grzegorz_gajowniczek
25.03.04, 17:54
(zrodlo: www.eurosavant.com)
Time to consider the portrait of Belgium presented in the Danish newspaper
Politiken's "Europa XL" series of cultural treatments of EU member nations,
as submitted by respected literary figures of each such nation. The writer in
charge for Belgium is the Belgian fiction-writer and translator Paul Claes -
or rather, the Flemish fiction-writer and translator, i.e. one who writes in
and translates into Dutch and so not into the French language spoken by
around half of his countryment, mostly in the south of the country. And I'm
afraid that we start off on the wrong foot in our quest for impartiality and
an even-handed cultural treatment, since Claes' last-name is truly an ultra-
Dutch one (in the sense of the language's history). That "ae" vowel
combination lying at that name's heart, which merely signals the "long a"
sound, is a relic from old Dutch spelling, used much more these days for
Belgian names (both of people and places) than Dutch ones.
OK, off we go, but clearly we'll inevitably have a different perspective than
we have had for most of these portraits, namely what you could call
the "Flemish-vs-Walloon scorecarding" view:
MORE...
• Painting: Christ's Procession into Brussels, by James Ensor. Claes
goes more-or-less for neutral ground here, as he actually takes the son of an
Englishman (who lived 1860 to1949; the painter-son, that is) and bravely
terms him "the most Belgian of all painters." But there's no vote of
confidence to be found here in any of Belgium's common governmental
institutions: Claes relates how this painting, after hanging on display for
years at Antwerp's Museum for Fine Arts, was permitted by the state to be
sold by its owner and taken out of the country, with even et lettelsens suk -
a sigh of relief! (He doesn't explain why.)
• Photograph: Joseph Plateau's "phénakistiscope. The emphasis here is
not so much on a photograph but on a process, namely the proto-movie
technology developed by Plateau in 1832 of taking slightly-different pictures
and viewing them one after the other at high speed to show a moving effect.
So that was even before the development of cinematographic techniques in
France by the Lumière brothers.
• Person: Whoa - it's Tintin, not a person at all but a cartoon
character! Claes' reasons for this selection are particularly eloquent: "The
Belgian [person] doesn't exist. He is either a Brusseler, Wallon, Fleming, or
a German from the east cantons. In reality he exists only on paper: in his
identity card or on a land-map of Europe. The most typical Belgians are
therefore also on paper: Agatha Christi's Monsieur Poirot or Hergé's Tintin."
And even Tintin, Claes notes, prefers to go have his adventures elsewhere
other than in Belgium.
• Object: The "Atomium" in Brussels. This is the giant structure built
for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, which represents the structure of an ice
crystal enlarged 150 billion times. It also used to represent, with its nine
interconnected atoms, the nine Belgian provinces, but now there are ten such
provinces, bound in a federal structure that wasn't in place back in 1958.
Perhaps, Claes suggests, the Atomium can come to represent the EU - not nine
elements, but nonetheless bound together by economic strength to overcome
each element's natural centrifugal force.
• Text: Language, or as a text simply "européen ["European" in French],
europeaan [in Dutch/Flemish], and europäer [German]." "Belgium is the only EU
member which has three primary languages," Claes notes, so that "[e]very
Belgian is a stranger in his own language," since the Wallons spice up
(Danish spækker) their French with Dutch, the Flemings their Dutch with
French, etc. Hmm . . . I don't know whether that is exactly true, or whether
everyone just stays exclusively within his/her own language to the greatest
extent possible.
• Song: This Flat Land, by Jacques Brel. Yes, Jacques Brel was Belgian -
actually, from Brussels, with "Flemish roots" - and not French. And,
although later in his life he tried to deny his Belgian nationality, Claes is
still willing to credit the artistry of this song, which after all ends with
the verse "This flat land, which is mine."
• Poem: "West Flanders, Tancredo infrasonic," by Hugo Claus. With text
following - but translated into Danish. Claes notes that Claus is "more
popular in Holland than in Belgium," and it is worthy of note that this poem
was actually published in Amsterdam in 1952.
• Food-dish: Mussels with french fries. There we go! French fries are
certainly Belgium's main culinary contribution to the world (although Belgian
beers are also deservedly famous). The emphasis is on them here in this
entry, both in the picture and the accompanying explanation; Claes merely
recommends having your fries with some mussels.
• Place: The Grote Markt/Grande Place in Brussels. Claes remains very
politically correct here in giving both the Dutch and the French names to the
historical main market-square in Brussels, but just try visiting Brussels:
you'll find that that's precisely required everywhere in that city, on
everything, the Dutch and the French, on every name, every label. Anyway, his
focus is more on Brussels the city per se than its main square, Brussels as
capital of the EU, headquarters for NATO, and aspiring capital for Europe
generally.
• Event: The division of Charlemagne's empire at Verdun in 843. Yes,
that's the origin of all the trouble Belgium had to put up with, from its
founding in 1830 (as it rebelled against rule by the Netherlands to become
independent) through the two world wars of the 20th century. For this
division-of-empire at Verdun divided things into three: a western part
(France), an eastern part (Germany), and then the part in the middle which
the first two parts would argue over during the next twelve centuries. Claes
then mentions that the Belgian state chose the motto Eendracht maakt macht
(which he gives only in this Dutch version, incidentally): "Unity Gives
Power." One has to think that it chose this motto out of vain hope.
There are Paul Claes' choices, then, and I do think he remained largely
neutral between Flemish and Wallon. Still, a better approach would have
called for a little bit more daring sophistication from Politiken's editors,
to acknowledge reality and have two such cultural portraits for Belgium, a
Flemish writer expounding over Flanders and a Wallon telling us about
Wallonia. (Yes, and I would neglect that German minority over on the eastern
border.)
Posted by: MAO on 06 Mar 04
