Conference Report Panel 3: Redefining the Notion of Security as Human Progress

From France, Jacques Cheminade, President of the Solidarité et Progrès party, oopened the third panel of the conference, by presenting the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which brought an end to 150 years of wars and atrocities in Europe, as a necessary inspiration for securing a durable peace order on the planet today. The Westphalian peace was achieved by a change in the thinking of the time, applying agapē (love expressed as creative, redemptive goodwill towards all men) to create the required higher order of relations between states and human beings, he argued. The first of the three core principles of Westphalia—that each party shall seek to secure the benefit of the other – is the antithesis of geopolitics! The second, the agreement to a perpetual pardon of all atrocities committed in the past, exemplifies humanity’s capacity to envision and then create a future freed from the self-destructiveness of the past. Out of its third principle, that of reversing the economic ruin to which all had been reduced, including by moratoriums on odious debts, came new schools of economic thought which held that government is responsible for fostering economic improvement through scientific and technological development. These principles based on love are not utopian, he warned; they are the path to peace.

The other three speakers on the panel all contributed, from their own experience, to enriching the discussion. Diogène Senny, president of the Pan-African League, who expressed Africans’ determination to liberate the continent from geopolitics and participate in bringing about a new global order in which the right of people to energy, food and water is secured. Caleb Maupin, the young American founder of the Center for Political Innovation, described the economic breakdown in the United States today, which has hit a majority of American families, who are unfortunately unaware of the progress taking place elsewhere in the world. He enthusiastically recommended people read the writings of Lyndon LaRouche, a great “visionary” and source of inspiration for all.

Finally, farm leader Mike Callicrate from the U.S. took on the food crisis created by a world system characterized by cartels and ever-tighter concentration of wealth which is ruining farmers, the immigrant laborers mistreated in their processing plants, and consumers alike.

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