Is Belgium for sale ?

[Steven_Draker]

A couple of weeks ago there was a

new item placed on eBay: Belgium ... !!

 

Well, it turned out to be a joke by one revolted

Belgian who wanted to attract the attention of all

political leaders taking into consideration the crisis

that our country is currently facing.

 

Today, I was receiving in my mail box the future map of

Belgium: Wallonie-sur-Mer. The image speaks for itself ...

LOL ...

 

http://ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/aa2fff343f186a28a9ea3eb38e10e976d036679b_m.jpg

 

Steven Draker ~

[a href=http://www.hotsexystud.com/uk]website[/a] [a

href=http://www.daddysreviews.com/review.php?who=steven_draker_brussels]reviews[/a]

[doctordoctor]

Steve...

 

what "crisis" is Belgium facing?....thanks for answering back

 

couldn't really read the map to find out more details....

[+ ArVaGuy]

>Steve...

>

>what "crisis" is Belgium facing?....thanks for answering back

>

>couldn't really read the map to find out more details....

 

Here's a web article about the issue. Hope this helps.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3618326

[Steven_Draker]

>Here's a web article about the issue. Hope this helps.

>

>http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3618326

 

Thanks, ArlingtonVAGuy, for posting the link.

 

Steven ~

[a href=http://www.hotsexystud.com/uk]website[/a] [a href=http://www.daddysreviews.com/review.php?who=steven_draker_brussels]reviews[/a]

[+ ArVaGuy]

If Citibank will offer a decent Adjustable Rate Mortgate, with no downpayment, maybe we can submit a bid. LOL ;-) :+

[Steven_Draker]

>couldn't really read the map to find out more details....

 

I hope the map below is readable

 

http://www.geocities.com/stevendraker/belgiumfuture1024wz7.jpg

 

PS: Please note the Northern Ocean (Ocean du Nord) and the Brussels peninsula (presqu'Ile de Bruxelles) :+

 

Steven Draker ~

[a href=http://www.hotsexystud.com/uk]website[/a] [a href=http://www.daddysreviews.com/review.php?who=steven_draker_brussels]reviews[/a]

[Guest ihpguy]

Most members won't get this. There is nothing north of the French-speaking parts of the country. East and West Flanders. Brugge, Antwerp, Knocke, Oostende. Same with Holland/Netherlands. Just gone.

[+ Italiano]

>Most members won't get this.

>

 

 

Uhm.....from my experience with Americans in general, I am a bit afraid that most members don't even know where Belgium is/should be.....

}(

[Guest ihpguy]

Any country that can produce Neuhaus creme fraiche truffles/pralines and Trappist beers should be on everyone's map. Are there words to desribe eating moules on the Grande Place? Walking though Bruges after sundown, with many of the Gothic buildings illuminated, all of the day-tourists having been bused back to Brussels for the night...certainly a religious experience for one non-believer.

[Yeswell]

Yes, more people should go to Belgium. The beer is superb, and they have the best chocolate in the world. I remember a lovely bar in Brussels called Het Rijk van Sinnen, years ago now.

[+ ArVaGuy]

By coincidence, the Washington Times ran a front page story on this issue in today’s edition. It’s an interesting story and certainly a complex issue. There’s even a comment that the only thing that the Flemish and Walloon have in common is ...”the king, the beer, and chocolate.” Here’s the link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071009/FOREIGN/110090064

 

 

 

RHODE SAINT GENESE, Belgium — Stitched from a revolution and secured through compromise, Belgium's fragile fabric is unraveling and what once seemed impossible — the country"s partition — is suddenly becoming imaginable.

 

The most immediate cause is a political deadlock among squabbling parties, which have yet to form a government more than three months after general elections.

 

But the roots of the standoff stretch back decades, nourished by growing language, cultural and economic differences between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south.

 

"We live in an artificial state," said Philip Dewinter, head of the far-right Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Block, which seeks a referendum on dissolution leading to an independent Flanders.

 

"One hundred and seventy-seven years after our creation, we've come to the conclusion that we don't have anything in common anymore," he continued. "Well, maybe the king [of Belgium], the beer and chocolate. But it would be better for us to split up."

 

Many Flemish people appear to agree. A poll released last month found nearly half of them back an independent Flanders.

 

Speculation about a breakup has become so intense that the foreign ministry circulated "talking points" to its embassies around the world stressing that Belgium's two founding peoples have always managed to live together peacefully, the Associated Press reported over the weekend.

 

Coming at a time when Europe is struggling to speak with one voice and eventually embrace a common constitution, the identity crisis at its very heart — Belgium's capital, Brussels, is also the seat of the European Union — is an irony lost on no one.....(Continued, see link.)

[Louis]

Brugge is the most memorable place for me. I guess I will start off with a weeks wages if I can just bid on a town rather than the whole country...:-)

[+ deej]

>>Most members won't get this.

>

>Uhm.....from my experience with Americans in general, I am a

>bit afraid that most members don't even know where Belgium

>is/should be.....

>}(

 

Heck, most Americans couldn't find Georgia (or most any other state in the U.S.) on the map. :-(

 

I actually looked at a real map. I noticed the Netherlands went walkies in Steven's map, but I never would have guessed about the "French speaking" turf war mentioned elsewhere. (Thanks for finally making that connection!)

[Guest zipperzone]

>>>Most members won't get this.

>>

>>Uhm.....from my experience with Americans in general, I am a

>>bit afraid that most members don't even know where Belgium

>>is/should be.....

