Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Turning the ‘Many’ into the ‘One’—The Fight for a New Strategic Architecture

The following is an edited transcript of the Sept. 11, 2024 weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Embedded links and subheads have been added. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello, and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Today is September 11, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger, and I will be your host. You can send your questions for Helga via email to questions@schillerinstitute.org, or you can post them on the chat page.

Helga, we have a lot of questions, many of which have to do with the ongoing wars and militarization around the globe. But I’d like to begin with one asking where things stand with building an alternative architecture. Shirley writes, “Thank you Helga and Harley for your efforts to revive the anti-colonial program of the Non-Aligned Movement. I grew up in Indonesia, and my family was proud of the role by our leaders in fighting to end colonial exploitation. The transition to a new system has taken many years, but seems to be back on the agenda, especially with the most recent conferences like that of the Eurasian Economic Forum (EAEU) and the Forum on Africa-China Cooperation (FOCAC). Can you update us on the progress of these two events to replace the system of empire with a fair, peaceful, and prosperous system?”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I think it’s on a good way, because the situation has changed dramatically from the time when the Non-Aligned Movement started in the 1950s and ’60s. Because, at that time they were still all developing countries, and the forces trying to prevent that were strong. Now, we have practically—because of the rise of China in particular, a very strong economy, which in terms of many aspects is already the strongest economy in the world—there is actually a motor of development, and many developing countries such as Indonesia are on a good wave. Indonesia will probably bypass Germany as the third-largest economy in a very short period of time. I think, at the Sept. 4-6 FOCAC meeting in Beijing, where more than 50 heads of state of the 54 African nations were present, many of them had bilateral meetings with President Xi Jinping. I think there was a very clear idea that the future is belonging to the Global South and that many development projects will be undertaken.

I’m not saying this will be an easy road, because we see also that the battle to try to prevent that is very hard. You have efforts to destabilize several countries, both for objective reasons, but also using domestic vulnerabilities. So, it’s not an easy battle, but I think the overall trend is very promising. I think we will see a major consolidation of the effort to build a new system at the Oct. 22-24 BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, next month, where several new members probably will join, and several other countries have been invited as special guests. I think, in general, this is a trend which cannot be reversed unless you have World War III. Then naturally, everything stops, but I think if you don’t have World War III—which right now is a very iffy question—I think that the Global South, these are countries that already represent 85% of the world population, about 70% of the [world] GDP. I think that that is unstoppable, so with all caution, I am very optimistic.

How To Reform the UN

Schlanger: We have some questions on the role of the United Nations. We’ll start with one from Harry in Colombia, who wrote: “Helga, the citizens of the world are demanding that the rulers stop actions being taken against their citizens. But the UN is an obsolete organization, in favor of the highest bidder who finances them. How come the UN did not send the Blue Helmets as a barrier to Palestine, which could have avoided the current colossal genocide?”

The second question on the UN is a question asking you if you expect any actions to be taken on the call made by the Arab League, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, and the Non-Aligned Movement, calling on the President of the UN General Assembly to act under the “Uniting for Peace” framework [UN General Assembly Resolution 377 A (V)] to address Israel’s failure to address the mandates against genocide by the International Court of Justice? The person notes that they heard you speak about this motion last week on the IPC call.

Zepp-LaRouche: The problem is that the UN reflects still the postwar situation with the Permanent Five in the UN Security Council. That is a very difficult question to repair, because you do not want to give up a level of intervention. Obviously, the present Permanent Five are not representative of the Global South. Africa is not represented; Asia, except in the form of Russia and China, but not from the standpoint of the developing part of the Global South. So, that is a difficulty, and I think the reason why the Blue Helmets were not even considered is because the permanent veto by the United States, sometimes supported by the British, or the British abstaining, is basically what blocked any action. This is exactly why this Uniting for Peace resolution is now being activated. It is the clause that says that if the UN Security Council is unable—for whatever reason, like a permanent veto by one of the members—to act, then there is the possibility to bring the whole issue to the UN General Assembly. Now, that will happen next week, I think on the 17th and 18th; that motion will be discussed. I can only hope that the dynamic will be such [as to act on it] —and there is a good chance that it will be—and that injustice can be addressed and remedied. I think the first day is discussion, and then the second day is supposed to be a decision on some action.

