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Cheers - AE

Friday 18 February 2011

Every silver lining has a cloud inside it

Who knew that finding the negatives in a good situation was a Belgian thing? Not me. I'd probably have guessed something to do with chocolate and adventures of cartoon investigative journalists. But it turns out that having gone without any real government for well over 8 months and shown the world that an industrialised nation can manage without a bunch of overcompensated narcissistic mouthpieces telling everybody else what to do all the time, albeit not intentionally, some Belgians are getting embarrassed by their freedom. So they're taking their clothes off.
What would be a humiliation for many turned into a party for Belgium on Thursday as the country's citizens marked 249 days without a government, a figure that they are treating as a world record in political waffling.
On every other day, the crisis pits the leaders of 6 million Dutch-speakers against those of 4.5 million French speakers, but people from across the country put aside their differences to celebrate the occasion.
In the French-speaking town of Louvain-la-Neuve, more than 1,000 people bearing the colours of the Belgian flag formed the words "Een-Un" - "One is One" in Dutch and French - calling for more unity instead of the infighting, sniping and backbiting that has made it impossible to form a national government.
About 50 people, most students, stripped to their underwear in the northern city of Ghent and stood to form the word 'unity', fuelled by shots of Dutch gin to keep warm.
Folks, it's something of which Belgians should be immensely proud. Yes, it's costing you all tax money while they stand around yabbering and not doing anything, but probably not as much as they would if they stopped yabbering and began trying to do things again. And now you've got students in their underwear too.

Besides, it turns out you're not there yet.
It is arguable whether 249 really is the world record. Iraq took 249 days to get the outlines of a government agreement last year, but the approval of that government took a further 40 days. Still, the way things are going, Belgium will have little problem claiming the record whichever standard is used.
And at which point we expect actual nudity. Or possibly chocolate.
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