Creating a Common Future For Mankind and a Renaissance of Classical Culture

Press Release: Schiller Institute International Conference, June 25-26, 2016, Berlin, Germany

The Schiller Institute’s international two-day conference gathered more than 300 guests from 24 nations and four continents for an intense and profound dialogue on how to stop the immediate danger of world war, by creating instead a new paradigm of global cooperation and development, based on a dialogue of civilizations and the unique creativity of mankind. Conference participants were very highly alerted to the escalation of western geopolitical confrontation against Russia and China and the danger of thermonuclear war, and passed a resolution calling for an immediate end of sanctions against Russia and Syria. To end the war and to reconstruct war-torn Syria and the greater region of Southwest Asia, was a key focus of the conference, during which Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, member of the presidency of Syria, addressed the conference audience and engaged in a moving Q&A via live stream (video available here: http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/conference-berlin-2016-june-25-26).

Conference participants were also invited to attend a “Musical Dialogue of Cultures,” which was organized jointly by NICE e.V. and Schiller-Institut e.V. as a public, free-admission concert in a community church. The Camerata Geminiani, the international chorus of the Schiller Institute, and others performed classical European music in the Verdi tuning, along with choirs presenting folk songs from Russia, Ukraine, and China, before an excited audience of close to 500 guests and 150 musicians. It became clear, that only by creating a new paradigm of mankind, a renaissance of beauty, based on the sharing and promoting of each civilization’s high points of their respective cultures, can humanity be saved from the abyss.

Conference panels

The first conference panel of five, “The strategic crisis is more dangerous than at the height of the Cold War,” was addressed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute; Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Col. (ret.) Alain Corvez, former advisor to the French Defense and Interior Ministries; Lt. Col. (ret.) Ulrich Scholz, former fighter pilot, NATO planner and lecturer on air warfare; and by American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche.

Speaking on the second panel, “The crisis of the transatlantic financial system and how to overcome it,” were Jacques Cheminade, candidate in the French presidential elections; Marco Zanni, head of the M5S delegation in the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament; Daisuke Kotegawa (Canon Institute Japan and former representative of Japan to the IMF); and Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, former Greek ambassador to Poland, Canada, and Armenia, and former Secretary General of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC).

The third panel, “The new paradigm represented by the `One Belt–One Road’ Policy,” heard Dr. Ren Lin, Researcher on the One Belt, One Road Policy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in China; H. E. Hamid Sidig, ambassador and extraordinary representative of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to Germany; and Egbert Drews, board member of Marwiko AG/Berlin.

Sunday’s deliberations continued the “Silk Road–New Paradigm” panel, with a strong emphasis on Syria and the need to end geopolitical confrontation and foreign-funded terrorism, and to create peace and prosperity in the region. After hearing her prepared video speech on the situation in Syria, the audience had the extraordinary opportunity to engage in a moving 30-minute live video dialogue with H. E. Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban from the Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic, who asked everybody to bring about a new paradigm of creative human development (“an intellectual Silk Road”) instead of war and destruction.

Michel Raimbaud (former French Ambassador to Arab, African, and Latin American countries and former director of the French Office of Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, OFPRA) had opened the panel with a passionate plea to rebuild peace in accordance with international law —in Syria and everywhere else. Hussein Askary, EIR Arabic editor, presented a video on the reconstruction of Aleppo in the context of the New Silk Road, followed by a discussion from Prof. Talal Moualla, board of trustees, The Syria Trust for Development, and Executive Director of “Syrian Cultural Heritage Transformation” project, Ministry of Culture in Syria. The panel was concluded by Bereket Simon, chairman of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and advisor to the Prime Minister, and by a video message from Fouad Al-Ghaffari, chairman of the Advisory Office for Coordination with the BRICS from the war-torn Republic of Yemen.

Speaking on the fourth panel, “The frontiers of science: the new economic platform based on a fusion economy and man’s future in space,” were Adeline Djeutie, formerly employed with the IAEA and now an independent consultant from Vienna; Alain Gachet, chairman of Radar Technologies International; and Rainer Sandau, technical director of Satellites and Space Applications of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). After a classical musical introduction, violinist Gian Marco Sanna, founder and artistic director of The Geminiani Project/London, contributed a discussion on the importance of the scientific musical tuning of A=432 Hz (“Verdi tuning”), which the Schiller Institue has promoted for decades. Hussein Askary presented the “Elephant Clock” as an example of the beauty of the Islamic Renaissance and its connection to the ancient Silk Road. The panelists then joined with Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and Lyndon LaRouche for the concluding general discussion on how to secure a global collaboration for the common aims of mankind, by focusing on bringing forward the principle of creativity in each human individual, as the only way to stop the present mortal danger for civilization.

For more, contact: Mrs. Leona Meyer-Kasai, Schiller-Institute Berlin, konferenz2016@schiller-institut.de