe sent Toshihiro Nikai, the Secretary General of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, to the May 14-15, 2017 Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. Nikai is the second most important political person in Japan. From June 2017 onwards, Japan has been fully cooperating with China on the Belt and Road Initiative. Abe was the first foreign leader to visit President-elect Trump in Trump Tower on November 17, 2016; and he was the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the White House and then at Mar-a-Lago on February 10, 2017. This is also a new alliance emerging.

Then, if you look at the relationship between China and the United States, Xi Jinping visited President Trump in Mar-a-Lago last April. They developed an outstanding personal friendship. Xi Jinping returned that invitation by giving an extraordinary tour in the Forbidden City for President Trump and his wife. They named it a “state visit-plus.” Now, you have now an alliance between all these major nations happening. Putin just commented on the prospective summit with Trump, saying the ball is in our court; let’s make it work.

The world looks full of big expectations for next Tuesday, when the summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un is to occur. I don’t know if there will the big surprise, everything solved in one day—I don’t think so. I think probably Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov is more right when he said that it will require a very skillful orchestration of reducing the sanctions and moving towards denuclearization in a step-by-step fashion in such a way that the security interests of North Korea are being taken care of, and that the promise that was made by Russia, that Russia will play a big role in the economic development of North Korea, and of President Trump who said that North Korea going on this path will become a very prosperous country, that this will all actually happen.

I think this situation would not be possible without the New Silk Road Spirit, which clearly has captured the imagination of the people of both North Korea and South Korea, who are all looking forward very much to developments which promise a reunification of the two Koreas. To have railway connections from the large port city of Busan in South Korea all the way to the Trans-Siberian Railway to connect to the Chinese railway! I think this is a very hopeful situation which can become the model to resolve all conflicts around the world.

The Power of Creative Mind

This is actually the vision of my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, who already in 2007 demanded that the three countries—Russia, China, and India—absolutely must work together to counter the evil influence of the British Empire as it existed at that time. In 2009, at the Rhodes Forum of the Dialogue of Civilizations, my husband and I made clear that the only way the world could get out of its present condition would be a four-power agreement among the United States, Russia, China, and India. Many Asians are now convinced that this coming century will be the Asian Century. It is very clear that the economic and scientific momentum is in Asia. If scientists want to do something important, they go to China; they go to other Asian countries. The economic growth rates of China and India and some other countries are far, far beyond anything in the so-called West.

But this is not sufficient. If we want to have something like what Xi Jinping calls the “community for a shared future for all of mankind,” we need a cultural renaissance of the best traditions of all nations and cultures. The New Silk Road must be built on the most fundamental ontological, epistemological and metaphysical conceptions of all traditions. For China, this means the Confucian principle of self-perfection and life-long learning, and ennoblement of the character; of harmony in the midst of differences. For India, this means the Vedic concept about how the cosmic order must give the rules for the political life on Earth. The concept of the dharma for the Belt and Road Initiative; the concept of the Panchsheel Treaty; the concept of ahimsa, of developing your own character up to the point where you are unable to think any harmful thoughts.

European civilization, of which America is a part, has a lot to contribute in terms of its own humanist traditions. One of the most important conceptions of the new thinking was introduced by Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th Century—the coincidentia oppositorum: the coincidence of opposites, which means that human creativity and the human mind are able to create a higher order in which all differences vanish; the idea that order in the macrocosm can only exist if there is the maximum development of all microcosms, which means that all nations must develop in the maximum way, and act in the interests of each other in order to have a harmonious world.

The new thinking is expressed in the principles of the Peace of Westphalia: that in order to overcome war forever, foreign policy must be based on love and on the interest of the other. The new thinking must also be based on the ideas of Leibniz: that it is in the nature of the human character and in the character of the universe that evil can always be overcome with a greater good: the ideas of Friedrich Schiller that each human being can be a beautiful soul for whom duty and passion, necessity and freedom, are one. The only people for whom this applies, however, are the geniuses. But the number of geniuses in the world will absolutely increase.

