The Independent: "Belgians yearn for one nation" (march of 1993)

Oude tekst, maar nog steeds van toepassing.

THE INDEPENDENT

Belgians yearn for one nation: Politicians accused of following 'uncertain path' of separatism

SARAH LAMBERT in Brussels

Monday, 26 April 1993

THOUSANDS of Belgians marched on Brussels yesterday in one of the largest demonstrations ever seen in the city. It was a protest against the division of their country and in celebration of a nation that some fear is in danger of disappearing.

'I live in Flanders and I study in Brussels and I am marching against separatism because I don't want it and nobody I know wants it. We live in one country. Some politicians are intent on pushing us in a direction we do not want to go and I am here because maybe people will see this on television and understand that they too can protest and change things,' said Pierre van de Walle, 21.

The protest was billed as 'a chance for the silent majority to voice their dissatisfaction with the way politicians are ruining the country', and for two hours a stream of people poured down the north-south axis of the city, cheering good-heartedly in French and Flemish.

The crowd, from all over the country, was predominantly young and well-heeled, peppered with war veterans, who drew a huge cheer, and social and cultural organisations. Astride parental shoulders two children wearing masks - one the cock that is the symbol of French-speaking Wallonia, the other the lion that is the symbol of Flemish-speaking Flanders - held hands.

The march, whose student organisers had tried to make apolitical, none the less attracted the support of leading MPs, and national heros such as Eddy Merckx, the greatest champion the cycling-mad Belgian nation has known.

On Friday, that old-style nation formally ceased to exist when parliament approved the remaining articles of a constitutional reform to create 'a federal state composed of Communities and Regions'. The reform, set in train and agreed only after months of wrangling, is the end of a long battle to make explicit the desire for regional autonomy that has set the rich Flanders region in the north against southern Wallonia and the might of bilingual Brussels.

For an influential minority of Flemish politicians, a federal state is the first step to complete separation: the Czechoslovakisation of Belgium. For Flanders, once the poor relation but now the wealthiest part of country, is tired of paying for Wallonia and convinced it could go it alone.

But Belgium, now the EC's most heavily indebted member, is slipping into recession. More than ever, the federalists argue, the country must pull together. But the near-failure last month of the Socialist-Christian Democrat coalition to agree an austerity budget highlighted the fragility of political relationships and prompted public exasperation that, while the politicians play with federal models that give the regions budgetary and fiscal autonomy, the problems of unemployment and a weakening economy go unsolved.

Many feel their politicians, who are already unpopular, have set the country on an uncertain path for which they have no mandate. Some 163,000 people have signed a petition demanding a referendum on constitutional reform.


Laten we die mislukking zo snel mogelijk ongedaan maken !

Effaçons cet échec le plus vite possible !

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=E1_JSGSGRT

RECENT glance at the Low Countries revealed that, nearly three months after its latest general election, Belgium was still without a new government. It may have acquired one by now. But, if so, will anyone notice? And, if not, will anyone mind? Even the Belgians appear indifferent. And what they think of the government they may well think of the country. If Belgium did not already exist, would anyone nowadays take the trouble to invent it

Wat een zever. Sinds de invoering van het federalisme heeft België nooit zonder een regering gezeten. We hebben er namelijk in overvloed !

Wat niet in uw kraam te pas komt is per definitie zever!

Van zever gesproken

perikles wrote:

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=E1_JSGSGRT

RECENT glance at the Low Countries revealed that, nearly three months after its latest general election, Belgium was still without a new government. It may have acquired one by now. But, if so, will anyone notice? And, if not, will anyone mind? Even the Belgians appear indifferent. And what they think of the government they may well think of the country. If Belgium did not already exist, would anyone nowadays take the trouble to invent it

Le texte de l'article au complet.

Time to call it a day

Sometimes it is right for a country to recognise that its job is done


A RECENT glance at the Low Countries revealed that, nearly three months after its latest general election, Belgium was still without a new government. It may have acquired one by now. But, if so, will anyone notice? And, if not, will anyone mind? Even the Belgians appear indifferent. And what they think of the government they may well think of the country. If Belgium did not already exist, would anyone nowadays take the trouble to invent it?
Such questions could be asked of many countries. Belgium's problem, if such it is, is that they are being asked by the inhabitants themselves. True, in opinion polls most Belgians say they want to keep the show on the road. But when they vote, as they did on June 10th, they do so along linguistic lines, the French-speaking Walloons in the south for French-speaking parties, the Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north for Dutch-speaking parties. The two groups do not get on—hence the inability to form a government. They lead parallel lives, largely in ignorance of each other. They do, however, think they know themselves: when a French-language television programme was interrupted last December with a spoof news flash announcing that the Flemish parliament had declared independence, the king had fled and Belgium had dissolved, it was widely believed.
No wonder. The prime minister designate thinks Belgians have nothing in common except “the king, the football team, some beers”, and he describes their country as an “accident of history”. In truth, it isn't. When it was created in 1831, it served more than one purpose. It relieved its people of various discriminatory practices imposed on them by their Dutch rulers. And it suited Britain and France to have a new, neutral state rather than a source of instability that might, so soon after the Napoleonic wars, set off more turbulence in Europe.
The upshot was neither an unmitigated success nor an unmitigated failure. Belgium industrialised fast; grabbed a large part of Africa and ruled it particularly rapaciously; was itself invaded and occupied by Germany, not once but twice; and then cleverly secured the headquarters of what is now the European Union. Along the way it produced Magritte, Simenon, Tintin, the saxophone and a lot of chocolate. Also frites. No doubt more good things can come out of the swathe of territory once occupied by a tribe known to the Romans as the Belgae. For that, though, they do not need Belgium: they can emerge just as readily from two or three new mini-states, or perhaps from an enlarged France and Netherlands
Brussels can devote itself to becoming the bureaucratic capital of Europe. It no longer enjoys the heady atmosphere of liberty that swirled outside its opera house in 1830, intoxicating the demonstrators whose protests set the Belgians on the road to independence. The air today is more fetid. With freedom now taken for granted, the old animosities are ill suppressed. Rancour is ever-present and the country has become a freak of nature, a state in which power is so devolved that government is an abhorred vacuum. In short, Belgium has served its purpose. A praline divorce is in order.
Belgians need not feel too sad. Countries come and go. And perhaps a way can be found to keep the king, if he is still wanted. Since he has never had a country—he has always just been king of the Belgians—he will not miss Belgium. Maybe he can rule a new-old country called Gaul. But king of the Gauloises doesn't sound quite right, does it?

