You can’t go to The Netherlands and not go to The Hague in my opinion. I was curious about the UN’s International Court of Justice in the Peace Palace, it was on my list of places to visit. The main motivator was again all those History classes. I needed to see the Hague for myself, I too had had dreams about working for the UN (as a translator), it all seems like a lifetime ago.
The first thing that I noticed was the World Peace Flame. It had 7 flames from 5 continents and it was indeed still burning behind that glass case. Around the flame was a rock garden which had 197 stones from the 197 countries that were recognized by the UN at the time. The stones represented the geology from the donor country. I was pleasantly surprised to note that donor number 197 was my beloved Zimbabwe and our contribution to the rock garden looked like granite. I can’t be sure because my knowledge of the different types of rocks indigenous to Zimbabwe vanished after high school Geography.
What struck me about the significance of the World Peace Flame, was that all 197 countries stood for World Peace, but looking at the list of countries, I couldn’t say for sure that they were all peaceful countries or that people there lived in peace. Of course I haven’t visited all 197 countries but if so many countries in the world stood for peace and had gathered together in a place recognized for peace, then surely the world would be a more peaceful place and it would have started in these 197 countries and had a domino effect? I didn’t find the peace I went looking for, instead I walked away with the same questions I had in every class that mentioned the role of the UN… How have they created World Peace? Is their role symbolic? A nice to have in our History classes? Or have they started the conversations of World Peace and we all have an individual responsibility in our daily lives to do our bit and to promote peace? I don’t know, I am still searching for Peace…
