Bernard Daelemans, leftist Flamingant: ‘We were bullied out of Brussels’
For the Flemish Committee for Brussels, the Dutch language battle in the capital in 2022 is often a story of fighting against the beer quay. Nevertheless, chairman Bernard Daelemans – outspoken Flamingant and left-wing – will make the Flemish permanent cause without delay. “Green and to a lesser extent Vooruit encourage the severing of the ties with Flanders. That would be the death knell for Flemish Brussels.”
The ‘Vlaams Komitee voor Brussel’ (VKB) sounds like an association from a bygone era, but due to the number of complaints about (the lack of) the club of left-wing Flemish people in the capital resembles an ideological island.
“It is true that there are still few left-wing Flemish people and that they are not party politics about the United States,” says Daelemans in the Vlaams Huis in Drukpersstraat. As editor-in-chief of the magazine ‘Meervoud’, Brussels residents are able to reconcile a left-wing social vision with a Flemish feeling. One of the shining examples is the Basque Country, where nationalism goes hand in hand with leftist ideas.
Procedures
VKB was founded in the 1930s as the ‘Vlaamsch Verbond voor Brussel’ (Flemish Association for Brussels) and was originally mainly concerned with legal matters. “We were the unofficial mouthpiece for Flemish people in Brussels for a while, but that role has disappeared. Between us we are mainly concerned with our approach: conducting procedures to ensure compliance with the language legislation. Think, for example, of the discussion about bilingualism among contractual employees in local authorities, something that French speakers have long unjustly challenged.”
‘Revenge’
Hundreds of these individual appointments to local authorities in Brussels are suspended every year by Vice-Governor Jozef Ostyn. “We then go to the state council of leaders, because the activities of the leading appointments, unless the municipality of the pursuit intervene. But that happens very often.” Only those procedures drag on and are often thwarted at the last minute. Effective communication has therefore never been achieved. “Often the local authorities in question never want to make an announcement and cancel the appointment at the last minute. Very annoying, because then we have to pay for the legal costs.”
In addition, the Committee also provides assistance to citizens who are not helped in their language in Brussels. “Think of GAS fines that are handed out in French and then in principle are invalid. Only there is no case law involved in GAS fines and you in fact have to wait for a bailiff before you can litigate. Most people there have do not feel like.”
It sounds like one procession from Echternach after another. “We all do this volunteers. It is a matter of justice and principle. Here language rules and every Brussels citizen has the right to be valid in his language. But that doesn’t feel common anymore since time immemorial and common occurrences feel more at home here. They then say: ‘Yes, but you are a minority’. Well, we’ve become a minority because we’ve been bullied out of here. That raises calls.”
N-VA
Another shrinking minority in which the Brussels Fleming is proud to be a part of the minority, is that of the leftist Flemish people. Daelemens also has an N-VA past.
“At a certain point, the N-VA sucked in a lot of enthusiasm. When I was a candidate in 2003, it was not yet clear to me that the N-VA had the ambition to become a right-wing conservative, liberal party. I had the idea that they wanted to become more Flemish-radical than the Volksunie has ever been.”
‘Death blow for Flemish Brussels’
The letters have fallen: N-VA, according to a poll earlier this year the largest party on the Dutch-speaking side in Brussels. A hopeful signal, Daelemans thinks. “I’m not so sectarian that I don’t give others the light in the eyes. I am also obliged to choose and here the community is decisive in my voting behaviour.”
The von optimism begins at the outset, and especially as far as the left-wing parties on the Flemish sides are concerned. “Green in particular and, to a lesser extent, Vooruit, seem to want to create a Brussels community, also institutionally, with pleas for bilingual education. They encourage the severing of the ties with Flanders. That would be the death knell for Flemish Brussels. I am also rather hesitant about pleas to include English as an official language in Brussels, because I have already noticed that if you speak Dutch somewhere in Brussels, French speakers answer in English. several do not understand the simplest Dutch words, but then answer smoothly and with a smile in English.”
Cultural autonomy
As a lever for the progress of Dutch in the Brussels municipalities, Daelemans primarily looks at education. “If you want to go to a bilingual government apparatus and bilingual services, you have been introduced by name in education to make that language knowledge more quickly and better accepted. Therein lies the problem. As far as I’m concerned, Flanders can set up even more schools in Brussels. The French community should also reconsider its language education. There are some links, such as a study into the possibility of making Dutch education as a second language compulsory in the French community, so not only Brussels but also Wall. Anyway, a ‘study into the possibility’…”
seem as if Brussels is becoming more popular among Dutch speakers. During the previous elections, considerably more Dutch-language publications were published. However, that reality does not automatically lead to good news for the bond between Brussels and Flanders, it is said.
“They are often young, cosmopolitan people who, in my opinion, have absolutely no insight into the history of the development of the Flemish cultural sector in Brussels, which is now so strong that it is thought that it will also be able to harvest without those protection mechanisms. It arose from the Flemish investments that, for example, the AB can flourish. Now ideas are surfacing about a joint community committee on culture… what folly. More cooperation between language development: up to Flemish toe. But we are not going to touch the basis of that cultural autonomy, are we?”
State reform
With a next state reform, Daelemans hopes that health care, for example, will end up at the. He is clear about the state structure. “I think you should see Brussels as a different kind of behaviour,” Daelemans continues. “Institutionally, Brussels has been allowed to develop too much at the same level as the Flemish and Walloon regions. This will clash with the economic overflow that exists between Brussels and Flanders: Brussels can only survive economically in symbiosis with Flanders. In Belgium you have in se two peoples, two nations. I find the idea that the inhabitants of Brussels are a people apart is anything but great.”