Bye Belgium?
•
15 Jul 2008, 07:37
•
Journals
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Prime Minister Yves Leterme offered the resignation of his government Monday after it failed to rally around constitutional reforms designed to grant more self-rule to Belgium's Dutch- and French-speaking camps.
Hi
Bye
Tbh, finally someone with balls :D
Read more
Hi
Bye
Tbh, finally someone with balls :D
Read more
haha!
please!
It seems a completely bullshit and pointless division in all honesty. England subsidies the rest of the UK financially yet Celtic (using this term very generally) languages and cultures exist in the other countries (and in England even).
I don't think anybody outside of the Benelux understands nor cares about this 'situation' in all fairness, you aren't Israel lol, get over yourselves.
"I don't think anybody outside of the Benelux understands nor cares about this 'situation' in all fairness, you aren't Israel lol, get over yourselves."
This confirms you're from the UK I guess.
I guess it has to do with devolved governments (at least regional representation) not all changing at the same rate. So you've a situation where an area which is predomantely represented by one particular group having to abide by rules which aren't consistent (or outdated?) across the board.
Though it's only a guess, there's (was) a similar situation in the UK where Scottish polictians could vote on English-only legislation and policies. England its self hasn't got a regional or devolved government unlike the rest of the countries in the UK.
Feel free to explain, I'm generally curious how this stacks up against international political problems the world is facing in 2008.
However, if you're interested, don't read articles like the one posted here. Read some reliable information instead. Yahoo-news isn't really accurate. I'd post you some links but I'm guessing you're intelligent enough to find decent information yourself IF you're interested enough.
:DDDD
NOT111!!!!
isEN
mAus
dAv1d
lio
Kevin
vila
mesq
spiROZE
acid
jetro
xAv
We are all flemish, except for xAv :D
i dont think the belgians wanna paly with the dutchies neither the dutchies with the belgians!
Assigned to:
??
When you go in Wemmel just 100 meters after Brussels, when you ask to a restaurant to have something to eat in "french" they don't reply. They speak french dutch and english but they will not reply you or they will reply but in dutch ! Or they will reply in french but they will add that they have the "capabilities" to reply (like we are a band of idiots).
Dutch part in Belgium has a big problem of ego because of our past history, but why not to give a global project ? No they want to seperate our country in two parts..
If today I don't speak dutch it's because of the dutch politicians and bad mentalities.
And why will I learn a language of second zone with like 25 million users in the world ? To be integrated in my own country ?
But live goes on..
ps: Ofcourse I don't put every dutch speaker in the same bag.
And why will I learn a language of second zone with like 25 million users in the world ? To be integrated in my own country ?"
And this isn't a case of bad mentality? Or a poor excuse? Or ego?:p
I realise learning Dutch is a lot more difficult than learning French, but at the same time I wonder if the French side has done enough efforts to integrate decent Dutch classes into their education. From what I've seen that doesn't seem to be the case. Sometimes I got the impression the Frenchspeaking population likes to play victim. They seem to take a French Brussels for granted while history tells us a completely different story.
Of course, Brussels is a very special situation. It used to be mainly Dutch untill the rich Frenchspeaking elites arrived and started owning the local working class, even forcing them to learn French in order to get a job. While the Flemish kids were working from a really young age, the French kids were enjoying fairly nice education (for that time). This created a huge cultural difference and brought along a lot of frustrations for many generations to come.
Personally I always start conversations in French when i'm in Brussels, but it's hard to please people. If you start talking Dutch, they are annoyed and ask you to speak French. If you start talking French from the very start, they are insulted and they want to convince you they can speak Dutch (mostly it's nowhere near decent Dutch sadly enough). Somehow it's always the Flemish guy's fault.
I teach karate in 2 different clubs. One club in a typical Flemish town where the students are 50% Dutch and 50% French. I notice from my Flemish students that they really put a lot of effort into speaking French and keeping the group together while the French students rather form smaller "French only" groups and treat the other students with a bit of contempt.
The second club is in Dilbeek and only has French members. I teach in French the entire time, none of them seems to understand any Dutch and at the start they really had a lot of problems with having a Flemish trainer. I guess because they weren't used to having a Flemish guy near after they managed to chase away all Flemish students. I had to work hard to earn their respect while it should have been the other way around since I'm the one who decides who passes an exam and who doesnt.
