Manekin Pis dries up
THE CORNER
The other day Andrew Stuttaford posited a Belgian divorce as French-speaking Walloons and Flemish-speaking, er, Flemings decide they can live without each other. But Andrew may have spoken too soon: The country could have a glorious future ahead of it, free of domination by either of its ancient tribes. Already, the Mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, presides over a ruling Socialist Party caucus, ten of whose seventeen members are Muslim. That's to say, the capital city of the European Union has a Muslim-majority governing party.
I found this interesting for several reasons. For a start, in America political representation is usually a lagging indicator (for example, we think of Vermont as an almost parodically 'progressive' stronghold, yet Pat Leahy is the first and only Green Mountain Democrat to be elected to the United States Senate). Evidently, things move faster in Brussels. My mom's Belgian and, if you'd said to her 30 years ago Brussels would be a Muslim-run city, she'd have said you were nuts. As it happens, in 2007 a lot of folks think I'm nuts - see the footnote to Ian Buruma's condescending review of Norman Podhoretz's new book. But what's underway in Europe is happening very fast. That said, obviously Muslims are not an homogenous block. No doubt there are significant differences between Belgian Turks and Belgian Algerians. Nonetheless, if Northern Ireland is still riven by sectarian strife in 2100, it seems likely to be between Sunni and Shia. |
