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BELGIUM
Chocolate, Saxophones and Secrets
By Jheri St.James
The Kingdom of Belgium is a
country of 30,518 sq. km. in Western Europe bordered by the
Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg,
France and the North Sea. Belgium is at a cultural crossroads
between Germanic Europe and Romance Europe. It is also the
geographical crossroads of Western Europe. The majority of
Western European capitals lie within 1,000 km. of Brussels.
Belgium is one of Europe’s true melting pots with Celtic,
Roman and Germanic cultures having made an imprint and, later
on in history, French, Dutch, Spanish and Austrian influences.
During most of its history, Belgium has been part of the
Low Countries (including the Netherlands and Luxembourg),
and like the Netherlands, constructs “polders”—areas
of land close to or below sea level that have been reclaimed
from the sea, from which they are protected by dikes or,
further inland, fields that have been drained by canals.
Belgium is sometimes called “the heart of Europe”. This is not only
because of its geographical location, but also due to many international institutions,
such as NATO and the European Union, having their headquarters in Brussels. This
in its turn is because it has an excellent transportation system, a modern and
toll-free road system, is connected to the European railway system, and Antwerp
is the second largest European port. Belgium was a founding member of the United
Nations in 1945 and a founding member of NATO in 1950. It also helped establish
the European Economic Community (EEC), which was to become part of the European
Community (EC) with headquarters in Brussels.
The economy in Belgium greatly depends on imports
and exports. Food products, machinery, rough diamonds, petroleum and petroleum
products, chemicals, clothing
and accessories, and textiles are the main imports, and the principal exports
are automobiles, food products, iron and steel, diamonds, textiles, plastics,
petroleum
products and nonferrous metals. Its most importan trading partners are Germany,
the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the U.S., and Spain. Trade
in Belgium is affiliated
with that in Luxembourg, because these two countries created a customs and currency
union in 1922. Belgium strongly supports deepening the powers of the EU to integrate
European economies. Belgium was one of the first countries to adopt the euro,
the single European currency, in January 1999 and the Belgian franc was completely
replaced by euro coins and banknotes in early 2002.
Historically, the population of Belgium (10.2 million) has three distinct ethnic
communities—Fleming, Walloon and German—and three official languages,
one for each community—Dutch, French and German. But in addition there
are many minority groups who speak according to their ethnic identity—Jews,
Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Turks and Moroccans. Within each of those communities,
language use varies widely, with parts of each community maintaining their language
of origin over generations, other parts moving towards the language of the city
of residence. More than 98 percent of the adult population is literate. Belgium’s
educational system is the second most intensive in Europe, after the UK’s.
Education is required from the age of 6 until the age of 18, but most Belgian
students keep on studying until the age of 23.
Belgium is well known for art, architecture, beer (450+ brands), food and chocolate.
Brands of Belgian chocolate—Neuhaus, Cote d’Or, Leonidas, Godiva—are
world-renowned and widely distributed. Mary’s chocolate company supplies
the royal court. When one goes on www.google.com and types in “Belgium
Chocolate”, no less than 769,000 sites appear. Culinary tours, cooking
schools, resorts, clubs and chocolate fountains are just a few of the affiliated
enterprises.
Chocolate has had a reputation as an aphrodisiac for over 1500 years, originating
in both the Aztec and Mayan cultures. Montezuma drank fifty golden goblets of
chocolate a day to enhance his sexual prowess. Christopher Columbus brought chocolate
to Europe in the 16th century, but nobody enjoyed it until the 17th century.
Disagreements over the ingredients in chocolate plays an unexpectedly large part
in the formation of the European Union, with some countries using only cocoa
butter and others shea nut and palm oils. In 1996, Directive 73/241/EEC was revised
allowing the addition of up to 5% of vegetable oils other than cocoa butter in
the production of chocolate, providing the addition is clearly labeled. This
important directive affects all EU chocolate producers. The purist countries,
such as Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, Germany, Greece and Italy
do not use cocoa butter substitutes and the directive means that cheaper chocolate
products will circulate freely in the EU, lowering prices and purity. These countries
argue that the vegetable fat products should not even be called chocolate. Great
Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Finland and Sweden benefit from
this directive, as the substitute fat products used in their products will be
sold more easily. The directive also affects the exporters of cocoa beans—Cameroon,
Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria—with potentially severe job losses.
Who would suspect that the little bits of brown in a cookie would have such tremendous
global financial importance? But the Aztecs prized the beans so highly, they
used them as currency—100 beans bought a turkey or a slave—and tribute
or taxes were paid in coca beans to Aztec emperors. At that time it was called
xocolatl, and Montezuma said, “The divine drink, which builds up resistance
and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a
whole day without food.” Today the U.S. and Canada are the world’s
largest consumers of chocolate, bringing the divine drink full circle back to
the Americas. Surprisingly, the Quaker sect held a virtual monopoly for centuries
of chocolate making in the English-speaking world—Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree
are probably the best known names.
Belgium boasts a variety of famous artists: Peter Paul Rubens, Rene Magritte,
Jan van Eyck, Breughel, Memling, Ensor, Delvaux. Magritte and Delvaux were two
major surrealistic artists. Hergé, the creator of the comic strip reporter
Tintin is the world famous and most widely known cartoon artist in Belgium. Many
great French authors sought refuge in Belgium. Victor Horta is a well known architect,
one of the originators of Art Nouveau architecture, which had a major impact
upon 20th century buildings all over the world.
The saxophone was invented by Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax in 1840 in the Belgian
city of Dinant. The saxophone was subsequently played in Berlioz’ Chant
Sacre and many other operas. It replaced oboe, bassoons and French horns in military
bands, and was heard in Wagner’s Tannhauser. The first saxophone was built
in the U.S. in 1885 and in 1901 Claude Debussy composed for saxophone, as did
Richard Strauss, Charles Ives, Bela Bartok, Mussorgsky/Ravel in Pictures at an
Exhibition, George Gershwin and Puccini. Stan Getz, John Coltrane, and many other
jazz musicians have become prolific saxophone players.
Two Views of Dinant, Birthplace of the Saxophone
Between
World War I and World War II the center of occult and mystical
activity in Western Europe was shifted from France
to Belgium, which became the main center for many esoteric
brotherhoods and secret societies. The website www.google.com
produced only 124,000 sites for research on this cryptic
topic, 645,000 less than chocolate. But for our readers who
might be interested, Freemasonry seems to be the umbrella name,
with
Knights Templar, Meritorious Order of the Rosy Cross, The
Illuminati, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Bildenburg
Group,
and the Vatican Secret Archives as other organizations
implicated
in secretive world-control activities in Belgium.
All
Belgium’s activities, above and under ground, take
place in relationship to the ground, the soil. The earth
is the platform upon which the Kingdom of
Belgium, its castles, people and many diverse activities evolved. Cocoa
beans need soil in which to grow. Artists take their colors
from elements in soil.
The metals used for the production of saxophones are products of Gaia,
Mother Earth. It is no secret that Common Ground 191’s
soil collectors in Belgium were members of the M. Michou
Brutsaert family, who live in
Brussels,
but we
have been unable to contact them successfully for the details of their
story so that remains a mystery. Belgium is found at the fulcrum of
Western Europe.
Its soil is unique in the world. We add it to our peace project with
respect and gratitude, envisioning the spread of peace over the entire
planet, like
melted chocolate, sweet, soothing and invigorating.
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