Split or Bust!

Yay! Political crisis in Belgium! Again!

A few months ago I would have whooped at the mention of the government (especially the conservative Christian Democrats) handing their resignation to the king, not to mention it's the same guy over and over (well, poor Leterme's gonna be slurping antidepressants for some years I think). But see, most of the Belgians are somewhat stunned by this strange race of people that come and tells us what the important political issues are and then start fighting about it until the government implodes. Again. I'd rather pay to watch WWE on cable. Because, when it comes to the crunch, you have these two items in the list of recent news: "The King considers [the government's resignation]", and "1.5 million Belgians in poverty" (and there are about 10 million of us). Well, that sort of eats up all my glee-energy. Because really, this political war that is raging in Belgium is just that, and the rest of us have other frigging problems.

But no, the media will blow their trumpets and make sure you hear it, trust me, throughout Europe the siren song will be sung:

There's a war going on and it's the end of Belgium!

Now this war rages between the Walloon part (French-speaking Belgians (FS)) and Flemish part (Dutch-speaking (DS)). Point of contestation is a reform in electoral districts, the logical consequence of a series of modernizations of the state that turned Belgium into this weird haywire democracy with complex layers of government. We have the federal state, spread over three Communities (French-, Dutch- and German-speaking), and three independent Regions (Wallonia, Flanders, Brussels), which gives us six parliaments (Federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, French and German), and then there are still the local and provincial councils (luckily we don't get a vote on the provincial level, Mein Gott!)

N.B.: See! It is evidence itself that we deliver Europe its first president. We're all about simplifying government! :-]

This democratic haystack means we have to vote for local government (city councils), regional government (Flemish parliament) and federal government, leaving European elections out of consideration for now. All these elections are a logistical nightmare for a small country like Belgium. More modernization was needed. We're a country of logic and reason after all [Excuse me, we are? Thought that was France, or maybe England. We're fries and beer, no?]. Laws were adapted, electoral district borders were redrawn to coincide with provincial, except in 3 cases: Walloon Brabant (FS), Flemish Brabant (DS), and Brussels-with-an-expansion, better known as BHV [or B-H-V; pronounced (but go easy in the diphthong) by Flemish as Bay-Hash-Vey (Oy Vey!), and by Walloon as Bay-Ash-Vey]

Now Bay-Hash-Vey is one of the many Insurmountable Problems Belgium has, and most of The Insurmountable Problems find their origin in a language border being painted from east to west over the Belgian territory. This happened in the time when women burn their bras and students were killed for peace. Flemish students fight for the right to have education in their own language, which is okay I guess. It lead to the FS university elite being kicked out of the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain in French), and they built a new one in Louvain-La-Neuve. See, we're very creative people, us.

The language border leads to laws concerning democratic rule, since there are less Walloons than Flemish people , and some sort of correction has to be enforced in federal elections else you end up with a Walloon minority. That's how bilingualism works. You can't have one FS or DS politician too many, even if they are perfectly bilingual. Plus, we Flemish are very good at playing the underdogs because that's what we were for a long time and now we have this habit and pretend we only act this way because we still have some quota left from the past.The French owe us, dude.

Everything got split in Belgium, and divided, and every euro going to Wallonia has to have its counterpart going to Flanders. Tiresome, I hear you think, but you haven't got the faintest! We have French political parties. Dutch political parties. And only in the true bilingual part of Belgium it's possible to vote for French or Dutch parties "as you wish": Brussels.

With expansion of the Brussels district, this means that people from a small part of constitutional Flanders (Halle, Vilvoorde) can vote for French parties and that's not fair for the two districts of Brabant, but certainly to the Walloon part because the Flemish living there can not vote for Flemish parties. Hence, the Constitutional Court decided BHV had to be solved. DS parties, lead by the Flemish nationalists, read this persistently as: has to be split. FS parties don't like this idea of splitting without getting something in return (like for instance an expansion of Brussels to include the problematic municipalities "with facilities" surrounding it).

The!Au!dacity! We only ask for LAW being applied. Plus, expanding Brussels is a ridiculous idea: it would create a corridor from FS territories direct to the heart of Brussels, which still suffers from more than a century of Frenchification. You don't want to make it any easier for those Frenchies to take over your capital, right? I can see them already, those damned frogs, lining up with their hastily prepared suitcases, ready to march right in!

