Belgium
Bart Dirks
Belgium is having an “existential crisis,” said Bart Dirks in Amsterdam’s Volkskrant. Last month, it celebrated its 175th anniversary of independence from us Dutch. But many of the revelers in the streets were carrying placards hailing the 25th anniversary “of independence from each other.” It was in 1980 that the Dutch-speaking Flemish, the French-speaking Walloons, and the German minority agreed to split Belgium from a single state into a federal one, with significant autonomy for each section and clearly demarcated “language borders.” Now, some seem to be wondering if federation went far enough. To a foreigner, it’s shocking “how little rapprochement there is between the Walloon and Flemish halves.” What starts out as good-natured joking about the other nationality can quickly turn rather nasty. “As for Belgian nationalism? It doesn’t exist.” While few are actually agitating for a split, almost everyone seems to assume it will happen. Pundits quote the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, who in 1994 wrote that he expected Belgium to last only another 10 to 15 years. If he’s right, “the country is already in its decline.”
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