Flemish independence

Vlaams-Nationalist · #1 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 01:24 AM

Quote:

Why do many Flemings want to become independent?

Belgium is an artificial state that forces three different nations to live together: the Flemish (i.e. the Southern Dutchmen), the Walloons (a French-speaking people that has never really belonged to France) and some Germans (whose land was annexed by Belgium after the First World War). Unlike in Switzerland, these nations didn't choose to live together, they were forced to. As a result, they lack a national feeling. Belgium's founding fathers designed their construction to be France's satellite state, and they explicitly stated: "La Belgique sera latine ou elle ne sera pas" ("Belgium will be Latin or it will not be"). Although the majority of Belgians speaks Dutch (or Dutch dialects, a.k.a. "Flemish"), the only official language was French. This was part of an imperialist francophone strategy designed to wipe out Flemish culture and replace it with a "Belgian" one. Evidently the Flemish resisted to these attempts, and many generations spent their lives trying to improve the situation of the Flemish, who were regarded by the Belgian state as some kind of inferior lifeform (the Francophones arrogantly assumed, and some of them still do, they were members of Europe's highest civilisation). The Flemish have always had to fight and pay high prices to get their rights recognised by a state that despises them.

Today Belgium is no longer a unitary but a semi-federal state. Dutch has been recognised as an official language and the country is divided in 3 Communities (Flemish, French and German-speaking) and 3 Regions (Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia). The Regions have some powers, others still belong to the "federal state" (Belgium as a whole), which often leads to absurd situations. Both Communities and Regions have their own Parliaments and Governments (only Flanders decided to merge them). Since there is no hierarchy between the different Parliaments and Governments, issues that have to be decided on by both the Federal Government and one or more Regional Governments often result in a deadlock if the Governments don't share the same point of view or, even worse, if they have to defend opposite interests. In Belgium the major fault line is the language barrier. Flanders and Wallonia (or francophone Belgium as a whole) disagree on most issues and have to come up with unsatisfactory compromises no one is really happy with. If they can't get their disputes resolved, the issue is usually blocked until Flanders gives in to the francophone blackmailing. The francophones never give in because they have a very egoistic policy of getting what they want, even if they have to paralyse the country for it and waste other people's time and money.

Belgium's critics have described the country as a "contra-federation" (because the Communities work against each other in stead of working together), or as "Absurdistan" (in this country everything seems to be possible, especially if it is something absurd, like in Franz Kafka's books). The critics are right. Belgium has become an extremely inefficient labyrinth, in which the only productive part is Flanders. It is Flanders that generates all of the wealth and accounts for 80% of the export. This is because the Flemish are by nature an industrious, freedom-loving nation, in opposition to the inproductive, socialist-minded Walloons. All of this inefficiency could be resolved in an easy way - by splitting Belgium in half. If only it were as easy as it sounds...

What is keeping Flanders from becoming an independent country?

Flanders is being robbed by Belgium. Being the most succesfull part of Belgium, it has to give in a considerable amount of its wealth to the Walloons, whose industry has collapsed because it was outdated and the Walloons did nothing about it. Each year € 11 billion is transferred from Flanders to francophone Belgium. That's a huge pile of money. Yet the Flemish politicians don't succeed in getting their demands realised, because everytime Flanders asks something from Belgium, the francophone politicians unanimously say "no". It doesn't work the other way around, however. That's because the Flemish are no bullies and they are not united enough. They simply lack the courage to say no to francophone demands. It's really ironic that in a country where one part represents 60 percent of the population and keeps the other part alive at the cost of its own economy, that one part still has nothing to say.

