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For my course of Politieke Sociologie I wrote an article about the rise and decline of vaderlandsliefde (national identity, nationalism and patriotism) in Belgium.

Unfortunately I had to do it in Dutch, so I'll have to translate everything if I want you to understand something. That's silly because most of the articles (source) I used were written in English!!

I'll translate the introduction, and then summarize the article (some sentences will sound strange because it comes from Dutch!)


Today, the study of vaderlandsliefde in Belgium may look like political archaeology. Indeed, the "national feeling" (national identity) is eroding more and more, because of the European Union on the one hand, who seeks to minimize cultural differences, and because of regionalism on the other hand, who glorifies those differences, but on a smaller scale (than the state).

The political situation in 2007 is exciting: in the same time, we can observe Flemish nationalism, whose goals may soon be fullfilled, and a (short-term) awaking of Belgian nationalism.

It seems interressant to study this phenomenon, in order to understand if what happens now is new, to be able to explain it and to replace it on a broader frame.

After a few definitions, I shall adopt an historical point of view. There will be two parts in this article. First, we shall study the rise of vaderlandsliefde: how are nations and nation-states created? How people become nationalist or patriot? Then, we are going to observe the decline of the national feeling and its causes, with other words: regionalism and UE. That's why we're going to study the particularities of Flemish nationalism, postnationalism and the UE, and then we'll analyse the speeches of King Albert II.

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PART I: RISE

1) Theorical point of view

a) The notion of Nation-state

A nation state consists in the superposition of a state (political entity) and a nation (cultural entity). It is not a natural phenomen (as we shall see later), it is a modern construction.

b) The nation

There are 3 ways to conceptualize the nation

-> Romantical, German conception: the nation is a group of people who are united by a "objective" criterium (language, culture, religion, race...)

-> Civic conception, as Syéiès defined it: the nation is a group of independant people who are freely (because of their own will) united under a common law. That's democratic and volontarist, but it's also utopic.

-> The hybrid conception, as Renan defined it: the nation is a group of people who want to be part of the same political entity AND who share a common history. However, this conception leads leaders to adopt a non-neutral view of history, glorify what unites the people and forget what could create tensions.


c) Formation of the nation-state

-> French model: the state creates the nation, thanks to its monopoly on education (spread standart language) and military duty (mixes people from the whole country)

-> German model: in het begin was there a Kultuurnation, whose particularities were a common language and culture. The state is just the political tool created to unify the different federated state of the nation.

In the case of our country, there wasn't such Kultuurnation. There was a common religion and a roughly common history, but no common language. That's why I think the french model of Nation-building, where the state plays a great role in the creation of the nation, is more suited to our country.


2) The United States of Belgium

a) Context

In 1787, Emperor Josef II tried to carry out a process of nation building based on the Enlightment in Belgium. But this policy was against our traditional political life and the constitution we had for centuries.

There was a revolution (the Brabantian Revolution), during which the local elites succeedded for the first time in presenting Belgium as an Imagined Community (the nation).

b) Use of propaganda (very shortly)

In order to do that (create the nation), the elite used propaganda. Long discourses destined to the educated people, and short and simple dialogues to convince a broader public.

Simply put, they convinced the Belgians that they had their own political culture, and that Josef II did not respect that.

3) 1830-revolution and the use of art

Art has played an important part in creating the Belgian identity. There are dozens of buildings and statues dedicated to the glory of the country in Brussels.

These are constant reminders of history classes at school, and their goal is to show the unity of the nation, even if the often transform the historical truth.

a) thema

2 kinds of nationalist arts:
-> Glorification of recent history and its heroes (Leopold I, Charles Rogier)
-> representation of a glorious past. A fine example is the Zabelplein .

Artists often chose for the XV and XVI centuries, as it was a quiet and prosperous period, with the Burgundian Netherlands and Keizer Karel, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Famines and wars of religion have been forgotten, and if people were killed, they were described as "martyrs for the Belgian independance".
Only elements that could unify Belgian people were represented.

If one of the represented hero had had a negative influence on a part of the population, its crimes were forgotten.

Example: Philips the Good, who was "good" only for a part of Belgium, as in the middle age he was at war with the city of Liège. In 1468, his son has wiped Liège off the map, but he has a statue at the Palace of Nations!


Those mutual mass-murders were forgotten, in order to let people think that Belgium was a new prosperous Burgundian Netherlands. "Forgetting the past of misinterpreting it is a central factor in the creation of a nation"

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[/u]4) A non-complete nation-building

As J. Delwaide has showed, the process of nation building has been carried out less efficiently in Belgium than in countries like France.

Military service (duty?) for example, has not been enough to "Belgianise" locals. The reasons are that it has been introduced very late (1913) and that only a son per family had to do it.

