Originally posted by Ajkula
Hallo Bylandt,
ich weiß nicht ob das in ein EU-Forum gehört aber da ich so gut wie nichts über Belgien weiß, würde mich mal interessieren was denn genau der Grund für die Differenzen zwischen Flamen und Wallonen ist.
Vielleicht kannst Du es ja mal in kurzen Worten, in Englisch oder Deutsch, erklären.
Gerne, Akjula. Entschuldigung, ich würde das in English machen.
Belgium became (after French military intervention) independent from the Netherlands. Though the majority of its people were Flemish (mostly peasants), the upperclass and the establishement were french-speaking. They considered the Flemish as brutes and their language (Dutch, a language close to Nieder-Deutsch) as backward. French was the official language of governement. To find employ in better functions you had to know french. Education was in french. Flemings were tried and convicted in a language they didn't understand. The net-result is that many Flemings switched to french and today Brussels and many other towns and villages, which all used to be Flemish, are french-speaking.
This discrimination against the Flemings lessened with the rise of the Flemish Movement, but slowly. The Flemish movement collaborated with Germany in both world wars hoping they would receive better treatment from their "Germanic brothers". The Flemish movement recovered slowly after WW II and today Belgium is a federal country in which Flanders and Wallonia have separate local governements, much like the Deutsche Länder.
Flemish and Walloons are still at odds over many issues:
- Flemings tend to be Catholic and more conservative, where as Wallonia is more socialist
- Flanders is today economically much stronger than Wallonia and calls are getting stronger to stop the financial drain from Flanders to Wallonia
- Flanders refuses to cede the territories which have become in majority french-speaking
- Flanders wants to be tougher on crime and on immigration than Wallonia wants
- etc.
By the way, Flanders in general was opposed to the harsh attitude the Walloon minister of Foreign affairs, Michel, took towards the new Austrian governement.
I have tried be as objective as possible in this overview and hope I didn't oversimplify things. Hope also I didn't bore you too much.
Thanks for the interest, Akjula