I think that underlines the need to have a serious reform of the United Nations. I think the minimum requirement would be that the Global South is represented in proportion to their numbers and significance. This obviously will meet hard resistance from those people who thought that they were the dominant ones up to now. But I think that is a process which is underway and must be underway. I think the key problem is, that the only way you would get a real improvement of the United Nations to prevent such taking advantage by whoever is the biggest money bag, would be to do exactly what I proposed in the Ten Principles for a New Security and Development Architecture. That basically would mean that you have to give the body of law—which is excellent; if you look at the UN Charter, that should not be changed. The whole idea of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence should never be changed. But I think it would still require something I would call a metaphysical underpinning; something which situates these laws or principles more in the eternal laws of the physical universe. That, obviously, is something that needs to be discussed so that the many representatives of the different cultures and civilizations can find a common language. Because, such principles do exist in every culture and every language; it’s just that people give them different names. But they many times mean exactly the same thing, sometimes calling it “natural law,” like in Europe, or “cosmic order,” like in India. But that idea, that we have to bring into conformity the conditions on Earth with those eternal laws of the universe, I think that is something that would definitely improve the situation of the United Nations tremendously.

Schlanger: Okay, sticking with Gaza, we have this from Patricia in Vancouver, Canada. She said: “I watched in rage as Secretary of State Blinken gave a belated, pro forma condemnation of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] after they admitted they killed Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old American citizen, during a protest in the West Bank. I was screaming at the television, ‘You heartless bastard, when will you cut off the weapons you are sending which are used to kill in Palestine?’” Then she asks you, Helga, “When will Americans wake up to the immorality conducted in their name?”

Disintegration vs. A New Paradigm

Zepp-LaRouche: I think there is definitely motion coming from the young people, the students who are just returning to the campuses. I think I have heard many reports that the issue of the genocide is hotter in the debates than ever before. But I would like to give people in general something to consider, because the losers are clearly primarily the Palestinian people, who are subjected to this horror-show of what is going on in Gaza and increasingly in the West Bank. There is another loser, and that is the West, or those countries that condone what is going on, pretending to be on the side of Israel, or being on the side of the government of Israel, which is not identical with Israel as such. I think that the loss of reputation and loss of sense of integrity are so enormous. The first taste of it, you get when you look at the recent press conference between the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, and Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister. She stood there like a little girl being scolded at school for having completely messed up. What this Jordanian Foreign Minister said, is, you make the mistake of not differentiating between defending the interests of Israel and the interests of this present head of the Israeli government; pointing to the loss of reputation of the West, but also the whole integrity of the system. The world system is disintegrating as a result of this loss of morality on the side of those who are condoning this. And I don’t think that that can be repaired quickly; it would really require a complete 100% turnaround. For example, if the countries of Western Europe or Europe would now say, we regret what we did, this should not have happened, and we completely commit now to the reconstruction of not only Palestine, but the whole war-torn region, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan. And we will help to realize the Oasis Plan by making investments in infrastructure, irrigation, building cities, building forestry, creating new freshwater with the Oasis Plan. If that would come as a message, let’s say, out of the UN General Assembly, I think the world would be willing to forgive. But I don’t think the chances that that will happen are very high.

I foresee that the West will— If we don’t shape up in Europe and in the United States, in the eyes of the world public and of history, we have not done ourselves a favor by allowing this to happen. There is still time to change it; that’s why we should mobilize for the Oasis Plan and a New Paradigm, and the idea that the new name of peace is development. That would remedy the situation. If we build now a new world economic order and start to cooperate with the Global South in trying to overcome poverty and under-development, that would be the basis for redemption of the soul and also some order in the world.

