B E L G I U M, the state with a secret heart
I remember drinking in an Edinburgh pub six years ago with some Scottish guys telling more jokes than was good for them." Belgium, what's Belgium known for, for chrissakes? "said one." The little boy who pisses", said another in reference to the statue of Manneken Pis." Name me one famous Belgian, "said a third." Eddy Merckx, Jesus Christ, "said a fourth, and after that I changed the subject, albeit with difficulty, because this was becoming a bore. What brought this on ? Oh, I was taking a job in Belgium." Belgium, for chrissakes ? "
Didn't they know that Brussels is the capital of Belgium? Yes, Brussels, site of the European institutions, capital of Europe, city and region that will have a great deal more effect on their lives than theirs on its. A bit centralist, you might say, and at the moment I have to confess that centralism is good for some things and a disaster for others. Anyway, I'm talking about Belgium as a whole, of which Brussels is but capital.
A child-killer escapes through the wood with an unloaded police shotgun
The facile escape of paedophile Marc Dutroux, bˆte noire of Belgium, from a provincial courtroom in April [1998] brought down the country's interior and justice ministers. How, you might ask, can the escape of a prisoner bring a government to its knees?
Because Dutroux is the symbol of all that's rotten in Belgium: negligence (police failing to follow up on obvious clues), complacency (the failure to rescue two of Dutroux's screaming victims in a police search of his house) and diffidence (the lack of any change in the authorities' behaviour since the revelation of the crimes and mass demonstrations against all three pillars of the establishment).
Politically, and fiscally, Belgium must be one of the most hypocritical countries on earth. Everyone with anything, for example, stashes their money away in neighbouring Luxembourg to escape tax, so the Belgian national tax rates and social security contributions are high (55 per cent) to compensate for the cheating rich, which means the honest, less well-off, less mobile citizens have to pay so much more to avoid prosecution from the state. And, at the same time, the country's leading tax official is charged with stashing away tens of thousands of dollars of undeclared earnings and has had to quit his job.
There are three regions in Belgium, all totally different.
Flanders, in the north, is Flemish-speaking and more independent-minded because it owns the income-generating ports of Zeebrugge and Antwerp.
The southern French-speaking community of Wallonia, which is landlocked, was the third-fastest region in Europe to latch on to the 19th century industrial revolution, but now, like the north of England and the north-west of Germany, suffers from a failure to diversify over the decades into services and light industry.
Multilingual Brussels, although many Flemish want it back as their premier city (it was the capital of Flanders in the Middle Ages) is 85 per cent French-speaking and more likely to attempt to go it alone as a kind of Washington DC of Europe if Belgium splits up (not an unrealistic forecast since the 1993 St Michel bolt-loosening agreement).
Why Belgians don't appear to like one another
There is an inevitable, mutual distrust at all levels of Belgian society. It is understandable given political developments, but has to be looked at on a microeconomic level, too.
For instance, you will not get Belgians, or Belgian residents, discussing their financial situations with a friend, never mind a complete stranger, unlike in the "rent-a-quote" United States or "I'm all right Jack" Britain or "how big is yours, ours is huge" Spain.
The penalty for such indiscretion is too large. The justice system in Belgium, and France for that matter, is more open to the neighbourhood "grass" than elsewhere.
Talking too freely about the taxes you haven't paid, for example, will lead to a call from an erstwhile friend to the Ministry of Financial Contributions expressing doubt over your fidelity in helping pay off the huge national debt [$250+ billion and thriving...].
On this basis, you can be charged, and forced to prove your innocence in front of a national court and, even if you haven't been proven guilty, by the fact that you haven't proven yourself innocent, you're liable for a fine, house repossession or a jail sentence.
The climate in Belgium is thus one of omnipresent envy, not only of how much you are earning but of how much you are getting away with, and the undercurrent this creates in Belgian society can govern interrelations, whether it be in the corner shop, on the factory floor or in the boardroom.
Thus the effect that macroeconomic policy (in Belgium designed at getting the national debt down to a sufficiently low level as to qualify for European Monetary Union by the back door) can have on ordinary citizens and their daily to-ing and fro-ing is as galling as anywhere in the capitalist world.
A country where what is to be said is said freely
But at the same time, what must be realised in Belgium is that everyone is in it together, whatever the peculiar conditions the nature of the country throws up. Part of the reason for that is the fact that 27 per cent of people in Brussels are foreign, as are a a fifth in the country as a whole.
Nine out of ten Brussels residents are not from Brussels, and you are as likely to hear English, German, Italian, Spanish, Turk [and Hindi-Urdu, Lingala, Polish,...] and Arab on the street as you are Dutch or French. Some Belgians are perhaps surprisingly much happier arguing the toss with an immigrant in a foreign language than their own.
The truth is that Belgium is a window on the future for the global community. You may ask, who can understand one another on a global scale if neighbours can't? But the Belgians are outward-looking, [closet jingo-]internationalists, and always have been, and this is the reason they despise so much their own local difficulties.
They are big-minded and big-hearted on the international stage. (witness [former] Belgian prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene and how, despite his superb negotiating skills at the EU level, he was blocked from what would have been his rightful post as European president by the small-minded British, who come, of course, from a larger, less diverse, nation)
Yes, Belgians have hearts. I first appreciated their concern when I was ferried to hospital last year with a suspected stroke, only for it to turn out to be food poisoning. More than one neighbour asked after my health and what they could do to help.
They may have secret hearts, Belgians, but they are big hearts nonetheless. The country may split up one day, but you can be assured the French and Flemish-speaking communities will remain friends [Ahem...].
Belgium, after all, is the art of compromise(*). Belgians know little else but to compromise, albeit after a ding-dong argument. As a window on the future, the rest of the world has a lot to learn from them.
european-digest.com
(*) Perhaps the best witticism that sums up Belgian politics is: "As long as there isn't an agreement on everything, there is agreement on nothing." |
