From TheBestLinks.com
A discussion of Belgian culture requires discussing both those aspects of cultural life shared by 'all' or most of the Belgians, regardless of what language they are speaking, and also, the differences between the main cultural communities, the Flemings and the French-speakers from Brussels and Wallonia. As a matter of fact, most Belgians tend to view their culture is an integral part of the European culture; nevertheless, both main communities tend to make the thousands of individual and collective cultural choices mainly within their own community, and then, when going beyond, Flemings draw intensively from both the Anglo-Saxon culture (which dominates sciences, professional life and most news media) but also French and other latin cultures, whereas French-speakers concentrate heavily on cultural life in Paris and elsewhere in the French-speaking world ("la Francité"), and less outside. A truly scientific discussion would also include discussion of the different cultures of Belgian ethnic minorities as the Jews who already form a remarkable component of Flemish, and mainly Antwerp culture since over 5 centuries.
Generalities on culture in Belgium
Belgium is well known for its art, its great architecture, its beer, its food, and its chocolate. Its inhabitants have a reputation among their fellow Europeans for being chubby and sedentary.
The beer with the most prestige is that of the Trappist monks. Technically, it is an ale and traditionally each abbey's beer is served in its own glass (the forms, heights and widths are different). There are only six breweries that are allowed to brew Trappist beer.
The inhabitants of this country have a reputation for loving French fries, which were invented there. They were originally called French fries by American soldiers during World War I, who saw French soldiers eating them. The fried potato strips, sold at many small shops and stands (often at train stations), are known locally as frieten in Dutch and frites in French, and are served with mayonnaise.
Many great French authors went to Belgium for refuge.
One of the great athletes of Belgium and the world was the cyclist Eddy Merckx. He won the Tour de France 5 times.
Hooverphonic, formed in the mid-1990s, is a Belgian pop / trip hop band that achieved international recognition through their inclusion on the soundtrack Bernardo Bertolucci's 1996 film Stealing Beauty (Io Ballo da Sola).
Belgium has occasionally been the butt of cruel jokes and jibes, such as in the Belgian-themed poems of Charles Baudelaire, where he calls the Belgians dirty and foolish.
Flemish culture
At first sight, Flemish culture is defined via its language the Dutch, shared with the people in the Netherlands and Surinam. Indeed, a Flemish literature as such does not exist. Books written by Flemings and by Dutchmen are read all over the Ducth-speaking areas. That most readers are able to distinguish the fine differences in vocabulary does not change on that. In a wider sense, Flemings read many books written in other languages: English (dominating scientific and professional literature), but also French, and reasonable quantities of Spanish, German, and other literary production.
For students, the intellectual standard in Flanders is learning two or even three foreign languages. That openness, and the mainly Anglo-saxon orientation is a rather recent phenomen as half a century ago, Flanders was heavily dominated by the French culture, which now only is a honorable second. The proficiency in English greatly improved during that period, where proficiency in French decreased somewhat (according certain researches, far not as much as the improvement in English). Proficiency in other languages widened, and improved, although some companies complain about an seemingly eternal lack of sufficient German-speakers.
Looking more closely, one notes some other typical cultural characteristics: Flemings have a greater respect for hierarchy then most Dutch, Englishmen and 'nordic' people. In this respect, Flemish culture is more a Latin culture then an anglo-saxon/germanic one. Related with this, political culture is more opaque, dominated by the main political parties and their wheeling, dealing and backroom agreements, and less transparant then the anglo-saxon political life. This certainly contributed to the extremely complex political institutions in Belgium.
In terms of intellectual discourse, Flemings appear more anglo-saxon again, preferring a down to earth, facts inspired (and sometimes boring) style. One might say the Flemings prefer a cartesian discourse more then the contemporary discourse in France. Flemish political parties tend to be slightly more innovative: since the three 'old' parties, liberals, socialists and christian-democrats), all new political parties were founded in Flanders and most often in Antwerp ('Daensisme', progressive christian-democrats; Frontpartij & Volksunie, moderate Flemish; Agalev, alternative/green; Vlaams-Blok: far-right, and ROSSEM, a short-lived anarchistic spark).
The somewhat more contesting nature of Flemish politics is probably related with the fact that initially, Flemings were massively discriminated against by the official Belgian institutions who had deliberatly chosen to use exclusively French in all public life, whereas Ducth was dominant in the belgian population, but nearly absent from the nobility and haute-bourgeoisie who dominated early political life (with its only 30.000 census-voters for 3 million Belgians in 1830). Altough the vast majority of discriminations have disappeared since, the few remaining discriminaties (like the widespread discriminations against Flemings in medical urgency services in Brussels, recently acknowledge for the first time by a prominent French minister, Rudy Demotte) still have a clear influence on political life in Flanders.
Walloon and French-speaking ('Francophone') culture
(to be added)
See also
fr:Culture de la Belgique
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