Belgium: Not living up to my expectations!

[TreborPugly]

I've used Belgium as an example of different cultures living together in the same country. I have friends who are from Belgium, and visited them while they were living there over 10 years ago.

When Yugoslavia erupted into chaos after the Soviets left, I had the theory that places where their differences were repressed, like the Soviet Union, would explode when that control was removed, but places like Belgium, where the French and Flemish have been coexisting for centuries, can manage to govern together, even when there are obvious prejudices.

My friends are Flemish, with one of the couple having a bit of French in her, which was somewhat scandalous I think. They would regularly complain about how dim the French speakers were (unwilling to learn anything but French being a common complaint). So I was seeing obvious prejudices, but they still had a democratic, stable country.

Well, now I'm seeing news items about separatist movements in Belgium. I'm hoping it is just US news being sensational about something that has been in the background but never a real possibility, because they want to spice up the news. I looked at BBC to get a more European view, rather than the stuff from the US news services:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7306625.stm

The basics is that they have just had a rocky election cycle, and the King (who generally has little real power) had to get involved to help with the transition. But they are looking at congressional reform that would divide the country further into its two regions.

Fortunately, it does look a bit tamer than the stuff I've seen from US sources, but still a lot more political turmoil than I was expecting.

[grondramb]

I can see it being sad... But isn't Belgium kind of artificial to start with. And not very integrated outside of Brussels?

And like everything else in the world that isn't the fault of the United States, this is Britain's fault.

[pgogborn]

Yep, not only the fault of the British but a fault for the same old reasons.

An artificial country glued together because of fears of a larger 'enemy'.

In this case a grievous fault paid for with much blood and treasure.