I ask a Belgian what the big deal is, are there somehow two cultures or is this, honestly, just about languages. After all, you can learn a language, well enough to be fluent. But you still would have an accent, he says. You would still be a French-speaker, or a Dutch-speaker.
There must be lots of people who are part Flemmish and part Wallonian. What if the country splits and you live in Flanders and work in Brussels? Would you go to work in a different country every day? Could you choose where to pay tax? That might be quite good.
Everything goes on as usual. The only sign that anything is wrong is the unseasonal spring: a steadily increasing bloom of red, yellow and black across the communes. Flags . A silent demonstration, upon Brussels' most beautiful, varied and extraordinary feature - its balconies. (Must write more about balconies, the Mediterranean trust of them, so unlike England). Three T-shirts, extra-large (from Wibra?), pinned together: red, yellow, black, a washing line demonstration. On Bvd. Lambermont, three fiberglass humans, red, yellow, black, stand upon a balcony garlanded with three fiberglass hearts, red, yellow, black. In Britain you'd run from the Union Jack, it's a sign of anger, violence - here the national flag is a sign of moderation, of not wanting any trouble.
It's a fragile spring, across the border in Flanders it's too chilly for the flags to blossom. The country is like a couple, struggling between breaking up and making it work. Like the children in the relationship, the flag-seeding Belgians make their feelings known silently, by sideways demonstration.
Maybe it's all hot air, and they'll never split up. Maybe they'll split up tomorrow. I have no idea. This is all so like my relationship. Maybe my emotional country is Belgium, where everything has at least two names.
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