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Neither Flemish Nor Walloon, but Belgian…Again? the Role of Multiculturalism in Upending the Discussion on Belgian National Identity

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Neither Flemish Nor Walloon, but Belgian…Again? the Role of Multiculturalism in Upending the Discussion on Belgian National Identity Neither Flemish nor Walloon, but Belgian…again? The Role of Multiculturalism in Upending the Discussion on Belgian National Identity Master's Thesis Fedi Mejri 12653551 Graduate School of Social sciences Political Science: International Relations University of Amsterdam Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Mike Medeiros Second Reader: Dr. Floris Vermeulen June 2020 1 Abstract: The successive political impasses which characterize political life in Belgium serve as a constant reminder of the intricacies surrounding the country’s national identity and the continued specter of the end of Belgium as a national entity. The transformation of language-based regional identities in Flanders and Wallonia into sub-state nationalist movements has been a dynamic process, subject to various political and cultural forces and informed by shifting goals that range from outright secessionism to confederation. Language, being the single most important marker of regional identity in Belgium, has long been regarded as the sole raison d’être for Belgian sub-nationalist movements. This began to change by the 1960s with the advent of immigration as a new element in the discussion about national identities in the country. Despite the increasing relevance of immigration-related social change to the discussion of sub-national identity in Belgium, the literatures on both topics have largely tended to ignore each other. This thesis attempts to bring the relationship between these two topics into perspective by asking the question how has sub-state nationalism evolved in Belgium. To answer this question, this paper performed a qualitative content analysis on a collection of Flemish and Walloon political party programs from five key electoral years to see whether the status of language as the main theme of discussion to both sub-nationalist movements declined in favor of the topic of immigration and the policy of multiculturalism. Further, the analysis attempted to test the hypothesis that as a result of the focus on immigration and multiculturalism issues, the Flemish and Walloon sub-nationalist movements are converging around the same discourse and the same goals after a long period of political and ideological differentiation. The process of coding, in combination with insight from the framework of political discourse analysis (PDA), indicate that while the issues of multiculturalism are indeed rising in relevance within political discourse in both regions, language has not been rendered irrelevant; rather, the theme of language has been incorporated into the discussion about immigration and integration. Besides, the analysis also shows that discourse in both regions is indeed converging around a harder line regarding immigration and the focus on promoting integration. Key words: Nationalism, sub-state nationalism, identity, Immigration, Multiculturalism, language, Belgium. 2 Table of Contents: Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….2 Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………….4 Chapter 2: Literature Review: ……………………………………………………..9 2.1: Theories of nationalism…………………………………………………...9 2.2: Ethnic and civic nationalisms…………………………………………...10 2.3: Linguistic nationalism and language-based conflict…………………….12 2.4: Nationalism, migration, and the policies of multiculturalism…………...13 2.5: Presentation of the case study: Belgium………………………………...14 2.6: The Genesis of Belgian national identity: an abortive project?................14 2.7: The vicissitudes of Belgium's political system………………………….16 2.8: The emergence of sub-state nationalism in Belgium……………………18 2.9: State reform and its implications………………………………………..20 2.10: From the Flemish-Walloon duality to the centrifugal effects of modern multiculturalism: a new model for Belgian identity?.............................22 Chapter 3: Theoretical framework and methodology…………………………… 25 3.1: Sociological theories of immigration…………………………………....25 3.2: Methodology of content analysis………………………………………..28 3.4: Operationalization……………………………………………………….32 Chapter 4: Results………………………………………………………………...37 Chapter 5: Political Discourse analysis and discussion…………………………..50 Chapter 6: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….60 Bibliography:………………………………………………………………….......64 3 Chapter one: Introduction On May 3rd, 2018, during a debate in the EU parliament in Brussels, the leader of UKIP Nigel Farage gave a short speech that contained the following: "Belgium is not a nation. It is an artificial creation… the truth is there are two different parts of Belgium. They speak two different languages, they dislike each other intensely, there is