A majority of Flemings is not really aware of the need for their country to become independent. Those people are either not interested in politics or history, or they have been misinformed. Of course the Belgian state does everything within its power to falsify the schools' historybooks. Thanks to this deliberate negationism most kids don't have a clue about the many disciminations their ancestors have gone through, and they don't know that their country is being dominated by strangers. Fortunately the Flemish public opinion is slowly changing in favor of the secessionist movement. Back in the Sixties one was considered a revolutionary if he carefully mentioned federalism; nowadays speaking about Flemish independence has become very normal. Even most Flemish political parties (except for the socialists and the "greens") have embraced the idea of confederalism (semi-independence). Flanders' biggest party, Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), openly promotes secession. The problem is that this party is being boycotted by all other parties, and the other politicians don't have what it takes to proclaim the independence of Flanders. They are afraid of it, and most of them have been corrupted by the Belgian system.

Flanders will be an independent state, it's only a matter of time. There is no stopping the Belgian desintegration. If the Belgian establishment plays its cards right, it will probably be able to slow down the process, but Flemish independence is inevitable. When it will happen, nobody knows, but the Belgian state can be reasonably expected not to survive another decade. Of course some people are afraid of this, and it's perfectly normal to be afraid of change, but it will be a change for the better.

Source: Vlaams siteje

And I have to add:

1) Although the majority of the "Belgians" spoke Dutch the Belgian Constitution was translated to Dutch since 1967. (Belgium exists since 1830 and it always had a Dutch-speaking majority.)

2) 65 % of the Flemings can speak French fluently, whereas less than 20 % of the Walloons know Dutch. French is compulsory for Flemish children at school, French is our first foreign language. And yes, Dutch isn't compulsory for Walloons . By the way there are 6,2 million Flemings and less than 4 million Walloons.

3) Surveys have revealed more than 40 % of the interrogated Flemings want an independent state. The biggest Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang is excluded from any coalition government due to the Cordon sanitaire.

4) Charles Rogier, one of the creators of Belgium has ever said this:

Quote:

One of the most important principles of a good administration is based on the use of only one language, and of course the only language of the Belgians must be French. In order to achieve this, it's necessary all jobs, civil and military are given at Walloons and Luxembourgers. With this method are the Flemings, who couldn't benefit temporarily from having a job obliged to learn French, and that's the way we can eradicate all the Germanic influences within Belgium.

Vlaams-Nationalist · #2 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 01:43 AM

Quote:

The truth about Belgium
Belgium is what was formerly known as the Southern Netherlands. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands has only existed for 15 years, from 1815 to 1830. Centuries before that, the Netherlands had always been one country, comprising the territory of the present-day Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg). It consisted of a number of free provinces, also French-speaking ones, but there never were ethnic tensions because the provinces disposed of a generous amount of autonomy, so they could arrange their own affairs. There was no reason to assume the Netherlands would have been different this time. Yet there were some frictions because King William wanted to impose his linguistic laws in the South. A handful of French revolutionaries, who were eager to annex the Southern Netherlands to France, abused these anti-Dutch sentiments and started a (modest) revolution. King William made a terrible mistake by sending his treacherous francophile son, Prince William, to suppress the insurrection. Prince William had ambitions to become the King of France, and the French had promised him this would happen if he could help them conquer the Southern Netherlands. Prince William never got to be King of France, but the South was separated from the North. The UK prevented it from being annexed by France, and thus a useless state was born.

Financial transfers: solidarity or theft?

