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The Hague Quotes

Browse 11 quotes about The Hague.

The Hague Quotes

“Attempts to locate oneself within history are as natural, and as absurd, as attempts to locate oneself within astronomy. On the day that I was born, 13 April 1949, nineteen senior Nazi officials were convicted at Nuremberg, including Hitler's former envoy to the Vatican, Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, who was found guilty of planning aggression against Czechoslovakia and committing atrocities against the Jewish people. On the same day, the State of Israel celebrated its first Passover seder and the United Nations, still meeting in those days at Flushing Meadow in Queens, voted to consider the Jewish state's application for membership. In Damascus, eleven newspapers were closed by the regime of General Hosni Zayim. In America, the National Committee on Alcoholism announced an upcoming 'A-Day' under the non-uplifting slogan: 'You can drink—help the alcoholic who can't.' ('Can't'?) The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in favor of Britain in the Corfu Channel dispute with Albania. At the UN, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko denounced the newly formed NATO alliance as a tool for aggression against the USSR. The rising Chinese Communists, under a man then known to Western readership as Mao Tze-Tung, announced a limited willingness to bargain with the still-existing Chinese government in a city then known to the outside world as 'Peiping.' All this was unknown to me as I nuzzled my mother's breast for the first time, and would certainly have happened in just the same way if I had not been born at all, or even conceived. One of the newspaper astrologists for that day addressed those whose birthday it was: There are powerful rays from the planet Mars, the war god, in your horoscope for your coming year, and this always means a chance to battle if you want to take it up. Try to avoid such disturbances where women relatives or friends are concerned, because the outlook for victory upon your part in such circumstances is rather dark. If you must fight, pick a man! Sage counsel no doubt, which I wish I had imbibed with that same maternal lactation, but impartially offered also to the many people born on that day who were also destined to die on it.”

WarHistoryUnited StatesBirthIsraelChinaAlcoholAstronomyNewspapersCommunismBritainCensorshipMarsGodsUnited NationsDiplomacyAstrologyAlcoholismProhibitionNatoHitlerJewsMaoNazisBreastfeedingUssrBeijingAntisemitismBirthdaysCzechoslovakiaHoroscopesNurembergAlbaniaVaticanThe HagueCorfuDamascusPassover SederInternational Court Of JusticeCommunist Party Of ChinaAndrei GromykoCorfu Channel IncidentErnst Von WeizsackerFlushing MeadowsFlushing QueensHosni Zayim
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“One would expect Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, who is said to have studied history, to know better and act better, but he too rejects all advice and criticism and runs around obliviously in a coach plastered with pictures of his grandmother abusing her captives, including women and children. You might imagine the bigoted Donald Trump to be riding a coach like that in a mock presidential parade in his dreams, but certainly not a twenty first century Dutch royal. I wonder if he ever considered how their Calvinist pomposity affected the psyche of black and white children.”

RacismSlaveryBigotryDutchDonald TrumpThe NetherlandsThe HagueDutch MonarchyWilhelminaGolden Coach
Book:Roses in the Rainbow
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