PRESS RELEASE
An Open Letter to German President Steinmeier from Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Nov. 4, 2017 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche wrote an open letter to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Nov. 4 (titled "The Number of Refugees Worldwide Has Reached 66 million: Our Planet’s Next 50 Years") prompted by the speech that he had given two days earlier at the Singapore Management University. On that occasion, he mentioned a lecture series that six universities in Singapore are co-organizing called "Imagining the Next 50 Years," and then remarked:
"I think that’s a bold approach—and it’s something that we in Germany should do more often. We should look through a telescope into the future, rather than just looking at the very next day, the next annual balance sheet, or the next election."
Her letter is posted to the website of the political party she heads in Germany, the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität, BüSo).
Helga Zepp-LaRouche welcomed that part of his statement:
"To hear that from you is a breath of fresh air, and one can only hope that it is strong enough to blow over to the negotiations for a government coalition in Berlin.
"Given your Singapore speech, I would like to send you the book my husband wrote in 2004, Earth’s Next Fifty Years. In this book, he anticipated the entire, currently visible shift of the strategic dynamic to Eurasia and defined the higher level of thinking, on which the peaceful cooperation of mankind can take place. This book is moreover very popular in many Asian countries."
Zepp-LaRouche reported in her letter the alarming figures given by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Nov. 2. From 2009 to today, the number of displaced persons has grown from 42 million to nearly 66 million.
The crucial question, Zepp-LaRouche writes, is how to find a "humanist solution to the refugee problem and establish peace." Addressing Steinmeier directly, she situates that this is a personal challenge for him, "as former Foreign Minister and current President of a major country."
On the same occasion in Singapore, Steinmeier recognized that "many people look at the European Union or the United States and say:
’Well, this doesn’t look very harmonious.’ And many people look at China and see stability and economic growth— without a movement towards greater political freedom. So China poses a challenge to the West—not only an economic and geopolitical challenge, but also an ideological challenge."
The part on the challenge is true, Zepp-LaRouche commented, but not for the reasons generally believed in the West. In fact, China’s model of development has produced amazing results worldwide, and the Chinese just might be "politically more free than most people in the West are," while the EU has so far refused to examine why it has created such a lack of harmony.
The President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani stated in remarks before the Tunisian Parliament on Oct. 30 that Europe should invest EU40 billion in Africa instead of the €3.7 billion now allotted in the EU budget, in order to launch an effective Marshall Plan. Zepp-LaRouche welcomed such an initiative, but cautioned that if such a plan were only designed to counter China’s influence in Africa, it is doomed to fail, "Because ‘New Silk Road spirit’ is contagious, while insisting on bureaucratic rules that only cover up for the geopolitical intentions behind them, is not."
The ideological challenge posed by China, Zepp-LaRouche went on, involves "recognizing that the emphasis on the general welfare perhaps represents just as high a value as individual freedom," and that "must not pose a contradiction if one thinks like Friedrich Schiller, that freedom lies in necessity."
She concludes with a recommendation to Frank-Walter Steinmeier, that he accept and welcome China’s offer of cooperation on the New Silk Road.
