Does Belgium have a future?

...the Liberals were and are more identified with national unity than any other party, and, in the seventies, were last to follow suit by splitting into two separate parties...

...Vague feelings of mis kind were recently given some credence in a highly-publicized study by two economics professors at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, demonstrating that Wallonia in recent years has had a lower productivity index and a lower savings-to-income ratio, as well as a negative balance of payments and disproportionately high social service costs—both of which were covered by the foreign earnings of Flemish industry...

...JAMES D. TRACY IN a quiet way that becomes its lack of nationalist fervor, the kingdom of Belgium is now celebrating its 150th anniversary...

...Thus Flemings should have the freedom of maneuver to nurture along according to their own lights one of Europe's wirtschaftswunders, while, now that the Liberals have joined the Christian Democrats and the Socialists in coalition—comfortably providing the two-thirds majority necessary for implementing regionalization—all three major parties together should have a breathing space from "communal" to linguistic issues, in which to address the formidable economic problems that face all industrial democracies...

...Along with other language-issue parties, it lost credit last fall when its leaders chose to display themselves prominently on the scene while Flemish and Walloon extremist groups had a good bash at each other during "demonstrations" in the linguistically troubled Voer region...

...Indeed, while there are many good Flemish writers, not to mention their Dutch counterparts, it is a bit unfair to compare Dutch literature with what is available in French...

...But one of the minor paradoxes of Belgian politics is that sentiment for regional autonomy, which in Flanders is a rallying-cry among conservatives, has traditionally been strongest among left-wing politicians in Wallonia—a circumstance which may trace back to the anti-state, Proudhonian influence in late nineteenth-century Walloon Socialism...

...Hence in the sixties, Flemish opinion was strong enough to force through two major legal changes of which the memory is still painful to many French-speaking Belgians: the "bounding" of Brussels, preventing the largely francophone city's further expansion into Flemish Brabant, and splitting the University of Louvain, with the francophone section moving out of Leuven to a new campus twenty miles south...

...In connection with the city's,millennium last year, the francophone section of the Ministry of Culture sponsored an exhibit ("1,000 years' Radiation of French Culture") riddled with scandalous" historical inaccuracies in regard to the medieval period, asDe Standaard pointed out in an appropriately scathing review...

...As for the argument that Flemish industry is more productive because of old-fashioned virtues still to be found among the Flemish people, other Walloon writers have made the telling point that Wallonia's demographic structure—more old people, and workers with more seniority—might well account for the differences in social expenditures, and in productivity as a function of labor costs...

...Hence the conclusion is that a semi-autonomous Wallonia might well redress the economic balance by giving the local population some control over (among other things) investment policy...

...Even in regard to a prospective regionalization, the wing of the Flemish Christian Democratic party whose free-enterprise economic instincts are in tune with those of the Liberals—and whose editorial voice is the influential daily De Standaard— have been loath to contemplate any scheme that would allow a Socialist-controlled Wallonia to draw on national (and ultimately Flemish) tax revenues to finance job-saving investments in moribund industries...

...In the English language press, conflict between Belgium's two nationalities is usually treated with a fair degree of ignorance, and occasional sophomoric humor (the London Economist, in discussing the possibility of a land bridge between England and France, suggested moving the Flemings to Commonweal: 686 Holland and the Walloons to France, so that "unhappy Belgium" could be scooped into the Channel for landfill...

...According to the constitutional reforms of 1970, the Flemish minority in Brussels was to be guaranteed parity in a metropolitan council, just as the Walloon minority in the country were guaranteed parity in the number of ministerial posts...

...Following World War II, Quevit argues, these firms shifted their capital to more promising new industries in the north, thus abandoning the region that had produced their original profits...

...To symbolize the union between Dutchspeaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, a flotilla of barges made its way in June along the major rivers of both JAMES D. TRACY, a member of the history department of the University of Minnesota, recently returned from an extended period of research in Belgium...

...HISTORICALLY a Flemish city, Flemish still in its architecture and in the names of its people, Brussels began to be ' 'Frenchified'' with the Napoleonic occupation, if not before, depending on whether one reads historians writing in Dutch or in French...

...If Flemings are in the ascendant economically, one has the impression there are still workingclass Flemings in Brussels who will believe it when they see it, and in the meantime, hope to increase their children's chances by enrolling them in francophone schools...

...The drive for cultural autonomy gained popular support in the wake of World War I, in which Flemish doughboys had four long years in the trenches of West Flanders to ponder the fact that their officer corps spoke only French...