Learning a martial art also requires knowing A BIT of Japanese. Just some basics. While the Dutch members eagerly study those basics, the French members are reluctant and some even refuse to do an effort. Another reason why I'm not really convinced of the French motivation. I'm probably exagerating a bit, but it seems the French aren't having problems with Dutch alone....What's up with that?
Best situation I've dealt with so far: A French parent whined at me and the board because I didn't let his kid pass his exam. If he had studied those 20-30 Japanese words he would have passed. His proud parents called it discrimination based on language...(Afterall, Dutch people got a really big advantage with Asian languages!!! Right?)
"If today I don't speak dutch it's because of the dutch politicians and bad mentalities."
it's becuz you never learned it in school, that is the fault of the brussel/wallon politicians and their ego's. O we speak french, that is a worldlanguage, we dont need to learn dutch. In flanders we fucking learn french and english from the 1st grade in highschool. (french from the 5th in lower????? school (dont know the right word)).
Flanders were poor in the past, even then mostly money was transfered to wallon. Now its unbelievable how much money is transfered to wallon.
and about the "im-not-speaking-french-to-you-part". We flemish people TRY to speak french in brussels(mostly arent bilangual? even they have to in brussel) or wallon. Havent seen any people from wallon or brussels try to speak dutch becuz they dont want to.
So you expect people to talk french to you in a restaurant because you asume they know french, but in return you are unwilling to learn their language as well? Typical.
To me it's mutch better to learn english than dutch. Imagine for you in your country (you're from uk right?!), If you have to learn gaelic, what will you do ? In uk or usa for example they only speak thier language (english).
damn ego's.
We live in a country with 3 languages (dutch, german and french), i rather learn english also, but atleast we try to learn it and try to speak it.
It's not about the ammount of people that speak the language, it's about the fact that the language is spoken in your own country and if you refuse to learn it then at least don't expect the others to speak in your language to you.
Btw, I have no clue how you think I'm from the UK, cuz I'm from the Netherlands.
A) a majority of people in your country speak it
B) it's an officially recognised language in your country
(C)) Because you just happen to like different languages.
It all comes down to having a bit of respect and being a bit humble. Of course, not everyone got the same abilities when it comes to learning another language and you don't learn a new language in a few days, but it's the effort that counts. Learning a language is still one of the best developed human skills btw, so I don't see why it's such a disaster, even if a bit extra effort is needed.
suck my dick :)
i'll start worrying when it hits me xD
And no, I'm not really fond of the Socialists either and in a country like ours, they do a much better job in the opposition (or used to).
- he's voting for LDD because atleast DD "dares to speak up!!"
- he's voting for NVA because atleast B De Wever "seems intelligent" and because the party is so pro-Flanders (seriously, is that the case now??)
- he's voting for VB because "those damn niggers and arabs are stealing our jobs and making the streets unsafe!!!"
I friggin hate, Open VLD and SP(A), probably even more than you do, but atleast they do their best to be a bit more transparent than the rest of our politicians. Ofc, every new generation of blues and reds get more retarded and unreliable and they aren't really an insurrance for the country anymore either.
CD&V and Groen aren't even parties, they're illusions.
So yeh, we're fucked.
when i read the allowance of LDD i was quite surprised that one point in their program is smth like "complete freedom of speech"
is it really true that you dont have freedom of speech or is it just a missunderstanding in the german wikipedia!
or is it more that they want to speak like they wont even if they offend other people or races? and call that "complete freedom of speech"!!
sorry if i bother you with this question but you seems to be quite well informed!
LDD want ABSOLUTE freedom of speech and base their opinion on the American First Amendment. (And as you know, the US is VERY democratic nowadays).
They say you can't speak of a democracy when you're not allowed to say whatever you want. Their (somewhat pathetic) reasoning: "Otherwise we're living in a dictatorship!! OH NOES".
Somehow, I doubt that publicly calling all muslims terrorists helps democracy (extreme example ofc) . LDD also have a pretty twisted view of democracy if you look deeper into their ideology. "MORE democracy for LESS people!!"
But it's not up to me to tell people what's right or wrong (thank god).
I'm still looking for an English version.
When you speak of LDD, you speak of it's icon, De Decker. He's an ex-judo coach with an extreme midlife crisis. Some of us call him the Belgian Calimero "They are big and I'm small and that's not fair pupupu 8<" He's got a natural gift when it comes to twisting words, turning people into pessimists, reaping benefits from the failures of other politicians and simple jokes.
You don't bother me with this at all, because I have to study this shit all summer :O)