Belgium is a socialist welfare state. Socialism is a synonym for an intrusive government that wants to interfere with all aspects of life. The welfare state is a very expensive system that always turns out to be detrimental to the honest, hard-working man in the street and profitable to those who don't work and those who don't need the money, but know how to take advantage of the system. Its noble design was to help the poor and the sick by taking a part of the wealth generated by the rich and the healthy and give it to them. If all people were honest and willing to work, this would be a great system. However, unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world, and in practice we see that the welfare system doen't really help the poor but rather the dishonest people. In Belgium this system forces workers to give in almost half of the money they make. Nowhere in Europe income taxes are as high as in Belgium (except maybe in Sweden, but that country gives much more in return to the tax payers). Since Flanders is the most productive part of Belgium, most taxes are levied over there, whereas the money mostly ends up in Wallonia, where it is wasted on useless projects, used to finance the extremely expensive Walloon health care system or simply disappears in the pockets of Walloon politicians. 40 percent of the Walloon active population has a job in a public service and is paid by the government. Unemployment is Wallonia's national desease and is passed on from father to son because, unlike in Flanders, they don't get punished for not searching a job. The total sum of money that annually flows from the north to the south of Belgium amounts to € 11.3 billion ($ 14.6 billion). Considering the fact that there are only about 6 million Flemings, this is an incredibly awful lot of money, which cannot be justified in any way. Relatively spoken, it is a lot more than what West-Germany has been paying to East-Germany after the fall of Communism. It is explained as "solidarity", but real solidarity is voluntary, transparent, and objective. None of these three conditions apply to the Belgian situation, which means the Flemish are being robbed on a massive scale. What's even more shocking is the fact that these transfers have always run from Flanders to Wallonia, and never in the opposite direction, not even in the 19th century when Flanders was so poor people were starving and Wallonia was at the top of its success.

Frenchifying Flanders

Belgium is France's satellite state. As the saying goes, "When it's raining in Paris, drops of rain are falling in Brussels". France has always tried to control the entire area between the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Rhine, and Belgium lies on the "French" side of the Rhine. Some people think France is only interested in French-speaking Wallonia, and at first sight this makes perfect sense. In reality however, France doesn't care about Wallonia; it is Flanders it's after! This is because a large part of Wallonia (the Ardens) consists of woods with some small villages in it and the other part is made of bankrupt, drab cities bearing the scars of outdated, 19th century coalmine industry. Flanders, on the other hand, isn't just a well-organised, modern nation with a fine economy, it is also of great geostrategic importance. Brussels, the capital of Flanders, is also the capital of the European Union. Unlike Wallonia, Flanders has access to the sea. And, least but not least, Flanders has Antwerp, the city once described by Napoleon as "a loaded gun aimed at England's heart", since it is the only port from which an entire war fleet could be sent to London in just one night. France wants to possess Flanders, and it has some basic imperialist strategies to slowly appropriate our country. One of them is Frenchifying it. During the French occupation (1795-1815) Napoleon's troops didn't only destroy our traditional legal system, they also abolished Dutch as the official language in schools, tribunals and administration. The entire upper class had to start speaking French, and was thoroughly Frenchified by the time the Netherlands got reunited. By choosing Brussels as the capital of the new Belgian state, the Fenchifyers turned this Flemish city into their headquarters. Today about 85 percent of its population speaks French, and the city itself has expanded and "infected" several municipalities around it (because many rich people moved from the crowded city to the quiet Flemish outskirts). These towns have been recognised as "facility municipalities", granting their francophone inhabitants the prerogative to use French when communicating with the authorities. The intention of this measure was to give these people some time to learn Dutch and adapt themselves to the Flemish nature of their new hometowns, but they didn't deem it necessary to stop speaking French; instead, they wanted "their" towns to be annexed to Brussels. Now that imperialist francophone Belgium is aware of the fact that Belgium will soon cease to exist, it is trying to annex Brussels to Wallonia, so it will be able to claim the city and steal it from Flanders. This must be prevented from happening. Flanders is already a small country; it can't afford to lose its largest city!