>>}(

>

>Heck, most Americans couldn't find Georgia (or most any other

>state in the U.S.) on the map. :-(

 

Deej: Unfortunately that is probably pretty close to the truth. To illustrate the point, I am reminded of a couple of the contestants on "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" (my new guilty pleasure - I find Foxworthy kinda sexy).

 

One woman I'd say between 25 & 30, with a responsible sounding job, was asked "In what city is the headquarters of the United Nations?"

Can you believe she did not know - and guessed Washington?

 

Another example was a woman very similar in age and background who was asked "Charles Lindberg (sp) flew his Sirit of St. Louis to what transatlantic city? She was obviously having trouble with the question so Foxworthy asked her if she knew what "transatlantic" meant. She replied "no" and I though she was joking. Sure enough she did not know the meaning of the word. Her answer after much pondering was "Boston". I was in shock.

 

What kind of education are these people getting. How could anyone who has a TV set or has ever read a newspaper, not know where the UN was and how could they not know the meaning of Transatlantic?

 

What hope is there for a country whose educational system is so broken?

[luczen]

as a flemish-speaking belgian we are not for a partition of Belgium but for more federalism and resposabilities of the different parts .

Now we(the flemish) think that we pay for a corrupt socialist dominated french-speaking part ;

It is true that the king and Brussels are the only things that keeps us together

[Steven_Draker]

>I am a bit afraid that most members don't even know where Belgium is/should be.....

 

Actually, you'll be surprised that the level on this board is not bad at all ...

 

There is another article relating the issue on National Review Online

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ

 

Steven Draker ~

[a href=http://www.hotsexystud.com/uk]website[/a] [a href=http://www.daddysreviews.com/review.php?who=steven_draker_brussels]reviews[/a]

[Guest Ruben]

If anyone is really interested in this question of Belgium and why it might be in the early stages of coming apart, you cannot do better than to read the new book A Throne in Brussels by Paul Belien (from Flanders). And for keeping up with recent developments in Belgium, the disgraceful events in Brussels on September 11 of this year and EU matters generally, again Paul Belien's blog The Brussels Journal is hard to beat.

 

If you are interested in learning about King Leopold II, King of Belgium, and his hard to believe behavior in the African Congo during the 19th century, if you are interested in what might be the world's first international humanitarian movement, in this case against the King, developments in history known only to a few, then the book King Leopold's Ghost by American writer Adam Hochschild will be a page turner.

 

A Throne in Brussels and King Leopold's Ghost are serious works of history. If history is of little interest to you, pass them by. However, as works of history on topics of importance today, these two books are hard to beat. If you have time to look into only one of the two, by all means, let it be King Leopold's Ghost.

[Guest]

Belgium built hospitals, schools, roads, and railways in the Congo. The Congolese never had it so good before or since.

[Guest Ruben]

Adam Hochschild would disagree.

[Luv2play]

LOL. Thia sounds like a variation of Quebec separatism. Except there it is the English complaining about the corrupt French socialism. These days the Quebec question has gone quiet but you never know when it might resurrect itself. If Belgium were to separate, you can be sure the Quebec nationalists would use it as an example to stoke the fires of separatism in Quebec.

[Guest]

Granted, this was during Leopold III's time, and not Leopold II's, but my mother spent a good deal of time in both the Belgian Congo and South Africa during WWII. I can guarantee you that the locals in the Congo were much better off. There was none of the apartheid, etc... Things are much worse off now. Have you spoken first-hand with someone who visited different colonized African countries during colonial times?

[Guest]

Her words were that she was shocked at how blacks were treated in South Africa after having stayed in the Congo (i.e. in S.A. blacks couldn't even stand on the same sidewalk as whites--in the Congo blacks were treated with respect).

[Guest Ruben]

Unicorn,

 

Paul Belien's A Throne in Brussels is Belien's history of Belgium from its appearance in the 1830s through the 20th century and into the current century. In the final pages of the book he predicts Belgium's dissolution, if not today then tomorrow or the day after, and explains why he feels as he does about Belgium's future. It is not a book about the Congo.

 

Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost, on the other hand, is not a history of Belgium or, for that matter, the "Belgium Congo." It is Hochschild's biography of Leopold II, his acquisition of much of Africa's Congo region in the 19th century and his behavior there when the Congo was considered to be the King's personal estate and private property. Wanting to keep the Congo out of the hands of his daughters, Leopold arranged to transfer the "estate" to the Belgium government at the end of his life.

 

If Hochschild's description of Leopold's conduct in the Congo is accurate, and I do not have any reason to think it is not, then Leopold must surely be considered the worst thing ever to have happened to the people living in the Congo when Leopold acquired power over them. My negative remarks in my original post were directed at Leopold and what he did to the people of central Africa.

[Guest]

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on the book in particular. However, Belgium did a lot for the Congolese, so if that wasn't mentioned in the book, the book is one-sided rather than an academic treatise. Belgium did a lot to improve the Congo's infrastructure (much of which, sadly, has been neglected since the Belgians left).

[Guest Ruben]

Unicorn,

 

King Leopold's Ghost is not a book about "the Belgium Congo" that was on the maps of Africa I used as a kid. It's the story of the king and what he caused to have done to the people of the Congo in the 19th century. The story is not a pretty one, and one, according to Adam Hochschild, that is not well known by the Belgian people themselves.

 

However, you appear to have some background on Belgium in the Congo and would therefore be in a better position to evaluate the book than most readers.