LE RIDICULE EN BELGIQUE NE TUE PAS.

Apres avoir ete condamnee dans la presse internationale, suite aux attentats de Paris, la Belgique se fait une nouvelle fois remarquer a Paris.
L'ineffable Geert Bourgeois joue  cavalier (?) seul dans le dossier climatique...jusqu'au "finish"? De toute facon quelle que soit l'issue, l'on retiendra le ridicule plutot qu'un eventuel retour a une forme de sagesse retrouvee, condamnee d'avance pour cause "d'arrivee tardive".

Le gouvernement federal est l'otage de ses pieces demembrees. Une nouvelle fois le "mal Belge"est apparu dans toute sa mesquinerie minable.
Plusieurs fois j'ai critique l'aspect ridicule et franchement provincial de la reforme de l'etat qui privilegie les tendances les plus obscurantistes et qui penalise les ajustements necessaires pour une insertion, difficile au depart, dans l'ere de la globalisation, de l'innovation et des defis politique, strategique et technologique.

En Belgique les regions, a des degres divers, sont trop souvent impermeables a la critique exterieure, preferant etre les aveugles dans le pays des borgnes.
Monsieur Bourgeois, le Voltaire d'Izegem (LOL), est le maitre des mesalliances (avec les Pays Bas). J'entends ce que nos voisins en pensent, mais ce sourd Trissotin a la carte ne veut rien entendre. Pourtant son parti occupe des postes de choix dans le gouvernement federal. Il est vrai que les medias etrangers ont abandonne tout espoir de comprendre tout cela,  preferant couvrir la Belgique sous le voile pudique de "laboratoire surrealiste". Cela est genereux, eu egard a la mediocrite du scenario. Suite au prochain numero !

CLIMATE CHANGE

Tomorrow, November 30, 2015, Paris will see a gathering of world leaders who are supposed to arrive at a consensus regarding the ways, goals and means to deal with climate change. There are still deniers, although all evidence is available which gives ample proof that climate change is happening at a pace which is alarming. 

The issue is one of a fast approaching menace. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that another danger should receive top priority and that the flock of world leaders should  likewise have come together to discuss and sort out responsibilities regarding the fight against radical Islam (or whatever you want to name it). The priorities are wrong, seen in the" current " context.

We are confronted by a nihilistic scourge which wants to wipe history, creativity, pluralism, and secularism from the face of the civilized world. Words like beauty, tolerance, and empathy do not figure in the "mission statement" of the terrorists.  Palmyra, beheadings, and genocide are the trademark of zealots without "humanity". We are at war, indeed !

The front line lies in an existential battle for life against a multiplicative of death. Climate change is most important indeed but comes second now, whatever the US president, wrongly so, argues. Things are no longer equal, they need prioritization. The Paris conference risks ending up in ambiguous deals and, more dangerously, becoming a covert event which allows the ones under suspicion elsewhere to walk out with a free-pass here. That which is on everybody's mind will not be on the agenda.  "Ceci n'est pas le climat".  

MYTHOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.

Paris is always a great city.  It is also stressed and often rude.  Since the massacre, the neurotic aspects of Parisian life have disappeared and the indifferent waiters have become again the sophisticated handlers and voyeurs in the vein of Sartre, the Left Bank and Charles Trenet. Out of the ashes of tragedy, Paris seems to be reborn for awhile as the city of lights and love. The cover of The New Yorker  (Nov. 30, 2015) speaks louder than words.

There are other lucky cities like New York, Prague, Rome, which might descend into hell at times, but never lose their claim to the mythology of being the first-tier enchantresses.  Other cities are in various degrees relegated to the inferior classes. Whatever their merits--London, Berlin-- they lack the "existential proximity response" factor in the psyche.  Humans need "such stuff of as dreams are made of ".  The same goes for personalities who for some reason resist all attempts (including those of their own making) to diminish them and have a staying-power larger than time.. Churchill, JFK, Mandela.  One remembers the grace and prefers to avoid what Churchill called the times of the "black dog".

France does not suffer from low self-esteem. For now its cafes, intellectuals, rituals have received a prolongation of life, until arrogance displaces the good-will yet again.  The good thing is that people will continue to flock to the magical cities because they provide allegories and dreams. Tragedy only multiplies that appeal. Other cities remain stuck in a pathological lack of recognition.  They are shunned, and when visited it is for reason rather than for pleasure. They will never be validated. On the contrary, the cloud of impatient despise which hangs over their urbanized banality will only increase.

The current "Paris +" vogue will not last but for the time-being both the tragic play and the actors deserve each other. Not since the funeral of Princess Diana and 9/11 have so many been touched by a grief which is as much rooted in the tragedy played-out as in the increasing loss of wonder and confidence which plagues the Western psyche today.

THE NEW YORK TIMES (Nov. 25, 2015 ) about BELGIUM.

