THIS conference turns the spotlight on the key question of our time, namely how can humanity, in all its diversity, achieve balanced coexistence? 

In a context of war, militarisation and increasingly bitter bloc confrontation with the potential to escalate into a third world war, this question is of existential importance.

I speak to you today as a member of Parliament from the left-wing opposition in a country that is a warring party in the Ukraine conflict. 

Germany is not only taking part in the West’s unprecedented economic war against Russia, but Germany is also participating in the US-led proxy war against Russia on Ukrainian soil by supplying heavy arms, training Ukrainian troops and providing intelligence support. 

Because of massive pressure from the US, the German government decided to send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine. 

This is an extremely dangerous escalation and paves the way for sending Germany directly into the line of fire.

Until just now, supplying heavy battle tanks was considered absolutely taboo and had been a red line for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In this context, it is extremely worrying how the war propaganda in Germany is picking up speed. 

Immediately after the federal government’s decision to deliver heavy battle tanks, there are now calls for the delivery of fighter jets. In this logic of military escalation, the delivery of fighter jets is followed by the delivery of warships, ballistic missiles and, in the end, our own troops. 

In order to stop the war in Ukraine and prevent an escalation towards a third world war, we urgently need diplomatic initiatives.

The absence of military and economic force is also the prerequisite for a global balance, for a just world order, for social and environmental development. The war in Ukraine has set humanity back several years, if not decades, on this path. 

My thesis comprises three parts. 

Firstly, the proxy war in Ukraine is indicative of an attempt by the United States to preserve its absolute global predominance in the twilight of a unipolar age. 

An elementary part of this strategy has been the US quest since the end of the cold war to prevent the creation of a common security system in Europe that includes Russia. 

The resultant war is therefore partly due to the inability of Europe and the EU, because of the political rule of a comprador bourgeoisie, to cast off their dependence on the United States and to pursue a sovereign policy attuned to the interests of their own population, a policy aimed at peace, stability and prosperity. 

I would like to make it clear that Russia’s attack on Ukraine constitutes an illegal war that can be justified neither by the Western violations of international law nor by Nato breaking its promises, made after the end of the cold war, not to expand to the borders of Russia.

There is, however, a history behind the war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is the direct consequence of Nato’s eastward expansion after the end of the cold war. 

Following the end of the bloc confrontation, instead of helping to build a Common European Home in the spirit of the 1990 Charter of Paris, the West driven by the hubris of belief in its own superiority at the “end of history” proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama, systematically drove Russia into a corner. 

As more or less servile vassals of the United States, the EU member states have been unable to find a diplomatic solution that would prevent a military escalation of the Ukraine conflict. 

Even after February 24 2022, when the Russian attacks began, the West scuppered a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine. The withdrawal of the West’s support for the very promising negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul at the end of March 2022 has resulted in more than 200,000 dead and wounded military personnel on both sides, 40,000 civilian deaths and millions of refugees. 

Second, the war against Russia, which is being waged primarily on the economic front, is also an inwardly targeted social assault. In Europe, the senseless economic war is tantamount to economic self-amputation and is conducive to a shift in the balance of power within the Western alliance in favour of the United States, which is also being accompanied by a massive bottom-up redistribution of wealth within Nato countries. 

While the West is clearly failing to achieve its declared aim of bankrupting Russia, the economic war is having a boomerang effect, especially in Europe, where low earners despair of meeting the rocketing cost of energy and food because of the economic sanctions and energy companies are reaping billions in windfall profits. 

Employees in Germany have suffered a 4.7 per cent drop in real incomes, the largest real wage slump in the history of the Federal Republic. 

One in four businesses is planning job cuts in the wake of spiralling energy prices, entire industries are facing ruin or intend to relocate their production facilities to other countries. 

What is more, the United States is trying, through investment programmes worth several hundred billion dollars, to squeeze extra profits out of the disastrous situation at the expense of the EU. 

Thirdly, in the hegemonic conflict with Russia, the West is holding the countries of the global South hostage and so is increasingly isolating itself. 

Rising food and energy prices, the spread of hunger and poverty and the stifling of economic development in the already vulnerable parts of this world are the devastating collateral damage of the Western economic war against Russia. 

Because of the EU sanctions, exports of Russian fertilisers fell by 15 per cent last year. According to UN data, last year’s global grain harvest had already declined by 2.4 per cent, which was due to a fertiliser shortage. 

While accusing Russia of weaponising hunger, the West is still undermining the promise made to Russia as part of the UN-brokered grain deal that sanction-based restrictions on food and fertilisers would be lifted, in full awareness that this will lead to millions more people in the global South dying of starvation. 

In the Western media the clear North-South divide concerning the war on Ukraine is often overlooked. Fewer than 40 of the 193 UN member states have imposed sanctions on Russia, while fewer than 30 have pledged military assistance for Ukraine. 

On the contrary, large countries like China and India are currently intensifying their economic relations with Russia.

The rejection by the global South of participation in the economic sanctions against Russia is not without reason. It testifies to the painful experience that many countries have undergone because of the dire consequences of Western sanctions policies. 

Since they are designed to bring poverty, destitution and death to the civilian population, economic sanctions are always an inherently violent course of action. 

For decades, the West, besides resorting to military invasions, has used sanctions, such as in the case of the inhuman blockade imposed on Cuba, to bring about regime change and to subjugate countries that had been using their democratic sovereignty for their own autonomous development, free from neocolonial exploitation. 

The self-assured responses to the failed isolation strategy of the West are also a reflection of tectonic shifts in the global power structure. The relative decline of the West and its leading power, the United States, has been accompanied by the meteoric economic development of ascendent powers, especially of China. 

Given the neocolonial domination of much of the global South, such developments are a thorn in the flesh for the West. It was not without reason that US President Joe Biden described China as the arch-enemy of the United States. 

What is at stake in the systemic rivalry proclaimed by the West between “democracies” and “autocracies” is quite simply the defence of its own hegemonic primacy. 

The accompanying Western policy of expansion and confrontation, as illustrated by the militarisation of the Indo-Pacific region, has huge escalation potential.

On January 24, the hands of the Doomsday Clock, a metaphor that represents how close humanity is to self-destruction, were edged closer than ever towards midnight by the risk of nuclear war and advancing climate change. How can a way out of the present existentially threatening situation be found?

In view of the horrific impact of the war in Ukraine on the people there and in very many other parts of the world and given the real danger of nuclear war, ending that conflict must take priority. 

The wise and forward-pointing calls made by many countries of the global South for a ceasefire and for a diplomatic solution that will bring an early end to the war are in tune with the fervent wish of most of the population in Western countries for peace, security and stability. 

This common interest must be harnessed to bring forth a peaceful solution and for the time thereafter.

Unlikely though it may now seem, peace and security are possible in the long term, but only with a European security structure to supersede the Nato policy of confrontation and arms accumulation. 

Achievement of this goal depends on Europe freeing itself from US domination and pursuing its own independent, sovereign foreign and security policy. 

To the countries of the South, the current trend towards a multipolar world order offers a great opportunity. In particular, the economic and geopolitical weight of international groupings such as the Brics bloc of countries, which are home to 40 per cent of the global population, or the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, but also of anti-hegemonic regional organisations such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states and the African Union could potentially enable these bodies to renegotiate international economic relationships and restore democratic sovereignty. 

In a world marred by war, neocolonial exploitation, growing inequality and environmental destruction, the common task of progressive forces in the West, as in the South, is to reflect on new fairer multilateral alternatives for global equilibrium in place of neoliberal globalisation and to make them a reality.

Another world is possible — we are not abandoning hope.