Why Belgium is not a real democracy

Belgium calls itself a "parliamentary democracy", but is this really the case? I think not. It systematically suppresses the will of the majority of its population - the Flemings. Throughout its history, as the Belgian state's structure was repetedly reorganised, it has developed various, often cunning, methods to do so. In the Belgian Parliament the Flemish members have less seats than they should have. In the Chamber of Deputies, for instance, a Flemish deputy needs 47.200 votes to be elected, whereas a francophone deputy only needs 35.800 votes. This means that hundreds of thousands of Flemish voters are simply ignored. Their vote doesn't count. In Belgium, a francophone vote is worth more than a Flemish one. The members of government are "equally" divided among Flemish and Francophones, resulting in a very unequal government with more francophone ministers than would be reasonable. Since the Flemish and the Francophones each have their own parties, the Flemish have to obey a government that only halfly represents them. The other half consists of ministers they did not vote for, they could not vote for and they cannot send home. Half democracy, half dictatorship. To compensate this situation, the Flemish have often demanded the introduction of the referendum. The Francophones have always refused this, since the referendum is too democratic in nature: it would allow the Flemish people to exercise the power it deserves. That could damage the unfair Belgian construction, which is funded on the silent oppression of the Flemish. The Belgian chief of state is the King, who was of course not elected by the people, but only born out of the right parents. In "normal" monarchies (can a monarchy still be considered normal in the 21st century?) the King or Queen represents his/her country in a symbolic way, without having any real power, but not so in Belgium, where the King even gets the full command of his troops in times of war. The Belgian King has never really been the "King of all Belgians". He has always represented the francophone part of his country and shown very little sympathy towards the Flemings.

Belgium is a country where the largest francophone party (PS) is almighty and the largest Flemish party (Vlaams Blok) is boycotted and convicted in court. The Vlaams Blok, which had to change its name to Vlaams Belang (VB), has always been more or less openly persecuted by the establisment because it is a "dangerous" (Flemish nationalist) party. People who don't believe this and who think the VB was actually convicted because it was a "racist" party, should think about the amazing "coincidence" that when a new, small secessionist party (N-VA) was born, the election legislation suddenly changed to make it impossible for parties with less than 5% of the votes to enter Parliament, and a law was adopted to cancel the subsidies of any party without at least one member in each of the Parliament's two Chambers. Those people should also wonder why the Vlaams Belang is still being boycotted with all means, even now that it has a completely normal conservative program and can impossibly be accused of racist views...

This is the Source

Skeptikos Examiner · #3 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 01:47 AM

I'm in support of dismantling the artificial state of Belgium as well, the north belongs to the Netherlands and the western parts to Germany!

Vlaams-Nationalist · #4 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

I'm in support of dismantling the artificial state of Belgium as well, the north belongs to the Netherlands and the western parts to Germany!

Flanders could be either an independent state or reunited with Netherlands, Wallonia could be either an independent or reunited with France, and the German-speaking part of "Belgium" can choose between Germany or Luxembourg.

German is spoken in the East of Belgium. Don't think Flemish is a separate language, it's a Dutch dialect. You can compare it with British-English and American-English.

The last obstacle for the disintegration of Belgium is Brussels (it's bilingual Dutch-French), Flanders nor Wallonia will be prepared to relinquish Brussels when Belgium splits.

Skeptikos Examiner · #5 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vlaams-Nationalist

German-speaking part of "Belgium" can choose between Germany or Luxembourg.

Or independence, small states are good for democracy! I'm a separatist myself, I'm either for independence for Prussia with Berlin as it's capital or the reformation of Germany as a confederation offering a high grade of autonomy to it's member states like it was before ww1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vlaams-Nationalist

The last obstacle for the disintegration of Belgium is Brussels (it's bilingual Dutch-French), Flanders nor Wallonia will be prepared to relinquish Brussels when Belgium splits.

I'm actually in favor of bombing Brussels to the ground together with the EU Tower of Babel

Vlaams-Nationalist · #6 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 04:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

I'm either for independence for Prussia with Berlin as it's capital or the reformation of Germany as a confederation offering a high grade of autonomy to it's member states like it was before ww1.

Independence for Prussia? Unfortunately Prussia doesn't exist anymore and its former territory is annexed by Poland (the scandalous Oder-Neisse line) and the Soviet-Union (Kaliningrad used to be German/Prussian with Köningsbergen as capital) after WW II. What do you exactly want?

