If it's Easter, it's time to wash windows

Currently the University is on Easter break, or Paas Vakantie. (Remember Paas brand  Easter egg dyes? Now you know.) Unlike in the States where students wondered if Good Friday would be considered a half-day vacation or not, the Easter break here is two weeks. In fact, many people consider this to be the real vacation and often only a few days before and after Christmas and the New Year are taken off, but not necessarily. This was the case in Italy as well. The Easter break was when everything shut down and the Italians flocked to the coast and to the mountains. 

So, it is Easter, and what is the most important thing? Make sure that your windows are clean. Two weeks ago, sporadically around town, long wooden extension ladders began cropping up against the building façades. Inevitably you see a man calmly climb up the ladder armed with a bucket and squeegee, and the cleaning would commence. Now, it should be noted that the average height of an Antwerp herenhuis is 3-4 stories, and usually more than the standard ten feet in the States. The method of raising these ladders is not for the faint of heart. I saw many of these guys at the top of the ladder extended half-way of about 20 feet or so, and then pull away from the building and in a bit of a hopping motion while simultaneously pushing the ladder up higher, they would extend it further. Quite an acrobatic feat. So, you have all of these ladders precariously propped up against the building, with window washers nonchalantly perching upon them 40 ft above the ground, cigarette dangling from the corner of the mouth, cleaning the windows in time for Easter. Not quite the image I get listening to Van Morrison's "Cleaning Windows," but also not too far away.

Now that all of the windows were clean, Easter could begin. However, the windows were more noticeable than Easter itself. Now, the Easter Bunny does make an appearance, but it is the church bells, or the Klokken, that actually bring the goodies to the children. They sort of fly through the air like giant UFOs distributing chocolate eggs and bunnies. As I say, the fun never ends. In Belgium, the population is somewhere around 80% Catholic, especially in the southern Wallonia region. The fact that the northern Flanders is also Catholic is a bit of an anomaly in that predominantly northern European regions are Protestant, remember Luther? Or, do you? 

Religion in Europe has a rather different place in daily life than in America. Most prominently, this can be readily seen with the cathedrals that dominate many of the centers of major cities, unless they were heavily bombed beyond repair during WWII as was the case with Rotterdam in Holland. For the most part, however, until recently, the tallest structure in the city would be the Christian cathedral. This is still the case with Antwerp. Except for the large KBC (bank) building, there is no other architectural element in the city which comes close to the Cathedraal with regards to grandeur and eminence within the city's topological make-up.

So, on Easter weekend, everyone was flocking to the churches, right? Hardly. Although the figure on paper is around 80%, very few Belgians are "practicing" Catholics, though if it comes to marriage or first and second communion, there is often not even a second thought about the ceremony taking place within the church. Most public schools are affiliated in some with the Catholic Church and very often have chapel services on a regular basis. In other words, in some situations the church and state are linked quite closely, yet you would not know it beyond the superficial relationship.

We visited Brugges on Easter Sunday for a day trip and went into the cathedral which boasts the only Michelangelo statue in Belgium. Aside from an interesting modern art version of the stages of the cross, one would be hard pressed to know that it was a special day for Catholics. In fact, the first thing that you see upon entering the church is a large display poster featuring a young, stylish looking priest. The poster is for a website to encourage young people to join the clergy as the numbers are swiftly greying and dwindling. A friend of mine who teaches at the University of America in Beirut, Lebanon, went to a Mass here as he was visiting Belgium, and the nature of the Mass was concern for low turnout and lack of youth.

While teaching in the States, when religious questions about Christianity would come up, I would often ask the question whether anyone could tell the class what the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic was. Anything. Almost without fail, not a single person would know a single thing. And yet, the students were by far in the majority who considered themselves Christian. And then I would ask, what denomination were they. From there, seldom were any two from the same branch, and often they were from ones I had never heard of. 

When discussing stereotypes of America with my Belgian students, religion came up and this issue was discussed as well. For the Belgians, it was simple: you are: Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or Muslim. That is what makes up the population here. Now, of course there are divisions within each of those, but the thousands upon thousands of Christian sects was something that they had not heard of before, unless they had been to the States. Protestant or Catholic, that was for the most part the extent of it. There is a slowly growing population of evangelical Christians as well here, but by far the fastest growing non-Catholic religion in Belgium is Islam, and the largest current population of non-Catholics in Antwerp is Orthodox Jews.

