Debunking the Belgian myth

Date: 14/03/1996

By Jean-Paul Marthoz

“HAPPY peoples have no history,” our teachers used to tell us when we were complaining of the boredom of being Belgian students in the roaring Sixties.

Their memory of history was vivid and carried with it sharp images of war and economic depression.

But history is not only engraved in the remembrances of those who have lived through it. It thrives on myths and imagination, it prospers on shared biases, stereotypes and lies.

Belgium, with its three regions, is no exception to the rule.

Amidst the historical facts and dates, scores of stories have consistently delighted audiences seeking tales of bravery and swagger, and nationalist politicians searching for legitimacy.

Among some famous milestones in Belgian history are the crusader and 'first European' Godefroid de Bouillon, the battle of the Gold Spurs in 1302 between the (mostly) Flemish armies and Philippe Le Bel which inspires modern Flanders, the daring act of the 600 Franchimontois in 1468 against Charles Le Téméraire near Liège which is celebrated in Wallonia, and the revolution of 1830 in Brussels which gave Belgium its independence.

But are they true?

“Truth is the first casualty of war,” wrote Philip Knightley in his notable book on war correspondents.

Truth, however, is also the first casualty of nationalism.

In Belgium, as in most countries, history has often been the preserve of those with a selective memory.

Large zones have either been off limits for many years and decisive episodes have been narrowly interpreted or given a positive spin.

The conquest and colonisation of the Congo, for instance, has only recently been subjected to a dispassionate and critical historical approach.

In a recently-released book, a score of Belgian historians, both Flemish and francophone, have taken the initiative in debunking many of the stories that have been told over Belgian cradles and taught in most classrooms.

The publication has shocked many Belgian 'unitarists', not only because of the choice of subjects (the heroes of Belgian history, and even the myth of Tintin), but also because it could be seen as another symbol of the unravelling of Belgian reality.

“It is obvious”, writes the book's editor Anne Morelli, “that the decay of Belgian nationalism has allowed us an approach which earlier would have been too iconoclastic to be possible.”

And iconoclastic it is indeed.

All the major feats of Belgian, Flemish and Walloon history are mercilessly examined, put in context and very often exploded.

The object of the exercise, however, goes beyond pure academic hair-splitting.

Quoting the great British historian Eric Hobsbawm, Morelli reminds readers that “if you don't have the past that you need, you can always invent it”. The approach of the authors appears, thus, to be highly political.

“The end of nationalist Belgium”, writes Morelli, “might have been the end of unitarist myths and opened an era where history school books would have been made of nuances, interrogations and plural approaches. This expectation has not been met because Belgian nationalism has been immediately replaced by new territory-based identities, either regional or European.”

Morelli questions the polarisation of history between the north and south of the country, and criticises a political discourse that “distorts realities and sweeps away nuances”.

Generalisation is a first target: how can one oppose a rich, Catholic, rural Flanders and a poor, socialist and industrial Wallonia when one knows that Flanders has pockets of poverty, a rich industrial tradition in Ghent, Antwerp and Limbourg, or when one is reminded that the richest city in Belgium is Namur?

Alongside these new 'micro-nationalisms', the “hypothetical European identity” is also put on the grill.

“The homo europeus” is “an imaginary construction”, notes Morelli, who scarcely hides her hostility towards the authors who have been asked to “emphasise the European dimension of problems and to contribute to forge a European spirit”.

The book seems to express the fear that has gripped many European historians since the split-up of former Yugoslavia and the cautionary mood prevailing particularly in some Belgian intellectual circles.

Yugoslav 'historians' have indeed played a destructive role in the poisoning of the political debate and an active part in the instigation of war. The Balkan war scenario has been largely written, and thus made possible, by forgers of history and manipulators of national myths.

The authors might have endorsed the remarks of German philosopher Hans Magnus Enzensberger in his essay Civil War. “A large part of the Yugoslav intelligentsia has shown that the production of hatred and the preparation for civil war is still one of the principal concerns of the creative artists,” he wrote.

And historians, as Morelli's book shows, are very often among the most creative of them.