Jordi,
The walloons didn't invade bruxelles. Actually the bruxellois are netheir flemish, nor walloon they are..."bruxellois". Many of them have flemish or french family name, but almost all them speak french nowadays. They defined themseves as bruxellois: It's their own identity, that is to say a kind of mix beetween flemish (for the mentality) and francophone (for the language and culture)...And today the immigrants in bruxelles essentially come from former french colonies (marocco, Algeria...), so the "new bruxellois" are also francophone (not flemish speaker).
There is an administrative capital in Wallonia (Namur), but it is not really influent. For me the TRUE capital of the Waloon people is Paris.
The BIG problem is that Bruxelles is the administrative capital of the "region of Flanders" whereas Bruxelles is a region on its own (Bruxelles is not situated in Flanders)!!! I advise all of you to look at a map because it's really complicated!! So In Belgium, Bruxelles is three times a capital!!
- Capital of Belgium
- Capital of the region of Flanders
- Capital of the region called "Bruxelles-Capitale"
Now I guess you understand why belgium is a mess!!!!
...I forgot, It's also the capital of the "communauté française de Belgique"
"The french speaking community of belgium" which is composed of the Waloons and the Bruxellois!!!
Now you understand why it's really really really a big mess!!!!
correction :
NOWADAYS, brussels is a bilingual community, but
IT USED TO BE a flemish city by origin if you go back in recent history ...
And IT IS situated in Flanders ... ( surrounded by flemish cities with flemish names (!) )
I found this in the Internet and I imagine it must be a very good report. It makes you think quite a bit abouth the rights of the Flemish people in Brussel. I would like to read opinions of both Flemish and Walloons:
Until deep into the nineteenth century, Brussel was a Flemish city. As was usual in the other Flemish cities, the top layer of the population used French, but, different from what happened in the other cities, where the Flemish emancipation removed French in favour for Dutch, in Brussel, French kept being used, and eventually the whole city became French-speaking.
Gemeentelijke Ambtenaren
The language laws of 1963 gave Brussel a bi-cultural status. This means that in theory, both French and Dutch should be treated equally, and that a citizen should see no difference at the town-hall whether he uses Dutch or French. In practice, the Frenchification pressure even increased, and monolingual French-speaking civil servants are more the rule than the exception.
Bovendien zijn de Franstalige partijen van mening dat de pariteitsregel niet van toepassing is voor contractuelen, dit zijn werknemers die geen vast contract hebben. De Vlaamse partijen spreken dit echter tegen, en zien hierin een middel voor de Franstalige partijen om toch nog eentalige ambtenaren aan te kunnen aanwerven.
Public Hospitals
A survey held in 1994, showed that 58% of the Dutch-speaking patients in Brussel's OCMW hospitals had to switch to French to make theirselves understandable for the personel, including the treating doctor. One fourth of every hospitalized in Brussel comes from Vlaams-Brabant (Flemish Brabant), and normally, no monolingual doctor should be appointed in these hospitals. Every such appointment is annulled by the State Council, but the OCMWs involved never react.
Cable Companies
Also Brussel's cable companies help to Frenchify the city. The Dutch television station Nederland 3 was removed from cable, and the Dutch-spoken pay-TV SuperSport never made it to the cable, because the rent was too high. In practice, only 1% of the subscribers in Brussel are Flemish, but the rent is calculated for a reach of 10%. Canal Plus, the French-spoken counterpart of FilmNet, of which it can be assumed that it reaches far more subscribers, pays only for a reach of 7,5%! Since 1993, FilmNet is paying the same amount as Canal Plus, but proportianally, this is still too high. The cause for this problem is that the cable companies in Brussel are afraid that they may anger French speaking subscribers by putting too many Flemish or Dutch stations on the cable.
Brussels and an Independent Flanders treats the problems that will arise concerning the status of Brussel in an independent Flanders.
You seem to know so much about Belgium, what nationality do you have ? :p
Tiste,
Of course bruxelles is supposed to be a bilingual community...just officialy, because the federal belgian state wants to save its face. But wether it pleases you or not everyone know in the whole world that Bruxelles is a french-speaking city.
Ask an american or an italian or whatever... He will say you that Bruxelles is francophone...just because it's true.
Bruxelles doesn't make part of Flanders. IT'S A REGION ON ITS OWN!!!
This region is an enclave in Flanders, bur it is not IN. As for the cities surrounding, you are in bad faith!!! This cities are inhabited by francophones in the main part.
To Louvain-la-neuve,
I guess the problem with Brussels is that it is the natural capital of Brabant Province (the historical core of Belgium) only, and besides it can function as a capital of Belgium as a whole, but not of any of the regions, because now it really belongs to neither of them. I agree that the present-day division of three regions plus three language communities really complicates matters to the extreme. A better way would be to divide Belgium as a federal state along its historical constituents: Brabant as a bilingual area with Brussels as centre and capital of Belgium (it could function as kind of a Greater Brussels or Belgium Minor, as you like it), Flanders proper (in a historical sense), consisting of West and East Flanders, Antwerpen and Limburg, and Hainault, Namur, Liege and Luxemburg would form Wallonie. Of course this is a play of mind, but thinking along ethnic lines only is a cul-de-sac on the long run. I can confirm this from what I see in Eastern Europe, where the former regional structure was overthrown in favour of the ethnic and "rightful claim" principle, and this has created internal dividing lines within the new "nation states", due to historical differences between the various regions. Something similar would happen if Wallonie became a part of France, I guess. At any rate, it would become a peripheral territory of France Provencale instead of being an important constituent of a small but distinct country. But of course, it is up to Walloons to decide where they feel they belong more.
I meant the Belgian province of Luxembourg, not the Grand-Duché.
Jordi, be very very careful when you take informations in the net about this problem, (particulary in Wikipedia). You know It's a very sensitive problem and the informations are often unobjective.
I don't know how true it is (If it is I feel bad for the flemish), but why deny the reality??? Bruxelles is francophone, so obviously the flemish must expect no to be understood by all the bruxellois!!!
Thanks Easterner for your support
You know, it's really difficult. If there was an unified Brabant as you suggest, the problems will be the same: two nations, two languages.
Actually, Brabant used to be united, but it was divided into 2 parts because of the communities war between the Walloons and the flemish... So I'm sure it couldn't work today, because it didn't before.
Sorry it was me who posted this message not Easterner of course...
Oh come on , everything I've said on this topic is found untrue by francophones ... Please cut a flemish guy some slack !
What I am saying is true ! And I know my history, that's for sure
It is really interesting to see how we foreigners have much more balalanced views of the conflict than the Belgians themselves. If all Belgians are like people in this forum, I am really amazed that civil war has not yet erupted!
It seems that all we foreigners can agree on: Brussels lies historically in Flanders (although very close to Wallonie) and has an originally Flemish population. But today the city is more than three-quarters French-speaking.
So Brussels´fate in a dismantled Belgium will depend on which principle you adhere to: Old historical rights or the inhabitants´selfdetermination.
Strange that the Belgians are not able to see this as clearly as us.
Fredrik from Norway ,
How can you even know what we said , do you understand Flemish , actually West-Flemish, the dialect that doesn't even resemble Dutch as much as common flemish ?
Ok Tiste, go to to bruxelles, try to speak flemish with its inhabitants and you'll see...
Anyways, I'm not a bruxellois. I just want wallonia to be part of France (as it should). The Bruxellois will decide by themselves if they want to follow us...