Friday July 18, 11am ET/5pm CET - Zoom
International Peace Coalition #111 - We Are at a Punctum Saliens
Please mobilize your organizations. Join on Zoom
We encourage all members of the human race who wish to have true peace join us with Prof. Richard Falk and reports from organizers around the world this Friday at 11am EDT/5pm CET. Send reports and initiatives for the agenda ASAP.
On July 12, hundreds of people—peace activists, former government and military officials, economists, students, musicians, teachers, and concerned citizens from many continents—gathered in Berlin, Germany, with many more hundreds from around the world participating online, for day one of the Schiller Institute conference, “Man Is Not a Wolf to Man: For a New Paradigm in International Relations!” In her keynote speech to that conference, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche outlined both the historic process that has brought us to this point of crisis and the necessary solutions, placing both within the context Friedrich Schiller’s concept of the punctum saliens in history:
“We have gathered here because we want to show a way out of a highly threatening strategic situation and counteract widespread pessimism—indeed, fatalism. It is indeed possible to intervene in history, provided one has a good plan and can mobilize sufficient forces to implement it! I would therefore like to preface our conference with this quote from Friedrich Schiller’s work on The History of the Revolt of the Netherlands:
“‘Great and comforting is the thought that, despite the defiant presumptions of princely power, there is still a remedy available, that their most calculated plans will be brought to shame by human freedom, that hearty resistance can bend even the outstretched arm of a despot, that heroic perseverance can finally exhaust his terrible resources.’ Let us give a ‘new and irrefutable example of what people can dare to do for a good cause and what they can achieve through unity.’
“To do this, however, we must first wake our contemporaries from their apparent sleepwalking, into which they seem to have fallen, especially here in Germany. The world has never been closer to a point of no return, to a potential end point in history where the final catastrophe of a global nuclear war becomes inevitable.
“In many of his works, Friedrich Schiller used the term punctum saliens, which in drama and history describes the moment when everything starts moving inexorably. In his Fourth Letter on Don Carlos, he writes: ‘Every action has its punctum saliens, where it leaps from possibility into reality.’ In relation to history, we can pinpoint these points of no return—when, for example, it was too late to prevent World War I or World War II. In relation to the immediate future, however, manifold uncertainties cloud this insight—when it becomes certain that a third, and this time final, global war, this time a nuclear war, will break out, it will be too late. Humanity, and with it our history, will be wiped out.”
Coming just days after the July 6-7 BRICS summit Brazil, at which representatives of the majority of humankind gathered to discuss and make agreements for win-win cooperation for security and development and to move the world out of the neocolonial era, the Schiller Institute conference is a part of the same historic process and is an indispensable part of that dialogue. During the first panel, “Cooperation between the BRICS and Europe To Implement the Oasis Plan and the Agenda 2063 for Africa,” Zepp-LaRouche announced a forthcoming Schiller Institute report, prepared in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies, on “how Europe, together with China and other BRICS countries, can support the countries of Africa and Southwest Asia in particular through joint ventures in this development. We have initially focused on the three key countries, Germany, France, and Italy, with the other countries to follow, in order to show that such cooperation not only helps Africa and the Middle East, but that these joint ventures can also become the driving force for overcoming the deep economic crisis in which Europe’s economy currently finds itself. Instead of pouring trillions of euros into rearmament, which destroys productive capacity from the point of view of the real economy, we should join forces with China to invest in areas that have always been at the forefront of successful industrialization.”
Such concrete alternatives to the current disastrous direction of policy in the West must gain such overwhelming support that we can “bend even the outstretched arm of a despot” before it is too late.
It is not hard to imagine where the world will certainly end up otherwise.
Dr. Naledi Pandor speaking at the Schiller Institute Conference this past Saturday, put on the table an incredible responsibility for us all, with an important call to action honoring the late Nelson Mandela’s birthday this Friday, July 18. Dr. Pandor said:
“I wish to remind all delegates present in the meeting that the 18th of July is Nelson Mandela International Day. It is the day on which Nelson Mandela asked each one of us to devote one hour to doing something for another person or a needy community. So, I hope all of you have plans for the 18th of July, when you will honor the request of the late President Nelson Mandela, who asked only this one thing of all of us human beings.
“Allow me to begin by thanking Dr. Zepp-LaRouche and the team at the Schiller Institute for inviting me to participate in this very important Berlin Conference. I regret that I am unable to be physically present, as I am currently in the United States of America. I believe this Berlin meeting is extremely important. For Africans, as you would know, the concept of a Berlin Conference can be a frightening reminder of our colonial past and the 19th Century role Berlin played in sanctioning colonialism.
“I therefore applaud the Schiller Institute for bringing the voice of freedom, justice, peace, and security to Berlin. And I hope that Berlin will take the lead in creating world conditions in the globe that are a counterweight to the current hostile environment that has been created by the most powerful in the world.
“The Schiller Institute has taken on the very important task of generating fresh and informed conversations about our world today. All of you present here are aware that we are at or near the tipping point as a global community; particularly with respect to the possible eruption of an unmanageable global conflict and global war; or indeed, a trade war that will cause immense harm, particularly to developing countries.
“The Institute’s initiative for building an International Peace Coalition is going to be an important contributor to the development of a new global partnership and a fresh approach to multilateralism. I wish to affirm that South Africa and many countries on the African continent firmly believe in a multipolar world. And we believe multilateralism is most appropriately supported through an efficient, effective, and reformed United Nations—particularly its Security Council, which has to play its role of ensuring peace and security.”
Join the International Peace Coalition this Friday at 11am EDT/5pm CET in honoring the late President Nelson Mandela’s birthday. We will be joined by Prof. Richard Falk and hear reports from organizers from around the world.
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