Will Belgium seperate....................?

115 days without being able to form a new government, the international community looks at Belgium, slightly amused. Where will this already very tiny country go if it splits up? And what about Brussels? Will it become international no mans land? I don't think so!

I have been now living in this country for more than 2 years and as much as I did not like it at the beginning, it has become like a third home for me now. Other than in my study times in Italy, here I have been living what they call an "expat life", lots of international friends, not really participating in the local reality... In the past months this has changed a lot, of course, because I am co-founding a center for social innovation here, so I better be aware of what is going on in this society. But today it really struck me: we were walking around in the city with my friend Diane and saw shops selling Belgian flags. She said to me: people who don't want Belgium to separate buy it and hang it out of their window. It reminded me of the times when people in Italy were buying rainbow peace flags and hanging them out of their windows to prevent the US to invade Iraq... it didn't help. So this brought up some strange emotions and that's why I am writing about it. I don't understand much about politics here, I just know it is really complicated and that people have a short memory, forgetting that once, in the times when agriculture was still important here, it was Wallonia to drag along Flanders and now, in the industrial age, the cards have changed and who was weak before is now strong and showing it to the former strong part like a little kid that says: Hah, now I have the bigger toy! Of course I am simplifying things here, but isn't it funny somehow?

Belgium is quite a bizarre country. In fact some weeks ago, a journalist wrote in the Economist that Belgium is not even a real country and the only thing that unites both sides is football and beer. I am not quite sure about this! What I have come to believe is that Belgium is the place where the Mediterranean "dolce vita" lifestyle and the germanic-nordic work and result orientedness clash... (of course again cultural stereotypist simplification). So where will this go? This is not the first time this happens to Belgium, but will this be taken as a chance to learn form? We will see!