I Don't See A Reason For Belgium

I know, you’re thinking what’s the big deal about Belgium. They seem like nice enough people. They haven’t hurt anybody, except maybe the Congolese. Call me a bigot, but I have my reasons for being blinkered about them. Let me try to lay out for you where I am coming from (and damn the dangling participle).

When I was a kid, we had a parlor game, called: Can you name one famous Belgian whose name isn’t Leopold? Of course, you can’t, because they don’t exist. Perhaps there is a list of famous Belgians somewhere. I never saw it and wouldn’t know where to find it. I don’t think I am going to search for it either.

Belgians aren’t a people like say the Brits, the French or even the Poles. They don’t identify themselves as Belgians, but as either Flemish or Walloon. Most Belgians are Flemings, protestant and speak Dutch. They are settled in Flanders, in the northern part of the country. The rest are French-speaking Walloons and Catholic and they populate the area bordering France. Only around Brussels do they mix to any extent. Another 10% are German, who live in the east along the German border and they all hate each other. It is an extremely dull place. The only reason that there is a country called Belgium is religion and European power politics.

Here’s a brief history lesson: The region known as the Southern Netherlands was ruled by the Catholic Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs. In 1795 the French Republic invaded and annexed what is now known as Belgium. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 it became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as a buffer against French aggression and was ruled by a protestant Dutch king. In 1830, aided by the French, the Catholics staged a revolution against protestant domination and the place became independent under the first Leopold, a German from the house of Saxe-Coburg, which is still in charge there today. Today, the French don’t understand why anyone would want to annex Belgium.

If you ask a Belgian the question about famous Belgians, he or she will at first get very upset at being asked such a condescending question and then, after calming down, will name The Singing Nun, Hercule Poirot, Jean Claude Van Damme, Tin Tin and a number of other names you’ll never have heard of. It’s tough to be known for the reputed nutritional values of Brussels sprouts, Belgian waffles, chocolate and beer. And keep in mind that Tin Tin’s first adventure took him to the Soviet Union (Knifje in de Sovietunie, 1929). Are the communists behind Belgium’s existence? And the Swiss would heatedly contest the notion that Belgian chocolate is any good. Ditto for the Bavarians and Belgian beer. Belgians are the European version of Newfies. They are the butt of jokes. They are thought of as unsophisticated rubes, a bit dim witted and phlegmatic, sort of like their beer – heavy.

If you ask a Frenchman his opinion of the Belgians, he’ll shrug and point out to you that you can’t expect much from people who favor horsemeat as their national repast. He’ll add that eating horse dulls your senses, because, as everyone knows, Belgian horses are plough horses, huge, heavy and hairy.

I know a little bit about Belgians, besides the fact that I grew up next door to them. My oldest son married one. I had made the mistake of inviting him on a tour of the beer halls of Bavaria, when he graduated from university. I had ignored the fact that he was not a connoisseur of outstanding beer. On our first stop in a small city along the Rhine, we invited ourselves to a stranger’s wedding reception. We had to drink many toasts to the bride and groom and all the relatives in attendance. I had a very good time. My son got sick, threw up and plugged up the toilet, flooding the joint. He was embarrassed and didn’t believe me when I tried to tell him that this was nothing out of the ordinary. Instead of hair of the dog, he decided to head south to Venice to soak up some culture. There he met this Belgian girl, who was camping on the steps of the Venice railroad station. And being a naïve American from Kansas City, he fell for her. I can’t blame her for trying to escape the tedium that is Belgium.

I tried to warn him off, endeavored to point out some of the Belgian shortcomings, but to no avail. He didn’t want to understand my peculiar predilection. He didn’t see the point about being rude to Belgians.

But my bias runs deeper than ethnicity. Consider this: Belgian women don’t shave their underarms or anywhere else, for that matter. Well, it’s not really a Belgian-only thing. Lots of European women don’t, but among Belgians it seems a pervasive custom. Now I know that some guys think that bushy pits are an olfactory Garden of Eden. I can relate to that. I have a very sensitive nose and can appreciate a fragrant whiff of funk firing up my brain’s pleasure centers, but it can get overwhelming. For example, if you’re in a car with a hairy woman, the wafting bouquet of smells can get pretty funky. I’m speaking from experience here. It’s an odd thing, but women with furry pits always seem to also have a thing about not opening the car’s windows, lest they catch a draft. They seem inured to stink. To be honest, before I arrived in North America, b.o. never bothered me, but it sure does now. Would you call that cultural assimilation or delayed bias? I blame the Belgians.

Like many Europeans, especially those from deepest Bavaria, Belgians also seem to have an adverse relationship with their orthodontists or, more likely, none at all. They have terrible looking teeth. Maybe they don’t have orthodontists in Belgium. I have never seen anyone there sporting braces. The combination of buck-toothed choppers, shaggy armpits and funky odors has put me off Belgian women. I imagine Belgian men are no different, though I haven’t had any personal relations with any.

Perhaps Belgians have redeeming features, but their country doesn’t serve a purpose. They are lousy at war. They are not good at peace either. They are unable to agree on anything among themselves, including forming a government. The various ethnic factions simply hate each other. The specter of the country’s break-up is never far from the surface. Call me jaundiced, if you must; but I say: Who cares?