Skeptikos Examiner · #7 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vlaams-Nationalist

Independence for Prussia? Unfortunately Prussia doesn't exist anymore and its former territory is annexed by Poland (the scandalous Oder-Neisse line) and the Soviet-Union (Kaliningrad used to be German/Prussian with Köningsbergen as capital) after WW II. What do you exactly want?

Only the eastern parts of Prussia are still occupied by Poland and Russia and their legal claim to those area are somewhere between quite weak and non existent. Prussia was quite huge in the end reaching over most of northern Germany with Berlin as capital.

What I want is to recreate a Prussian state in what is left of Prussian territory within the current boarders of smaller-Germany and once that is done work into the direction of taking our eastern areas, especially East Prussia with the historical Prussian capital Königsberg, back. The Poles know that thy have no real claim to those areas and Russia already offered to return East Prussia in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet union but our current treacherous ZoG refused the offer!

sunnyside · #8 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 10:49 AM

You Europeans and your not getting along...

Anyway it sounds like only 40% of the Flemish want independence. So it's just a no go. Since they make up 60% of the country and control much of the wealth if they really get together and demanded independence they would probably get it.

Vlaams-Nationalist · #9 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

Only the eastern parts of Prussia are still occupied by Poland and Russia and their legal claim to those area are somewhere between quite weak and non existent. Prussia was quite huge in the end reaching over most of northern Germany with Berlin as capital. [/IMG]

What I want is to recreate a Prussian state in what is left of Prussian territory within the current boarders of smaller-Germany and once that is done work into the direction of taking our eastern areas, especially East Prussia with the historical Prussian capital Königsberg, back. The Poles know that thy have no real claim to those areas and Russia already offered to return East Prussia in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet union but our current treacherous ZoG refused the offer!

Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately more than 14 million Germans/Volksdeutsche/Prussians were expelled after World War 2 from East-Europe (mainly Poland and Russia) to Germany. Of course I do regret these horrible expulsions ... But a consequence of these expulsions is that nowadays Germans in East-Europe became very rarely. So how could you win your former territory back?

peterm2652 · #10 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vlaams-Nationalist

Source: Vlaams siteje

And I have to add:

1) Although the majority of the "Belgians" spoke Dutch the Belgian Constitution was translated to Dutch since 1967. (Belgium exists since 1830 and it always had a Dutch-speaking majority.)

2) 65 % of the Flemings can speak French fluently, whereas less than 20 % of the Walloons know Dutch. French is compulsory for Flemish children at school, French is our first foreign language. And yes, Dutch isn't compulsory for Walloons . By the way there are 6,2 million Flemings and less than 4 million Walloons.

3) Surveys have revealed more than 40 % of the interrogated Flemings want an independent state. The biggest Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang is excluded from any coalition government due to the Cordon sanitaire.

4) Charles Rogier, one of the creators of Belgium has ever said this:

First of all, you seem to be new here so Welcome to this board!

I have a natural sympathy for Flemings because my ancestors were flemish but unfortunately the dutch language got lost through the years in my family. Today we speak french and want the Independence of Quebec! I'd love to learn dutch though, if I find time I will!

Quebec has lots of ties with Wallonia because of the language but our history ressembles Flanders' a lot more. We too escaped from assimilation threats by another nation throughout our history and even the today the constitution of Canada doesn't include us. Quebec still hasn't signed it by the way.

I'm strongly in favor of the Independence of Flanders and in my opinion you should keep Brussels for the simple reason that it's part of your territory or was before it became autonomous. I'm against partition in all forms. Of course Wallonia couldn't survive by itself without Brussels so they'd probably end up being annexed to France.

Of course an Independent Flanders couldn't survive without Brussels either so this city is truly the name of the game for the future of this region. It will have to go to one or the other side because another Berlin wall is not a solution.

I sincerely hope Belgium finds a way to split peacefully and in all it's peoples' best interests. The split is inevitable at this point so better do it the right way.

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