The Battle Of Tongues

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30980, 9 February 1966, Page 12

The Battle Of Tongues

It has been said that in Belgium public disorder is a traditional form of argument. The rioting that occurs at irregular intervals is seldom, if ever, capable of satisfactory explanation in terms of clearcut political issues. Strikes, or even the threat of them, are commonly used by extremist elements to aggravate the language problem, which is the fundamental cause of social and political division in Belgium. Successive governments—Socialists and Christian Democrats make up the present governing coalition—have sought to achieve national unity by bringing together, on some live-and-let-live basis, the Flemish-speaking northerners and the Frenchspeaking Walloons of the south. Every attempt has, however, failed. The line of division runs roughly from west to east through Brussels, separating, in broad definition, Fleming from Walloon, the royalist Catholic from the anti-clerical and the conservative from the socialist. The north has shown adaptability and continued to prosper in a changing economy. In the south, obsolescence has created vulnerable industrial targets for new forms of competition. Last week. Flemish invaders used a coalminers’ strike, against the closing of pits and loss of employment, to turn a French-speaking area into a battleground. The racial line of demarcation has existed almost since the modern Belgian state came into being in 1830. Then the Walloons were in a majority. Now the Flemings outnumber them by approximately five million to four million. The language boundary, officially recognising Flemish in the north and French in the south, was drawn in 1932, subject to revision every decade should the census show a change in the majority. In effect there has been little change in the boundary. The tentative shifting, in 1962, of certain districts at each end of the demarcation line from one language area to another, was actively resented by the Flemings, and disturbances resulted. The language issue, with its bitter divisions, continues to cut across the whole structure of politics in Belgium, making it virtually impossible to achieve stable government and a society with even the outward appearance of unity.