Quebec separatists: please don’t read this summary of a column by Bronwen Maddox of July 1 in the London Times.
If Belgium were to break apart this could be a “liberating opportunity” that the EU could offer its members. The leader of the separatist New Flemish Alliance, Bart de Wever, is respectful about the monarchy, one of the few institutions to span the country. He talks of autonomy, not outright independence. But he has encouraged talk of a peaceful split, as Czechoslovakia managed in 1993….
Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a Brussels fantasy that the nation state will wither away as regions shelter under the great European umbrella. The euro crisis has shown the opposite: that the EU…has deluded itself that members had come to resemble each other. In many ways, they don’t. It remains an honorable ambition for people who feel that they are different from their neighbours, and want to run their own country, to try to do so. One of the liberating opportunities that the EU can still offer millions of people is the chance to do just that. In Belgium’s case, they have nothing to lose but the king.
The world would well be rid of the Belgium king, one of whom caused a great deal of misery in Africa. The British Empire should nevr have gone to the rescue of the odious Belgians in 1914.
Please do not forget that King Leopold I of Belgium, the despicable architect of Belgian colonial brutalities, was ALSO the young Queen Victoria’s lovable Uncle Leopold who had engineered her marriage with Albert, the Prince Consort, also a Saxe-Coburg. You cannot deny that his contributions were entirely positive.
So the Flemish speakers acquire autonomy. Nothing really wrong with that. They could still keep the King, like England and Scotland. If that brings peace to Belgium, why not ?
In the 1920s some influential Bavarians wanted to separate from the Weimar Republic, demanding autonomy. Would you have welcomed THAT?
I guess Ms Maddox feels the same way about Scotland (or Wales…Bronwen, eh?). I wonder if she has any views on the use or abuse of constitutions — or of the legitimacy or not of possible dissolution processes. In the case of Canada, of course, there is no entity corresponding to the EU anyway.
I totally agree, of course, that it was grossly mischievous of me to imply that Ms. Maddock had anything relevant to say about the Canadian situation. Moreover, I can’t remember any Quebec separatist using as an argument “Small is Beautiful”. Maybe they did – in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies it would have been a good talking point.