I just don't understand the French-Flemish dispute...
June 4, 2009
Flemish parties reject provocation by MR leader Reynders
Repeating what Olivier Maingain of Brussels francophone coalition partner FDF had stated during the weekend, Didier Reynders, chairman of the MR francophone liberals, agreed that there were too many Flemings sitting in the Brussels Parliament. "There are 17 Flemish members of parliament out of 89, while only 15 percent of the population is Flemish," he said. Reynders wants the over-representation to be addressed in the talks on state reform with Flanders. The expansion of the Brussels region and the issue of the three un-appointed mayors must also be addressed "through a tranquil debate," he said. The Flemish Brussels representatives of the Flemish sister party Open VLD, Guy Vanhengel and Sven Gatz called the statements of Reynders "deplorable".
They're at it again
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Nope, I just don't get it. It seems reasonable that seats should be proportional to population size and that people should be able to request documents in their own language just once, rather than every single time they request documents. And Walloons are a minority in Brussels - most of the French speaking population are either immigrants or ethnic Flemmings who switched to French in the last 100-200 years. Flanders is the region of Europe with the highest concentration of French as a second language people and Walloon is the region of Europe with the highest concentration of Dutch as a second language people. Okay, Walloon could try harder, but learning Flemish as an adult is hard (this I can say from personal experience) and government documents are obtuse at the best of times, so isn't this just punishing people for the education system they were raised in?
Repeating what Olivier Maingain of Brussels francophone coalition partner FDF had stated during the weekend, Didier Reynders, chairman of the MR francophone liberals, agreed that there were too many Flemings sitting in the Brussels Parliament. "There are 17 Flemish members of parliament out of 89, while only 15 percent of the population is Flemish," he said. Reynders wants the over-representation to be addressed in the talks on state reform with Flanders. The expansion of the Brussels region and the issue of the three un-appointed mayors must also be addressed "through a tranquil debate," he said. The Flemish Brussels representatives of the Flemish sister party Open VLD, Guy Vanhengel and Sven Gatz called the statements of Reynders "deplorable".
They're at it again
This violates the language laws, which state that the official language of Flanders is Dutch. This means all official documents have to be drawn up in Dutch. An exception is made for the "facility communes" near the language border, where French-speaking inhabitants can ask to be served in French. On this, everyone agrees. But how these facilities should work remains a stumbling block.
In the so-called Peeters circular, the Flemish government states that citizens wanting French translations should ask for them one document at a time. The idea was that, in time, these people would learn Dutch. But it didn't work out that way.
The local French-speaking politicians have not helped either. They insist that citizens should declare that they want their documents in French just once. For this, the Flemish government has rapped their knuckles time and time again.---
Nope, I just don't get it. It seems reasonable that seats should be proportional to population size and that people should be able to request documents in their own language just once, rather than every single time they request documents. And Walloons are a minority in Brussels - most of the French speaking population are either immigrants or ethnic Flemmings who switched to French in the last 100-200 years. Flanders is the region of Europe with the highest concentration of French as a second language people and Walloon is the region of Europe with the highest concentration of Dutch as a second language people. Okay, Walloon could try harder, but learning Flemish as an adult is hard (this I can say from personal experience) and government documents are obtuse at the best of times, so isn't this just punishing people for the education system they were raised in?
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Great Ethiopian food
We tried out the House of Lalibela for a lab dinner. A few people were reluctant to eat with their fingers and were suspicious of the food descriptions, but everyone really enjoyed their meals. The food is simple, just a large pancake shared between people sitting across from each other, with dollops of different meals (I really enjoyed the vegetarian sampler, with five different sets) and pancake rolls in-between. You then use the pancake rolls to pick up the different meals (such as spiced beans or cooked spinach), and finish by eating the basement pancake if you can fit it in. A great group meal and delicious.
