Antiochos III Megas

Mostly to the Dutch. I believe their main difference is religion. Flemish are catholic and Dutch are calvinist. Their language is very similar.

Pacific_Victory

Was there ever a chance of the Flemish part of Belgium joining the Netherlands?

PaulRyckier

Tuatha,

of course I share the opinion of my two compatriots, gaius valerius and Vintersorg.
For those who understand French I made several contributions to the following thread. Savinien is the one from Brussels, I am the one from Flanders and I suppose Lukha is from Wallonia and of course is it a French discussion on a French forum with the opinion of the several French contributors.
Le salon géopolitique de Passion-Histoire • Afficher le sujet - La Belgique entre wallons et flamands!

Sujet du message: Re: La Belgique entre wallons et flamands!
Posté: Mer 9 Sep 2009
Tonnerre a écrit:
Ce sont vraiment deux peuples de culture et de langue différentes contraints à vivre ensemble, et clairement, cela ne marche plus, si cela a jamais marché.

Tonnerre,
je joins mon compatriote Savinien. ""deux peuples de culture différente"?". Non, pas d'accord. Même culture, mêmes valeurs, mêmes goûts. Seulement deux differentes langues. Et ce n'est qu'une langue...La langue est la porteuse, l'expression sonore des pensées de l'homme, mais ce sont les pensées qui sont importantes, indépendantes de la langue dans laquelle elles sont exprimées...dans mon humble opinion (in my humble opinion). Et même l'économie. Je dois encore faire de recherches, mais j'ai l'impression qu'on a plus de différences entre certaines régions wallonnes, bruxelloises qu'entre certaines régions de la région flamande et celles de la région wallonne...Hmm, je ne veux pas compliquer la compréhension de certains , mais en Belgique on a trois "régions" et trois "communautés". C'est tout né des "compromis belges"...
Cordialement, Paul.

Tonnerre:
It are really two peoples of different culture and language forced to live together and obviously it don't work anymore if it has ever worked...

Tonnerre, I join my compatriot Savinien: "two peoples of different culture".
No, I don't agree. Same culture, same values, same taste.
Only two different languages. And it is only a language...The language is the support, the sonorous expression of the thoughts of mankind, but it are the thoughts, which are important, independent of the language in which they are expressed...in my humble opinion.

And even the economy. I have to do some more research, but I have the impression that there is more difference between certain areas in the Flemish, Walloon, Brussels regions than the differences between the total Flemish and total Walloon region. And yes I don't want to make it complicated, but in Belgium we have three regions and three communities. All that born from the "compromis des Belges". Kind regards, Paul.

And BTW after all the trouble described in the thread we have now a government with a prime minister from the poorest province of Belgium and with a life as the American dream...

Kind regards,

Paul.

gaius valerius

We used to be one region with a shared history up until 1579-92, that is the timeframe when the uprising of the Union of Utrecht was torn apart by Alexander Farnese. The machinations of the uprising were such that they had unwittingly driven the Netherlands into political division. This was the achievement of William of Orange though it was never his intended aim, he wouldn't have liked what it turned out to be, his beloved XVII Provinces. By the end of the Eighty Years War both regions had grown politically and culturally apart (having always been slightly different, what used to be regional differences sort of became national differences). In the end we were glued back together centuries later in an unnatural way. It failed soon after and here we are still as 2 seperate countries.

jeroenrottgering

We still share a common language, heritage, culture. The Flemish people have more connections to the Dutch then to the Walloons. Besides the Belgian uprising of 1830 was more a French speaking uprising then Dutch. The Flemish part of Belgium was never really against the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Frank81

In this line, I can see the Union of Arras as the true starting point of modern Belgium.

PaulRyckier

Jeroen,

as usual I agree with gaius valerius...

"the Flemish people have more connections to the Dutch then to the Walloons"

Yes they share a common heritage and culture with the Dutch till some 400 years ago, but with the Walloons they share roughly a common heritage and culture of some 600 years. I read a French historical novel about Jacqueline de Bavière (Jacoba van Beieren) (what a woman).
Tribune Histoire • Consulter le sujet - Jacqueline de Bavière, quelle femme, quelle vie!
She is really torn apart in the several "wikipedia". If you read the French language one she is from Hainnaut, if you read the Dutch (the Netherlands one) she is from Holland...I haven't read the German one, but I can imagine...

