Brussels

Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the current legislative capital of Belgium and the former capital of the Belgian Colonial Empire. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium, and the Flemish community. Brussels is also the de facto capital of the European union and hosts the headquarters of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). The region has a population of 1.2 million and a metropolitan area with a population of over 1.8 million, the largest in Belgium.

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Quotes

If God gives me a long life and allows me to carry out my task, then Brussels will become a city of exceptional category.
- Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 ISBN 9789463962094

I am generous and about to make a multi-million dollar sacrifice to beautify my capital. It will cost me three to four years of wages, but I wish my life here on earth to leave many traces.
- Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 ISBN 9789463962094 Leopold II in 1865 when accending to the throne.

I will instruct the minister of war to strengthen the Gendarmerie in Brussels, to recognize the addresses and customs of the demagogues and to try to find out what is coming up, I am told that the demonstrations which are only intended as intimidation and as preparation in an unguarded moment are able to turn into something else, once they have everyone on the street they will attack the government, what measure have you taken to face such a surprise attack? Do the regiments have been ordered to march on their own accord to the Rue de la Loi and the Boulvard, where in the summer it is more difficult to summon soldiers, will they be more satisfied now, working in the open air is now impossible, if I were you I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to summon them, the responsibility is too great, you are not protected from an incident, and you will have to face a formidable riot, all yours leopold.
- Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 ISBN 9789463962094 Leopold II in a letter to his prime minister, warning him for possible insurrections, as the Belgian Socialist Party demands the Universal right to vote for all workers.

We can say that in terms of town planning - before the letter - he was a precursor. If there is an area where its reputation is guaranteed to survive for a long time to come, this is it. Belgium found itself since the end of his reign at the forefront of architectural movements and we can still see today in the Brussels landscape, and almost everywhere in the country, the mark of the king-builder.
- Pierre Vercauteren: A king unjustly maligned. (Page 16) English historian, Barbara Emerson. Op. Cit. p 269.
The Palace of Justice in Brussels lies like a cyclops above the city, building a court of justice above a city, that is really something special.
- Histories - Hitler in Belgium, Part 1- The humiliation. (2 Part documentary about Hitlers victory tour in Belgium on July 1, 1940.) Hitler was a Big fan of Leopold II's architect Joseph Poelaert, so much so that Hitler will send his own Architect Albert speer who at that moment is in charcge of the embellishment works of Berlin to Brussels later that year to make a study of the Palace of Justice of Brussels.

If there is some way to hasten the introduction of civilization to the only part of the world where it has not entered and to interest the public in the matter. I would be flattered if Brussels became the headquarters of this humanitarian and scientific movement which, if it succeeded in developing, would mark the end of the century with a good deed.
- Inculturation of Christian marriage in the Belgian Congo. 1919-1950. The Policy Making of the Mission Superiors on Polygamy; their directives to the missionaries and influence on the policy of the State. (Betty Eggermont) CHAPTER 3. THE COLONIZING GOVERNMENT. Leopold II To his brother Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, ut supra.

Few areas of the national life of those Western European countries failed to benefit from the decades of parasitic exploitation of the colonies. One Nigerian, after visiting Brussels in 1960, wrote: “I saw for myself the massive palaces, museums and other public buildings paid for by Congo ivory and rubber.” In recent times, African writers and researchers have also been amazed to find the amount of looted African treasure stacked away in the British Museum; and there are comparable if somewhat smaller collections of African art in Paris, Berlin, and New York. Those are some of the things which, in addition to monetary wealth, help to define the metropoles as developed and “civilized.”
- Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 186

The key to defusing the Burundian time bomb therefore lies both in Bujumbura and in Kigali. And a little bit in Brussels, where some key figures of the opposition to Petero Nkurunziza and his party have withdrawn. Our country could also play a role in this, by mediating and building bridges. After all, the confidence in 'the Belgians' still remains with many Burundian top figures, despite some harsh words in recent months.
- Towards a new genocide in Burundi? - Peter Verlinden

In my hippie days, Brussels to me was a site of magical and mystical activities. I used to go there for meditation at the Zen dojo near Halle Gate or the Tibetan centre in the Capouillet Street, to particpate in the meetings of the neo-theosophical World Teacher Trust, to read and buy books in the esoteric bookshop Le Lotus in the borough of Elsene (more spiritual than its counterpart downtown, General Occult), or to attend the 1983 New Age fair "The world we choose". Kind of Kathmandu.
- Dr. Elst, K. North-Atlantic Brussels (2009)

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