More than 700 years after the founding of the Old Swiss Confederacy on the Rütli mountain meadow near Lake Lucerne, from 15 to 16 June 2024, the original idea of a mediating Switzerland was laid to rest, so to speak, at the same lake. We are talking about the peace conference farce on the Bürgenstock mountain. The Ukrainian President Zelensky, who was no longer the legitimate President, was able to dictate to Switzerland and its Foreign Minister Cassis the main condition of an absurd conference: no Russian participation. (See the article by Andreas Flörsheimer on p.29)
On the rt.de podcast, Rainer Rupp provided an analysis of the outcome of the Western peace farce, which is worth watching.1
Even if the Swiss and Western mainstream media were full of praise – Swiss State Secretary Alexander Fasel even blathered on about Switzerland’s entry into the history books of the future as a ‘significant player, recognised on all sides’ (Weltwoche, 26/24).
Rupp’s analysis also reported on the other peace initiative, which the uninvited President Putin launched one day before the Bürgenstock Conference. It forms a striking contrast to Zelensky’s absurd 10-point programme, which treats Russia as if it had lost the war. Putin’s proposals were relatively moderate: no NATO membership (in contrast to possible EU membership), the cession of the four Russian-speaking provinces that have already become de facto Russian, Moscow’s renunciation of Odessa, etc.
Particular emphasis was placed on the sabotage by which, on 9 April 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at the behest of Washington (see the article by Andreas Bracher on p. 8f.), ruined the peace negotiations in Istanbul, which were already nearing completion.
NATO, once again, immediately rejected Putin’s proposals outright.
A few weeks earlier, the NATO headquarters had been relocated to Wiesbaden, the capital of the US occupation of Germany. With this move, Germany became even more a particular target for the Russian defence forces, which are permanently and systematically threatened by NATO.
Conditions for inner development
The Bürgenstock farce nevertheless provides an opportunity to consider real peace conditions for once. These are rooted in the inner development that every human being can accomplish for himself. In his book on self-development, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? How Is It Achieved? Rudolf Steiner characterises seven stages of such self-development. They encompass the seven aspects of the human being’s full nature and require:
1. physical and spiritual health, 2. a feeling of unity with life as a whole, 3. an awareness of the objective meaning of the life of the soul, 4. the view of the I as the true spiritual core of the human being.
This briefly outlines the first four conditions of inner development.
They are also fundamental for all external conditions of peace. Their non-fulfilment must turn all such external conditions of peace into a theatre of empty and mendacious phrases. This, at any rate, was shown by the Bürgenstock Conference.
“Evil is now the dominant power in the Western world,” Paul Craig Roberts has said.2 This is precisely why inner development is indispensable, everywhere in the world.
T.H. Meyer
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1 https://de.rt.com/meinung/210658-russland-zeigt-instrumente/
2 Uncut-News, 28 June 2024.