Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Small comment on a big subject

Finally over the last few days the British press ghas picked up that something funny is going on over here. And no I do not mean the demonstrations that are planned for today over the thorny issue of Sharia.

Belgium itself is having a few problems. Since the Economist last week, the Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Times and today the Independent have picked up the story.

Myself I have talked to a number of Belgian's from both sides of the divide, and almost to a ma or woman they have agreed that this time it might happen, Belgium might just split.

So I was interested to hear the opinion of a very senior lawyer that I was seeing yesterday. He works in Brussels and is thus compulsoraly bilingual in his work, but is a Flem.
"Well we have been oppressed for 150 years", was his starter for ten, and he then went on to explain that though the legal system is the same on both sides of the linguistic border things are very different in application,
"I went to a conference in Spa (in the French speaking province of Liege) this weekend and was one of the few Flemings amongst 70 odd Waloons. You would be amazed by the differences between the two sides.
The Flemish lawyers want to talk about the law, its application and making money. The Walloons want top talk about politics and avoidance".

1 comment:

Honey said...

i want to see the bit where brussels gets to be like Washington DC although someone else suggested, more like Berlin, tad harsh perhaps

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