“Surviving Belgium requires a certain state of mind. Call it Belgian zen: an ability to cope with a way of life that is sometimes disturbing, sometimes wonderful, but always weird.
Understanding Belgian policymaking requires a metaphysical outlook. Belgium is an experiment in quantum governance, with the state simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. This country of 11m people has a nest of parliaments: a federal one, one each for its three regions, along with ones for the French, Dutch and German-speaking communities. Government is duplicated rather than deepened by levels of public spending that are among the highest in the eu. In Belgium responsibility is shared between so many layers that ultimately no one is in charge.
Belgian zen is possible because of this strange success. Belgians are almost as rich as Germans and better off than Britons or the French. Their health care is excellent. Property is cheap; wages are high. A Belgian life is, on average, long and prosperous. In such circumstances, a heavily armed soldier roaming the woods can be brushed off with dark jokes. Partly this is luck. Belgian authorities worried enough to put Conings on a watchlist, yet he was still able to disappear with enough weapons for a massacre. In the end, it was just another strange chapter in a rather odd book. As long as Belgium avoids true tragedy, nothing will disturb Belgian zen.”
Kostelijke analyse van het immer falende maar tegelijk immer goedgeluimde België in The Economist: ‘Weird‘ is waarschijnlijk de meest lading dekkende beschrijving van België die mogelijk is.
