Race and Europe: a Story of “Natives” vs. “Foreigners”?
In a little backpackers pub in Riga, Latvia three Belgian lawyers on a weekend trip gave me a brief lecture on their view of their country’s future over a glass of locally brewed Cesu beer. When I questioned them a bit regarding the potential of the country splitting in half, the discussion got a little sentimental. The three, all from Flanders, blamed the French-speakers from hijacking Brussels, the officially bilingual capital. Especially, they noted the influx of immigrants from Francophone Africa. They say that the increase of immigrants is leading to creation of new French-speaking suburbs of Brussels outside the Brussels Capital Region, in the surrounding Flemish territories. Traditionally Dutch-speaking towns and neighborhoods are becoming more and more Francophone, spurring a movement in French-speaking Walloonia to seek greater “coalition” with the capital, much to the anger of the Flemish. The Flemish resentment is further bolstered by the transfer of wealth, through soc