Webcast with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Thursday, September 26, 2024
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It’s Thursday, September 26, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host today. You can send questions and comments by email to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them to the chat page.
Helga, much of the world’s attention has been focussed these last days on the ongoing UN General Assembly meeting in New York City. The issue of war and peace is a central concern that’s being taken up, as the NATO war against Russia threatens to expand into World War III, and as Netanyahu and Israel are expanding their war into southern Lebanon with brutal results. Zelenskyy gave an unhinged speech to the UNGA yesterday, demanding more war aid and the freedom to attack Russia. Biden is under relentless pressure from London to give Ukraine the go-ahead to send missiles deep into Russian territory, and yesterday President Putin issued a revised nuclear doctrine. What changes did he make, and what are the implications of these changes?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the world is better waking up to where we are at. De facto, Putin has really made the red line so clear for everyone to see that if there would be even an attack from a country with only conventional weapons, but backed by a country which has nuclear weapons, and if there would be a massive air attack that would give Russia freely right, according to its new doctrine, to answer that with nuclear weapons. Now, that is very clearly referring to Ukraine, given the fact that various Russian spokesmen from Lavrov to Peskov and I think Putin himself have made very clear that all these Ukrainian attacks would not be possible without U.S. or NATO guidance, satellite support, data support, and then de facto NATO is practically on the verge of being at war with Russia already, and that if that additional step is taken, that Biden would capitulate to the demand that the United States give the go-ahead to Ukraine for the use of long-range missiles to strike deeply into Russia, then that condition is fulfilled. So, we are on the edge, and I can only say these Western commentators, like in Germany who are basically still saying Putin is “bluffing,” these people are so absolutely out of their minds that one can only say we are really in danger of being governed by madmen, and the media which are completely in the service of such madmen.
So the only answer at this point is a broad public discussion. The demonstrations which are planned for the next period, both in the United States but also in Germany in particular, they must be made a clear demonstration of the thinking of masses of people, at best, hundreds of thousands or millions of people, that they absolutely oppose this. And there must be finally the long-needed discussion of where we are at and why this present policy of trying to maintain “hegemony” when that hegemony is clearly already out of the window, that has to be reversed, and we have to put a completely different approach on the agenda, such as what we have been discussing for almost three years now: A new security and development architecture, which really must take a completely different approach, stop this geopolitical confrontation, and go into a mode of cooperation with the Global Majority of countries that are clearly moving in a different direction.
But if people are not listening to this alarm bell, it may be too late for all of humanity.
SCHLANGER: The other country that’s in the geopolitical targets of the West, and you just returned from a quick trip to there, what was your sense of being in China? I know you haven’t been there for a while. What’s the situation there?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I have not been there for a year, and the interesting thing is, every time you return to China, even if it’s only a year in the meantime, you are completely, positively shocked about the changes for improvement and betterment. The occasion why I traveled there, this time, was for International Peace Day on Sept. 21, and I participated in significant celebrations in Shandong province, in Jinan and Weifang. And this was a rather significant conference addressed by people from many, many countries who basically celebrated China’s contribution to a completely different approach.
Now, the remarkable thing is that China has clearly made the breakthrough of being the leading country in many, many faculties—I don’t have the exact number now, but it’s something like 65 areas, in which China is now leading in about 55. So, it’s long past the point where intellectual property has to be protected from China, because in the meantime, China is leading! So, China was the first country to have landed a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, now twice. They just returned a very successful mission, bringing materials back from the far side of the Moon—there has been nobody else before that. And similarly, we visited in this several-day celebration some of the high-tech firms where China is at the state-of-the-art in optics, in various new technologies; then also in robotics, in automated factories, in high-tech farms.
And I can only say, I first visited China in 1971, and I also went to the countryside. There was no mechanization there; people were really, extremely poor, practically on a Sub-Saharan level. And now, they have agriculture which is completely smart, it is integrated with all kinds digitization, and smart technologies. Absolutely nothing to be found like that in Europe or in the United States. And people are generally happy.
So the idea that China is only making that a propaganda, or selling a narrative—China is doing what they’re saying! They’re improving the lives of their own people, and the reason why the Chinese model is so much more attractive, is because they’re improving the lives of people around the world, especially in Africa, Asian countries, and that is expressed in a completely different attitude. Now, it is not that the West is competing with the narrative. The West is still thinking that it’s the question of the narrative, while China is doing it in reality and improving the lives of so many people. So the contrast could not be greater.