This brings us to another aspect of Antwerp that places it in a unique position within Europe. Outside of London and Manhattan, Antwerp has the largest Orthodox Jewish community, which is consolidated in the center of town and is impossible to miss. (FYI, Ludo Abicht has written a book about them called De Joden van Antwerpen, or the Jews of Antwerp.) The young boys grow the traditional peyos, or side curls from a very young age, and every day of the week, the men were long black coats, with black waistcoats, black shoes, and often breeches with whiteor black  stockings. There are a variety of hats, ranging from a simple yalmuka to a large, round fur cap that only the older men were on specific days.  The women were somber dresses and usually shawls and long, shapeless coats. 

The population is largely located just south of the main train station in the Diamond district, the Diamant, and are a very visible population. As I was looking into this post, I found out that there is actually an eruv, or wire, that surrounds the entire old city of Antwerp. This eruv creates a religious boundary within which the Orthodox Jews can perform certain activities on the Sabbath outside of their homes. Antwerp is only one of a few cities in the world that has a physical eruv around it. Most Jewish centers have symbolic, or as in the case of Manhattan, a geographical eruv of the rivers emptying into the Atlantic Ocean on three sides of it.

In addition to this established population, as I mentioned, the fastest growing is the Muslim population which has created tensions within the city and country. The balance of religion in Antwerp as with other major European cities is a fact of life that you see on a daily basis. It is rather obvious when you see Muslim women with headscarfs and Orthodox Jews in full habit that religion plays a role in life here that is sometimes less clear in America. Mix this in with the towering spires of Catholic churches and the chiming bells throughout the day, it is rather more impressive to the senses than the ubiquitous Jesus fish on the car in front of you or the previous WWJD wristband fads of the 90s. Placing one of those plastic symbols on your car in suburban America does not quite have the same impact as the religious identifiers here. If someone puts a Darwin fish on his car, it is usually little more than a joke, whereas making light of another's religion here can escalate rather quickly. 

Yet, where do the Belgian Catholics stand on this? It is not so clear. Despite being predominantly Catholic by name, the arguments here are often social or racial (though many will deny this). It is not that the Catholics feel threatened by other religions, because Catholicism has self-imploded for the most part, it is the age-old fear of the Other that fuels most arguments. 

One of the largest growing populations in Europe in general is the Chinese. It will be interesting to see how yet another culture fits into this strange tapestry of religion and society here. 

For now, the windows are clean, and the Klokken are safely back in their belfries having delivered the paaseitjes, Easter Eggs, to the children. However, the future and nature of the face of Catholicism in Belgium is not as clear.

Één April, let me bake you a fish

Today is April 1st, or in America, April Fools Day. In Antwerp, however, they have a different expression. An April Fools' Day joke is called an aprilvis, or, an "April Fish". Of course, it all makes sense, right?

However, it is not just the Belgians who call it this, but the French have the phrase, un poisson d'avril, and when we were living in Italy, we found out that the expression is un pesce d'aprile, both meaning simply an "April Fish". The origin of this supposedly has to do with the fact that April is the end of Pisces, but there are conflicting accounts of this. Regardless, the stock prank that was part of the tradition was to attach a dead fish to your buddy's back and ask if he had seen the fool/fish. Lots of fun was had and merriment all around at the expense of the poor sap with a smelly fish on his back. Oh, these Europeans, the fun never ends.

In modern times, the dead fish has been replaced with a paper one, and it is usually left up to the little ones to do the dastardly deed of pasting one of these fish on the unsuspecting target. But, the phrase has been extended to mean any April Fools' joke, so whenever you do play a joke on someone, you are said to be  "een aprilvis bakken," or baking an April's Fish for that person. 

Although I have not seen any real or paper fishes stuck to anyone's back, you are very aware that today is April Fools' Day, which brings us to our next topic, Flemish humor. Beware, if you are politically correct-sensitive, it is probably best to stop reading now and join us next time. 

In Antwerp, one of the main Flemish newspapers is the Gazet van Antwerpen. Today, the entire issue was renamed the Gazet van Geert Hoste. Geert Hoste is a street performer turned national phenomenon as is his niece Phaedra Hoste who has her own reality show as an ex-model picking a boyfriend from 12 men. (Her decision was made last night and was the bunt of many baked fishes in the newspapers.) More important, Geert Hoste (as is Phaedra) is a BV, or Bekende Vlaming, which means a "famous Fleming". The BVs will get their own post, but let me assure you, when you become a BV, you never pay for another meal as long as you live. My goal is to become a BVV, or Bekende Vlaamse Vreemdeling, or Famous Flemish Foreigner (my own invention, of course), but again, all of this is for a future post.

