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#1 | |
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Calls for a Breakup in Belgium?
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#2 |
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i really should read more about this before i respond, but i lived in Belgium (lived, worked, paid taxes, etc.) and the linguistic/cultural divide astonished me. it struck me as European provincialism at its absolute worst.
__________________[q]“We are two different nations, an artificial state created as a buffer between big powers, and we have nothing in common except a king, chocolate and beer”[/q] i mean, honestly, get over it. and this only speaks to the need to create a sense of "European Identity" around which people who seem to spend their days marveling at their own cultural and lingustic uniqueness can find some commonalities. hopefully, the continued economic interdependence of Europe -- as demonstrated by Belgium's economic and political success, if not social success -- can point the way forward. it seems to my outsider-ish eyes that this issue is critical not just for Belgium, but for Europe. will it be forward to a multi-linguistic, economically co-dependent, expansive understanding of a continental identity, or will it be back to the past? |
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#3 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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That's a very interesting development, andI think Irvine is right, it's a bit of a micro level of what might happen, andwhat happens, with the macro level being the EU.
Like we had the case with Norway in the other thread, Belgium is a country, although contrary to Norway part of the EU, that doesn't get noticed that much outside the country. Almost forgotten. 90% debt is huge, and the Maastricht Treaty only allows for 60%. I don't think this cultural identity in Europe will come through in my lifetime, but it might start with my children's generation. |
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#4 | |
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#5 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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Yeah, you are probably right, I'm hopeful.
![]() Instead of my children's generation I rather should have said the generation after my death, or probably the one after that, i.e. in around 80 years or so. |
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#7 |
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i have always been baffled by the lack of a common European cultural identity. any non-European who spends time in Europe could be dropped off in just about any village, town, or city -- in any country -- and find the central square, market, coffee shop, hotels, public transport, etc. just how different are you all from each other, really?
yes, yes, i know that the two worst wars in history were fought over such things. i'm just saying that, as an outsider, it's very easy to see these common threads that bind the majority of european countries together at least on a macro level. and it's all so lovely, to boot. |
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#8 | |
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I mean, really, we are talking about European nations that grew separately enough that, while dominated by the Romance and Germanic language families, for instance, they have diverged wildly to the point of being wholly unintelligible between each other in the same family. And the only reason the same people in an individual nation speak the same language is because all the regional languages have often being legislated into extinction. In other words, this should illustrate the fact that it's been difficult to carve a common identity even within a single European nation-state, let alone throughout the entire continent. |
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#9 | |
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![]() The people of Europe do not come from all the same stock (as neither do the people in the US), and is everything so harmonious between people in the US? Germany and Italy have only existed for the past 150 years...as Melon says, it shows the difficulties there have been in carving out a national identity...a common European one, is still quite a long way off, especially if the likes of Turkey are admitted...It's just not something easily solved by 'getting over it'. |
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#10 |
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"Run with me baby, let your hair down
through every station, through every town run with me baby, let's take a chance from Heathrow to Hounslow, from the Eastern Block to France Europe is our playground, London is our town so run with me baby now Run with me baby, let your hair down through every station, through every town run with me baby, let's make a stand from peepshow to disco, from Spain to Camber Sands Europe is our playground, London is our town so run with me baby now..." 'Europe is our Playground' lyrics copyright Suede |
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#11 | |
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Considerably more different than the most different Canadian and American are. And I say that having spent roughly half my life on either continent. If you think a village in Bosnia is that similar to one in Sweden...well it really isn't, not at all to be honest. |
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#12 |
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I agree totally with anitram. I was wondering if I'd missed a whole bunch on Europe when I thought the mutual land mass and common economy hasn't actually failed if it hasn't dissolved borders - and then, really, why dissolve borders? I don't know if I personally can ever understand the other side of the coin that the rest of the world lives, as I have spent all my years on an island. It's no exaggeration that Australians think it's absolutely brilliant 'the rest of you' can country hop in mere hours, or less. People commute to other countries for work, in some cases! That's great. But it is just the surface. I'm not advocating security fences around borders at all, but certainly not letting go of your language and individual cultural self. I don't see any benefit in that at all.
