glenndebacker

Another person from West-Flanders here :-)

I heard it is a very difficult language to master if you are foreign. It took my mother some time to be fluent at it. Also have some former colleague's - Bulgarian/Russian - who even after 10 years of living here still have difficulties.

Fortunately a lot of people don't mind if you aren't fluent in it as they value the effort more then being 100% correct. And those who react hostile just don't understand how difficult the language is. Hell even natives have sometimes problems with all the grammatical rules the Dutch language has!

Hot fuzz is really one of my favourite movies, then again I'm a bit of an anglophile regarding movies/series/... . :-) I lived btw also in Blankenberge for 12 years and born in Bruges. Nowadays I live at the other end of West Flanders.

Language is an extremely touchy subject in Flanders, not something exclusive for West Flanders. Not everybody in Flanders is like that, but it is certainly not a minority also. My father is (West-)Flemish and my mother is French so because of that I always looked at it in other view then most people who grew up in Flanders.

I'm West-Flemish myself and still live here, but I also get my share of snarky remarks of blogging in English or reading stuff primary in English. If you have a website with some text in Dutch and you make a spelling mistake then you will certainly get (angry) mails about it. Or when you use an English word instead of a Dutch, for some that is another capital offence.

If that sounds ridiculous keep in mind we have people proverbial running after busses and filling complaints when the bus company dares to advertise something with English words in it.

Ans seeing how many Dutch related contests Flemish participants win, I have sometimes the feeling that we are better in Dutch than our neighbours in the Netherlands. So yeah the Dutch language is really important in this part of the world.

For some things I can see the benefits of being able to promote (or even force) the local language. I'm personally convinced that from a social POV it helps when your neighbour understands you and speaks the same languages.

But on the other hand in the global age we are living we shouldn't overestimate the importance of it. It sometimes depresses me if I see how much energy gets lost in those kind of discussions.

In Belgium it is a criminal offence to 'insult' a police officer, they call it "Smaad aan de politie" in Dutch/Flemish. I know because I got a verbalisation once and I didn't need to say a lot to get it. Thankfully I didn't need to go to court and got a criminal record that way.

I once lived next to a guy who drank a lot and who assaulted his older daughter when he drank too much. We had thin wales so we heard the scuffles and the cries. We always called the police but they didn't do anything about the situation. To be honest Belgian justice is a joke, in a lot of cases involving violence they never prosecute anybody.

After I while I got really fed-up after the x number of times the police came and did really nothing than telling the guy to be quit.. . I made - not saying that I was correct - remark that being a police officer in Belgium must really been the most pointless job you could do. Drive your bike without a light and you get fined, hitting your children and you get a free pass. That - and that alone - was enough to get verbalised.

>> You have killed them off

To be honest I find your idiotic remark disrespectful. I live in a country that suffered a lot under two world wars. While I certainly acknowledge that jewish people suffered a lot it certainly wasn't the case that the rest was living a trouble free life. I know from my grandfather that in my family there was also a cost regarding lost lives.

And them I'm ignoring the fact how you could make me personally responsible for something that happened 40 years before I even was born and even in another country.

>> But people like you ignore the slaughter in Syria, the suppression in Egypt, and all the other crazy that happens in virtually every country in the Middle East

Except that in Europe those events are also wel documented and criticised for example http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.1711852, etc.

ALL events where people suffer are critiqued that is even the fact for normal Israeli-an people that suffer from terroristic actions. We are critiques of any form om terrorism being religious or state terrorism.

But it is not that because middle eastern countries are doing despicable stuff that Israel should get a free pass. While you can't be blind for those thing that is also the case for the illegal settlements, the "collective punishment" mantra, the constant war mongering, etc.

>> It wouldn't be because you're an "evil racist" would it?

There seems to be only one clearly uninformed bigot... .

> The support given is purely selfish as Israel is the only nation in the region which mirrors the values the US wishes to promote

Call me cynical but I think it has more to do with the million of dollars that an organisation like AIPAC contribute to American politicians than that the same values are in play.

>> with rampant antisemitism in Europe

The problem is that any criticism on Israel is automatically classified as antisemitic. Have something to say about the illegal settlements ? It's antisemitic. Say something about the constant war mongering ? It's antisemitic. Don't like netanyahu wardrobe? antisemitic.

You have jewish organisations literal stating that any criticism against the state of Israel is automatically antisemitic of nature. In those circumstances it isn't that difficult to have "rampant antisemitism" in Europe.

Some – not all – take it also extremely far. I remember a couple of years ago there was a big uproar here in Belgium because a cooking show was presenting Hitlers favorite dish, a trout. You guessed it...the show was suddenly antisemitic.

When I was younger a surviver of the holocaust visited my class to speak about the things he have witnessed and the hardship he encountered. He talked about how we should value peace and our freedom. 20 years later I still remember his testimony as it had a big positive impact on my life. I honestly don't think he had these things in mind.

It sickens me how antisemitism or the WW2 atrocities are abused sometimes just to have no healthy discussion.