Why is Belgium so Divided?

My teacher once said that Flanders and Wallonia are like a couple who want to break up, but they stay togheter for their child. (Brussels)

'Im not advocating for the Netherlands to invade Belgium' Doubt

One little thing that you have missed : In the 1830s, during the Belgian Revolution, there was a religious divide between the newly-born Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium was catholic, while The Netherlands were Protestant. This religious unity was a large part of the decision to include Flanders in the new country, along with Wallonia. However, as religious practice has declined since the XIXth century, the uniting effect of having the same religion has also declined to the point of becoming irrelevant now.

Difference between Flemish and Nederlandish: In you try speaking Flemish in Belgium they think "That's nice, the Foreigner is making an effort, I will speak slowly and clearly." In Nederland, they think "The only people who would ever speak Dutch is a Dutchman therefore I will speak very very quickly."

The best time Belgium had, was when it didn't have a government for 589 days in 2010 - 2011 :)

Thank you for showing your interest in our little country but I am sorry to say that this video is, once again, full of mistakes and constitutes a dangerous rewrite of history. It is very sad to note that the history of Belgium is always so badly addressed by foreigners, especially on internet. You said in the video that it is the french speaking people of Belgium who made the Belgian revolution. It is absolutely false. The Belgian revolution was mainly made by inhabitants of Brussels, which at the time was largely Brabantian (a "dialect" of dutch). They were then joined by volunteers from all over Belgium. Historians agree today that more than 60% of the volunteers were Flemish speakers (see the studies of Jean Stengers and John W. Rooney Jr). The revolution was due to a combination of factors, the main one being the difference of religion (catholic in today's Belgium, protestant in today's Netherlands). You didn't even cite this element. There were plenty of other highly determinant factors: the under-representation of today's Belgians in the parliament (62% of the population and only 50% of the seats); an over-representation of Dutch people in the administration and important positions (4 times more); the public debt of the Netherlands (way higher than the one of the south) had to be supported by the south as well; the diminution in the freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, ... Language was indeed also a consideration since William I of the Netherlands had imposed the standard Dutch everywhere in the northern part of Belgium. The francophone Belgian elites were of course unhappy about this situation but the Flemish speakers as well since they didn't master this language they were now imposed to speak! This part of the video is thus false and really biased. You talked about the situation of the Flemish speakers in the trenches during the first world war and the fact that they were killed because they couldn't understand the instructions of the french-speaking officers. You said that whether this happened or not is not known for certain. Although the officers showed a great deal of condescension towards the non french-speaking soldiers (Flemish and Walloon), plenty of historians have however demonstrated decades ago that this affirmation is largely exaggerated. This is very serious because this idea has wrongfully fed for a long time the Flemish separatist movements. 1) It was not Walloon officers or officers from the south. In general, the officers came from the bourgeoisie, whether from the south or the north of the country (and the majority of them were from current Flanders and Brussels), a bourgeoisie that has always spoken French. 2) How did the Walloon soldiers understand the orders, as they didn't speak either French? 3) There were translators in the trenches and the NCOs were bilingual (since they came from the people but had to learn French to advance in rank) 4) At war, especially during the first world one, the orders are simple and learned quickly. The blows of a whistle, it is universal! How did soldiers in other armies who spoke only their dialect understand the orders in the standard language? You implied many times that the south of Belgium was simply French speaking. This is however only a very recent phenomenon that began after the first world war. At the time of the 1830 revolution, people from the south were speaking different dialects of Walloon and often couldn't understand French (Walloon is a different language from the same family as french but they are only poorly mutually intelligible). French was chosen as the official language of the new Belgian state because it was the lingua franca of the bourgeoisie and noble elites of the country (from the north and the south), but also because the standard Dutch was the language imposed by the enemy, finally because the Flemish-speaking region was composed of a multitude of local dialects that were often unintelligible to each other (therefore, without a unified language). The language conflict of Belgium is thus historically not a conflict between the south and the north but between the bourgeoisie and the people, between the powerful and those who have nothing. More generally, you fall into the classic affirmation by foreigners and Flemish separatists that Belgium is a forced wedding between the Flemish and the Walloons, an "artificial state" encompassing two different "nations". This is historically completely false as those two identities are really recent. In 1830 the Walloon and Flemish identities don't exist, as people simply identify themselves as being Belgians (See the works of Jean Stengers, Fred Stevens, Axel Tixhon, Jacques Logie, ...). I am sorry to have to write this long and annoying commentary but don't you understand that publishing a "historical" video on the internet, before the eyes of all, gives you a responsibility for the accuracy of its content? At the time of "fake news" and manipulation of the masses your responsibility as a content author is even greater and a simple research on internet could have saved you from saying a lot of false information. Thank you for your reading.

Belgium is too simple for us... Greetings from Bosnia... :)

I was an American living in France. When I drove to Belgium, some one said to me "Vous êtes de septante." I wondered "How does he know that I have seven aunts?" Then I realized that he was referring to my license plate that indicated that I was from Department 70 in France.

