Wot's Uh, The Deal?

Belgium has a new government, finally. After over 500 days of bickering, stalemating, posturing, and finally compromising, Belgium can re-join the hallowed league of nations that, at least superficially, try to settle problems in a quasi-democratic process.

This past year and a half has completely made a mockery of the so-called “Belgian Compromise.” It originally meant that Belgians were viewed as being able to reach acceptable compromises that are mutually beneficial, though the jejune fight between the Flemish-speaking North and the Walloon-speaking South has perhaps exposed the not-so-compromising truth that maybe the Belgians aren’t so agreeable as once thought.

In what became a travesty of diplomacy so long ago that we stopped counting that at least, the government of Di Rupo I, named after Elio Di Rupo, the Walloon politician who in my opinion, and that of nearly everyone except for most Flemings, has emerged as one of the most level-headed, positive-thinking politicians on the European political stage.

Bart De Wever, however, the Flemish-speaking spokesman of the antagonist party of Di Rupo’s party, has merely emerged larger in girth and less so in respect. He typifies the “Ja, Maar...” attitude that has plagued this entire process from the beginning. Oh, but he is so-o-o-o intelligent cries the Flemish fanfare. Fine, he is intelligent.

To that I say, “Big, Fucking Deal” to paraphrase Garfield’s kinder, gentler "Big, Fat Hairy Deal." As one of my aunts is fond, and rightly so, of saying, “Intelligence is a gift, we have nothing to do with it. It is how we use it that makes the difference.” Well, according to De Weveresque attitudes, intelligence is what you flaunt in people’s faces, using it to expose only the negative, meanwhile allowing the atrophy of the positive to go unchecked before yours and everyone else’s eyes.

With each referendum, De Wever would bloat and gloat about his unvanquished striving to look out for the Flemings’ best interest. Last time I checked, there were a scant 5 million of them, and Belgium’s financial security, believe it or not, has seismic proportions when it comes to keeping the European Union afloat. So, having your country go without a plausible, (much less risible) or even feasible, government because you are looking after the benefits of one of the wealthiest regions in Europe, while literally the sky may be falling around you, is in short, arrogant and ignorant, not intelligent.

So, we have a government here. Does that stop De Wever from whining incessantly and from stomping his leaded foot down and saying that he does not value Di Rupo’s government and that the situation has been downgraded in De Wever’s far-from-humble opinion from “total catastrophe to catastrophe.”

Wow. Catastrophe, really Mr. De Wever? Surely you’re joking, right?

But, the scary thing is, is that he isn’t. His perception, and that of many Flemings is that this really is a catastrophe that the French-speaking party may have actually finally breached the abyss of pigheadedness and is on the way to at least putting some things into action. It is a bastardization of the word when true catastrophe are unfolding around the world greater than the fact that the Flemings might have to tighten their belts, or loose some allegorical weight...

But, the “Ja, Maar...” must go on for some apparently. At what point, when a deal has been struck does one side need to continue to bitch and moan about any prior injustice? How long is too long? Belgium is a laughing stock of diplomacy in some circles because of this fiasco, but like a spoiled child, which is really what it boils down to, the likes of De Wever continue to call foul and taunt the winning side. Well, I don’t know if De Wever ever played any team sports, which is dubious given his selfish demeanor, but when the game has been declared over, it’s over. As I used to tell my water polo team when I was coaching, “Even if it was the fault of the ref that the game was poorly called, it was not the ref’s fault that we lost the game.”

Mr. De Wever, as I would say to my teammates after such a loss,

“Sit down, shut up, and work towards the future, please.”

And no more “Ja, Maar...”