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.