This article appears in the June 21, 2024 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Schiller Institute June 15-16 Conference
End the Nuclear War Threat,
Join The Global Majority!
[Print version of this article]
June 15, 2024 (EIRNS)—The international Schiller Institute’s two-day conference, “The World on the Brink: For a New Peace of Westphalia!” got underway June 15 at a time of extreme crisis, serving as a platform for not only reviewing the nature of the causes of the emergency, but deliberating on the statements of principles for solutions. The two-day event was organized into four panels, with 23 speakers from 11 countries, and with participation in the question-and-answer sessions from many nations around the world. The video of the entire event is posted on the Schiller Institute site.
The opening point raised in the conference invitation was addressed head-on in the first panel: “The collective West’s attempt to assert the global dominance of the neoliberal system after the end of the Cold War has been a resounding failure.” Many different aspects of this were discussed, in particular, the incompetence of Western leaders, their lack of diplomacy, and the fact that last week’s elections for European Parliament represented a resounding rejection of the current leading office-holders throughout the EU. The title of Panel 1 was “Europe after the European Elections.”
‘Why Are We on the Verge of World War III?’
Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who gave the keynote address, spoke gravely of the present danger, asking, “Why are we on the verge of World War III?” She cited glaring evidence of this, from the recent Ukraine-based strikes on two of Russia’s ten nuclear early-warning radar facilities, and other stark events. But in fact, she stressed, “We are at an end of an epoch,” referring to the end of colonialism and neo-colonialism, which have served as a brake on humanity since 1500, and we should be moving ahead. We need a new system, and the good news—blacked out by the Western media—is that, “a new world system is in the process of being built.” She referred to past fundamental, positive shifts promoted by great figures, Germany’s Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and Friedrich List (1789-1846), and China’s Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940). Zepp-LaRouche concluded her keynote remarks, saying, “Let us join the Global Majority.”
The other panelists, from the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Belarus, and Russia, all concurred on the urgency to act on today’s crises, and had differing points of information and emphasis. Former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman, a U.S.-China scholar, led off his remarks simply, “Someone must speak out for peace.”
Two spokespersons from Belarus added to what voices for peace have been saying for years from Eurasia. Dr. Olga Lazorkina, Chairwoman of the Foreign Policy Department of the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research (BISR), spoke of nations “finding common ground,” since we live on one planet. There are as of 2023, some 183 regional conflicts in the world, she said. We must act on alternatives. On the vast Eurasian continent, there are “alternative mechanisms for global economic” development, active regionally, such as the Eurasian Economic Union, which builds upon “friendship and continuity.” Her Belarusian colleague, Vitaly Romanovsky, Chief Adviser of the Foreign Policy Department of BISR, specifically reviewed the role of Belarus in recent years’ peace efforts over Ukraine.
The four speakers on Panel 1 with military backgrounds and associations were very hard-hitting. Col. (ret.) Alain Corvez of France, former advisor to the French Ministry of the Interior, cited Nietzsche to make his point that leading figures in the West are demented. They are in the domain of nihilism, capable of no rational thought. The U.S. is a hegemon failing to recognize that it has lost dominance. Therefore, looking for diplomacy to come from them is a dangerous temptation. Corvez concurred with the conference theme on mobilizing at large for a Peace of Westphalia approach. His compatriot from France, Caroline Galactéros, a political scientist, and colonel in the reserves, called for France to “de-align” from the U.S. and its war-making, and join forces with those promoting stabilization and security. We should “save whatever remains of Ukraine.”
From Switzerland, Lt. (ret.) Col. Robert Bosshard gave military details on how “we are in a global stalemate” when it comes to entrenched, terrible situations, as in Ukraine and Gaza. This can, and must be, shifted.
From Germany, Rainer Rupp, military-intelligence expert, who worked directly in NATO from 1977 to 1993, in relation to their periodic simulated nuclear drills called “Wintex” (Winter Exercises), made very clear the mindset he saw firsthand, of U.S., British, and other NATO leaders giving no regard at all to the mass casualties at stake within the Europe they claimed to be protecting.
