Language Dictatorship in Belgium

French speakers in Canada and Belgium need to learn how to keep quiet, just the way French speakers in Switzerland did. You cannot expect for richer provinces (Alberta and Ontario in the case of Canada; and Flanders in the case of Belgium) to finance your plummeting economy.

Wanna split? OK, but no money for you, you won't survive in globalizing world.

<<why split when you can join, in the past, 90 % of splitting included blood, land mines and victims (Yugoslavia, Cyprus just in recent years) >>


Not really... If you don't join un the first place, there's no need to split. Although it's more of a chicken or the egg scenario...

Interesting times are ahead. The truth is that most common Flemish people are ignorant about the Belgian state and its history and actually think that the Dutch state of 1815-30 was a bad thing for Dutch speaking people. We all know that that isn't the case, the Belgian Revolution is always seen from the perspective of francophone bourgousie (it was the 19th century, time of a census voting system) and of course franskiljons. Yes, many Flemish commoners who didn't know how to read or write (because since the 17th century Flanders has lost most its intellectuals to the Northern Netherlands), were furious because the winter of 1830 was a harsh one (it was still the Little Ice Age), harvests failed, we still weren't adapted to the free market economy, there was hunger etc...
Very still, a lot of their unrest wasn't the fault of the young regime they lived in. Ignorance caused many of them to revolt against their own interest.

It's indeed only obvious French nationalism played a huge role at the francophone side of the medal. 15 years ago they were still part of the French Empire. A most chaotic and violent time, very still their nostalgy toward old France was very well there and fresh in their memories. I don't know how much the role of French immigrants helped and how Walloon people were in these days. We for instance had West Flemish provincialists who were against a unified Dutch language, because they feared they'd lose their dialect and even Roman Catholic religion. The poet Guido Gezelle for instance, who lived in the early Belgium still had that outdated mentality. Perhaps there also were some provincialist anti-French Walloons also, but I don't know nothing about that. Nowadays Walloons accept the French lanuage and Flemish accept the Dutch language, so that's irrelevant anyway.
Antwerp and Ghent had a big orangist movement, however, even in the early days the '30s of the 19th century. Repression kept them down.

Many Flemish people are kept ignorant about history, and it's obvious that Flemish fascism of WWII made leftists to be overly pro-Belgian, even Belgian nationalist to an extent it's illogical, and for unclear and even intollerant reasons anti-Dutch. Also a party like Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang didn't promote the idea of independence. Extreme right Dietsland-supporters (the name Dietsland alone yuk!) also didn't quite promote the Great-Dutch state to the modern Fleming.
It's sad for us that we don't have a culture of taking the initiative. But to be honest, we have so little alternatives. Many people who have voted Vlaams Belang in the past, only did so to boycot our system. Many of their protest voters, now vote Lijst Dedecker. Nowadays very still, the majority stubbornly believes in Belgium, maybe due to brainwashing and especially due to ignorance (many Flemish think that Dutch culture automatically means Hollandic culture, for instance, which is weird, because you have to visit different provinces of the Netherlands to learn they aren't all the same). This is of course like you're saying, due to our media. Belgium just had to be milked dry first and of course there's Brussel and the facility municipalities around it.

Once the media changes its mentality, people will become less ignorant. More and more people are getting awake, it's only a slower proces than in the French speaking world. Also Dutch are also following our situation; they are interested in Flanders. You can only split a majority supports it of course, otherwise you get the same shit over again (especially leftists who think that you have to be pro-Belgium to be against far right parties and even immigrants have that same delusion over here, except for some EU-citizens and of course Eastern Europeans, because they're white).
If we didn't have the dispute around Brussels, Flemish and Walloons would be better neighbours and Belgium would be history all along. Yugoslavic situations are luckily not likely (some Croat fellow once tried to compare Belgium to Yugoslavia lol).

Walloon - join France.
Flanders - join Netherlands.
Brussels - city state - EU administrative region.

<<Gay-uest Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:54 am GMT
Walloon - join France.
Flanders - join Netherlands.
Brussels - city state - EU administrative region.>>

Belgian East Cantons,Welkenraedt and Beho-Boholtz areas-join Germany.
Arlon area (Arelerland)-join Luxemburg.

Walloon - join France.
Flanders - join Netherlands.
Belgian East Cantons,Welkenraedt and Beho-Boholtz areas-join Germany.
Arlon area (Arelerland)-join Luxemburg.
Brussels an US military base

Belgians should find the reasons of their problems, solve them and by that teach the world how to deal with language bounaries honestly and without ignorance, violence and intolerance.

The best option would be a quick military confrontation like in Georgia earlier this year. A nice way to stir up the atmosphere and speed up a little the painfully slow political mangling.

The worst option would be a quick military confrontation like in Georgia earlier this year.

Flanders - join France
Wallonia - join the Netherlands

Flanders won't join France, simply because France doesn't want it. And Wallonia would probably become independent. And if this cenario happens don't worry about Brussels, at the end is just one city.

But I don't think they will split. The current crisis is mainly a political and financial one. The point of no return happens when you have social conflict or even some sort of armed conflict (ex: some teenager killed because he wasn't aloud to speak french, and subsequent riots). Only then things would start to harm up.

Lets hope it doesn't get to that.

It's more likely that Flanders would like to join France than Wallonia joins the Netherlands.

The Flemings are willing to communicate in French with the French, Canadians, Swiss, or Francophone Africans but not with the Wallons and the reason is rivalry between the Walloons and Flemings.

I always heard Flemings speaking in French when being interviewed by international journalists more often than in English.

I think the Flemings have nothing against the French language. They just get antagonized whenever they hear a walloon talking.

Most of Walloons are ignoring Dutch language-they don't learn and don't speak Dutch.This is one of the reasons of Belgium split.Aggressive propagating of French language in Belgium gives an converse effect.