...Accordingly, and despite the obligatory second-nationallanguage requirement in Belgian schools, Walloons are about as willing to learn Dutch as Americans are to learn any foreign language, no matter what...

...A federal solution to Belgium's problems has long been advocated by regional enthusiasts, but each of the major parties had reasons for opposing such schemes...

...Instead, Flemish culture was revived by the Flemish Movement, one of whose early achievements was the adoption of Literary Dutch as the written language of Flanders...

...WALLOON OPINION on Belgium's linguistic problems is guided by a national myth of long standing...

...Belgium's internal conflicts have made the Belgians natural mediators in Europe's larger rivalries, and it will be a good omen for the continuing adaptability of Europe's democratic institutions if the current government can indeed pull off the trick of creating a framework to satisfy the often conflicting aspirations of Flemings and Walloons...

...But it is the only country now attempting to provide breathing space for its diverse nationalities by federalist reform of a hitherto unitary state...

...The plan has not been well-received among francophoneBruxellois—e.g., the protest rally that fizzled—but in Wallonia it seems to have 5 December 1980: 689 evoked feelings that Wallonia and Flanders can, after all, get along with each other...

...But Flemings as individuals naturally resent the inequalities which result (e.g., hiring at certain levels of the civil service must be on a SO/SO basis, despite the fact that Flemings outnumber Walloons by about six to four...

...For Walloons, the corollary of this supreme confidence in French culture is that it will naturally spread of its own attractive power—to the extent it is not impeded by linguistic laws (there are, unfortunately, otherwise intelligent Walloons who still cherish the notion that French would conqueer Flanders were it not for the fact that crucial state aid is provided only for Dutch-speaking schools...

...At a different level, Flemish professionals working in Brussels often prefer to live outside the city limits merely to spare their families unpleasantness (e.g., a businessman who transferred his residence to Ostend so his children could grow up without having to be self-conscious about being Flemish, or a doctor who moved outside the city limits after swastikas were painted on his door...

...Still, Flemings have not quite shaken off the combative sense of inferiority instilled in their forebears during the period when the Flemish people were presumed not even to have a culture worthy of the name...

...One of the several crises during Premier Martens's first government last fall and winter was brought about when a Flemish Christian Democratic party 5 December 1980: 687 congress, led by chairman and ex-premier Leo Tindemans, attacked current regionalization plans as lacking sufficient guarantees that an autonomous Walloon entity would be forced to foot the bill for its own economic experiments...

...But Belgium deserves a better hearing, if for no other reason than because the coexistence of distinct nationalities within a single state poses a critical test for the viability of democratic institutions . In fact, Flemings and Walloons are closer than ever to an amicable solution of their long-standing differences—except, mat is, for the problem of Brussels...

...A few months later, when FDF officials made their umpteenth threat to quit the coalition, Premier Martens decided to show them the door...

...Quevit's particular target is the investment policy of what the London Economist has called Belgium's "fuddy-duddy holding companies"—notably the Societe General de Banque, whose parent bank controls one-third of the nation's private savings—which are still dominated by a francophone elite, much as U.S...

...Wiser heads among Flemish politicians—notably the current premier, Wilfried Martens, former party chief of the Flemish Christian Democrats—seem fully aware that Flanders must be prepared for concessions to forestall legitimate Walloon fears about a "tyranny of the majority...

...The immediate obstacle, and one that must be surmounted if any reform of the Belgian state is to endure, is the question of Brussels...

...In a kind of emerging national mythology, Flemings attribute their region's postwar prosperity not to the mere fact of foreign investment, but to old-fashioned virtues of thrift and hard work—and the resulting stable labor climate—which attract foreign investment...

...The Polish corridor of Belgium's linguistic conflict is a single row of Flemish communes that separates Brussels from the Walloon part of Brabant to the south, notably St...

...following World War II, the new Dutch-speaking elite produced by these schools aggressively recruited the foreign investment which has endowed Flanders with an impressively diverse and still prosperous industrial economy, even as the coal and steel industries of Wallonia were entering a seemingly irreparable decline...

...Moreover, Wilfried Martens seems well-suited to the task at hand, since, as premier, his fidelity to stated commitments has earned him among francophone Belgians a respect which nicely complements his earlier reputation—tracing as far back as "Flemish Day" at the 1957 Brussels World's Fair—as an effective organizer of Flemish interests...

