Belgium Divided

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April 2008 The nation's politicians are bickering over an issue that's plagued the country since its creation in 1830: how do you reconcile the French speaking Walloons in the south and the Dutch speaking Flemish in the north? How can you have national co-operation when the people who make up the nation don't share a common language let alone read the same newspapers, watch the same television or vote for the same politicians? Asked "What is Belgium actually for?" those on the Flemish far right have a devastating answer. "Belgium in my opinion is an occupier, because basically it was created to let the French culture dominate the Dutch culture, so in my opinion it's an occupier." That's the opinion of the new leader of the Flemish far-right, Bruno Valkeniers. The conflict even intrudes into the celebrity show biz media. Minutes after being crowned Miss Belgium, Alizee Poulicek, a French speaker, stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine and into the fire of the separatist debate. Asked an innocuous question in Flemish (Dutch), she was unable to reply. Booed by the crowd she was pilloried by the Dutch language press as being representative of the arrogance displayed by French speaking Belgians. Ms Poulicek has seen the linguistic light and confides in Epstein that actually she's very keen, "to learn Dutch and to do a lot of things on the Dutch side of the country and with Dutch people... and I have to do my best to try to speak Dutch."

Category: News
Uploaded: April 28th, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Author: journeymanpictures

Length: 28:05
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