"think about it - 19th century was the age of free market capitalism; do you really think wallonia poured money into flanders? ridiculous! you cannot compare the solidarity mechanisms in a modern welfare state to a 19th century government! and you're a history student right??? there was even a big depression and famine in flanders during those days"

Yes, I'm indeed an student in history, but I fear you're wrong. When Belgium gained its independency in the 19th century, it was a virtually bancrupt state. It attracted industry (like Cockerill etc) just because the goverment was so eager to invest in the industry. Indeed, Belgium was a liberal state, wich gave every opportunity to its industry, but that doesn't mean it didn't stimulate the industry. Also, the "famine" argument is false, as it's not relevant in this discussion.

"I in fact know of a VUB academic who calculated that back then flemish economic development was already being stiffled in favour of wallonia in those days, this was due to the large industries like mining and metallurgy (typical walloon industry) enjoyed very nice taxation structures while traditional activities such as fishery and wool industry (typical flemish economy) did not (I can send his publication if you give me an email adress)"

The wool industry collapsed in the late 18th century, shortly followed by the "vlas"industry. It might have had a small revival, but when the industrialisation kicked in in England in the 18th century, it was a dying economy none the less. If the Belgian state did hinder that, it was merely in line with it's liberal character. And fishery could never be a huge sector in the Belgian/Flemish landscape.

"the only thing wallonia did for the flemish population was offer bottom of the ladder jobs to flemish immigrants who moved there and completely integrated in wallonian society and who in mere decades became as walloon as the walloons themselves"

Again, this is exactly what a liberal state would have done. I'm not defending them, not at all. I despise liberalism cause it's inhuman, as you greatly demonstrated. All I'm trying to point out is that it's not the "Belgian" but rather the "Flemish" influence that colours our view on history. I'm not saying the Belgian state was righteous etc, but they did stimulate flemish economy, in their own ideal of liberal development. After all, they were mostly self-made-men, who believed in strong personalities. They believed such people would be victorious no matter what.

"you sir should not parrot silly propaganda"

I do not parrot, not more than you. If anything, you can say there's little "Belgian" propaganda in our part of Belgium, wich can't be said about the Flemish propaganda.

"to a lesser extent what bothers me is that the money is part of an economic revival programme; this is not entirely false but it is a bit dishonest; the "wallonian marshall programme" was put forward by Elio di Rupo not more than a couple years back precisely to counter criticism of money being poured into a bottomless economic pit; if you have a hint of critical thought in your brain you will notice that this essentially means the belgian and european tax payers have in fact been pouring money into a bottomless economic pit for years"

Perhaps, but doesn't that imply that we would actually benefit more from Wallonia in a few years than we did for the past decades?
Also, the economic revival plan was not entirely Elio's but also a suggestion of the European Union, further inspired by a similar project for Ireland. I'm not defending the PS either, as they have a whole bunch of crooked politicians they ought to get rid of, but generalising Elio's defence to Wallonia isn't reasonable either.

"as to the success of the wallonian marshall programme, the figures are being hotly contested by certain wallonian (MR) politicians themselves and indeed there is a tradition of adapting the statistics to try and make trends rather than reflecting them; high profile investments in wallonia have until now always been due to extreme compensations someone would only be willing to make if they can have someone else foot the bill (eg ryanair and the airport contract and the formula one contract)"

That's rather unfair to say. You can't claim that another political party is mor reliable than another. The figures I heard about were published by the "rekenkamer", a controle organ of the federal government. And here too you should define "high profile investments". As far as I know, other high profile compagnies like Google and Microsoft also decided to settle in Wallonia, rather than in Flanders.

----

To conclude, I highly contest your claim that I'm lying, but rather that I know of facts that aren't known too well. This is because the view on the history of our country in the schools is "flemish", rather than "belgian".

"your statements in no way sustain your claim that "the walloons did the same in the 19th century for flanders", i.e. that there was an economic revival plan for flanders involving money flowing from wallonia to flanders in the 19th century;
in fact they do the opposite, as they merely illustrate the fact that flemish tax payer money was subsidising the wallonian economic boom as I have said in my first post"

I never said it was exactly the same, and of course there was no actual plan for the matter. But infrastructural works were defenatly not concentrated in Wallonia. Like the new economic revival plan is focussed on making the site more attractive to compagnies, the idea was in the 19th century to make flanders more attractive to start there too.