...Yet from the time that French Jansenist exiles found refuge here in the eighteenth century, the city has by degrees built up its literary reputation as "la ville plus norde de la francite...

...Instead, public opinion in Flanders supports the idea of endowing bom major regions with some of the attributes of self-government, including limited powers of taxation and budget control...

...regions...

...Commonweal: 690...

...Despite such feelings, most Flemings do not favor an independent Flanders...

...Flemish sources, using recent voting behavior, arrive at a figure of thirty percent of the native population, or about 250,000...

...Recently, however, the FDF has been on the wane...

...So long as the militant francophone Front D'emocratique des Francophones retains its majority standing among Brussels voters, there seems in truth no way to provide for the Flemish minority in an autonomous Brussels region sufficient guarantees to satisfy the Flemish majority in the national parliament...

...as if to underscore the point, nationalist parties of both language groups flatly refused, each for separate reasons, to participate in the sesquicentennial festivities...

...At the same time, Flanders has steadily increased its traditional demographic edge, thus sustaining the political clout of its perennial majority party, the Christian Democrats...

...In return, communes just beyond the limits tend to be fiercely Flemish, with a cold shoulder to foreigners who speak French (English is preferable), and signs urging residents to spreek steeds uw taal te Brussels—always speak your language in Brussels...

...Ginesius-Rode, since, francophones say, the newer section along the road to the commune of (French-speaking, despite its name) Waterloo is entirely francophone, which would make Brussels a "peninsula" rather than an "island" surrounded by Flemish Brabant...

...In effect, many Belgians are asking themselves whether Belgium has a future...

...As recently as the Flemish Christian Democratic party congress last winter this incident was cited as proof that francophone promises cannot be trusted (to which francophones replied that the congress's rejection of regionalization plans previously approved by the Flemish Christian Democrats was proof of Flemish perfidy...

...In these circumstances, the current coalition ingeniously proposed to move ahead where agreement seemed possible, while putting the whole question of Brussels temporarily' 'into the refrigerator...

...Success in this first stage of regionalization could well produce a momentum for resolving the problems of Brussels, especially since the present coalition seems fairly stable (Walloon Socialists are not happy with the austerity demands of their new Liberal partners, but they are deeply committed to and are shy of provoking new elections, whose result could well be a replay of an earlier Christian Democratic-Liberal coalition led by Leo Tindemans...

...The latter provision has been strictly observed, but the Brussels metropolitan council election of 1971 was so controversial that there has to this day never been another election: many of the "Flemish" candidates elected were people who, if Flemish by birth, were clearly francophone by cultural preference...

...Belgium asserted its independence by rejecting a brief union with the Netherlands...

...Belgium is far from being the only European state shared by different ethnic groups, nor is it the only one whose component nationalities have been able to compose their differences without'ever resorting to war between themselves (witness Switzerland, whose multi-ethnic tensions seem easily enough contained within a long-established federal structure...

...A few months ago a few hundred of them made themselves typically obnoxious by hooting at the King and Queen on their sesquicentennial visit to Antwerp, on the same weekend when even non-soccer fans huddled in front of their TV sets to watch Belgium's unheralded Red Devils give the top-rated Germans a good run for Europe's nationalteam championship...

...Since French had been spreading rapidly among the upper classes of Flanders in consequence of the preceding Napoleonic occupation, the founding fathers all spoke French, and they assumed their country would be unified culturally through a gradual disappearance of the Netherlandish dialects spoken in its northern half...

...But limited regional autonomy, with crucial issues still at the determination of the national parliament, will at least give each region limited freedom to experiment with options according to its own liking...

...bank directorates are perhaps the last bastion of WASP ascendancy...

...for Belgium itself, it would be a splendid way to mark the sesquicentennial...

...During the spring, a planned non-partisan rally to protest the treatment of Brussels by the new government fizzled when it became clear the FDF was hoping to use the occasion for its own ends (the tip-off was a large run of rally posters in unmistakable FDF magenta...

...Certainly the most articulate Walloon proponents of die newly adopted "reform of the state" have been found among the so-called Bastin-Yerna group, a coalition of French-speaking Socialists and left-wing Christian Democrats...

...Apart from the solid practical reasons for not dismantling a national framework which generally functions quite well, and is not altogether bereft of sentimental attachments, separatist opinion is severely handicapped by the fact that its most vociferous exponents are found among Splinter groups whose private stock of bazookas and Nazi insignia betrays their ideological descent from extreme nationalists who collaborated with German occupation forces during two World Wars...