This Peace Day which was organized by the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Development was an absolute demonstration that a different model of cooperation is possible, and is the way to peace. And the idea of peace through development is a reality of what this new model really makes real for people to see.
SCHLANGER: We just got a message in from Bob van Hee; I believe he’s still an elected official in Minnesota, responding to what you said on Putin. He said: “Mr. Putin’s most recent statements concerning U.S. Involvement in supplying weapons to Ukraine, to me, it’s a perfect timing to wake up the work to the stupidity on the party of the so-called U.S. leadership.” He urges that a message be drafted to our elected officials, for people to make their voices heard to stop this insanity, and he said, if we draft such a message, “I and others will send it to our leaders in D.C., to stop the stupidity of being complicity with Ukraine’s involvement in attacking Russia.” So that’s from one supporter in Minnesota.
Helga, you mentioned the importance of the Global Majority as seen at the United Nations moving against the policies of the U.S. and NATO. There’s a question here from someone who said, “I hear you talk about the Global South, but the Global South is not really unified. It’s not powerful enough. How could they take on the City of London and NATO?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the Global South is a very diverse combination of countries. They are trying to create a new system. There will be the annual summit of the BRICS in Kazan, in Russia, on Oct. 22-24. And while I’m not privy to the plans which are being made for that summit, all signs are that you may have a major step forward in the effort to create a different payments system, a different credit system, that all the efforts to enhance the economic power of the Global South countries will be brought a big step forward.
Now, it could be a surprise, it could be a New Bretton Woods, which is mooted in an article by Pepe Escobar. I don’t have any facts to think that that will happen; it could happen. In any case, I think that the key question is that we have to convince the countries of the Global North, of the collective West, of previously, or still NATO, that they should cooperate: We cannot have a situation where the world is being divided into two new blocs, where you have NATO becoming “Global NATO,” with confrontation; the Middle East on the verge of a potential regional war that could go out of control; the situation in Ukraine absolutely on the verge of catastrophe; then more provocations in the Taiwan Straits, in the South China Sea. We have to get off this course of confrontation, or else, a mistake—the situation is so absolutely tense, that a slight human error, a technical failure, some series of mishaps, could end civilization! We are at that point.
So, I think it’s not the question of the Global South against the Global North. I think we have to absolutely come to the point, where we in the West have to say we will cooperate. You know, the BRICS countries are moving in the right direction. China is having, clearly, a completely different approach: They’re thinking about a long-term, harmonious development of all nations. They’re not trying to gain hegemony. I really have studied this for a half-century, and there is absolutely no way how China wants to replace the U.S. hegemon—that’s not their intention. And it would be very, very easy for the countries of the collective West to just say, “we will cooperate with that new system which is emerging,” because we have enough problems we have to solve together: overcoming poverty, underdevelopment, creating a health system for the whole world; make sure that every child has access to universal education. There are so many problems, which best would be solved together. And I think that that is the absolute step we have to take, and we have the choice: Do we want to have World War III, if we stick to this confrontation against China, Russia, and by implication the Global South? Or, do we go in the direction of thinking we can solve all problems together? And I think that that is a question where everybody, personally, is challenged to participate in creating the solution.
SCHLANGER: We have another question about the BRICS summit coming up from a supporter who works with African governments and non-governmental organizations. He said, he has two questions about the BRICS summit coming up on Oct. 22-24: “Is it possible that they would be ready to introduce a new currency, because I fear if they wait too long, the U.S. and the Brits will sabotage their initiative?” And secondly, he asks: “Will you be there or the Schiller Institute have representatives there? I think it’s important that the Schiller Institute be there to help shape the discussion.”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think that there are efforts to move in the direction of a new currency, but it’s not an easy question. I mean, just think about the mistakes which were made in the creation of the euro: Because you cannot put economies and countries of completely different levels of economic development into one, integrated economic and currency zone, without creating massive problems for those that are less developed. So this has to be very carefully crafted, and I know that there are some excellent economists, both in Russia and in China, putting a great amount of effort into this task.
So, I can only say, between moving too quickly and moving too slowly, I don’t think that the danger comes from that. The only danger is that forces in the West, like the British have demonstrated with Keir Starmer’s visit in Washington, that they’re trying to go for the military confrontation in order to compensate for the weakness in their economy; that the effort to dampen the new economic system will be in the military field, bringing us into World War III: That is the danger
