This transcript appears in the September 27, 2024 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Solidarité et Progrès Party Congress
The Power of Ideas To Change History
[Print version of this transcript]
Sept. 21—The Solidarité et Progrès’ Party Congress in Paris, France gathered today for presentations and deliberation, under the direction of National Chairman Jacques Cheminade. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, gave a pre-recorded video message, titled, “The Power of Ideas to Change History.” This is the edited transcript.
Bonjour mes amis français,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I want to talk to you today about the power of ideas to change history. It is without any question that we are probably in the most dangerous period of history ever. On Saturday, the 14th of September, Le Monde reported that French government members fear World War III, because they fear that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia is spinning out of control.
Now that could be a good thing, because it is only if the population wakes up—and hopefully governments wake up—that we can hopefully change this in time. The next five to six weeks are the most dangerous. Because “inside the Beltway” as they say—that is, in the Washington, D.C. establishment—people are talking about how the U.S., and with it, NATO, will soon have to fight possibly a three-front war against Russia, China, and North Korea, and for that matter, one can add Iran.
Now what is behind that is that there is a fear among these establishment figures that the United States is losing its dominant position in the world, because Russia, China—that’s a synonym for the BRICS—they will have their annual summit in October in Kazan in Russia. And at that time, it will be clear that they will be the vast majority of the world’s population already, and with many more members joining at that point. Now this is why Dick Cheney, whom we all have in horrible memory, endorsed Kamala Harris, because he said that Trump represents “the biggest danger to U.S. democracy.”
They fear that NATO is going to lose out to the “Global Majority” represented by the BRICS, and therefore they want to have a war to ruin Russia.
Now that would be the third time that this is attempted. Napoleon was the first time. I think people in France are painfully aware where that ended. The second time was Hitler, and Europe has not yet recovered from the consequences of that megalomania. And now the third time NATO, or the “Anglosphere” and their control over NATO, want to do the same thing. The Anglosphere is already, without any problem, sacrificing Europe. The EU, being the bureaucracy that runs the European vassals, is destroying Europe from within. “Patsies” are fighting the war of the Anglosphere, the Ukrainians in Ukraine, but also mercenaries, French, British and other soldiers.
There is a big difference between the narrative and real history, however. If you look at it from the surface right now, it seems that NATO and the EU are all in control. But as one looks at real history, ideas, while they may not succeed momentarily, necessarily are successful in the medium and long term. Look at the following examples.
In 1975, Lyndon LaRouche, my late husband, came back from a trip to Iraq where he had discussed with leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, and proposed to replace the IMF with the International Development Bank (IDB) in order to have a credit facility for the developing countries which would allow their development. We spread that idea among all the Non-Aligned countries, and in 1976, they announced that to be the intention of the Non-Aligned Movement, to have a New World Economic Order. At that time, it did not succeed because there was an incredible backlash. Many countries were destabilized: Indira Gandhi (India), Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike (Sri Lanka). Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Pakistan) was even assassinated.
But if you look at the BRICS today, in 2024, they are right now the most powerful economic bloc emerging. They have the beginning of what President Lula of Brazil calls the Great Bank of the South, the New Development Bank (NDB), which is absolutely modeled on the IDB of Lyndon LaRouche.
Look at another thing. The oligarchy decided to impose their Malthusian ideology on the world in 1972 by publishing the writing, The Limits to Growth. Now that had caused big damage because it created a worldwide “ecological” movement. But Lyndon LaRouche [in 1983] wrote the book, There Are No Limits to Growth; and it took a few decades, admittedly, but nevertheless, China eventually abandoned its “one child” policy, which had been the result of the Club of Rome’s idea that resources are limited. They adopted the philosophy of the ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Bin (died in 316 BC), who had already declared at that time that there is nothing more valuable in the universe than human beings. The Chinese discovered that every child is an enormous contribution in terms of the creative potential it is adding to the world population.
Take another example. Between 1989 and 1991, when the Cold War finally came to an end, and German unification could occur, the West, despite warnings from Pope John Paul II, that there were “structures of sin” in both East and West, the neo-cons in the Anglosphere became triumphant, claiming that they had won the Cold War. They began the establishment of a unipolar world order, of “regime change,” “color revolutions,” interventionist wars, bringing us to the present crisis.
But at the same time, Lyndon LaRouche and our international movement, developed a counter plan, the “Productive Triangle,” which was the idea to connect Paris-Berlin-Vienna, an area of the size of Japan, through injections of modern technologies from this region, and bring that into “development corridors,” into the Comecon, into Poland, Warsaw, Kyiv, Moscow and the Balkans. In 1991, we extended that to become the “World Land-Bridge.” We organized for that, I would say, a hundred seminars and conferences. In 2013, President Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan announced the New Silk Road to be the policy of China.
Since then, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which reflects these ideas, has become what is clearly in the process of becoming the World Land-Bridge. Therefore, the ideas going in the direction of world development, clearly have won out.
Still another example. On the 3rd of January, 2001, Lyndon LaRouche made a prophetic prediction, saying that the incoming Bush administration would be confronted with so many problems in the financial sector that they would go for a “New Reichstag Fire.” Exactly nine months later, on 9/11, the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred. It was the beginning of what would become a U.S. police state and the effort to have global dominance and a unipolar world.
If you look at it now, 23 years later, in Southwest Asia, where the U.S. had made many interventions—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc.—U.S. influence is crumbling.
Look at the situation in Africa. In France I think people are extremely aware that colonialist policies are being kicked out.
What are the options for Europe in this situation? We are experiencing “tectonic,” I would say even “intergalactic” changes, where most people are not aware of what that means in terms of changes!
For France, there is clearly the possibility for a “Gaullist” impulse. I think France, in the next period, could make an initiative to leave NATO’s integrated command, like de Gaulle did, and could join the BRICS. Even Germany, which looks like it’s completely in the pocket of the Anglosphere right now, can change dramatically. The German economy is in a free fall. The most important auto firm of Germany, VW, is closing plants, even in Germany! Now, that has resulted in the complete collapse of support for the present coalition government. Eighty-four percent of the people in Germany are discontented with this government.
Now, just joining the BRICS is not enough. I think we have to make a mental jump to think about a completely new paradigm in international relations. We need a new security and development architecture which takes into account the security interest of every country on the planet, exactly as it happened with the Peace of Westphalia (1648).
We have to think about what the role of Europe will be. European sovereign nations in the coming world order will exist in a world dominated by Asia, which will be dominated very clearly by the “Global South,” the “Global Majority.” So Europe will not any longer be run by arrogant people sitting on a high horse; people who assert that Europe is a garden and the rest of the world is a jungle and that we have to make sure that the “jungle” does not disturb our beautiful garden.
No, we have to think entirely differently. We have to think about the identity of Europe in helping every place on the planet to become a garden. That means, concretely: We should use our scientific and industrial potential, to help to create two to three billion productive jobs in the Global South. Can we do that?
Sergei Glazyev, a very important, maybe the most important Russian economist, said in a beautiful message for Lyndon LaRouche’s 100th birthday, that those countries that follow Lyn’s economic, scientific method, are successful. And those that don’t, fail.
Maybe the European nations, because of the deep degeneration of our culture, will be the last ones on the planet to get it. But I think that if we courageously intervene in this situation, and “follow the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche” and Jacques Cheminade, we can do it.