PART II: decline of vaderlandsliefde

1) End of the nation-state

Today, the concept of nation-state undergoes a crisis, especially in Belgium. On the one hand, there are the "micronationalists", or regionalists, who want the competences of the state to be exerced by a local entity, and on the other hand there is the UE, who takes other competences from the state.

The capacity of the traditional state to coordinate the organized life of the people is questionned. As D. Bell observes, "the state is too small for global issues and too big for local issues".

2) Flemish nationalism

The language, as a part of the identity of the nation, is often a central issue in nationalism.

a) The flemish conception of their language

Flemish nationalist have an ethnic, "German" conception of the language. Flemish-Dutch is seen as an unalienable part of their identity, and his shared with the Netherlanders. That creates a fundamental difference with Walloon Belgians, who are Frenchspeakers.

The language is also associated with the territory on wich it is spoken. That causes an assimilationist behavior towards people who speak another language in Flanders.

As a part of the nation-building ambitions of Flemish nationalists, the language is thus a tool which gives the wiched form of the nation. This form is homogenious: "one language, one people, one nation".

b) Flemish nationalism

This movement, which has begun in the 19th century, has always concentrated on the language. Flemish intellectuals (who were Frenchspeaker!) who led the nationalist fight, fought mainly against the negative vision towards Flemish under the Belgian (Frenchspeaker) establishment.

Flemish nationalism was dus based on a ethno-linguistic conception of the identity, Flemish people were characterized by their motherlanguage, the Flemish. Other charcteristics, such as common customs, clothing or food, were rarely used as a marker of identity.

So, they have always wanted to get rid of "linguistic anomalities" on the territory of Flanders. However, both regions (Walloon and Flemish), because of their demographic situations, often broke this homogeneity. That is a permanent source of frustration for Flemish nationalists.

c) Against multiculturalism

The behavior towards language in the society is thus strictly homogene and unilingual. Immigrants are asked to speak Dutch, and if they are poor and jobless, they are told it is because of their lack of knowledge of Dutch.

Flemish nationalists often repeat that there is an incompatibility between multiculturalism and the goals of the Flemish fight.

d) Use of myths

Just like the former Belgian nation-building, a selective and romantic vision of history is often used.

They often talk about the veterans of WWI, those humble flemish farmers. They did not understand the orders given by Frenchspeaker aristocrat officiers, who disliked and refused to speak Flemish.

There is also the myth of the Golden Spurs battle (1302), the "Flemish victory against France". Indeed, it is not as simple: at that time, Flemish (in fact West-Flemish and a frenchseaker Walloon army of the County of Namur!) were at ware against France and the province of Brabant (now partially in Flanders!)

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3) European Union, postnationalism and constitutional patriotism
lol, I first wrote this in French for another course, then translated it in Dutch for this article, and now I'm translating this into English!

On the other side, some competences are taken "from above" by the UE, and also other international organizations.

a) Postnationalism

In the years 1980, several right-wing German historians have tried to relativize the war crimes perpetrated by the German army during WWII. Their argument was that the fear of Blochevism was the cause of the rise of nazism, and that the massive massacres were an answer to Soviet atrocities.

Their goal was to reconciliate the Germans with their history, and to stimulate the re-birth of traditional nationalism in Germany.

Habermas totally disagreed with that. According to him, it was not acceptable to try and minimize war crimes. He says the national identity may not be based on an uncritical vision of history anymore.

Without forgetting history, people have to find valable, worthy elements of their own culture and base their political identity on values that are universally acceptable, as democracy and rechtstaat.

So, the cultural identity (one of the two elements of the nation-state) isn't based on history, culture of geography anymore, but rather on universal values. That is the separation of nation (cultural entity) and state (political entity).

b) Constitutional patriotism

Constitutional patriotism consists in the construction of the political identity based n universal concepts that are not linked with the national identity.

As there isn't any "traditional" European identity (there isn't a single language, a single culture, a single history), it is highly unprobable that the UE turns into a bigger-scale nation.

Instead, the UE identity is based on constitutional patriotism, that's to say the principles of universality, autonomy and responsibility, as democracy and rechstaat. Those principles are interpretated by each citizen with their own culture.

4) The speeches of King Albert II (this part should interrest you)

a) Multicultural nationalism

A nation-state threatened by regionalism may try to calm these independantists by developping multicultural nationalism. This way, they try to re-legitimize the nation and allow the different groups to live together in harmony.

This concept is fundamental in the speeches of the King Albert II, as he constantly defines Belgium in the terms of its federated parts (he does not talk about "belgians" but rather about "flemish" and "walloons")

b) a tentative to relegitimize Belgium

As Belgium is unable to marginalize its subnational claims, "the centre attempts to acquire a new legitimacy by accommodating the ethnic or regional claims and acting as the authoritative manager of the nationalist tensions within the state. This strategy not only has a structural component, which normally involves granting a form of autonomy to the sub-groups, but also a component of identity politics"

So, on the one hand, some autonomy is given to the regions and communities forming the country, but also the nation is re-defined as multicultural.

c) shortage of patriotism

While the King of Spain often uses patriotic and emotional expressions as "our fatherland" or "we the Spaniards", these expressions are nearly totally absent from the speeches of the King of Belgium.