"I do consider the famine relevant since it shows that not only there were no permanent welfare programmes (the OCMW minimum benefits as we know them today weren't instituted until the 1970's) there were also no substantial temporary policies, again illustrating the fact that there was no wallonian money flooding the fields of flanders"

Bollocks, there were always bodies caring for the poor. From the medieval times onwards even. Granted, not all were organised by the state, but that's an anachronistic comparison..

"When I say put forward by di rupo this does not mean that he wrote every page himself; he can have had inspiration from the flight of the birds for all I care. The problems in the wallonian economy have been known for years, the EU has been giving money for economic recovery for years just like it did to ireland. The critique against wallonia is precisely that ireland was able to do in that time what the wallonians weren't in spite of receiving the same subsidies, namely having an economic recovery and even an economic boom. This marshall plan is meant to be something new done by the walloons themselves (with help from the belgian federal government though the extent of that is debated). To say that di rupo wouldn't have launched this plan if it weren't for EU criticism this comes down to being even less favourable to wallonians than doing it on their own initiative."

"I'm talking about the figures from about a year ago, with di rupo giving a major speech on henegouwen being the economic engine of wallonia only to turn out he was using polished statistics; I know more recent figures have shown a better trend for wallonia and I hope this reflects reality for them;"

Why disputing the results then?

"as for the google/mircosoft investments the jury is still out on those; a big argument for these companies is the fact that wallonia still has room to accomodate large industrial complexes, this is a genuine economic trump card for wallonia"

That too is an economic important matter, and perhaps proves how Flanders needs Wallonia from time to time too

"then there is the fact that these companies receive various amounts of official incentives for companies to invest in wallonia and perhaps it will also turn out they received many subsidies on top of the traditional EU and marshall planaid, like the ryanair contracts turning out to be so lopsided as to be a net loss for the belgian taxpayer; I can tell you for example that I know several (perhaps all, but I don't know ) of these new investors like microsoft are renting their busniess premisses from a local government company (an intercommunale named "idea") which in turn is receiving subsidies from the wallonian government"

Flanders too gives several taxbenefits to certain sectors, that turn out to be rather bad for the taxpayer.

Look, I'm with you that the flemish people should be able to check where the money goes, and that it's being used construtively. All I'm saying is that Wallonia too made an effort to change things in flanders, although in not the exact same way. There was money shifting from one side to the other, and now it's exactly the same thing, but in a different direction.

My whole point is that there's no real reason to drop Wallonia, and that the Flemish people feel frustrated about problems that aren't even that big.. Money transfers do exist, but can't be a reason to ditch Wallonia, as I said before, they did the same for us. On the other hand, it'd be hypocrite as Flanders donates massivly to Brussels too, but the difference is that they see Brussels als Flanders, while Wallonia is "the other"..

But tough I stand by your points wfs, you shouldn't have closed the other thread.

By the way, thanks for sending those F-16's to Afganistan! I was told that the Belgian encampment on Kandahar Airfield was inbetween the Dutch and French encampments, hows that for a coincidence.

Yes yes, i'm OT, so sue me!

> Elysian Thebes wrote:

> well, he did open the thread to begin with. i blame europe though, for teaching young generations that censorship is ok.
__________________________________
Yeah, you should check out their latest EU Constitution.

"I will fight for your right to be wrong!" << S.G. Tallentyre
"I am a flexible centrist: not stuck on right-wing, not stuck on left-wing, and not stuck on centre...and I don't flip-flop either" <<< me
Fighting for peace is like stopping the raping of a virgin.

the EU constitution was not even accepted X(

there is no EU-constitution (there is one, but it was rejected), the countries do have one, obviously.

There better not be one or I'll start bombing buildings! X(

idd.
"i blame europe though, for teaching young generations that censorship is ok."
? The EU doesn't teach that, and the subject is debated over time and time again all over europe. (especially the rules on discriminiation and racism.)

"a good European constitution would be bliss"

I only like the economical aspect of the EU. The social/political part of it gives me goosebumps and the occasional anger atack! X(
Oh and let's not forget their enviormental policies, aaargh..

It's all in the eye of the beholder. And let's not forget the undemocratic way the so called democratic Constitution was run through many national parlements. (why does it feel like i've had this discussion before.. )

Undemocratic because the last time we had a referendum we voted No. Now the Constitution has some lines shuffled around, some words replaced and all of the sudden the goverment approves of it. Why not let us decide via a referendum again? And why did they even bother with one in the first place?

Besides, during the elections the current ruling parties didn't say a word about the constituton in their campaign

PS, I voted Wilders..