These are also the ideas of Vladimir Vernadsky, the Russian scientist, of whom my husband Lyndon LaRouche wrote in 2005 in his beautiful book, Earth’s Next Fifty Years. In that book, he said that for Eurasian integration to work, it must be based on the ideas of Vladimir Vernadsky. That is, the influence of the noösphere over the biosphere is continuously increasing, in other words, the results of the creative mind become more dominant in terms of the character of humanity. That is actually what we see happening with this development right now.

Expose Spygate!

This is the spirit of a completely new era of mankind. This is beautiful, and it is happening. So, why are people not joining? Is it not a better model? Is it not obviously more fitting of human nature that we be united for higher goals and the common aims of mankind for the future? European civilization and part of the United States, moved away from their best European traditions; moved away from humanism.

The present dominant old paradigm model is based on neo-liberal and left-liberal ideas which can be traced directly back to the Frankfurt School and their so-called critical method. I don’t have time now to discuss this in depth, but I can assure you I have looked at this in the past in much detail, and this is a completely destructive idea. It is the idea that you cannot have anything beautiful, truthful, that you cannot have a definite criteria for morality; but that everything can be put into question, and that anybody who claims that he has a way to know the truth in a scientific manner, or that you can define with scientific precision what is beauty, is a so-called “authoritarian” character.

Just recently, a big study came out from a big German think tank called Mercator Research Institute for China Studies (MERICS), attacking China’s Belt and Road Initiative as an authoritarian model. It should be obvious to everyone, however, that what China is doing is based on the effort to establish truth, the effort to establish the common good for the people, and to make the world more beautiful. This has been stated repeatedly by Xi Jinping, for example at the 19th National Congress of the CPC [Communist Party of China], and at other recent events. I have come to the conclusion that that is also what is really inspiring President Putin and many other leaders of the developing countries.

The old geopolitical thinking has degenerated to the point that in terms of values, its proponents have adopted the principle that everything goes, everything is allowed. Such “thinking” has led to the present deep cultural crisis in the West; in America, the drug epidemics; the fact that the life expectancy is dropping in all age brackets, while the healthy life bracket in China for the first time is above that of the United States.

We need a cultural renaissance, and part of the reason we have this concert tomorrow is because it will give you a sense of the New Paradigm; what we absolutely have to accomplish in the tradition of the most beautiful accomplishments of European Classical traditions. If the Presidents—Trump, Putin, Prime Minister Modi, Xi Jinping—together with leaders of other developing countries and also hopefully some European countries, get together on these new ideas, this will mean the end of geopolitics, and therefore, the end of the causes of war as we have known them.

A big question being asked around the world is, “Can President Trump prevail, in light of the coup against him, in light of the influence of what people mistakenly call the “Deep State”—the military-industrial complex; and something that would be better called just plainly the British Empire? Are these forces too powerful to overwhelm President Trump? One has to understand the role of the British Empire, against which after all, the American Revolution was fought in the War of Independence. We have published a lot about the two-centuries-long efforts to undermine and subvert the American model of the republic.

Up until the election of Trump, the British Empire was extremely successful in corrupting the American establishment to adopt the model of the British Empire as their own; to rule the world on the basis of a unipolar world. We have seen that in the cases of the two Bush administrations, with the Obama administration, and in all the hysteria against Trump in Russiagate, initiated with the help or the initiation of the British secret services, because Trump is breaking with that tradition. This is the significance of Spygate. Remember, President Trump recently sent out a tweet saying, “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!”

We have published several important reports which we are circulating, and you should help us to circulate internationally. Because if Spygate can be totally exposed, this will be the biggest catharsis you have ever seen, in which everything that has gone wrong in the last more than fifty years, since the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, of Robert Kennedy in 1968, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the half-century of humiliation will be overcome and concluded, and must be replaced with the best tradition of the American culture and the American Revolution.

So, I’m asking you to join with the Schiller Institute to get exactly that accomplished. America must join with the New Silk Road, and we have to together create a New Paradigm for all of mankind. Thank you.