Spanish people are called "our people", they have "their own culture" and hun "own national identity". Anthropomorphic expressions as "our life as a nation" or "our historical personnality" are also used. There is an obsession about the unity of Spain, and the autonomous regions are rarely mentionned.

On the contrary, Albert II nearly never uses words as "national", "nation" or even "Belgians". Concepts like "Belgian culture", "Belgian identity" are totally absent, and the country is sometimes called "multicultural".


Instead of talking about "Belgians", he alternatively uses the words "Flemish, French and German communities" (Flemish point of view) or "Flemings, Walloons and Brusselaren" (Walloon point of view), and thus implicitely recognizes the bi-polarity of the country.

While Belgium is never defined in ethocultural terms, the communities and regions (federated parts) have "their own identities", a concept that is never used for Belgium.

Just like the King of Spain, he uses anthropomorphic expressions, but this time for the federated parts, as he speaks about "the personality of each region and each communnity".

During the speech of the 21th July 1997, this self-negation has reached a high point when the King said "during our history, we have learnt to fight for the independance of our communes, provinces and regions", without even mentioning the fight for the independance of the country!

d) another form of patriotism

According to the Belgian monarch, it is precizely the harmonious and peaceful coexistence of different cultural identities that makes our country unique and forms our identity as a nation.

He tries to create an "homo Belgicus", "suggesting that a positive attitude towards other cultures is a characteristic trait of 'the' Belgian".He also talks about "'our natural openness, tolerance and hospitality towards others"

Conclusion

In this article, we've seen how Belgian identity has appeared. First, there was a period during which vaderlandsliefde was created, thanks to the use of propaganda. An immagined community, the nation, first appeared in 1787 during the revolution against Jozef II. Then, the state was created during the revolution of 1830. Art was used to give a legitimity to this new political entity, by insisting on the union of the nation.

In both cases, the propaganda was made of an uncritical, romantic and selective vision of history. However, this nation-building was not as complete as the French one.

Then, the nation-state declined, because of the Flemish nation-building, who is against the multiculturalism that characterizes Belgium, and who has got similarities with the Belgian nation building (use of myths), and because of the UE, with its postnationalism and constitutional patriotism, who are opposed to the traditional nationalism.

The King tries to relegitimate the nation, by supporting multiculturalism, that remembers us the European multiculturalism and constitutional patriotism.

Bibliography

Sylvain Allemand, « Gouvernance. Le pouvoir partagé », Sciences humaines, 101, janv. 2000, p.12-18

Jan Blommaert, « Language and nationalism: comparing Flanders and Tanzania”, Nations and Nationalism 2 (2), 1996, 235-256

Christian Bodiaux, « Nationalisme et art en Belgique », delen 1 tot 3, La chronique de l’Université, UCL, Juni 2002 (Nationalisme et Art en Belgique, par Monsieur Christian Bodiaux)

Jacobus Delwaide, « De natie als constructie : het geval van België”, Acta Politica, jrg. 31 (1), 1996, p.53-82

Hugues Dumont, syllabus de droit constitutionnel I, partie I, « L’état : notion et fondements », 2006-2007

Jean-Marc Ferry, « Qu’est-ce qu’une identité postnationale ? », Esprit, septembre 1990, p.80-90

Leonie Huddy en Nadia Khatib, “American Patriotism, National Identity, and Political Involvement”, American Journal of Political Science, 51 (1), Jan. 2007, p.63-77

Justine Lacroix, “Patriotisme constitutionnel et identité postnationale chez J.Habermas », in Rainer Rochliz (dir.), Habermas. L’usage public de la raison, Paris, P.U.F., coll. Débats philosophiques, 2002, p.133-160

Qiong Li en Marilynn Brewer, “What Does It Mean to Be an American? Patriotism, Nationalism, and American Identity After 9/11“, Political Psychology, 25 (5); October 2004, p.727-739

Bart Maddens en Kristine Vanden Berghe, “The identity politics of multicultural nationalism: A comparison between the regular public addresses of the Belgian and the Spanish monarchs (1990-2000)”, European Journal of Political Research, 42 (5), Augustus 2003, 601–627.

Michael Mann, The dark side of Democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing (Cambridge University Press), hfst 1-2.

Geert Van Den Bossche, “Political propaganda in the Brabant Revolution: Habsburg 'negligence' versus Belgian nation-building”, History of European ideas, 28 (3), 2002, p. 119-144