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The private life of the Belgians

The relative silence of the past few days was forced on me by travel. This week I am in Brussels, where I arrived on Sunday just in time to see the city centre paralysed by a demonstration in favour of national unity. (I write "paralysed" out of habit: in fact, given the general level of torpor in Brussels on a Sunday, the demonstration had the net effect of animating it greatly.)

I favour a break-up of Belgium mainly for the novelty value. It's 15 years since we last saw a European country divide peacefully; it would be interesting to have two or three new countries around the western part of the continent, after all the recent action in the east.

I also favour a break-up for the Belgians' sake. Their regional and social and linguistic divides have given rise to a political system of comical complexity and horrible expense, with 11 (or is it 9, or 15?) parliaments, and a corresponding proliferation of public spending whereby anything needed in one part of the country must be matched in the others whether needed or not.

The quality of the public service, as you might expect, is inverse to the quantity of it: the museum is closed for shortage of staff, the ministry is on holiday, the bus service is on strike. As for the probity, I remember thinking when I moved here from Russia in 1998 that this was the one country in northern Europe where the Muscovite instinct towards all public servants, namely bribery, would not be so wholly out of place.

And yet, the Belgians are marching in favour of their country, rebuking politicians who are incompetent even at the horse trading needed to form a government which merely represents the various language and party groups (nobody is suggesting it should actually have policies of any significance, that would be absurdly over-reaching).

What sentimentality motivates them? A scission would leave them in no danger of invasion. There would be no need, in today's European Union, for border controls or new currencies. They would merely have to take a bit more responsibilty for the way they were governed, instead of saying it was always the fault of the other half of the country. And in exchange for that small amount of responsibility, they could doubtless get a much higher return from the politicians they employed.

The country, by the way, seems to be getting along perfectly well in the absence of a government—at least by local standards, which are not all that high. Brussels is even filthier than I remember it. Garbage and dogshit absolutely everywhere. Half the pavements of the city torn up in the course of imaginary and unncessary (but profitable) repaving projects. Derelict buildings. Beggars on the streets. Buses crowded to bursting. if I didn't like it so much here, I'd find myself getting quite critical.