Robert Poos wrote in #9
I hardly understand why they don't cry out loud that the struggle of the Dutch speaking 60% of the country is about the democratic right for self governance or if not, about the restoration of their old democratic rights.  Because of their much appraised sense of compromise this majority has been giving away their rights for democratic representation. Ever since the 70ties the FR-speaking minority comfortably blocks each and every motion that remotely seems unfair to them. They even call democracy' the dictatorship of the majority'. The situation won't hold. It would help Belgium a lot if they could at least be fair about their problem: It's not the people, not the language as such, but the system that deprives the north of their rights. There's no such thing such as 'giving away' 'old democratic rights'. The current situation is the result of decades of institutional enginering which sought to find a balance between the Frenchspeaking regionalists of the sixties demanding economic autonomy and Dutchspeaking nationalists of the same era demanding cultural autonomy. In exchange for giving up the raw democraty right of 'the majority', Dutchspeakers got special protection and a bigger representation in the Brussels structures than they really would have when only the raw population data was taken into account. When looking at the real power in Belgium, one hardly can continue complaining Dutchspeakers are being oppressed, held back or lacking self-governance.   No democracy is the same and there's no ideal democracy. There are only systems in which people try to work and live together in a civilized way (e.g. by the rule of law, respecting human rights and so on). That's democracy. Nothing more, nothing less.

I hardly understand why they don't cry out loud that the struggle of the Dutch speaking 60% of the country is about the democratic right for self governance or if not, about the restoration of their old democratic rights.  Because of their much appraised sense of compromise this majority has been giving away their rights for democratic representation. Ever since the 70ties the FR-speaking minority comfortably blocks each and every motion that remotely seems unfair to them. They even call democracy' the dictatorship of the majority'. The situation won't hold. It would help Belgium a lot if they could at least be fair about their problem: It's not the people, not the language as such, but the system that deprives the north of their rights.

As a Belgian I was just shocked by the way this report represents the political crisis in Belgium.   First of all Belgium is more than just Flanders + Walloonia. There’s also a German speaking part, Brussels is an officially bilingual but in reality multilingual city and there's just not really something as completely different Flemish of Walloon peoples. Most people still feel themselves Belgian. I know a lot of Walloons and we get on well with each other. It's the politicians who put up the people against eachother. People are more complex than being just 'this' or 'that'...   Second, the so called experts in the RT report, aren't real the experts concerning Belgian politics. Koenraad Elst is a scholar in Hindi, but he is by no means an expert on Belgian politics. Elst has strong links with the right-wing Flemish nationalists and separatists. You just can’t get a neutral and well balanced view on Belgian politics from somebody like that. Same goes for the ‘Walloon Rally’ (Rassemblement Wallon/RWF) people, who represent no more than 0.55 % of the total population... Is it really to difficult to seek out some real experts?