GHENT, Belgium — The frontrunner in Belgium’s elections Sunday is running on perhaps the ultimate in divisive proposals: the breakup of the nation.
Despite its status as the home of the European Union, Belgium itself long has struggled with divisions between its 6 million Dutch-speakers and 4.5 million Francophones, but talk of a breakup was mostly limited to extremists.
Now, Bart De Wever of the centrist New Flemish Alliance is pressing for exactly that. What once seemed a preposterous fantasy of the political fringes has, in the mouth of a man seen as a possible prime minister, suddenly taken on an air of plausibility.
“We are in each other’s face,” De Wever told 800 party faithful packed into a sweaty theater here ahead of Sunday’s elections. “And together we are going downhill fast. Flanders and Wallonia must be masters of their own fate.”
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If it wasn’t so small and European one could well imagine that story originating in Canada.
I am still amazed at the fact that where ever socialism is tried, poverty and corruption follow close behind and even more amazed that people still want to adopt socialism because of some misplaced sense of “social justice”.