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.
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