Ethnic Tensions in Belgium
Belgium has given the world Audrey Hepburn, René Magritte (surrealist artist), the saxophone (萨克斯) and deep-fried potato chips that are somehow called French.
But the story behind this flat, twice-Beijing-size country is of a bad marriage between two nationalities living together that cannot stand each other. With no new government, more than a hundred days after a general election, tumors run wild that the country is about to disappear.
"We are two different nations, an artificial state. With nothing in common except a king, chocolate and beer," said Filip Dewinter, the leader of the Flemish Bloc, the extreme-right Flemish party.
Radical Flemish separatists like Mr Dewinter want to divide the country horizontally along ethnic end economic lines: to the north, Flanders—where Dutch (known locally as Flemish) is spoken and money is increasingly made; to the south, French-speaking Wallonia, where today old factories dominate the landscape.
The area of present-day Belgium passed to the French in the 18 ^th century. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Belgium was given to the kingdom of the Netherlands, from which it gained independence as a separate kingdom in 1830.
Since then, it has struggled for cohesion (结合). Anyone who has spoken French in a Flemish city quickly gets a sense of the mutual hostility that is part of daily life there.
But there are reasons Belgium is likely to stay together, at least in the short term.
The economies of the two regions are tightly linked, and separation would be a financial nightmare.
But there is also deep resentment in Flanders that its much healthier economy must subsidize (补贴) the south, where unemployment is double that of the north. French speakers in the south, meanwhile, favor the status quo (现状).
Belgium has made it through previous threats of division. Although some political ysts believe this one is different, there is no panic just now.
"We must not worry too much," said Baudouin Bruggeman, a 55-year-old school teacher. "Belgium has survived on compromise since 1930. You have to remember that this is Magritte"s country, the country of surrealism. Anything can happen." Ethnic Tensions in BelgiumstandThe word "stand" in Paragraph 2 means ______.