for the intrested: belgian political problems

[blood-raven]

hi, just for ppl who want to know this, since my niece went to canada where they spammed here with questions about how it's going in belgium with the flanders-walonia thing so, i'll going to explain it here.

the problem started many years ago when napoleon was defeated by the russians, english, germans etc. in viena they decided to make a bufferstate against france called 'the unite provinces of the netherlands' which included modern belgium and the netherlands, the problem with that desicion is that they putted 4 ppl together, frisians, dutch, flemish and walloons, the frisians and dutch formed no problem nether did the flemish, the big problem was the walloons, the only french speaking ppl in a otherwise dutch country, the problem: they had all power and money in the south (also the south was catholic the north protestant), so they convinced the flemish Willem van oranje was a bad guy so we revolted in 1830 creating belgium as independant state. still the french (walloons) had all power and money, the flemish worked for french nobles or bosses, when the first world war brake out the flemish soldiers suffered mutch losses because they could not understand there french officers, so they organised a strike, since the flemish formed the bulk of the army, the king had to do something and promised more rights for the flemish and flemish officers, which came later.

later when coal had less impact on the economy the position of the french began to weaken, the flemish became very wealthy (it's something we are very proud of cause it's by our hard work).

then new politics started, there are now 3 states in belgium flanders (dutch), walonia(french) and brussels (the two languages), the problem now is that more and more ppl start to live in flemish towns near the walonian border so french parties are on the electoral list, which is fought on by the flemish because it's flemish territory, and this is called the 'brussel-halle-vilvoorde question' cause there are waloon mayors in halle and vilvoorde (flemish towns). so the french want a bigger brussels so the french mayors can be legal, something the flemish can't do.

that's the problem.

regards

EDIT: ty for the corrections, but i wanted ad this: because the flemish and walloon parties arguing for so long the government has fallen 3 times, so next monday we must go to vote, again, like last year and the year before, sigh this never ends.
but to come on dky's political statement: the idea that flemish and walloons will ever become friends is as impossible as starwars will land in our solarsystem, maybe 80% of the flemish want's to dump the walloons cause we are paying them (2EUR/ head/month) there are 6mil flemish, do the math. but the problems with dumping walonia is that if we do that, they will turn into a 3'th world country so all factories will go there and flanders will loose all what we worked so hard for.
btw, the belgians back then din't like the dutch at all, since they where 'headen', altough ostend did rather well, 4 years we battled the spanish, in one month ostend used the entire gunpowder stock the UPN had for a year, we fought them hard.

EDIT 2: wiki says: The demonym for Wallonia is Walloon., so yes ori, it is

EDIT3: De geldstromen van Vlaanderen naar Wallonië en Brussel bedroegen vorig jaar 6,6miljard euro, een historisch record. Dat blijkt uit de langverwachte studie die de Vlaamse administratie Abifim heeft opgesteld in opdracht van de Vlaamse regering. In tegenstelling tot wat wel eens wordt beweerd, zal die geldstroom ook op lange termijn blijven toenemen.
http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/det...cleid=GKA9LLK1

translation: the flow of money from flanders to walonia and brussels last year totaled 6.6 billion euros, a historical record. This is shown by the long-awaited study by the Flemish administration Abifim has commissioned the Flemish government. Contrary to what is sometimes asserted, the funding will continue to grow over the long term
it's even worse

[DkySven]

Although I don't know a lot on the current situation in Belgium, I feel that I have to make a few corrections. The new kingdom created after the Napoleonic wars was the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while before the Netherlands was a republic; the name you used: the united provinces of the Netherlands. So the Dutch were a bit upset too we had a king after rebelling against one.

Why the union didn't work is because when we rebelled against Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands were still one, but the Spanish successfully set Belgium up against the Netherlands. Then the French colonised Walloon and made it French. So I fear that now Belgium and the Netherlands are very different.

Back on the political situation; I think it would be better for Belgium to make Walloon and Flanders less independent and more one state than the opposite as some parties want now. Then the chances that the country will act as one are better.

[Pnarpa]

Myself being from Belgium as well, I couldn't care less for the upcoming elections. Yes, I have to vote... again. I know it's something important. We are choosing who's going to lead the country after all.

As for splitting the country in half. 80%? Really? I don't think so. 2 euros per Walloon? (is this right? Walloon? ). Sources please.