'Fuck Flanders!'

[Goswinus]

Het eindverslag van de “Interculturele Dialoog”: een opmerkelijk document op een opmerkelijk tijdstip. Weeral een stapje dichter bij de invoering van de sharia in België? Vlaanderen heeft voorlopig niets in de pap te brokken…

http://vlaamserepubliek.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/fuck-flanders/

[The Ripper]

This thread title reminds me, my friend's friend lives in Belgium, I think he's half Belgian, and he hates Flanders (he lives in Brussels). He thinks they are all racist and intolerant and whatnot (funnily enough he saw nothing racist in generalizing an entire ethnos). I told him that Brussels used to be a Flemish city, which he refused to believe. The reason why I'm sharing this encounter with what is obviously an idiot, is to ask whether this kind of "anti-Flemish" agitation is very common in Belgium? Seems to me that many in Wallonia associate the Flemish totally with VB.

[Goswinus]

For a small country, Belgium experiences complex problems. Your friend's kneejerk reaction is one of them. My general impression is that the common Walloon doesn't hate the Flemish people, rather admires them, sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes with a reflection on how Wallonia turned wrong and got sucked in its farragoes of socio-economical decline. But then you have the 'francophone', who is the particularist, Über-Belgian, reactionary in his belief of an unitary Belgium, progressive to some degree in adhering to an open-borders policy, which probably works like a good excuse to move and live in Flemish territory and demand facilities to receive service in their French language and striving to political power in such municipalities. I don't know whether it is a conscious tactic, but ultimately, as those municipalities are in the vicinity of Brussels, from where they usually have move out, they set some hopes to attach these bilingual but Flemish towns to Brussels and make it a gain for the francophony.

I forget to mention that another characteristic of this francophones is their hatred to all things of Flemish. Not necessarily where it concerns dialect and old customs, traditions and craftmanship, the Medieval flavour of Flemish culture, harmless and innocent, but in the surge of what one could call affirmative action by the Flemish in obtaining more sovereignity for Flanders and improving the way of living for the Flemish without concessions to the Belgian context, while criticising the dependence of Wallonia to Flemish money and the lack of foresight and volition by the Walloon political caste to tackle the recession in their part of the country with thorough reforms which come even with objections and attempts to block reforms advocated by the Flemish for Flanders, especially whereas the improvement of the economy is at stake!

There is thus the political caste in Wallonia injecting adversary against the Flemish, but also the media and intellectuals partake in offensive actions to stir up hatred. A paper like Le Soir, located in Brussels, is a hub of raking up communautary dissonance, and while it makes strong cases for multiculturalism, human rights, women's lib and other objectives with a progressive slant, it staunchingly defends the francophone intrusion in the Flemish fringe-muncipalities around Brussels. Every initiative by the Flemish government and local politicians to dam the further colonialisation is met with a barrage of hate-filled arguments denouncing at the same time our actions as signposts of racist disposure.

They propel a very unfavourable image of the Flemish but it is likely that it affects foremost those areas along the language border, less so inland, rather strong in Brussels that while mixed is predominantly francophone, but not Walloon as many french-speaking Bruxellois actually are able to speak the local Dutch(!) dialect. There most linger an old xenophobia against all things Dutch (Dutch as in 'from the Netherlands'), felt like a foreign language used by a nation that in their eyes domineered them and wrongly so and this subconcious fear and ressentiment must still seize and grip them and has been transfered to the Flemish who since long aren't anymore the puny, bowing and impotent peasants of yore speaking in a colourful patois, unlike the true Bruxellois in his everyday business with friends and neighbours.
The worst cases of francophony comes often from people with Flemish roots, but fully bedded in a French-speaking culture, and emulating it like a convert to a creed, which usually includes denying and reserving but dispariging remarks, hate and belligerent language even, for the past and one's ancestry.

[ZeDoCaixao]

So what are the genetics of this affair, can anyone say? how alike or divergent are these two prissy micro-peoples? My experience with les Belges on either side is that they're at least visibly the same folk.

[Goswinus]

So what are the genetics of this affair, can anyone say? how alike or divergent are these two prissy micro-peoples? My experience with les Belges on either side is that they're at least visibly the same folk.

One source claims that at least one million francophones and Walloons descend from the Flemish, of which many come down south to work in the coal mines and in the steel industries (think of Cockerill-Sambre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockerill-Sambre)). Though unlike our prissy friends over the Atlantic, there is no love to hyphen the adopted nationality with the ancestral stock, so within a generation the memory and attachment to Flanders is gone, eradicated and forgotten.

Anyway, genetic studies on the Belgians is still ongoing and very preliminary, Eupedia offers a summary, but some conclusions and connections need further scrutinity and might be going overboard in their statements.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/benelux_france_dna_project.shtml

Racially speaking, Flemish and Walloons are Subnordic, with a greater Nordic input in the Flemish part of the country and more Alpine and Borreby in the Walloons. That's the general partition offered by Coon, Montandon and Ripley. Other authors find element of the Lorraine race, which is regarded as a variety of the Noric race, though it might be some Alpine-Borreby-Nordic mix common in East France (Burgundy, Alsace-Lorraine). A Mediterrenean element is acknowledged, although it would occur in small numbers.

Based on the numerous Frankish burials in Hainaut and to some degree Namur, both Walloon provinces, there might be a higher incidence of Nordic elements without specific Flemish demographical contribution. The greater Alpine component in the Ardennes and Luxemburg must be very old and continous since the Neolithic. Though Flanders is not that homogeneous Nordic, either, perhaps more in Antwerp and Limburg, but further west there's an increment of Atlantid, if not Atlanto-Mediterrenean elements and overall there's survival of Alpines and Borreby, although diluded and absorbed in the Nordic (and Faelish) stock.

I don't think genetics and race are that important in the dynamics of political and territorial contention. There is this image of plodding sluggish Walloons contrasted with the flexible and enterprising Flemish, and one might translate it as Nordics versus Alpines, but historically speaking it doesn't hold well. In the 17th century the Walloons were highly appreciated for iron making technology and invited to Sweden for their forging skills. In more recent times, they contributed in science and technology, like the Solvay process for the production of soda ash. Industrialisation surged and expanded to a level in the 19th century able to rival the United Kingdom! However, by the 1950s Wallonia's economy went into a slump, not the least because it was still relying on an antiquated industry, meanwhile Flanders quickly shed off its provincial attitude and reset itself to the wavelenght of modernisation and acquired a high profile in economical development.

The setbacks in the economy, the harsh social repercusssions, the hurt pride and mourning for the old days, might all together have accentuated and/or impinged the laidback attitude, the slower pace, the limited scope, the decrease of volition and general predisposition to stagnation in the Walloon people, leading to a conservatism that refutes to change the parameters of existence and make it a go to get over the bread line.
It's worth a study to find out how slim economical conditions can affect the mentality of a nation from industrious aptitude to desintegration and passivity. A fair warning for unwarranted self-conceit in matters of fluctuations in the national economy.

[ZeDoCaixao]

Comprehensive reply. Thanks. Limited time in company of either Flemmards or Walloonies, but I've seen striking Nordic types among both, more often the latter. I really need to study more history.

Another question, if you will indulge. I've been browsing these classification fora for a few years, but never studied them or any of the books intensively. Where to start if I wanted to know exactly what is meant by "the Lorraine race"? could you point me to conclusive discussions here or elsewhere with modern photographic illustrations of such types?

[The Lawspeaker]

Ik zou het bijzonder op prijs stellen als dit artikel naar de Engelstalige sectie wordt verplaatst.