Before Flemish was recognised as an
official language in Belgium, French was culturally dominant in
education, politics and society. The back-lash against this is still
being felt, even through the Flemish are now more numerous and
richer. One of the side-effects of the official recognition was that
universities were suddenly allowed to teach in Flemish. The Free
University of Brussels was split into a French Free University of
Brussels and a Flemish Free University of Brussels, which were able
to share a campus and a city for a while at least, because Brussels
(unlike the rest of Belgium) is officially bilingual.
Things were
more complicated at the Catholic University Leuven. The town of
Leuven is in Flemish territory but all the teaching was in French.
The solution was to split the University of Leuven into a Flemish
University of Leuven in the town of Leuven, and a French University
of New Leuven in a brand new town 10km away in French territory
(called "New Leuven"). Which university was to keep the
library? Leuven kept all books A to L, while New Leuvan took M to Z.
That is a "Belgian solution".
Recently the Flemish University of
Leuven has found another "Belgian solution". The university
was founded as a public university of the city of Leuven but later
taken over by the Catholic Church. The country is now very secular,
and the church has been forced into a minority position on the board,
giving all Professors freedom of inquiry.
Recently, though, the
University invited a top Flemish stem-cell researcher back from
Minnesota. This was too much for the Pope, who protested that the
University Hospital performed euthanasia and abortions and now
stem-cell research – how could they call themselves Catholic? The
board responded that they would remove "Catholic" from the
name, but wanted to keep the funding stream from the Church and not
offend the traditionalists. The Belgian solution? The international
name of the university is the "University of Leuven" while
the Belgian name of the university is the "Catholic University
of Leuven".
Abortion was central to another Belgian
solution. All laws in Belgium need to be signed into law by the King
of Belgium, but the King cannot refuse to sign a law passed by
Parliament. When the Catholic country became secular enough to allow
women reproductive choice, they passed a law allowing abortion. The
only problem was that the King was staunchly Catholic and asked
Parliament not to violate his ethics by forcing him to pass a law he
disagreed with against his free will. But why should the free will of
the entire country be violated to maintain the free will of a single
person? The Belgian solution? The King and Parliament together
searched the books and found an ancient law that disposed the King if
he was unfit to rule, placing his duties in the care of the Prime
Minister. Parliament voted that the King's emotions were clouding his
judgement making him unfit, disposed him and got the Prime Minister
to sign the law. The next day they voted that since the law was a
done deal, the King's emotional response against it no longer made
him unfit to rule and they reinstated him.