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#13 |
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first of all, the original article is nothing new
this issue has been brought up forever in Belgium it mostly has to do with Flanders being economically way ahead of Wallonia which has always caused friction it's the same in Italy really where there's a similar (though perhaps a bit less outspoken) difference between the north and the south of the country as for a European identity I think both people in the north and the south of Belgium have less problems identifying with being European than accepting that they're part of the same country I don't think the obvious differences over here will stop us from being 1 Europe in many areas in the foreseeable future
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#14 | ||
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if we're going by population and land mass, i think we can say that there's a Canadian/US identity that's similar. Canadians and Americans have quite an easy time living in one another's countries, and the whole "nation of immigrants/mosaic of cultures/melting pot" goes over well in both places, however imperfectly, and however differently applied in each country. Quote:
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#15 | ||
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by comparison, absolutely. don't forget, we did fight a civil war 150 years ago -- which is positively modern history by European standards -- and, despite some significant cultural issues, the North and the South have no problems belonging to the same union. but this underscores my point exactly -- there are massive regional differences in the US, massive. people from LA are far more removed from residents of rural Mississippi than are, say, Londoners from Madridians (however you spell it). i think it's realizing that, yes, Europeans are from different stock, but not so different, and certainly not so different that you can't buck up and work together for mutual economic benefit and increased geopolitical power -- whatever happened to an entire continent united in shared opposition to W. Bush? Quote:
being honest -- and, admittedly, anecdotal -- here, living and working in an ex-patriate community, probably half of whom were from the UK and Ireland, i heard things said about other European countries, and the citizens themselves, that you'd never, ever hear about members of a different race, because then it'd be called racism (i.e., "my husband just doesn't like Swedes"). that, in my very humble opinion, is what needs some getting over. |
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#16 | |
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and the Hollywood Hills are a million miles removed from Appalachia from suburban Seattle from Manhattan to the orange farms of interior Florida. i feel far more at home in the UK or even France than i did filming in rural Texas (and i mean *rural* Texas). but what North America, and the US has, in particular, are common signs and signifiers that remind people of what they have in common rather than what makes them different. there's a reason why there's so much more overt "patriotism" in North America and especially the US (though "oh Canada" is sung as enthusastically as the SSB, and i think that's great -- not only is it a nicer song, but it seems a positive affirmation of all things Canadian) -- people are so different, people are so dissimilar, that they need such overt displays of patriotism. ultimately, what i'm saying, is not that history doesn't matter, but history matters only so much as you let it matter. it's the adherence to cultural identity in Europe -- and all of my friends who have spent considerable amouts of time, 2, 3, 4, 5 years in Europe agree -- that holds the Continent as a whole back, that you're a German first or a Frenchman first or a Swede first, and then all things are secondary, and there's a way for a German to act, a way for a Frenchman to act, and a way for a Swede to act. is it any wonder that immigrants have a much tougher time in Europe than in North America? and this whole Belgian bru-ha-ha seems just a microcosm of the thing as a whole. |
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#17 | |
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#18 |
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I'm not sure language alone is quite the obstacle it's sometimes made out to be. India, for example, has 22 official (i.e. constitutionally recognized) languages with more than a million speakers each (far more than that, in many of those cases) plus well over 300 minority languages. And looking at its state boundaries, which are drawn (mostly) on the basis of those official languages' areas of concentration, the majority of them mark very distinct and obvious cultural boundaries as well, even to the casual visitor with little knowledge of the country...their own separate literary and artistic legacies, different regional empires which rose and fell over the centuries, separate political and military and architectural traditions...and yet in my experience Indians in general have a strong sense of national identity, "feel very Indian," and take great pride in the "idea" of being Indian. At the same time, as the survival of that many languages into the present indicates, they continue to have a very strong sense of also being Bengalis, Malayalis, Tamils, Rajasthanis etc. (And granted, as anyone who's watched many Bollywood fims can attest, this means ethnoregional stereotypes, some flattering some not, are alive and well too...the hothead Punjabi, the grandiose Tamil, the motormouth Bengali, etc. ...though in my experience it's usually somewhat taboo to throw those around freely in casual conversation.)
Obviously you could make the argument that forced political, economic and (to a lesser but still significant degree) social unification under the British Empire, and before that (at least in north India) the Moghul Empire, goes a long way towards explaining that...but I'm not sure that "formula" necessarily travels well. |
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#19 | |
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#20 | |
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The US was manufactured, tailored so it would suit the myriad of people's who moved to it. The US never really had competition in it's own land for resources (well not strong competition from other nation-states). Do the Native Americans feel American? Or is their association first and foremost to their tribe? What does bind you to the people of rural Texas culturally? Same anthem and flag? It's not really much when you think about it....I don't think the US is any better Europe at creating a common cultural identity, people in the US still obviously tie themselves back to the old homeland ie. Irish-American. What is an American? What are his or her ties to every other American? People the world over need to recognise each other's humanity more, rather than having to manufacture some false identity. |
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