Back to Geert Hoste. Going from a street mime (another future post as well) to the country's most recognized comedians and political satirist, Hoste's bald visage is seen all over Flanders. So, when the GVA was to be edited by Hoste, it was big. This morning I sat in a cafe and decided to check out this special edition of the GVA. I was expecting a few gag articles here and there, but as I said, the entire newspaper was a gag, complete with 25 Flemish comedians serving as the editorial staff for the day. The Flemings like to stretch a joke.

On the cover was a picture of the new (this adjective will take on much more weight when I write about it) Belgian government with all of the members' heads photoshopped to be bald, like Hoste. However, look closely, there is one man with hair still, hmm..., who is it? King Albert, no less. I guess defacing royalty is still off limits, but as you look through the pages, apparently nothing else is sacred or taboo. 

For example, Yves Letterme, the new Prime Minister, and embattled figure over the past nine months, is linked to a story about a pregnant goat, by him. OK, can you imagine if on the front page of a major metropolitan newspaper there was a story that the President of the United States had impregnated a goat? That was just the beginning. 

Belgium has had a few very disturbing paedophile/murder cases over the years and currently there is a new monster on trial, named Michel Fourniret, who along with his wife terrorized French/Belgian border for some time with their crimes. When arrested, he boasted that he was "worse than Dutroux," referring to Marc Dutroux, one of Belgium's most despised criminals. In the section of the GVA in which the Fourniret case is usually reported, there were the satires as well. One of the columns said the Dutroux responds in anger that he is "worse than Fourniret" and so on. In the back of the paper, the various writers discussed the difficulty about their assignments, including the one who wrote about Fourniret. He lamented that it was difficult not to hurt anyone when writing about such things. Well, I'm not sure that this was worth putting that to the test, but the sensibilities of others is quite different sometimes. I am not sure how it will be received, but you will see things get to print here that would normally not make it in the the States.

If you followed, for example, the protests surrounding a Danish cartoonist, who a few years ago depicted the prophet Mohammed with a ticking bomb in his turban, then you know how powerful these editorial decisions become. I have seen several political cartoons here that refer to religion or specific people that would never see the light of day in a major American newspaper,  but are common here. 

The question here then, is whether this is a good or bad thing. When I was teaching American students in Italy a few years ago for a study abroad program, they were shocked at the images in the newspapers and on the news regarding the Iraq war/occupation/insurgency (choose your position). Gruesome pictures of the reality of what was going on would hit the front page. These pictures never made it to America. I asked many people living in the States if they had seen them, and no one had. The news is quite a different animal here. Is censorship sometimes necessary, or should such images/satire be allowed? 

The simple figure of the April Fish opened up these questions again for me as I read through the paper. America is apparently based on freedom of speech and the press so long as it does not hurt someone, but where is that line drawn? Is it drawn too quickly? Should we offend people more often to make them think? 

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 tells of the story of Guy Montag, who is a fireman in the not-so-distant future. The firemen in the story are those who start the fires, not put them out. When someone is caught reading a book, he or she is usually turned in by a neighbor or family member and the firemen are called in. The house and the belongings are all burned, sometimes with the occupants. But, how did it come to this?

The disturbing answer that Bradbury gives is that it is from the inside, not from the government down. Gradually, people could no longer write books because ultimately you would eventually offend someone, somewhere. As such, books began to be banned and only graphic comics novels and celebrity magazines were allowed. All "serious" books which led to thinking or controversy were banned, and houses burned. The inhabitants of this society entertained themselves continuously with "shell-like" earphones and reality TV shows on giant plasma like screens. But, this is just fiction, right?

The GVA was not the only paper to do this guest editing, but several other Flemish papers joined in. Across the country, jokes about people getting busted at Nazi-sex parties and Leterme's troubles with his pregnant goat were everywhere. Satire is a tricky thing. When things get really bad, it is perhaps the only tool for writers because serious thinkers are easily dismissed. Think Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. In Roman times, the art of satire was taken quite seriously and people such as Juvenal were widely read.

When we think of April Fools, it is usually a simple joke, but when the GVA decided to bake an aprilvis with Geert Hoste, they opened up a real can of worms. I am curious to see how it is received, or, if it is even noticed as nothing more than another example of the peculiar Flemish humor.