Re: Government
One of the things of getting too much mail is that you will get swamped in it, sometimes to the level of not even managing to figure out there's been replies on your blog for the past several weeks. Oops.
Apparently quite a number of people answered to my blog post about the belgian government issues, and I only found out right before leaving for Argentina. They're now all accepted from moderation, but that doesn't mean I can't follow up on them anymore.
Most of them just agree with what I have to say, or posit another opinion (which is fine), but some clearly show a misunderstanding of what I was trying to say. So, since I don't want to appear as one posting gibberish, allow me to clarify:
"I could say that some other things about the past debâcle also puzzle me, such as the insistence of some people to get an unconditional split of BHV, thereby destroying all chances of even remotely reaching a compromise."
You are saying that you would accept giving in to the demands of the Francophones that the Flemish give up territory. (Think about it, what century are they from? In what other country does one community demand the enlargement of its territory as an exchange for fixing a situation which the constitutional court has ruled to be illegal?)
Thanks for asking, but no, I'm not saying that. Let's be clear about this: there's a huge difference between a position that says "we need to split BHV, period" on the one hand, and "we need to give territory to the francophone community" on the other. It should be perfectly possible to, say, have the flemish community come up with some benefit to the francophone community in some respect somewhere that does not include "giving territory to the south of france"; but apparently the "negotiators" think not. To quote just one example: at some point Reinders (MR) suggested that a federal election circle be created to replace BHV, so that francophone politicians could still be elected in flanders, but also the other way around. This proposal was however killed by flemish politicians before the press as "not even negotiable" without even having discussed it. This, and other similar examples, I do not understand.
After all, the fact that the constitutional court has ruled the current situation to be illegal does not change anything about the fact that this is still a request from the Flemish part of the country, and not from the Francophones; anyone telling you anything else is simply lying. There's nothing wrong with wanting something and being declared correct in court, of course; but there is something wrong with wanting that unconditionally. Unless you won a war, that is. And then still.
Of course, not caring about much of the definitions of many political parties and not being a politician in any way, I ticked off someone who just happens to be a member of one of the parties I don't even like in the first place. Amedee, in case it matters: I didn't call CD&V a "Catholic" party to imply anything, but simply because I'm blissfully ignorant of the difference between Catholic and Christian. And happily so, too, given the CD&V's current behaviour. Oh, and the SP.A is not my favourite party; it's just that they seemed to be the more sensible of the lot during the last elections' campaigns. What's really my favourite party isn't something I'll tell you (or anyone), though.
I do not agree that for something that is deemed inconstitutional (or even anything else), that you have to find a compromise to resolve it. The whole problem with this country that if something needs to get done in one part of the country, the other part wants something in return for a similar purpose. (Even so far to spend the money for something useless) We have thousands of examples of that in Belgium of the past decades.
That is not only a waste of money or effort, it is utterly stupid. You however seems to think it is normal that for everything a compromise for the other region is required. That is not how other countries or nations that have regions (think Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, US/A) work.
What is also not normal is that regions can block progress in other regions to get something in return. We have seen that over the last decades many times and politicians for a long time have accepted it to prevent immobilism.
I, for one, am glad that finally a party (or cartel) has stand up to not just give in. If we did not stand up for our rights in the past, we would all be talking French, universities would have been in French, administration in Flanders would have been in French. But from time to time when things become obviously unjust, people stand up, politicians react and follow that wave.
Do you regret that we stood up for Flanders or the Flemish language in the past ?