An Invitation from
Helga Zepp-LaRouche
to the
Schiller Institute Conference
September, 200
7

When the Comecon and the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in 1989-91, Lyndon LaRouche and the Schiller Institute proposed an economic reconstruction plan, first for Europe, and then for Eurasia. In 1989, we put forward the program for the so-called "Productive Triangle: Paris-Berlin-Vienna," and in 1991, the program for the infrastructural and economic integration of Eurasia, known as the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which we elaborated at many conferences and seminars on all continents.

It is precisely this idea, to tie together the whole world with a system of development corridors, which is now on the verge of coming into being! In April of this year, there occurred a conference organized by the Russian government and the Academy of Sciences, whose theme was the speedy construction of a transportation link from Siberia to Alaska, by means of a 6,000 kilometer railroad and a 100 km tunnel under the Bering Strait. Lyndon LaRouche and the former governor of Alaska, Walter Hickel, were the two prominent Americans, who pointed to the peace-promoting potential of these projects in their conference speeches.

Thus the world stands at the threshold of setting up a worldwide network of high-speed rail, such as Transrapid maglev lines for passenger and freight transport. The fulcrum and pivot-point for this global network is this tunnel from Uelen in Siberia to Cape Prince of Waltes in Alaska, which will link Eurasia with the Americas. This network must in turn extend across Europe and Southwest Asia to Africa. The development of the territory between Kazakstan and Northern Russia, and Alaska, is essential for this, since only with the help of nuclear technologies--fission and fusion--will it be possible to meet the requirements of the populous regions of South and Central Asia.

The construction of this connection between Siberia and Alaska would have enormous economic significance: It would make possible the development of Siberia's gigantic raw materials resources, for the benefit of the whole world. It would make large parts of Alaska and Canada habitable. It would mean a dramatic boost in production in many areas: conventional and high-speed rail, the Isotope Economy, production and work under permafrost conditions, etc. The project in itself could become the motor for a worldwide industrial revolution. Once the system were completed, one would be able to travel faster by train or Transrapid, for example, from Acapulco, across the Bering Strait, to Mumbai, than is now possible by ship!

But also many other portions of our original programs for the Eurasian Land-Bridge are now either being built or are in an active phase of planning: a tunnel from the South Korean city of Busan to Japan; the construction of railroad lines from South and North Korea to Russia and China; a 1,400 kilometer development corridor from New Delhi to Mumbai; a corridor from India across Myanmar to China. A 1,100 kilometer Transrapid line along the Persian Gulf coast is being planned. And the infrastructural development of Latin America is also being placed on the agenda.

All these projects for the real economy constitute an urgently necessary counterpole to the decrepit condition of the global financial system, whose systemic crisis is continuously taking on more worrisome dimensions. But only when we succeed in bringing together the four nations of Russia, China, India, and a United States transformed from within, in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt, can a way out of the crisis be found. The world needs a New Bretton Woods System and a New Deal--this time, for the whole world!

The reconstruction of the world economy on all five continents must be placed on the agenda as a matter of war-avoidance strategy. This means a global development policy, which serves the common aims of mankind. It is also urgently necessary to bring to Europe the pioneering spirit which reigns in many parts of Asia and Latin America. Although from the standpoint of the development of mankind it is certainly beautiful, that the Transrapid or the high-temperature reactor are being built in China, it is all the more absurd, that in the birthplace of these technologies, namely Germany, they are no longer anywhere to be found. We have an investment gap of about 1.7 billion euros for infrastructure, and while east-west traffic is threatened by a an infarction on the Autobahns, Denmark wants to finance a bridge over the Fehmarn itself--and Germany is blocking the project.

The paradigm of a post-industrial service society must absolutely be tossed out, and we must once again find a positive attitude toward scientific and technological development. For Germany and Europe as a whole, the future lies in Asia.

Therefore, we must replace the globalization of an interlinked non-culture, with a new Renaissance of Classical European culture and of the high periods of other cultures in science and art; only then can we succeed in initiating a new, positive period of human history. Some of the most promising news in this respect, is the scientific and cultural work of the international LaRouche Youth Movement, which has conducted formidable study of the Classics, especially in connection with Kepler, Gauss, Bach, Lessing, Moses Mendelssohn, and Schiller--to name just a few. In these young people, to whom the future belongs, lies the chance to create a new paradigm, which will be much more appropriate for mankind than the present popular culture.

We are confronted today by the question, whether mankind can so organize itself, that our survival is guaranteed for the long term. Is the project for global infrastructure development economically feasible at the present time? Is it politically possible to achieve it? The answer in both cases is emphatically, "Yes." It is possible and it is also urgently necessary.

Today, with mankind equally close to the abyss of a threatened plunge into a new dark age and a possible global asymmetric war, and to the beginning of a new worldwide economic miracle and a new Renaissance, it is essential to discuss and push through a positive agenda. Therefore, at this two-day conference, the speakers from various continents will speak to these themes. The goal of the conference is to take an important step toward making possible a clear understanding of the economic and political realization of this perspective. You are cordially invited to attend.

Proposed Denmark Maglev Route

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