"Belgium is so divided" Switzerland: "Hold by beer and my rösti"

I'm not from Belgium but one of my parents is and I go there a lot, I'm born and live in the Netherlands. If you're interested in Belgium, particularly the Dutch speaking side, you might find this comment interesting. As far as I understand (and I think I'm very knowledgable on the issue) the whole political situation is severely misunderstood by foreigners and Belgians aren't as divided as everyone thinks. On top of that, Dutch people (from the Netherlands) tend to be a bit "louder" on the topic online, because of their national pride, they'd like to see Flanders join the Netherlands just to see the Netherlands become a little bigger on the world map, so there is a lot of Dutch bias that's difficult to correct when talking to foreigners who've never been to or know anyone in Belgium. In short: a lot of the information about Belgium isn't actually Belgian, it's from Dutch people in Holland who naturally have their own bias and like any other foreigner talking about another country misunderstanding and lack of knowledge on the subject. It's like an average Australian thinking he can explain the entire UK in an absolutely factual and objective way because he's read half a wikipedia page and some youtube comments about it, you'd rather hear that information from a British person and even then the average British person probably doesn't fully understand the UK either. TL;DR: It's important to understand that just because the Flemish speak Dutch, doesn't mean they're culturally Dutch, Flemish people are as different from Dutch people culturally as any other foreigner, this is not a biased exageration, it's very important to know if you want to understand Belgium and Flemish people. Keep in mind the inter marriage rate between Dutch and Flemish people is smaller than the inter marriage rate between Walloons and Flemish people. Most Dutch and Flemish people don't fully know about the cultural gap, they just tend to look at the other side as weird without a real explanation for it, it's very hard to find a Dutch person with Flemish friends and vice versa, so there is just not a lot of connection or knowledge about eachother. Just to give you a taste, they don't consume eachother's media, a good example: apart from one hilarious exception Flemish comedians don't make it in Holland, and Dutch comedians don't make it in Flanders. The same goes for almost everything, cuisine, morals and values, social rules, etc. Even the language is different in that it's a variety of Dutch, not so much just a regional accent or dialect, you can compare it to British English vs American English. This comparison might be hard to understand for foreigners because the two countries are so close to eachother and don't have geographic barriers between them. This cultural divide is a result of lots of things, but the biggest one is probably the French cultural dominance that has lasted for a quite a while in Belgium (at least from its independence, but probably longer than that). If you'd compare it to the Anglophone world, you could compare the Flemish, who speak Dutch, to the Americans, who speak English (and yes, many Flemish people say they speak Flemish, rather than Dutch). Most people don't care about cultural geography so this won't become known to anyone who doesn't visit both countries regularly, which include many Dutch and Belgian people. Most Dutch people only know about the cultural differences of the other side that they've seen, and assume everyting else about the country is just the same, and vice versa, which doesn't help in forming a fully knowledgeable and unbiased picture of Belgium to explain to foreigners over the internet. Again, this is probably similar to Americans and English people, or even English and Irish people, or for instance Norwegians and Icelandic people or Greek and Cyprus Greek people (don't really know anything about those guys, but you get the point). Because the region is so small and isn't seperated by geographic barriers though, as far as I know the situation is a unique one in this world in that way, which I think makes it very interesting and some historians should get on that, but that's besides the point. Though a significant minority of Flemings want to leave or are okay with leaving Belgium, the vast majority of those don't want to join the Netherlands. It's impossible for a foreigner to fully understand, but it's one of the reasons Belgium does exist. I suspect in the future the record will be set more straight as Belgians will start getting annoyed at these stereotypes (like I do) that start to float around on the internet and will speak out, but this will probably take time. If you wanna help with that you can like this ridiculously long comment if you agree with me that this misrepresentation of Belgium is kind of annoying. By the way, I think there are plenty of way more intersting things about Belgium to talk about, one of those: Beer!

And people wonder why I never address the "so explain something of your country"

When your economics teacher tells you that you're unlucky to be born in the most politically complicated country that you know. You where born in the right country.

Omfg the part with willem van oranje was amazing ;)

Belgium remains together by the sheer strength of its bureaucracy. :)

When France and Netherlands love each other very much BOOM! We got Belgium. (Who has multiple personality disorder) [[WARNING: French and Dutch nerds fighting in the replies]]

some adjustement from a walloon: -Before WW2, walloon was the only language spoken by poor walloon (and is very different to understand as french speaker) -Before WW2, French was spoken by rich people in Wallonia and flanders -After WW2, Flemish peoples diffended their language and culture against rich french speaker (Some were walloon some were Flemish) -After WW2, Walloon language disapeared and French was learned instead. Today nobody speaks walloon anymore aside of some grandparents but that's it -These days, there is a rivalry Flemish VS French which was initially Poor against Rich

"Recently belgium had some issues" belgium has had issues from the day it was created.

As wacky as it might be I actually like the cultural divide in Belgium. It is what makes the country unique.

"The French encouraged on Germanic lands" *Cough A L S A C E L O R A I N E

Anyone from belguim?:( EDIT:thanks for all the likes yesterday i had 21 likes (Dankjewel voor de likes gisteren had ik nog maar 21 likes Edit 2:why are you Guys liking so much?