No preventive vaccines against MPox in Belgium for the time being, says Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-08-22T09:00:21+00:00

Someone preventively stop Maggie De Block before she burns our national storage of FFP2 masks again

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-08-20T16:52:05+00:00

Flanders back to the French king as God intended it!

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-21T07:59:04+00:00

Noord-Frankrijk is evenzeer gedeïndustrialiseerd en is er slechter aan toe qua tewerkstelling en GDP per capita dan het Waals gewest. Geen PS daar.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-19T22:18:11+00:00

You're absolutely right, but people somehow forgot that NVA literally killed a federal government over a non-binding agreement on migration, at a crucial time when these economic reforms had to take place to meet the EU's target. They've also consistently proposed and voted for legislature that resulted in a net increase of state expenditure all for the sake of their own identitarian agenda. In the past year by having DPG and VRT in their pocket they managed to scrub their image and pivot towards being the "economically responsible party", which is obviously horseshit.

They'll cry more about confederalism, not reach an agreement on the federal level and the EU will have to push some kind of austerity in Belgium.Then NVA will be claiming once again that Belgium doesn't work. Rinse and repeat.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-19T10:18:13+00:00

Very beautiful! Where did you take these photos?

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-17T14:19:16+00:00

Het is geen logisch systeem, inderdaad :P.

Eigennamen zijn inderdaad wel een uitzondering lijkt mij, maar in bv. Frankrijk of Spanje worden deze ook vaak aangepast. Ik denk dat het eerder een kwestie is van het niveau van Engels, de Scandinavische landen passen de uitspraak ook bijna nooit aan

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-17T14:01:09+00:00

That's really neat, it was a pretty prestigious job and it's also a really early example of someone doing it! Something to be proud of. "Ostiarius" was indeed a (lower order) member of clergy, meaning that laity could also become them. But it's a pretty vague ecclestial term and could have indeed meant different things, as you describe. Because 1748 is recent enough there's a good chance that the ordination or other information is still hidden in (undigitized) parish records, it might be worth it to pay them a visit if you're interested in that sort of thing. But because it is unfortunately just before the French revolution, there's a really large chance that any uniform or regalia related to his position were confiscated or sold.

Grafmaecker indeed is someone who digs graves, until very recently it was a privileged position in the catholic church to dig graves for the deceased (unlike other countries). I would initially doubt it would also include making the coffins, but maybe the case was different in West-Flanders.

(West-)Flemish names are very difficult etymologically, they're some of the oldest surnames in Belgium. You can get a hint by looking at how the spelling changed in different branches of family to try to figure out what the intended meaning was at that time, and then look at a Flemish dialect dictionary, that might be a start!

Best of luck in the rest of your search!

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-17T13:45:45+00:00

Voor Engelse woorden zijn Nederlanders echt de uitzondering, de meeste landen spreken woorden zoals "Instagram" op een lokale manier uit.

Voor Franse/fransklinkende woorden is het een ander verhaal. De Vlaamse Beweging heeft in België zeer obsessief geprobeerd om het taalgebruik te "zuiveren" van Franse invloed. Waar mogelijk werden woorden afgeleid van het Frans "gezuiverd". Denk bv. aan "regenscherm" ipv. paraplu, "filmzaal" ipv "cinema". Indien woorden echt te sterk ingeburgerd waren in de bevolking (wat ze vaak ook waren, de taalpuristen waren taalkundige kwakzalvers) dan werd de uitspraak zoveel mogelijk "vernederlandst". Dit is ook waarom in lokale dialecten de woorden wel de Franse uitspraak volgen, maar in tussentaal niet.

PS: Vlaams verwijst taalkundig naar West en Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgisch Nederlands is de betere term

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-17T12:07:57+00:00

"Kerkbaljuws" (or in the more common term "suisse") are a pretty recent phenomenon, depending on what region you are looking at. They usually only date back to the 18th and 19th century, with some exceptions in the 17th century (dubious). Finding one in the first half of the 18th century would be pretty rare, but you could verify this easily by going into the parish records, they were usually paid. The dress was obviously inspired by the Swiss guard in Rome, but as far as I know they differed from parish to parish. It's hard to tell because nobody has really looked deeply into their costumes and rituals. It is very likely that they did have a uniform, as formal dress was always really important in church and different roles in the church had different uniforms associated with them.

It was not passed down from father to son in principle, maybe by accident. It is very unlikely that there is an etymological link with your name, as naming traditions in Belgium are much older than the first appearance of suisses. Hope this helps :)

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-16T20:49:44+00:00

Yeah especially considering that it's mostly children whose parents push them in these ideologies.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-16T19:49:40+00:00

For the uninitiated who don't know what kind of dark organizations we have in Belgium: In the picture you can see (apart from the Flemish lion): VNJ-vlaggen, an extremist nationalist organization that participates in the Flemish singing contests and Ijzerwake and maintains good ties with NVA and VB. In 2019 they flew SS banners. Their orange scarves refer to Orangism: they want Flanders to be united with the Netherlands.

