The Schiller Institute was again invited to address the Stockholm Palestine demo. It was a big demonstration, even surpassing last week’s 10,000 participants. The march went through the Stockholm City center to the parliament. The Schiller Institute’s Ulf Sandmark addressed the crowd, telling them about the initiative by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to bring together the International Peace Coalition with activists from peace organizations all over the world. “Aside from an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid,” Sandmark called for there to be “an entirely different demand brought up to create peace, something outside the box, something that can unify all peoples in the region—and that is economic development!” He then explained how 150 years of religious wars was brought to an end in Europe with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, with its key concept of the “benefit of the other.” That was a concept also deployed in the Oslo Accord of 1993, Sandmark explained.
“The Schiller Institute advocates a new security architecture.… We therefore support the proposal of China for a regional peace conference to ensure the security of all nations, but also for economic development. The role of China is decisive. With the Silk Road Project of China and the revolution of the Global South against colonialism, there are now entirely new opportunities to offer great common development projects for Peace in all of West Asia. With water and other infrastructure, the deserts can bloom together with education, science and culture.”
Sandmark ended with a call for the Swedish government “to again take up its tradition from the Peace of Westphalia and the Oslo Accord for peace in the Middle East.”