If you say the Dutch "people"? Yes, perhaps you can speak from some 300 years of common feelings, although the 7 provinces had perhaps some specific feelings, with of course Holland as the dominant one. And if I remember it well you had also the "Generaliteitslanden"...

If you say the Flemish "people"? I think some Flemish feeling only emerged between 1850 and 1880? And it was more as a reaction against the own French speaking and culturally French minded Flemish elite? I am nearly sure that all the rest of the Flemish "history" is more a 19th century construction, as BTW a lot of other "national" identifications.

If you say the Walloon people? Apart from perhaps the "Liègeois" (from the prince bishopric of Liège), who had a long time some independent status, you had only in my opinion a Walloon feeling as a reaction on the Flemish historical construction and I think I have seen the evolution in my lifetime.

About the nowadays feelings...it is that difficult to have a real survey I think...it is a bit as with these polls via telephone (BTW. I always say that I don't take part in all such "games". But I am perhaps only some 5 percent guess of the population?). And yes you have still those who hide their opinion and give some answers that they think the pollster is expecting...(although the granddaugther, who is studying psychology, is saying that they can avoid by some tricks this inconvenient...but if these polls are done that "scientifically"?)

What I have seen during my lifetime and I am only "one" individual... I suppose that the whole South of the Belgian provinces West and East-Flanders is feeling cultural French/Flemish. As for Brussels and for the North of the province Brabant I think the feeling is also French/Flemish. The Belgian coast is also French/Flemish. As feeling Flemish I suppose only the North of the province West and East Flanders remain. And perhaps those from Antwerp are Flemish (with some affinities for the Dutch, perhaps for the Dutch "Brabanders", but I am not sure. I rather think that they feel "Antwaarps"). And yes those from Limburg are Flemish with some Dutch affinities, but rather then with the same Limburgers at both sides of the state border.

And yes I forgot in the last twenty years the television penetration of Dutch language channels at both sides from the border, especially the advertising channels. I don't look at no television anymore as the quality is that detoriated in the last years. Even the public ones aren't that much better anymore...but even the "Beeb" isn't what it was some years ago. But perhaps it is as Diviacus said for France that we "oldies" aren't yet integrated in the "American style" culture...

And yes as such you can speak about some integration from the Flemish with the Dutch and from the Brussels/Walloons with France.

But still with all our Flemish dialects, if a Dutchman say one word in common Netherlands/Belgium Dutch, we can say yes that is a Dutchman...
A colleague from Dijon France said to me the same for the French speaking Belgians...if the French speaking Belgian says one word...the Frenchman can say that's a Belgian...as French isn't my mother tongue I can't hear that easely the difference...

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

PaulRyckier

Frank,

yes I think so too. But I studied in depth the Dutch revolt and it is a bit more complicated nevertheless. In fact it was only with the Peace of Westfalia (I suppose in English they say more the Peace of Munster) 1648 that it was legitimized. But what is legitimized? Look at Gibraltar or the Falklands...
Yes and from the Spanish Netherlands it became the Austrian Netherlands and then you had the United States of Belgium for one year and then you had the French invasion, then the 15 years of the old 17 Provinces again and then at the end Belgium with two times the Germans for four years overhere...

Kind regards,

Paul.

gaius valerius

I'd see it as the earliest point in time when the elites of both parts of the XVII Provinces started drifting apart indefinitely on paper (the reality was more fluent and blurry)... with hindsight.

Frank81

Yes that's true, but I realy think this is the deep root of Belgium, at least as we knew the country until late 20th century. After federalization, I don't think on Belgium in the same way than before, it was some like a refundation.

gaius valerius pointed to one important reason to take the Union of Utrecht and the Union of Arras as the respective starting point of Netherlands and Belgium. Elites split apart, the landowners from the south exerced the power, a power closely related to traditional catholicism.

A second step on future Belgium formation was the industralization process that took place since mid 18th century, a process that made Belgium a succesful economy in the world, even overpassing Netherlands. The root of this can be traced back to old metal and weapon industry of Liege.

However, a curious case happens here: a great part of Arras Union territory is not part of Belgium today, the country lost its original heart by a great deal.