Schlanger: You’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She is the driving force behind the International Peace Coalition, which meets via Zoom every Friday. You can join that if you’d like; just go to schillerinstitute.com to find out how to log on to see that. There will be another meeting this Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

Here’s a question from Ali in London, who is very active in the peace movement there, the “No to NATO” movement. He writes: “[U.S. Secretary of State] Blinken is here; [UK Prime Minister] Starmer is going to Washington to meet with [U.S. President] Biden. I fear they will announce a decision to give Ukraine the go-ahead to use long-range missiles to strike into Russia. What do you think they will do?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Exactly what you just said. Everything is primed to do that. Starmer will talk with Biden on Friday, and Blinken will be for several days in London talking to [UK Foreign Secretary] Lammy, his sidekick, and then they will go together to Kyiv; giving Ukraine the permission to use the ATACMS for deep strikes into the territory of Russia. This is bringing us step by step closer to World War III; the idea that there are no red lines is foolish. These people are gambling with the fate of the world. In a certain sense, I am surprised how patient Russia has been, but I am quite afraid that that patience is running out. I think we have to increase the activities of the peace movement. Over the short term, I think that is an absolutely indispensable ingredient, because the problem is that we still have a situation where you have a minority in every country of people who are—I would say—really scared. If you think through what is at stake: At stake is the existence of everything which we know of, of millions of years on Earth. Tens of thousands of years of recorded civilization, everything which has ever been produced by human beings in terms of science, technology, culture, art—all of that will vanish. Nobody will have a memory of it. There will be nothing after a nuclear war. That’s what is at stake, and I think the best, or one of the absolute ingredients which are necessary—We have have demonstrations coming; on the 21st of September there is International Peace Day. I think there will be many activities in many countries; help to build them. On Sept. 28th and 29th, there are events in the United States called for by Scott Ritter and the Rage Against the War Machine. Then, on October 3rd, there will be big demonstrations (I hope) in Germany, especially in Berlin. I think these must be made manifestations in the same way as the peace movement took to the streets in the beginning of the 1980s, when hundreds of thousands and finally a million people came out. That created an environment in which the INF Treaty was maybe not invented and drafted, but it helped to create that environment. That’s what we need to do more urgently than ever.

Then, that is not enough; we also have to have a new international security and development architecture which takes into the account the interests of every country on the planet. Because I do not think that if you leave out this country or that country, because you have convinced yourself that this is a dictatorship or an autocracy, or a bad one, I don’t think it will work. We are all sitting in one boat, because of nuclear weapons, because of the internet, because of pandemics. You can start a pandemic in one day by travelling with an airplane, and you can infect almost an entire continent. We are connected; we are sitting in one boat. If things go wrong, they go wrong for everybody. That’s why I think we need to have a new design where you say that security is indivisible; that the best principle which came out of the Peace of Westphalia was that you have to take into account the interests of the other, or else you create the seeds for the next war.

I think we need to urgently have a discussion about what is the security doctrine of every country; is it in the interests of that country to have such a doctrine? Because what has happened now is that far-reaching decisions are being made over the heads of the people who don’t even know what is going on; like the deployment, the decision of U.S. government—whoever that it is at this point—to put long-range missiles into Germany. Which [German Chancellor] Scholz then sheepishly said, the United States made the decision and it’s a good decision. This guy is really—I don’t want to go into a lengthy description of what I think, but you can imagine. We have to have participation of the people in such decisions. The legitimacy of government comes from the consent of the governed; that is one of the principles which should be normal. It was discovered by Nicolaus of Cusa in the 15th Century, and it went into the very idea of constitutions, of legitimacy of government. Right now, we are very far from that, which expresses itself in the fact that people do not vote for these governments anymore. Now Scholz has discovered that he wants to have peace all of a sudden, because the SPD [his party—ed.] just lost two elections in East Germany. One can only hope that that recognition stays a little bit longer than until the next election, which is in a week or so.

Which Way for Europe?

Schlanger: On European relations with the United States, we have a question from Prof. Larafi. He asks: “Do you think decoupling the relationship between the U.S. and NATO could contribute positively to a change in the European security architecture, and consequently to the ties between Russia and the European Union?” I think this is partly reflecting the discussion of “Trump-proofing” NATO out of fear that [Donald] Trump will withhold funds from NATO if he’s elected. But it has to do with the whole question of Europe and Russia. Would a decoupling from the U.S. make a difference?

