Opinion

World View | Brussels on Edge

After a visit to the European Union's capital, our intrepid CISO wonders--was he staying in the wrong neighborhood, or is the situation there evidence that security abhors a vacuum?

By Paul Raines

April 01, 2008 —

Brussels is only 2 hours by train from Den Haag so, naturally, I've spent many a pleasant weekend there. But, alas, lately not all has been chocolates and waffles in the land of the Belges. For starters, the country has been--up until about 3 weeks ago--without a government for 9 months and 10 days. That's because there is a major linguistic and cultural fault line in Belgium that separates those of French kinship and language--the Walloons--from those of Dutch kinship and language--the Flemish. That fault line has existed from the creation of Belgium, when those two groups--who were primarily Catholic--combined to fight and win their independence from the Dutch--who were primarily Protestant.

The Belgium parliamentary elections of last June were divided roughly between those two major groups, so much so that it was impossible to form a majority government despite months of negotiations. It might sound strange to Americans that a country could put itself on auto-pilot for 192 days without a head of government or a legislature. Those who loathe politicians and government might even consider it a dream come true. But in Belgium, this has actually been the case in the recent past more times than one and will probably continue to be a problem in the future.

Which brings me back to the topic of Brussels. It is a charming city with excellent museums and restaurants and many famous tourist attractions. Many different groups claim it as their capital--the European Union, the nation of Belgium itself and the Flemish, who claim it as the capital of the Dutch-speaking Flemish territory. It is this last point that causes much unease, because Brussels is located directly atop that linguistic/cultural fault line. It lies within Flanders and is its capital, yet 80 percent of its inhabitants are French speaking. With the recent political impasse it has become a city very much on edge.

The political difficulty between the two cultural groups has many causes, with perhaps the primary one being that the region of Flanders is much more prosperous than the region of Wallonia. There are many Flemish political groups advocating either more economic autonomy from Wallonia or even outright independence. Should this occur, Brussels would conceivably become part of a newly independent Flanders, even though the majority of its inhabitants are Walloon. Aye, there's the rub.

Whilst visiting there in the past, I always appreciated the city for its Latin charm. True, it was a bit dirtier than my home city of Den Haag, but that was part of what made it charming. In my last visit, however, I believe the city had begun to cross over that fine line between looking sexy and looking seedy. The sidewalks had never been freshly scrubbed, but this time I noticed the streets had a significant increase in uncollected litter. I noticed more graffiti too, especially in the metro stops. There were no clean-up crews to be seen--anywhere.

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