St. Maarten Minister Plenipotentiary Rene Violenus addressed students and other attendees during his speech at The Hague University of Applied Sciences on Friday, December 15.
THE HAGUE--Beware of quick conclusions and opinions, urged St. Maarten Minister Plenipotentiary Rene Violenus last week during his speech at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, on Kingdom Day. Here, several speakers shared their insights on education in the Kingdom, which was the theme of the event.
Kingdom Day is the commemoration of the signing of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands on December 15, 1954, in Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands and St. Maarten.
Violenus told the audience about an incident that took place on St. Maarten shortly after Hurricane Irma. Two members of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee went to a store and spoke to the staff members there about corruption. One Marechaussee said he had been told he could only go to the gas station owned by the brother of then-Prime Minister William Marlin.
“The workers were surprised. They knew about the big family of the prime minister, but none of the brothers owned a gas station. The staff members explained that the owner of the gas station might have the same last name, but was not related to him,” said Violenus. In reality, the Marechaussee had to go to that specific gas station because it was the only one that had the right diesel fuel for the Dutch military vehicles.
“How often would these Marechaussees have spread false information? How many other people repeated their story and damaged the reputation of St. Maarten?”
That is why Violenus urged the students and other attendees to be mindful of jumping to conclusions. Don’t let one story determine your opinion – do your own research and consider different perspectives, he said. Violenus argued that this is an important condition for a stable Kingdom.