Zepp-LaRouche: Right now there is a huge push for everybody to make Europe “Trump-proof,” because, if Trump wins the election, it is expected that he will demand more payments by the Europeans for their own defense, [and] possibly [will] not back NATO in the same way. But the problem is— I’m all for more sovereignty for the nation-states of Europe, and together they can work as a unity like de Gaulle suggested, the idea of an alliance of sovereign fatherlands. You don’t need a supranational structure like the EU Commission for that. But it would require a complete change in the attitude. That change is visible among some forces in Europe. Viktor Orbán [the Prime Minister of Hungary] has proven that even a small country can act in a sovereign manner. When he took over the EU Presidency, he immediately went to Kyiv, to Moscow, to Beijing, to Washington, to Mar-a-Lago, proposing a different approach to the Ukraine crisis. This was completely rejected by the EU Commission; they haven’t recovered from that until the present day.

It would require a different thinking. Right now, there is a huge debate that [German Member of Parliament] Sahra Wagenknecht in a recent TV talk show called Scholz a vassal Chancellor. There’s a huge debate as to whether you can use such a word for Chancellor Scholz. All of the European nations, with few exceptions, are behaving like complete vassals to the United States and the British. So, that has to be broken, and I think if European nations would take an independent approach and say, we want to have cooperation with the BRICS, with the Global South, with Russia, with China, with the other countries of the Global South, I think that that would probably be a healthy shock for the United States. I think, on the other side, just the idea to go in an independent direction without trying to get the United States onboard, I’m not sure that that would solve the problem. Because if the world separates into two blocs, it still has the absolute danger that this could go awfully wrong. You have to break this present determination to keep the hegemon of the NATO, of the West, the British—which no longer exists in reality. I think we are in the most dangerous moment, because, if we do not find a peaceful approach, a conscious decision to stop confrontation and go in the direction of cooperation, I think we are in danger of losing the entirety of civilization. That’s why I’m pushing this idea of a security architecture which takes the interest of every nation into account. That obviously includes every nation: it includes Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, the United States, and many other nations as well. I think that requires a difference in approach, but I’m of the deepest conviction that if you don’t solve that problem, it will not go out peacefully.

Schlanger: We have a question from Hendrik from Germany. He said: “In listening to you talk about the terrible coalition government in Germany, I agree with you that it’s the worst government in the postwar years. But I would like to know what you think should be done. Is there a provision for early elections? A no-confidence vote? Or, do we have to stick it out until the next scheduled national election in September 2025?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, let’s see what happens with the September 22 Brandenburg local election. If these people would be concerned about the development of the country, they would have resigned already. They get one rejection by the voters after the other. The [governing] coalition has less than 30% [popular support] at this point. They are the most unpopular, disliked, rejected government the German Federal Republic ever had since World War II. I think they are trying to stay in there, no matter what. Right now, for example, they had a summit on migration; the coalition government and the CDU, the CSU opposition. It detonated, because they couldn’t come to an agreement—none, zero. On the budget for next year, they don’t find agreement. This is unmanageable.

I think they will avoid a no-confidence vote, because they like their position and the privileges that go along with that much better than anything else. Therefore, I think they will try to stick to it until the bitter end, whatever happens strategically in the meantime. I think the only thing one can do under these circumstances is organize the population so that they start to take responsibility for what happens to Germany. Germany right now is a horror-show; the economy is in a free-fall. Now, finally, after a long time, even the industry associations start to warn that that is happening. But they are not suggesting a change, because they are not suggesting a break from the Green Deal; they are still talking about the transition into the Green economy, which is one of the major reasons we are about to lose Germany in so many ways. Look at what happens in the health sector; the incredible cutting down of— [German Minister of Health] Lauterbach has just proposed a reform which would shut down many small hospitals all over the countryside; [many] have disappeared already. The supply of people in certain areas is no longer secure; you have to wait eight to nine months to see a specialist, even if you have acute problems. The German health system is falling apart; the bottom is falling out. I can only imagine what will happen if this gets worse. The worst kind of thing could repeat itself in terms of violence; it’s already pretty bad, but the way the government is trying to orchestrate it, is to blame it on all things except on their wrong policies.