‘Mock Peace of Westphalia II?’
The prospect of a positive outcome to today’s crisis was a theme picked up by the speaker from Russia, Georgy Toloraya, Director, Center for Asian Strategy, Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He gave a brief report on the major speech made June 14 by Russian President Vladimir Putin to top Foreign Ministry leaders, on proposals for Eurasian and global security. This involves the “Global South” and “Global East,” and new configurations in motion such as the BRICS. This past week the BRICS foreign ministers of the original five nations and the four new member nations—Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates—met together for the first time in Nizhny Novgorod, looking toward what may be “a new stage of action” to benefit the whole world.
Zepp-LaRouche recommended during the panel discussion period that we seek out other settings and institutions in which to discuss prospects and principles for ending the crisis. What about at think tanks from all five continents? Or on the level of universities? There is an extreme lack of dialogue, and the NATO narrative is designed to be stifling, blocking any contrary thought and action.
She put this on an individual level. Each person should have a vision for himself or herself of what the world should be, and what each one of us can do for that, and make of our lives. “War is an outcome of a deep cultural crisis” in the West. Zepp-LaRouche sees the present period of the coming three to six months as the most dangerous time in history. We need to create a process of dialogue where the best of humanity everywhere is inspired and enlisted to act. The Schiller Institute and the International Peace Coalition are dedicated to that.
The Global Majority
Panel 2, titled, “The Development Aspirations of the Global Majority,s” featured six speakers, who represented South America, Europe, and Palestine in Southwest Asia. The stage was set by a video excerpt from Lyndon LaRouche speaking 20 years ago at a conference in Germany, May 4, 2001, addressing economic development, in which he focused on “looking at the possibility of what we can do in Eurasia, and at the needs of Africa.” He presented the idea of development corridors “from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” radiating in all directions, years before the September 13, 2013 launch by Chinese President Xi Jinping of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The first panel as well, led off with a video from LaRouche, in Virginia on February 20, 2005, warning that there must be a new, world economic and security framework organized. He spoke of “the decline and fall of U.S. leadership” 1971 to 2005, citing George Shultz, Paul Volcker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others.
On Panel 2, from South America former President of Guyana Donald Ramotar presented a picture of the economic exploitation, for decades, of his and other nations. Look just at food in the Caribbean nations, where they must spend $4 billion a year on food imports. This all must change, and the rise of the BRICS nations is critical to that. Henry Baldelomar, Professor of International Affairs at Nur University in Santa Cruz, Bolivia said, “We are now at a crossroads of development for a new order.” The old ECLAC model (UN Economic Commission for Latin America) is too limited for the challenges of real development. Baldelomar spoke of such projects as the new bi-oceanic rail corridor through South America, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
In counterpoint to the perspective of growth, reports from Europe presented the picture of needless economic and social breakdown, resulting from destructive policies. Folker Hellmeyer, Chief Economist at Netfonds AG in Germany, spoke in a pre-taped interview conducted by Zepp-LaRouche, titled, “Quo Vadis, Germany?” He addressed such fundamental problems as the lack of energy and its unaffordability, the harm to imports and exports from sanctions, and much more. Hungarian expert Prof. Dr. László Ungvári, President (emeritus) of the Wildau University of Technology, spoke of how disappointed he is in Europe, with its degraded politicians in power, and lost young people.
Italian economist and China expert Michele Geraci, former Undersecretary of State, Italian Ministry of Economic Development, elaborated on what “win-win” relations among nations would mean for their mutual economic development. He said, “Your prosperity and my prosperity are integral to each other.”
From Copenhagen, Palestine Ambassador to Denmark Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian began his presentation on the need for Palestinian statehood, by laying out the “LaRouche concept” of development in the Oasis Plan. With a perspective of water, power, and all other infrastructure to be made available, there is a basis for the future.
