Belgium's Political Buzz

Ah, here I thought I left the political bugs at home, but alas, they followed me. It seems I'm getting sucked into finding out what exactly is Belgium's problem with regard to the rumblings of separation...sound familiar, Canada?

I normally would go about my happy ignorant way, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. I'm seeing the Belgian flag hanging from many more windows than even a week ago, and its not in celebration of a national holiday or a swelling of national pride brought on by a winning sports team. It had to be much more than that...

So I ask the other expats that we've made friends with, and to a person, they refer me to the weekly news mag called "The Bulletin": "Oh, you must subscribe, its the only non-partisan English-only left-leaning news/entertainment/welcome book/classified ads source in the country...and anyway, there's no unified broadcaster or paper in this country; they're all language and region divided". Ah...my first hint to the struggles.

What else has an unemployed academic got to do, than read? I got my hands on a recent (week old) copy of The Bulletin aptly titled "Will Belgium Split?" It seems the editors of this and the other newspapers in this country all agree divorce is mighty likely. Here's the background...

The history of this country is easy enough to look up, but essentially, this has often been occupied land, fought over regularly, and only recently made into a nation...the result is that this is a country of two languages: Flemmish (a dialect of Dutch) in Flanders--the north, and French in Walloonia, or the south, with Brussels as the capital city and the seat of the EU government smack dab in the middle, playing both sets of language cards and further dividing into 10 regions (called communes) that are technically bilingual, but each prefering one language over the other (equally divided into 5 each). Flanders speaks also English, and as a result, is actually more powerful economically since they have found their niche in IT and the lucrative world of Global electronic communication. The south is much poorer with mainly agriculture as its base of prosperity. This means that for the most densely populated country in Europe, the "transfer taxes" mainly flow from north to south, and little else in the complementary direction. Flanders feels a bit put upon and has for decades. The only thing that's kept the marriage a happy one is the desire for a shared union, plus the south's cheese, wine, and lush weekly markets.

Now to the present: there was an election this spring, and as I understand it, it was a contested one, with the compromises of language representation (and representative powers shifting in favour of Flanders) in the house of government unable to be resolved, and rendering this a leaderless government...this is just the tip of the iceburg, but essentially the gist of it. Lots of rumblings in the Flemmish parliament house for separation, as they say Belgium as a nation is a terminal patient in need of euthanasia. Mixed communities (such as in Turveren, to the south and East of Brussels, but just on the border of the flemish/french divide) are in hot debate that has turned personal and nasty: community puppet shows in French have been denied public performance permits; shopkeepers have taken down french signs...neighbours feel unwelcome as customers in certain stores, and the infractions continue. I found out from reading the Globe and Mail that the flag waving is a protest to this nonsense and is to show solidarity and pro-national pride. Its very pretty, and in my neigbourhood, gaining rapidly in popularity.

So I'll get a subscription to The Bulletin to keep abreast of the situation. The metaphor of a divorce is all over the place, and the jokes about it are receiving fewer and fewer laughs or even smiles from people, so the thoughts are that this is now a serious possibility...The divide would be easy, but everyone agrees to the connundrum, "What shall they do with Brussels?"