I think the only remedy is to educate citizens. Look at what we do—the Schiller Institute and our international movement, the IPC. There are other forces in Germany that are waking up, but I think we have to unite, because I can only say the crisis is reaching a boiling point, and we don’t have enough citizens who have the courage under these circumstances, or the commitment to qualify themselves to have a better solution than the present government. I can only ask you to join with us, and let’s try the best we can do.

LaRouche’s 2001 ‘Reichstag Fire’ Warning

Schlanger: Here’s a final question for you from a long-time supporter who said that he was very appreciative of the commemoration, the other day, of the 102nd birthday of Lyndon LaRouche. He said in that context, he’d like to bring up a proposal. “It was 23 years ago today, September 11, 2001, that the operation to move ahead the national security state was furthered by the attacks on New York City and Washington by so-called ‘terrorists.’ Lyndon LaRouche made a forecast in January of that year that there would be a Reichstag fire event that would give the neo-cons the justification to move ahead with the national security state for data collection, surveillance, censorship, and so on. Now we see this attack on the First Amendment is regaining speed to the point of threatening the Constitutional protections of free speech. Could you publish a pamphlet on LaRouche’s warning in January 2001 of the Reichstag fire threat and trace the consolidation of a fascist state from then to the present to give people an ability to fight back?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Thank you for this proposal; I think it is an excellent one. That makes me very happy, because you just responded to what I just said before that we need citizens to take responsibility for the state of affairs. What you just proposed, I think, is an excellent example of exactly that. I will still today discuss this with my colleagues, because it’s absolutely on the mark. When my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, made this video—and you can look at it on the internet; I think it was on January 3, 2001, three weeks before the Bush administration came into office. He said this administration will face such enormous financial difficulties of the financial system which they are unprepared to deal with. Therefore, they will tend to go for a pretext with a new “Reichstag fire” in order to then implement exactly what the Reichstag fire did in the first place; namely to go to fascist policies. That is what happened exactly nine months later, on September 11th. Part of this documentation you are referring to is that, by pure accident, he was giving a live interview on radio in Salt Lake City, Utah. He had no other information; he just thought about it. This was at the hour around 9 o’clock, when the first planes hit the World Trade Center. He said this can only have been done with cooperation of corrupt forces of the U.S. security apparatus. He had no knowledge about what the flight conditions were, the security in the flight conditions. So, that is exactly what is still the question. There was an effort by the 9/11 Commission, but that was suppressed. I think it would be very useful, because under the pretext of terrorist threats, the war on terror, the entire interventionist wars, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya; all of that was the result. We got to the present calamity; in a certain sense you can say that was the Maidan coup for the United States. I definitely will propose to my colleagues what you just said.

Schlanger: We’ve come to the end of the questions. Helga, can you give us a quick preview of what will be discussed at the International Peace Coalition meeting Friday?

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. I would ask people to look at the proceedings of the IPC meeting from last Friday, Sept. 6, which was an absolute breakthrough. We had extraordinary patriots from several countries, but especially from the United States. Ambassador Jack Matlock; Ted Postol; Col. (ret.) Larry Wilkerson; then we had a very important German professor, Wilfried Schreiber; we had Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard from Switzerland; former President Donald Ramotar from Guyana. That discussion already is an absolute must for anybody who wants to find out why we are in such a dangerous situation, because what Ambassador Matlock said was that the promises which were given to Gorbachev in 1990—he is an authority; he was an eyewitness. What he says is in sharp contradiction to lots of the narratives being put out today. Then naturally, Prof. Postol, a leading nuclear expert, went into horrifying detail of why this present situation with nuclear weapons is so dangerous, and many other extremely important contributions. So, please look at that.

I think there is even a short version of it now as a teaser, so that you can get a sense of what you can expect. And we have a separate interview of Ambassador Matlock, which he gave to the Schiller Institute and EIR, which also can be found on the Schiller site, which is an absolute must about the history of the last 30 years. It’s causing quite some turmoil; it has been republished or referred to in interviews and articles about it several times.

So, we will have a continuation of the discussion; I think Prof. Postol is one of the speakers again. Because people have to wake up to what the danger is that we are in. So, please join; help us to unify the peace movement internationally. Only if we unite will we hopefully be strong enough to make our voice heard.

Schlanger: Helga, thank you for joining us again today, and we’ll see you on Friday morning.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till Friday.