Belgium

June 2008

From the Brussels airport one can take a train into the city.

A modern industrialized country, Belgium is also a modern paradox.  It is headquarters not only to the European Commission, the administrative branch of the European Union but also to the imperialist organization NATO that bombed and invaded the former Yugoslavia in 1998.

Our hotel across from the Sacred Heart Cathedral and a wonderful park full of joggers and Belgian citizens enjoying recreation.

Sacred Heart Cathedral.  We went up to the top which offers wonderful views of the city from this central location.

The huge park in front of the Cathedral where I went jogging each morning.

My friend and colleague, Nalin Jayasuriya, a businessman from Sri Lanka and a supporter of the Institute On World Problems and the World Constitution and Parliament Association.  We are in front of the “Atomium” built in the early 1950s for the World’s Fair.

View of the surrounding park from one of the windows of the Atomium.

Our purpose in Belgium was to meet with Margot Wasserstrom, Vice-President of the European Commission.  We are here in her offices in the European Commission building in Brussels.  We discussed the Earth Constitution with her and the possibilities it offers for a just and redeemed world order.  She suggested we present a seminar on the hope that this offers for the world to members of the European Parliament.

That evening, Margot kindly invited us to dinner near her home.  To her right is her son and her son’s girl friend who joined us at the restaurant.   Perhaps there is hope here within the center of the old colonial empires for the birth of a new world of democracy, justice, and prosperity for all citizens on Earth.