The article in the New York Times regarding Belgium and the homegrown terrorists is devastating.  The numerous shortcomings of the existing macro- and micro-policy making or management structures are yet again under attack.  It is hard to defend what is so blatantly inefficient and not working.  On numerous occasions I have joined the chorus of the "J'accuse". Walking in Brussels is like visiting a lab where all forms of terrorism samples are stored with disregard for possible contamination consequences. 

Nevertheless, I have also some sympathy for the prime minister and his government who have to work under the strain of past mistakes. The minister of the interior (Flemish nationalist) has acted loyally and the population at large has remained stoic.  Belgium is more an "arrangement" than a "nation", therefore, it is in a permanent flux of revision, unlike countries with a defined, proven identity. This "fluidity" has its merits, and many shortcomings. The country has been able to avoid unrest or real social chaos. At the same time it has missed opportunities, given the growing centrifugal forces. The state is not "failed" (yet), it is "weak". 

The outcome of the current impasse should be one of a more centralized chain of command in various sectors, transparent mission statements and of getting rid of overlapping, unnecessary, competing structures. The country can be resilient, as it is now.  It does not have to become a copycat ersatz of centralized others. It just has to admit that in its current form, the system doesn't function as it should.  The climate change dispute between regions now is the perfect example of the implosion of rationality.

The "ridicule", if not addressed head on , can easily become a disease with fatal consequences .

OBAMA / HOLLANDE MEETING.

It is becoming more difficult by the hour to come to terms with the accumulative contradictory challenges the world needs to face.  We find ourselves also in some vacuum of leadership.

Churchill, de Gaulle, Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, George W. Bush (after 9/11) were able to anchor their most felt convictions in the minds and hearts of their constituents. Sometimes this reciprocal "contract" lasted, other times it ended up broken. While it lasted it rested on conviction, given that at times it started with some form of rite of passage, as was the case with de Gaulle's famous "Je Vous ai compris".  The point is that great statesmen have been able to process their own beliefs in a larger consensus. They did not need reinforcement or flattery. Suffice that they were the owners of their personal judgement and that they had the gift of "persuasion".

After watching the press conference of Presidents Obama and Hollande today, one can rightly end up being perplexed. The American president filibustered and his French counterpart sounded more pathetic than existential.  Obama looks as entitled to the perks of the presidency as he remains reluctant to admit blunders after his infamous red line. The French show guts but are realistic enough to realize that the American side remains a Platonic partner. They stand mostly alone, while the EU is becoming farcical.

True, it is hard to come by great leadership anywhere. Putin is manipulative, Xi Jinping is Sino-selfish and the rest are corralled into the climate change enclosure.  ISIL meanwhile is a sophisticated multinational of "desperados" which runs away with headlines, prime-time news, random killings under the umbrella of the euphemisms dear to this White House. Radical Islam is the enemy and no band-aid can cover up the horror its stands for.  Likewise, the Arab "allies" have to be notified that modernity is not something to be lived in London or New York alone and that pluralism has to become a "home product".  It is too easy to be nouveau riche   outside while perpetuating the "stone age" inside.

Hollande is now touring Berlin and Moscow. In Brussels, NATO (after the Russian/Turkey "incident") and the EU+Turkey will convene. In the absence of any form of leadership and because of the continuation of asymmetric alliances of convenience, the air strikes will continue for some unforeseeable time.  So will ISIL...while Syria looks more and more like warfare with mirrors.  Iraq became George W. Bush's graveyard.  Syria looks like it is waiting for the Obama administration's demise.

CHARLES MICHEL, PREMIER MINISTRE BELGE.

Contrairement a son pere, Louis Michel, brillant mais envahissant, Charles Michel est une personnalite discrete autant qu'intelligente . Il conduit une experience politique innovatrice,  et il s'est avere pouvoir maitriser les ecueils. Le dernier en date, lie aux evenements de Paris, vient de prouver que l'homme n'est pas banal.

Heritant d'un pays fracture, dans lequel les pouvoirs d'un autre age existent dans un etat de competition permanente, sur le dos de la transparence et de l'efficacite, il essaye de preserver un minimum de coherence.

Les defis contemporains requierent la mobilisation de moyens. Or le demantelement continu du "pre carre" de l'Etat a conduit a l'erosion du "made in Belgium". Il convient d'arreter cette hemorragie qui frappe de plein fouet le commerce, la credibilite, la surete et la creativite. Charles Michel semble etre conscient de cette menace. Les recentes peripeties "regionales" autour de la prochaine conference de Paris sur le changement climatique ont demontre combien le ridicule est l'interface de l'arrangement constitutionnel  Belge. 

Son pari de gouverner avec le parti le plus "autonomiste" du pays est risque mais pourrait encore s'averer avoir ete une manoeuvre Machiavelique apres coup.

BELGIUM

I suggest Tim King's commentary in POLITICO " Belgium is a failed state" as mandatory reading for the too many governments in Belgium. They might take notice...or not ?!