C'est le discours des fascistes du Vlaams Belang, parti grassement subsidié par le contribuable belge (donc en mesure d'influencer des journalistes ignorants de la situation en Belgique). On connaît d'ailleurs la connivence entre les attachistes et les nationalistes flamands.

Belgica wrote:

C'est le discours des fascistes du Vlaams Belang, parti grassement subsidié par le contribuable belge (donc en mesure d'influencer des journalistes ignorants de la situation en Belgique). On connaît d'ailleurs la connivence entre les attachistes et les nationalistes flamands.

We kunnen ook opteren voor een LAT relelatie.

Belgica wrote:

C'est le discours des fascistes du Vlaams Belang, parti grassement subsidié par le contribuable belge (donc en mesure d'influencer des journalistes ignorants de la situation en Belgique).

Bien sur, bien sur, les journaliste de "The economist" sont des ignorants, c'est d'ailleurs ce qui fait de cet hebdomadaire une référence.
Après avoir craché sur toute la presse Belge, vous vous attaquez maintenant à la presse européenne, vous progressez chaque jour.
Je suppose qu'au moment des élections, vous vous demanderez pourquoi vous êtes persona non grata dans les rédactions

Belgica wrote:

On connaît d'ailleurs la connivence entre les attachistes et les nationalistesflamands.

Ben non justement, je me réjouis de lire votre analyse, qui sera, je n'en doute pas, d'une finesse et d'une justesse absolue

perikles wrote:

Belgica wrote:

C'est le discours des fascistes du Vlaams Belang, parti grassement subsidié par le contribuable belge (donc en mesure d'influencer des journalistes ignorants de la situation en Belgique). On connaît d'ailleurs la connivence entre les attachistes et les nationalistes flamands.

We kunnen ook opteren voor een LAT relelatie.

De separatisten/rattachisten horen inderdaad niet in de Belgische samenleving thuis

Bruno wrote:

perikles wrote:

Belgica wrote:

C'est le discours des fascistes du Vlaams Belang, parti grassement subsidié par le contribuable belge (donc en mesure d'influencer des journalistes ignorants de la situation en Belgique). On connaît d'ailleurs la connivence entre les attachistes et les nationalistes flamands.

We kunnen ook opteren voor een LAT relelatie.

De separatisten/rattachisten horen inderdaad niet in de Belgische samenleving thuis

Ook de federalisten?

@Oli: pas besoin d'une analyse approfondie: c'est l'entente des abrutis, les extrêmes qui se touchent. Ce qui les caractérise tous, c'est leur haine irrationnelle de tout ce qui est belge et de tout ce qui représente la Belgique, ce sont leurs attaques personnelles à l'égard de leurs adversaires, leurs humiliations, leurs raisonnements biaisés, leurs répétitions sans cesse de slogans racistes et extrémistes. Tout cela dans un seul but: détruire l'entente entre les Belges et finalement détruire une partie de l'Humanité sans construire une société tolérante en retour. C'est la bêtise humaine à son comble.

Belgica wrote:

@Oli: pas besoin d'une analyse approfondie: c'est l'entente des abrutis, les extrêmes qui se touchent. Ce qui les caractérise tous, c'est leur haine irrationnelle de tout ce qui est belge et de tout ce qui représente la Belgique, ce sont leurs attaques personnelles à l'égard de leurs adversaires, leurs humiliations, leurs raisonnements biaisés, leurs répétitions sans cesse de slogans racistes et extrémistes. Tout cela dans un seul but: détruire l'entente entre les Belges et finalement détruire une partie de l'Humanité sans construire une société tolérante en retour. C'est la bêtise humaine à son comble.

Een wollig discours ...

Belgica wrote:

@Oli: pas besoin d'une analyse approfondie: c'est l'entente des abrutis, les extrêmes qui se touchent. Ce qui les caractérise tous, c'est leur haine irrationnelle de tout ce qui est belge et de tout ce qui représente la Belgique, ce sont leurs attaques personnelles à l'égard de leurs adversaires, leurs humiliations, leurs raisonnements biaisés, leurs répétitions sans cesse de slogans racistes et extrémistes. Tout cela dans un seul but: détruire l'entente entre les Belges et finalement détruire une partie de l'Humanité sans construire une société tolérante en retour. C'est la bêtise humaine à son comble.

Je confirme, une analyse politique d'une finesse, d'une profondeur et d'une justesse jusqu'ici inégalée.

Continuer, vous vous enfoncez.