The reports and dialogue on this panel were a concrete expression of creative reaction to problems, which came about as if in response to the music which opened the panel. A video was shown of American bass-baritone William Warfield (1920-2002), singing “Die beiden Grenadiere” (The Two Grenadiers), a musical setting by Robert Schumann to a poem by Heinrich Heine. Instead of Heine’s pitiable scene of soldiers dragging themselves home from the Napoleonic wars, going to their graves, seeking some remembrance, we are now called to throw off the chains of imperialism and warfare, and make a world of life and hope.
Science, Culture, and Human Creativity
On day two of the conference, Panel 3 took up some of the exciting opportunities in the field of science that portend a positive future for mankind if brought into existence. Titled “The Implications of the Scientific Revolution Underway,” the panel featured four speakers from various fields of science around the world. Prof. Mark McMenamin, geologist, paleontologist, and professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, discussed new evidence on why complex life on Earth is likely much older than previously thought, likely going back to at least 1 billion years ago. Francois Mellet, Director of Operations at Stratek Global in South Africa, spoke next. Mellet discussed his firm’s work in developing and promoting nuclear power, particularly Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and High Temperature Modular Reactors (HTMRs), and the potential that nuclear power represents for the developing world and Global South. Prof. Sergey Pulinets of the Russian Academy of Sciences then presented some of his work on the science of earthquake prediction, and the importance of making new discoveries across the different fields of science which can give mankind new insights and mastery over the principles of nature.
The last speaker was Prof. Gennady Aksenov, also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who spoke on the importance of the 20th-Century giant of Russian-Ukrainian science, Vladimir Vernadsky. Introduced by the Schiller Institute’s Bill Jones, Aksenov illustrated how Vernadsky’s work has significant though as-yet-unrealized implications for how we understand science and the natural world, such as the origin of life in the universe. This also includes the role of cognition in the existence of human beings. All the presentations repeatedly came back to the question of what is “natural” in relation to science and human society’s effect on the world around us, challenging in various and polemical ways many popular notions about environmentalism and “equilibriums.”
The final panel, “The Richness of the Cultures of Humanity and the Coming Golden Renaissance,” was reserved for last for a reason. This panel took up the challenging subjects of Classical culture and human creativity, and what role these must play in resolving the crises the world is facing today. Moderator Megan Dobrodt opened the panel by posing the question: In the first three panels of this conference, we heard from many important people about the very real danger of a nuclear war; but at the same time, we also heard of the new, anti-colonial world order which is taking shape. “It is the tension between those two truths, you might say, those two systems, which cannot coexist, which hangs over all of our heads. The big question is: how to pull off a seeming miracle [and reverse course]? Now, the answer to that question is to be found in principle in the subject matter of this panel: The realm of great art.”
An excerpt was then played from a speech by Lyndon LaRouche, who spoke about the “weapon” of Classical culture, which helps to develop the powers of creativity in the mind of the individual, and without which people are “crippled” in being a force for progress in the world today. Next was a speech by Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité et Progrès in France, who spoke about “the culture of peace” and how we must recognize that the current “culture of war” is dragging our civilization toward doom. Harley Schlanger, long-time leader in the LaRouche movement, spoke next on the subject of how public opinion is manipulated as part of the current hybrid-warfare campaign run by today’s trans-Atlantic oligarchs, and at the same time how one defeats this by understanding the actual methods of discovering truth in one’s own mind.
The next speaker was Sophie Tanapura, founder of the Metropolitan Opera of Bangkok in Thailand. Tanapura spoke about her work in Thailand in spreading classical music, and how singing uniquely challenges people to access both their reason and emotion at the same time, which is where the powers of creativity come from. The final speaker was Karel Vereycken, painter-engraver, art historian, and member of the Schiller Institute in France. Vereycken spoke about why cooperation around the world’s cultural heritage is an important element for peace, as it helps people to discover in other cultures a different but still universal expression of humanity.
The panelists enjoyed a lively and exhilarating discussion period, leaving listeners with an optimism about how to go out and organize in the face of such extreme challenges as we face today. The conference should be viewed in its entirety to be fully appreciated, but it can be said without a doubt that it comes at exactly the right moment, and will play an important role in pointing toward the way forward in a world currently gripped by a crisis of epochal proportion.