no national TV station, there is no national newspaper. Belgium is not a nation! And maybe that is why you are happy to sign up to a higher European level." Beyond the immediate dismissal of this statement by many MEP's present that day as nothing but another publicity stunt by the staunchly Euro-sceptic and Brexit-supporting UKIP leader, Nigel Farage's verdict on Belgian nationhood is not entirely unusual. Ever since 1830, the year in which the modern Belgian state was established, similar statements that highlighted the lack of Belgian nationhood and cast doubts about the future unity of the country have been commonplace. Even more significant is the fact that some of these statements have come from key Belgian figures sometimes. Jules Destrée, a prominent French-speaking politician and cultural critic in Belgium, once famously penned a letter to the King of the Belgians Albert I, in 1912. Bluntly titled "Letter to the King on the Separation of Wallonia and Flanders", the letter is remembered for unequivocally declaring that "in Belgium, there are Walloons and Flemings. There are no Belgians." (van de Craen 2002: 25). Fast forward more than a century later, Destrée's words seem to be ever more relevant. Amid the successive constitutional crises Belgium has witnessed, the most intense of which was in 2007-2011 when the country set a world record with the most prolonged government formation period in modern times, Belgium earned the label of "the most successful failed state" by international media (The New York Times 2008), (Der Spiegel 2008). The fractious nature of Belgian politics was also visible following the most recent federal elections in 2019 when the government formation process was on course to beat Belgium's own record of 541 days, had the Coronavirus spread not urged Belgian politicians to get behind the minority government of Sophie Wilmès. 4 The persistent gridlock that has marked Belgium's political life to such an extent that came to be synonymous to it, is widely explained by the nature of Belgium itself as a political entity built on a compromise between disparate identities steeped in mainly two different languages and the associated cultural traditions that come with them (Dujardin 2015: 26). Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia were brought together as the result of a diplomatic maneuver from the great powers in the 19th century to maintain the balance of power in Europe and create a buffer state to contain then France's expansionist plans (Deprez and Vos 1998: 6). This compromise has existed ever since in the form of a state without nationhood. Notwithstanding the early efforts of forging nationhood for the newly established Belgian state, and the successive political reforms that incrementally transformed Belgium from a unitary state to a federal state with significant devolution of power to the constituent regions, the wedge between the two linguistic communities proved to be difficult to bridge, resulting in a country plagued by a so-called "problème communautaire" (Dunn 1974: 163). The tensions between the regions in Belgium finds its roots in the linguistic difference between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, with the city of Brussels caught in between the interests of both regions (Dunn 1974:144). The end of the Second World War in Belgium marked the start of an ongoing change in Belgian society that added a new dimension to the "older" conflict, which has up to that moment mostly followed linguistic lines. The advent of an era of post-war reconstruction and economic boom necessitated labor, which was recruited from outside of Europe in a series of labor-treaties. The arrival of guest workers from countries like Turkey and Morocco, although initially perceived as a temporary event aimed at aiding the efforts of post-war reconstruction and filling in labor shortages, eventually became a permanent process of social change and migration that left its mark on Belgian society (Castles 1986:786). Starting from the 1960s onwards, guest workers settled permanently in Belgium, and although politics initially struggled to make sense of the change towards a multi-ethnic, multicultural, and highly diverse society, the reality of multiculturalism was largely accepted by the 1990s. Thus, by the turn of the 21st century, Belgium has accumulated a plethora of elements that continue to influence its politics and feed the discussion about Belgian identity. The question of forging a national identity for the Belgian state is, as a result, far from being settled. In this context, a significant number of studies attempted to make sense of the vicissitudes of Belgian nationhood (Deprez and Vos 1998; Grosaru 2018), cultural identity ( 5 Erk 2005; Lecours 2001; Béland and Lecours 2007) and linguistic situation (Blommaert 1996; Blommaert 2011) on the one hand, and to understand Belgium's transition towards a multiculturalist society and the history of immigration in
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