Origins

The Belgians in Canada trace their origins to the kingdom of Belgium, which, with its ten million inhabitants within 325 square kilometres, is the second most densely populated country in Europe. Belgium’s inhabitants are comprised mainly of two linguistic communities: the Flemings, who comprise nearly two-thirds of the country’s people, and the Walloons. The Flemings live in the northern half of the country, which includes the provinces of West and East Flanders, Antwerp, Limburg, and most of Brabant. The Walloons are found primarily in the southern provinces of Hainaut, Namur, Liège, Luxembourg, and part of Brabant. The country’s capital, Brussels, is formally a bilingual (although predominantly French-speaking) city in the province of Brabant. There is also a small German-speaking enclave along the country’s far eastern border with Germany. At present, 9 percent of Belgium’s population are foreigners, nearly half of whom live in the Walloon section of the country.

The Flemings and Walloons trace their historic origins to two tribal groups: the Belgae of Celtic background, who were incorporated into the Roman Empire by Julius Caesar in 57 B.C.E.; and the Batavi of Germanic origin who were accorded the status of border allies by the Romans. In a general sense, the Walloons are descendants of the Belgae and the Flemings of the Batavi. Roman rule in the region came to an end in the fourth century A.D. From that time until 1831, the territory of Belgium was either ruled by self-governing secular and ecclesiastical duchies, counties, and free cities or incorporated into a larger kingdom or empire. Among the latter was the Empire of Charlemagne in the early ninth century, the Kingdom of Burgundy (1384–1482), Habsburg Spain (1516–1713), Habsburg Austria (1713– 93), and Napoleonic France (1794–1815).

Although the names Belgae for a people and Belgica to designate the entire territory of the Low Countries were terms used in Roman times, the name Belgium was not used in its modern political sense until the end of the eighteenth century. Similarly, the conflict between the country’s two largest linguistic communities, the Flemings and Walloons, is also of relatively recent origin, dating from 1830 when the state of Belgium was created.

Following the defeat of Napoleon by a coalition of European powers (the decisive Battle of Waterloo was fought on Belgian soil), the Congress of Vienna (1815) joined the southern “Belgian” provinces with the northern provinces to create the united Kingdom of the Netherlands. This union soon foundered, however, because of profound religious, socioeconomic, and political differences between the Flemings and Walloons, on the one hand, and the Dutch of the northern provinces on the other.

A secessionist movement erupted in Brussels in August 1830 and soon spread quickly throughout Flanders and Wallonia. The revolution was led primarily by the bourgeoisie, which in Flanders as well as Wallonia was French-speaking and enamoured of all things French. After dissolving the political union with the Netherlands, the new kingdom of Belgium adopted French as its official language. This move inaugurated a period during which Flemish culture and Dutch language were reduced to second-class status, and during which Flemings increasingly resented being subordinated to an officially francophone public environment.

Francophone Wallonia was assured a dominant political and social position in the state, since it was in that region that Belgium’s rapid industrialization during the early nineteenth century was concentrated. In Flanders, meanwhile, the bourgeoisie and upper strata continued to speak French, leaving only the devoutly religious rural inhabitants to preserve a traditional way of life that included use of the Flemish dialects of Dutch. By mid-century, Flanders was further impoverished by a famine caused by the failure of the potato crop (1847–50) and the decline of the linen industry for which the region had been famous since the Middle Ages. The declining status of Flanders was in part alleviated by a national revival during which standard Dutch (instead of Flemish dialects) was adopted as a literary language (1844) and writers became engaged in a literary movement that inspired a new sense of pride in Flemish culture and identity during the decades before World War I.

In 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and occupied the country for the next four years. On the one hand, the initial Belgian resistance and the occupation won the country great sympathy in international circles. On the other hand, the country suffered considerable material damage and human losses (more than 80,000 lives) as well as new friction with the Flemings, whose leaders claimed that many of their own soldiers had died in combat as a result of the confusion caused by being under the command of French-speaking officers.

It was such friction that contributed to political activity after the war and the creation in 1926 of the Flemish National Party. Pressure from this party forced the Belgian government to pass a series of laws between 1932 and 1938 that accorded recognition of the Flemings’ linguistic demands as well as cultural autonomy for Flanders. These achievements did not, however, satisfy some members of the Flemish National Party who wanted full separation from Wallonia. It is therefore not surprising that during World War II, when Germany once again occupied Belgium, the Nazis had no difficulty finding collaborators from among the ranks of the Flemish National Party.

Wartime collaboration only embittered further the relations between the Walloons and Flemings, each of whom was determined to obtain for its respective group as much self-rule as possible in the post-1945 reconstructed Belgian state. Language almost always was used as the symbolic weapon in the political struggle between the two groups, so that controversy over the “language question” frequently brought the functioning of the Belgian government to a standstill.

At the same time, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed the economic reconstruction of Belgium and its gradual integration into what was to become the European Union. Moreover, the relative position of the country’s two basic regions was reversed. Flanders experienced industrial and demographic growth, while Wallonia’s older industries and coal mines declined.

In an attempt to resolve ongoing political friction and to respond to the changed socioeconomic realities, a new constitution was drawn up in 1970 that transformed the unitary Belgian state into one that recognized the distinctiveness of three cultural communities (Dutch-speaking, French-speaking, German-speaking) and of three regions (Flanders, Wallonia, and the capital region of Brussels). Finally, in 1988, the constitution was amended once again, with the result that Belgium was transformed into a federal state. Accordingly, the central government, the cultural communities, and the regions are equal, each with its own levels of authority and none of which is able to interfere in matters under the jurisdiction of the other.

At the very same time that Belgium has been decentralizing its internal governmental and administrative structures, it has also been playing a leading role in the integration of Europe. In fact, the administrative capital of the European Union is Brussels, which has ironically at times become for critics of the new Europe a negative symbol of pan-European “interference” in the affairs of member states.