Re: Does Wallonia want to go to France?
Actually, Wallonia NEEDS to merge with France... I mean, the best hope for, say, 90% of Belgium's Francophone workforce is to join France and become French... They'll never get their bread and butter from the "Northern tribes" (ie Flemings, Dutch, Germans). I remember, 10 years ago, when Holland's big consumer-electronics giant Philips was closing factories worldwide.... I watched our local TV newscast and the anchorwoman was saying that all of Philips' "Belgian" subsidiaries were faced with layoffs, and a map popped up on the screen showing the seven Philips factories across Belgium --they were ALL located in Flanders, except one in Brussels (again, employing only Flemish workers)....
The problem is that, psychologically and emotionally speaking, most Walloons are not ready to become French... They have been successfully --I would even say, cunningly-- brainwashed into the fancyful notion that being Belgian, somehow, is superior to being French.... Frenchmen are sussed out rather dismissively, if not unfavorably, by Belgians as boastful, as a bunch of arrogant windbags. Belgian Francophones, pretty much like their French-speaking Swiss cousins, feel it better and cosier to enjoy the trappings of French glamour without the "burden" of being French....
Somehow, there never was such a thing as a "Belgian" --there are only Flemings and Francophones, the latter breaking down into two cultural subgroups : the urban(e) Bruxellois and the tacky Walloons. I've come to think that the best way to define the Belgians is to view them as a CLASS, a social class in the same sense as the proletariat and the capitalists.... Belgians, as a social class made up overwhelmingly of Francophone upper-middle classes and a few Flemish notables (most of them ennobled during the 20th century) have a vested interest in keeping the Belgian ball rolling, so to speak. Their motto could very well be, "Better to be the first in Namur than the last in Paris." Belgians, as a social class, have successfully held a tight grip on Belgium's most secure jobs --in public services/utilities, in the military, the media, etc. Hence they've got the most to lose should Wallonia merge with France. Corporate and bureaucratic redundancies would severely hurt the Belgian class....
Re: Why is Wallonia so poor......coal mining?
I think lack of entrepreneurship is the key reason why Wallonia has fallen behind.... Rich Walloons prefer to buy treasury bonds than risking their money and starting their own business... At best, they'll look for good ideas/products developed and sold elsewhere (in the US, Japan, France, Italy,...) and then they'll try to make an exclusivity deal and import and sell the idea/product at home...
Whew! Lunch time --to be continued,
Gus |
