With over 3,000 delegates representing 120 nations at the just-concluded Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting, and the subsequent convening of the Group of 77 nations in the same host city immediately thereafter, it can be said that the majority of the world’s population has been involved in deliberations convened by world leaders—not in Davos, Switzerland, but in Kampala, Uganda. “My, how the world has changed, “ said Alice-in-Switzerland. “It turns out that Henry Kissinger was wrong—history is made in the South. “
Yes, the January 15-19 Davos Conference, misnamed the “World Economic Forum,” had 3,000 participants and 120 nations—but so did the conference of the Non-Aligned Movement. Real, physical economic power, is shifting, globally, minute by minute. Russia, China, and India know this, as does the entire African continent, with its 54 nations. Today, 55% of humanity, 4 billion people, live in urban areas. None of the 10 biggest cities in the world is in Europe or the United States, and Tokyo’s population is almost larger than the whole of Canada. The entire Anglosphere, rural and urban, makes up no more than 1.5 billion people, less than 40% of the world’s urban-based population, and is only about 20%, or less, of humanity.
By 2050—one generation from now—cities will be home to 68%, well over two-thirds, of the nearly 10 billion people that will live on the planet. Some 2.5 billion people will live in Africa, equivalent to the size of the whole world population in 1950. And while the NATO military-financial “Delian League” may still seem dominant, the way ahead for humanity was expressed in a question posed by Non-Aligned Movement meeting host, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni: “I wonder why global economic actors fail to understand that the prosperity of the entire world population benefits everyone, instead opting for policies that keep the majority in poverty.” Population wars, such as the NATO/Russia war in Ukraine, and the present Gaza ethnic cleansing, are the greatest destruction of life, and therefore wealth, imaginable.
The 47-article Non-Aligned Movement’s Kampala Declaration “strongly condemns the illegal Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip, the indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians, civilian objects, the forced displacement of the Palestinian population and further calls for an immediate and durable humanitarian ceasefire.” The Non-Aligned Movement conference also noted favorably the actions of the South African government, in its Jan.11 appeal to the International Court of Justice to halt the genocide in Gaza. Two hundred American Congressmen also took note, negatively, and denounced South Africa for their initiative. But Slovenia, Spain, and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have supported South Africa outright. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reacted strongly to Germany’s supporting of Israel at the ICJ, and its denunciation of South Africa. “As for the Middle East, the Olaf Scholz Government could have refrained from taking this initiative, considering not only domestic politics, but also the outrage the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza has been causing around the world, especially in the countries of the Global South. We have already heard officials condemn this flawed approach at the highest level. President of Namibia Hage Geingob called on Germany not to take any actions on this extremely sensitive issue, since Germany itself has yet to undo the damage caused by the crimes against humanity it perpetrated in Africa. This refers to what happened in 1904-1908 when the German South West African administration exterminated tens of thousands of people belonging to Herero and Nama ethnic groups.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights’ Jan. 10 statement on South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel for genocide read, in part: “We expect the International Court of Justice to find that South Africa’s comprehensive application detailing Israel’s genocidal actions meets the standards to issue provisional measures for Israel to end the military assault on Gaza and desist from killing, forcibly displacing, and denying basic necessities of life for Palestinians in Gaza—in effect, ordering measures to stop an unfolding genocide….”
Note that this Friday, Jan. 26, “the Center for Constitutional Rights will be in U.S. federal court in our own case suing President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Austin for their failure to prevent—and complicity in—the genocide…. It is time for the United States to stop its selective support for international law and instead comply with its own obligations to prevent and punish genocide in all cases.
“On January 26, a federal court in Oakland will hear the case we brought on behalf of Palestinian human rights groups and individuals. Any findings by the ICJ against Israel will have implications for other State parties—including the U.S.—who have failed to prevent or have been complicit in the genocide, which the Genocide Convention prohibits….”
This is, of course, what the world must do now. There are 25,000 dead in Gaza, and another 580,000 who can/will die as the effect of the de-urbanization and destruction of Gaza City and Gaza in general, in the attempt to bomb one of the most densely populated areas on Earth back to the Stone Age. We must stop this, by a show of international solidarity: Humanity for Peace and Development. The fight that is showing up among members of the agricultural sector through Europe—the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France, Spain, to name the most recent cases—has recruited health workers, truckers, small businesses, that is, non-farm sectors, to see that “your fight is my fight,” and that fighting in solidarity is the way to win.
In the case of the United States, there is the interesting example of the UAW—whose name is not the “United Auto Workers,” but the “International Union, Auto, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers,” and which has been strongly supportive of an end to the conflict in Gaza. On Dec. 1, 2023 UAW representative Brandon Mancilla was quoted in the London Guardian, saying “that the UAW international has joined the call for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. From opposing fascism in WWII to mobilizing against apartheid South Africa and the Contra war, the UAW has consistently stood for justice across the globe. A labor movement that fights for social and economic justice for all workers must always stand against war and for peace.
“Our international executive board will also be forming a divestment and just transition working group to study the history of Israel and Palestine, our union’s economic ties to the conflict, and explore how we can have a just transition for U.S. workers from war to peace.” The UAW has a Divestment and Just Transition Committee, whose task was described by The Nation as to “examine the size, scope and the impact of the U.S. military industrial complex that employs thousands of UAW members and dominates the global arms trade.” Mancilla told them that the committee will “think about what it would mean to actually have a just transition, what used to be called ‘peace conversion’ of folks who work in the weapons and defense industry into something else.”
But time is not on our side. When the 2024 “Doomsday Clock” was unveiled today, it was still at 90 seconds to midnight. Former California Governor Jerry Brown, now executive chair of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said, “As though on the Titanic, leaders are steering the world toward catastrophe—more nuclear bombs, vast carbon emissions, dangerous pathogens and artificial intelligence. Only the big powers like China, America, and Russia can pull us back. Despite deep antagonisms, they must co-operate—or we are doomed.” What are you, what are we, required and prepared to do?
Recent “Swords Into Plowshares” work by the Schiller Institute, has already done much of the heavy lifting on this matter. In her December intervention, “Swords Into Plowshares: A Christmas Message in Time of War,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, “The main difficulty lies in the fact that much of the economic capacities in the United States, and a growing share of those in Europe, have been taken over by the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), and are so closely entwined with the big investment firms and asset management companies of Wall Street and the City of London, that a better term is the military-industrial-financial complex (MIFC).…
“Technically speaking, it would be relatively easy to re-tool these capacities for civilian purposes, and rather than producing bombers, fighter jets, and missiles, to produce modern high-speed rail systems, inherently safe nuclear reactors of the 4th generation, and nuclear fusion reactors, as well as space stations for international space travel. In other words, all the industrial capacity currently used for the destruction of actual physical value—what else are weapons systems good for?—could serve the production of useful goods that promote the common good. Instead of tanks and ammunition, they could produce schools and hospitals, and help our nations to have prosperous economies once again!”
This is the physical economy of the new strategic and development architecture. It requires a new diplomacy as well. In an address to the Vatican papal diplomatic corps in 2016, Pope Francis said, “It is not enough to point the finger or attack those who do not think like us. That is a wretched tactic in today’s political and cultural wars, but it cannot be the method of the Church. Our gaze must be extensive and deep. The formation of consciences is our first duty of love, and this requires delicacy and perseverance in its implementation.”
The first step in that formation of conscience is to face this truth—the first sentence of Zepp-LaRouche’s “Message in Time of War”: “No one will be able to claim, as historians said of World War I, that we sleepwalked into World War III.” We are not “eyeless in Gaza.” We know, and are accountable to all of history, for what we cause the world to do, or not do, now.
