Current Politicl/Regional Issues

[kebrown]

Hello everyone,
I am an American student writing my senior thesis in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. My thesis topic is how culture can be an element in international conflict. I am comparing the Flemish/Walloon conflict in Belgium, which is a generally nonviolent conflict with the Basque/Spanish(Castillian) confclit in Spain which turned violent in the 1950s.

Anyway, my argument will be that the reason the Beglian conflict never spawned a terrorist movement is that the Belgian state is the result of a conscious compromise between two nationalities, and that parliamentary methods for reform have always been available to both parties. In other words, there was no "spark" to start a terrorist movement as there was in Spain.

The reason I am writing is that I am having difficulty finding reliable information on how the regional/language/cultural issue has played out since the middle 1980s.

Can anyone help me find more information?
Thanks in advance,
Kevin Brown
kebrown@sas.upenn.edu

[Nousch]

Hello,

Well, I do have to think again to my history lessons.....

End 1980's, beginning 1990's (if I am correct) Belgian has become a Kingdom divised in a federal country which means that we have several governments (too much to be honest). (If I remember well, 10...)

You have one of them here...
-Federal Government (for the whole country)
-Flemish Community
-French Community
-German Community
- Brussels Region,
-Flemish Region
- Walloon Region
and some other governments but I can not give you the correct information, so I do not write it down

Federal Governement is busy with everything what concerns the law, economics, social affairs and so on.
The Communities are busy with education, culture, and so on.

Now, I referring you to the website of http://www.belgium.be, I think you can find all the information you like on it...it is too complicated to explain it myself...

But one thing I know for sure, we are not violent due to the fact that I think that everybody likes each other in Belgium and it is only on political level that there are some discussions. I really liked my Walloon collegues in the period that I worked in Brussel so you see...