You are entitled to go "Huh?" right now; it is what most Belgians feel after a decade of debate and political arm wrestling and deadlines and compromising and as long as the politicians can keep the show up none of us will start wondering whether paying that legion of idiots (six parliaments, I tell you!) is really the best way to spend our tax-euros. 1.5 million Belgians in poverty anyone?

Now, adding a little note about that number of elections: they have different intervals so whenever we vote federal there are people who leave the seat they were elected to in a regional election to "move up ". It is an annoyance. A crying shame according to many parties, who when it is their turn, do more of the same. Except for the Flemish Socialists who manage to not even give their guy with the most votes (and the best track record ever, and universally named as the most competent politician in Belgian history ever) a seat in *any* of the governments. Because the party knows best. Besides, if the other parties can shoot themselves in the foot and gain votes, surely socialists can do better! Another reason to not really applaud the Belgian crisis: for the first time in my life I wouldn't know who to vote for and that's a big problem in a multiparty system.

Back to BHV: my main concern is not about language borders or that it leads to annoyingly boring debates about them versus us. But the bad government it brings on instead of leading to actually improving politics. A lost chance for politicians to justify the need for our myriad of governmental levels, by making the difference clear: you have your people for local government, regional government and federal government. Not that there can never be any linkage between them, but seriously, the distance from Belgium to Flanders should be as big as to let's say Antwerp. It means that some parties won't exist on all levels (which is already the case), and that parties are forced to think about what they are going to do when getting to the federal level, instead of saying whatever swings the vote. Like: BHV will be split! Tomorrow! Trust us!

The solution to BHV is quite simple, though it does not translate to the endless promises Flemish politicians made in the past about The Split: let Belgians vote for any politician, no matter what side of the language border they come from, in federal elections. (N.B.: in European elections, a level even higher up, language is even less important). This also sounds to me like the best way to ensure the most competent people get into the federal government, and it will force parties to take the different levels serious. The federal level IS bilingual. We have griped in the past about our Flemish federal ministers being bilingual and their Walloon colleagues not, and the FS are studying hard to address our sensitivities. There's no better way to motivate the FS politicians to learn Flemish than making it important to be understood by voters. Federal level, bilingual, anybody's vote.

If politicians can't make such a divide between levels clear and workable, I don't see a reason to keep it all.

WHOA! Loaded remark here in Flanders! But no, I won't trade my capital Brussels with Antwerp (Flemish nationalists sport the idea of " Belgium bust" and separation): if this circus goes on I'd prefer to revert to 1830 and be forced to fill out my taxes in French, over reverting to some mythical Flanders of 1302. Not simply because I'm contraire like that but because anybody not from the provinces of East- and West-Flanders understands those truly and historically Flemish dialects.

Explanation of 1302: The Battle of the Golden Spurs is the national holiday of the Flemish community, because that's when the poor (but not financially so) people of Flanders won against the king of France! With pitchforks and cunning passwords, as the persistent folklore goes: when a francophone tries to say "Schild en vriend" (shield and friend) he'll betray himself easily ("skilt en frint"). Sort of like the TH in English; you get it with your mother's milk or never. Now, the importance of 1302 in the war of the languages in Belgium is highly overrated: the idea that it was French-speaking against Dutch-speaking is a myth invented by Flemish nationalist historians of the past, and novelists. And who says literature ain't important?

In reality, large parts of modern Flanders were the county of Namen and the duchy of Brabant back then, and those two fought on the side of the Frenchies. While dialects from Flanders, Brabant and Namen all had commonalities that are still reflected in the modern day dialects (French as well as Dutch-speaking dialects!), it wasn't a real language issue, but, as it usually is, one of economics, and helping to drown your neighbor to take over his market share.

Put like that, if you look from a distance at my beloved country and look really well, you'll see we're not so different from the Balkans. Our lands are just more fertile and our neighbors bigger and scarier.
And we have fries and beer.

Oy vey, enough already about this idiocy. I leave you with the modern day Jacques Brel, the incomprehensible-to-Dutch-speakers Flemish dude who sings in Flemish, French (knighted by the French Order!), English and anything in between... The universally adored Belgian artist, Arno, who said it best with: Nous sommes quand même tous des Européens!