Belgium: more than ever a divided country
The elections of 26 May 2019 confirmed the tendency of voting habits in Belgium: right-wing Flemish nationalist voters took the upper hand in Flanders, federalists and socialists were dominant in Wallonia. Leaving the country completely divided.
Right-wing Flanders, left-wing Wallonia. There are many reasons to explain why the tendencies of the voters are so polarized between both regions. From historical and social points of view, until cultural and economic. ‘Divided Belgium’ incarnates two life forms that are different in so many aspects, ever since the independence of the country. One of the main aspects for this division is language: in Wallonia, people speak French and in Flanders they speak Dutch.
Belgium was declared an independent state as a constitutional monarchy in 1830. The first linguistic legislation, also declared in the same year, established that the laws and government acts were promulgated in French. French was historically the most prestigious language and was recognised by the clergy and the elites. That was not the case for Dutch, which was not recognised as an official language. It was the language of the revolutionary ideas of the ‘Enlightenment’.
Régis Dandoy, political scientist at the universities of Louvain-la-Neuve and Ghent, states that “there was this idea that French was a tool to oppress the Flemish people. Language is very important in a community. In the way that, as a minority, you can feel oppressed by a central state that decides on your behalf. In a language that it’s not your language”.
Dutch was not an official language in Belgium until 1921. That feeling of repression in the Flemish community is one of the main factors that explains why in Flanders nationalist and far-right parties arose during the interwar period and the Second World War. Furthermore, the movement that was created in Flanders in order to recognise Dutch as an official language, was transformed into a movement to protect the Flemish economy.
Historically, Wallonia had enjoyed a very successful economy. It was one of the richest regions of Europe, alongside England, during the industrial revolution. For this reason, the socialist party became a very powerful union in the whole region because it connected so many workers, factories….
Nevertheless, Wallonia was losing its economic power slowly in the decade of 60s/70s to the benefit of Flanders, where the region was recovering economically, until it became the strongest region of the state, with more purchasing power than the Brussels capital region and Wallonia.
This loss of economic power caused that the socialist party was turning in to a party that had to defend the interests of the Walloon population. “Wallonia played this card of a socio-economic disadvantage compared to Flanders and the Parti socialiste took the forefront in defending the interests of the Walloons”, affirms Bart Maddens, Flemish professor and political scientist at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the KU Leuven.
Meanwhile, with an officialized Dutch language and with more money than both other regions, the Flemish people opted to protect their own economy. “But, what is the most effective way to protect your economy? Having autonomy over your own posessions, not paying taxes for the others, nor their social security, pensions…”, states Dandoy. So, with a typical nationalist speech, the striving for independence in Flanders keeps growing in a population that is notably economically superior to the others in the Belgian state.
Such kind of speech is accepted in societies with high identity, that in historic moments have been repressed, such as the Flemish, but also the Catalans or the Scottish. That strong feeling of belonging to a collective sharing the same language, culture, identity, and common destinies… that is something that the Walloon society lacks more. In Wallonia, there’s no identity, there’s no such group mentality.
On the one hand, the Flemish nationalism depends on the interests of the Flemish based on their identity, language and the autonomy of their territory. On the other hand, the Walloon society defends the interests of their people based on socio-economic rights, mainly concerning welfare and social security. These are the fundamental reasons why voting habits are so different between Wallonia and Flanders. One more time, history has been crucial to explain the current situation, and according to Dwight D. Eisenhower we can say that “things have never been more like the way they are today in history”.
