The contrast between the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Kampala, Uganda, is emblematic of the divergent impulses in the world today.
On the one side, there is a growing confidence and dedication among the nations of the “Global South” to extend affluence to all, under a paradigm of shared benefit. On the other side there is a crazed devotion to hegemonism, to winner-take-all thinking, to seeing another’s gain as one’s own loss.
The conflict between these two orientations—brought into ever sharper relief by the growing potential of financial crisis—must find resolution. Will that resolution be one of warfare, from which the human species might never recover? Or will those who currently see their self- and national identity in domination recognize that only through shared development is future security sustainable?
China and Russia understand that there can be no resolution to the Red Sea situation without addressing the Gaza crisis, while the Anglo-Americans, addicted to long-distance strikes, seem to think they can bomb the Houthis into submission. (Maybe they should ask Saudi Arabia how well that approach worked for them…)
On Friday, Jan. 26, at 1 p.m. local time, the International Court of Justice will deliver its decision concerning South Africa’s request for the institution of provisional measures against Israel under the Genocide Convention. Although Israel is the legal defendant, it is fair to say that the Court itself is on trial.
A statement issued from the International LaRouche Youth Movement following a Jan. 20 meeting with Helga Zepp-LaRouche statement says, in part:
Helga Zepp-LaRouche noted that, “According to Friedrich Schiller, the great German Poet of Freedom, after whom the Schiller Institute is named, there is no contradiction between being a patriot of your own country and thinking and acting as a world-citizen.”
We young women and men––from Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Tanzania, Germany, France, Nicaragua, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, El Salvador, Bangladesh, the U.S.A. and several other countries––affirm this elevated conception of patriotism, and recognize that it must be at the core of any substantial development towards international peace, in Southwest Asia and around the world.
Patriotism and world-citizenry combine in the dual invocation of both Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in South Africa’s application. South Africa did not take up its suit as merely an “exceptional” country ready to use its “forces” in order to “police” its cousin Israel. Rather, in the spirit of 1776, South Africa raised its voice as one sovereign nation among many. In the redemptive dimension of its particular history, South Africa represents the species-characteristic capacity of the whole of humanity: the capacity for progressive perfection through moral, cultural and economic development.
Having the sublime courage not to deny its own history of legalized injustice, and accepting the heavy responsibility of its accession to the 1948 Genocide Convention, South Africa has swiftly demonstrated to the world, through the universality of its individual intention, how One can become Many and Many become One; in so doing, South Africa has triumphed over the “logic” of permanent war, through the power of Reason and agapic Love.
By beating swords into plowshares, the Earth can become a garden!
