VIGILANCE IN THE FACE OF POPULIST WORDS

Bart De Wever angrily accuses the Belgian monarch of implicitly calling him a fascist.
This, following the holiday speech by King Albert.
Bart De Wever is, perhaps, an idiot.

And almost beyond any doubt a fascist.

Sorry, my dear man, but you are. You and your entire Flemish movement are modern European fascists. You are more polite and polished than the radical ultra-left and the far-right extremists, but no less toxic.
Flemish Nationalism is the ethnic exceptionalism of small minds and decaying relevances.

To quote King Albert: "Altijd zoeken ze naar zondebokken voor de crisis, ofwel zijn het de vreemdelingen, ofwel landgenoten uit een ander landsdeel -- de crisis van de jaren dertig en de populistische reacties die ze teweegbracht, mogen niet worden vergeten."

[Translation: 'Always they seek scapegoats for the crisis, either it's the foreigners, or countrymen from a different region. The crisis during the thirties and the populist reactions that it caused may not be forgotten']


Random question, my dear mr. De Wever - how many Flemings fought with the SS on the Eastern Front?
No, that is NOT an irrelevant historical detail, because as you know, Flemish Nationalism in the post war period has been sodden with collaborationists seeking the rehabilitation of a generation that excelled solely at mediocrity and opportunism.
Again, how many Flemings?

Every Belgian who died in Russia, and every Belgian that returned thence, once the Third Reich collapsed, was a proud Flemish Nationalist.
Indeed, that was long ago, and most of that crop have since departed.
But their stench remains.


"In de verwarrende tijden die we nu meemaken, moeten we waakzaam blijven en de populistische betoogtrant helder doorzien. Altijd zoeken ze naar zondebokken voor de crisis, ofwel zijn het de vreemdelingen, ofwel landgenoten uit een ander landsdeel."


Mijnheer De Wever, u bent werkelijk een Fascist. Daar valt absoluut niet aan te twijfelen. U, en uw partijgenoten vertegenwoordigen een geniepigheid en kleinzierigheid dat van uw eigen volk, de Vlamingen, een middelmaatse meute van min-betekenis maakt, en alle anderen nabij de vijand roept.

U bent, weliswaar, meer "genuanceerd" dan menig Europeesche populist.
Maar niet minder giftig.


The ideology of Flemish Nationalism, mister De Wever, at its heart says first the foreigners, then the Walloons, and then everyone who does not fit.
All else is mere camouflage and window dressing.

Your king was being diplomatic.

He should have called you by name, and called you a bastard.

Mister De Wever, fifteen generations ago, ancestors of mine escaped the Catholic terror in the south of the Netherlands. Thirteen generations ago we arrived in New Amsterdam. Five generations ago, Dutch was still, remarkably, our language as much as English.
I speak Dutch, fluently. I know the history of Les Pays-Bas Bourguignons from Roman times to the present better even than American history.
And I identify myself as in part Netherlandish-American.

You are a Fleming. You therefore represent the same Netherlandish cultural and historic inheritance as I do.
But you and I have nothing in common.


And you want Flanders to separate from her kin, and go it alone.


In the mediaeval play Mariken van Nieumeghen, the heroine leaves home and goes to live with Satan for several years in Antwerpen.
Antwerpen is a city which will always be dear to me.
It remains eternally the best of Flanders.
But the devil still lives there.




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