...But the regionalization plan proposed by Martens's second coalition government, and adopted into law by the Belgian Parliament in August, envisions immediate fiscal responsibility for the two major regions, with supplementary centralgovernment subsidies...

...New regional institutions for Flanders and Wallonia are to be established at once, and a plan for Brussels—including a new framework for metropolitan council elections—is to be devised by the end of 1982...

...In any event, it is clear that none of the city's nineteen communes has a Flemish majority, and that the Flemish population is constantly exposed to a more or less blatant cultural discrimination, since there is nowhere a local constitutency strong enough to demand enforcement of linguistic parity laws long since put on the books by the national government...

...Flemings, too, tend to see themselves as more "community-minded" than the "individualistic" Walloons, although a moment's reflection (e.g., the francophone Quebecois) might suggest that group solidarity has nothing to do with language, but quite a lot to do with the historical experience of being dominated by another culture...

...Some noted, however, that the Scheldt and the Meuse are not connected by nature, but only by the artifice of a canal...

...In general, election results of the past few years suggest that voters are waking up to the fact that language-issue parties like the FDF and the Volksunie have essentially nothing to say about the country' s economic problems, and can only thrive by exploiting communal tensions...

...At present it is impossible to tell how many Flemings there are among its million inhabitants (one-fourth foreigners), Commonweal: 688 partly because there has been no linguistic item in the censuses since 1947 (in consequence of Flemish grievances about the biased nature of the questions), and partly because it is difficult to classify a shopkeeper or railway worker who speaks Brussels Vlaams with chums on the job, and French with customers, but little or no Literary Dutch...

...But divisive issues of the sixties gave a strong impetus to parties based purely on language—the Rassemblement Wallon, the Voksunie, and, in Brussels, the Front D'emocratique des Francophones, or FDF—and hence persuaded the major parties to move with the times by adopting, in 1970, a constitutional amendment providing for the creation of three regions, with Brussels-capital, with a special bilingual status, being the third...

...Apart from occasional zealots for literature in the Walloon dialect, Walloons think of themselves as regional carriers of a world civilization...

...Hospitals are legally required to have a bilingual staff, but a patient brought in from the surrounding Flemish countryside will likely as not find himself having to describe obscure symptoms in French...

...Flemish ability to pick up French is, of course, a very different story, but, sensing the political implications of this inequality, younger Flemings in certain situations now make a point of refusing to switch over to French...

...Hence during the inter-war years education in Flanders was thoroughly ' 'Dutchified'' (except for the renowned Universite Catholique de Lou vain, located in the Flemish town of Leuven...

...Whether a leftward-leaning Wallonia and a Flanders oriented more toward free enterprise can harmonize their interests on monetary policy and other matters is a question that troubles observers on both sides of the linguistic frontier...

...Wilfried Martens's first government was constructed as a coalition of leading parties in each of the three projected regions—Christian Democrats for Flanders, Socialists for Wallonia, and the FDF for Brussels—but the FDF quit the coalition rather than accept changes demanded by the Flemish Christian Democratic party congress last winter, and the government subsequently fell for want of the necessary two-thirds majority when a handful of Flemish Christian Democrats defected on the crucial vote for regionalization (they objected because two francophone parliament members living outside Brussels would have been allotted seats in the Brussels regional assembly, thus calling in question the Flemish status of communes outside the city...

...Walloon Socialists were reluctant to consign their northern colleagues to permanent minority status in Flanders, while Flemish Christian Democrats had similar apprehensions on behalf of their confreres in Wallonia, with its perennial Socialist pluralities...

...Francophone estimates, based on school enrollments, put the total at fifteen percent, or about 150,000...

...its success or failure in this regard could have a good deal to say about the future of regionalist movements in half a dozen other European countries...

...In any case, middle-class francophone opinion, which has its own reasons for being dubious about the prospect of a Socialist-controlled Wallonia, is less than whole-hearted in its enthusiasm for federalist reforms, since in its view francophone cultural interests are served quite well by the existing unitary state...

...From these premises Walloons conclude that theirs is the culture of the individual seeking his own level, while Flemings are more prone to a "germanic" group solidarity...

...A fair sample of this view is the French version (1978) of a doctoral thesis at Wisconsin by sociologist Michel Quevit, now at the Universite Catholique de Louvain...