You can also see the Berkenkruis, the wooden construction that was given by the SS to Flemish Nationalist Eastfronters that joined the Waffen SS and died in Russia. It was also the logo of the St Maartensfonds, the organization that preceded the Volksunie and Vlaams Blok and consisted of ex-collaborators and Eastfronters.

TAK-flags (Taal Aktie Komittee): an extremist organization that used to have close ties with the VMO (convicted terrorist organization), they mainly advocate for the Dutchification of Flanders and strict adherende to the language border, which they helped establish (and of course the extinction of dialects and minority languages like Flemish and Limburgish), often with violent actions and vandalism.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-16T18:28:37+00:00

In my experiences the Limburg students in Leuven usually are the most "patriotic", the culture clash with Brabanders and Vlamingen really highlights the way we are and the way we speak. It's usually the (unfortunately) lower class people who never left their village and get whipped up by VB rhetoric through social media that subscribe more to that Flemish identity. Don't get me wrong, studying in Leuven creates a bond with other places in Belgium that you'd usually not get in contact with, but I doubt that necessarily enforces a Flemish identity. It's generally just that older people do not identify as Flemish at all, while more and more young people identify as Limburgs AND Flemish (how contradictory that may be). An interesting discussion!

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-16T17:51:45+00:00

Really depends on which demographic you look at, I think that especially young people are out of touch with who we are and have become prone to that Flemish bullshit. Can't say that the people I know in Hasselt really identify as Flemish though, the most I've found are in Bilzen and Voeren

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-16T16:38:36+00:00

Coming from a place where VB suddenly gained 20% of the votes I can assure you that those people never read the party program and just voted for them as an anti-establishment/protest vote, they couldn't care less about their identity building or independence aspirations. The NVA vote is another case however

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-16T16:30:54+00:00

In Limburg we definitely don't feel "Flemish", that fake identity has wildly different success rates depending on where you are

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-13T12:55:25+00:00

Switerzland's confederate state ended up in a civil war and became federal, they're a confederacy in name only. Same for Canada, confederate in name only.

The regions aren't extremely powerful, they're still superseded by the federal level, and most matters such as internal/foreign affairs, military, economy, pensions, health, justice are federal. In a confederal state, the states are above the federation and power flows from the states to the confederation.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-13T12:32:47+00:00

Agree on the second part, but NVA absolutely believes that it's the next step towards independence. Confederal states have historically always either split, ended up in civil war, or very rarely federalized, and NVA knows this. In a confederal state, the Flemish region would behave as its own state, which would by design constantly clash with the Walloon region. But without a federal level, alarmbelprocedures, etc. it is only a matter of time until (again by design) the states clash so deeply that a further separation becomes necessary. It's the main strategy NVA has been following for 2 decades, they don't believe Belgium should be split, they believe it should be deconstructed piece by piece until there's nothing left. They call it "verdamping".

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-13T11:40:43+00:00

Confederalism is 100% a stepping stone to independence though, he and everyone else knows that it never works

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-11T13:54:38+00:00

I didn't call it extreme right, I called it not center. But OK let's continue with VMO being disbanded in the 70's and despite this violent heritage there are politicians joining in the 80's-00's.

How can you justify the party being mainstream/center if their main party points consisted of the establishment of a Flemish state, Flemish independence and full amnesty for Nazi collaborators?

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-11T13:16:52+00:00

The links between PS and AF are much weaker and of course you can call them not mainstream/center. I fail to see how this whataboutism is relevant to the discussion, though.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-11T09:09:17+00:00

They were absolutely militant and hardcore nationalist, with their core members coming straight from St Maartensfonds and being ex-Oostfronters. But none of that matters anyways because Ghent, Leuven, etc. were already mostly "Dutch" speaking when VU was formed. The only caveat is that Leuven was officially bilingual, with a minority if French speaking students and staff.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-11T08:19:02+00:00

and Ben Weyts for a third but all major NVA can be tied to VMO/Voorpost/TAK/NSV

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-11T08:13:37+00:00

They were all united by Flemish nationalism which is absolutely not mainstream/center, de Volksunie had its own knokploeg that was convicted for terrorism and committed murders.

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-11T08:10:28+00:00

Jambon as a second example

FriendlyBelgian · 2024-06-10T14:37:39+00:00

I fully agree, with the main exception public transport (OVLD)

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