sex and politics

Another marvelous guest post by Dr. Arf.

So, by now all us Europeans are living in a different European entity. Because, even if some of our Head Honchos will be jittery about calling a spade a spade, we now have a European president. Woo- hoo, break out the champagne, throw huge, lavish parties with people madly dancing, drinking and fornicating in the streets into the night for a fortnight. Or should we?

Because, my fellow Europeans, we didn’t get no Obama as EU president. While there is a cautious ‘yes we can’ (if we stick together) attitude, my country’s now ex- Prime Minister and your EU Prez, Herman (not Herbert, you foolish English tabloids) Van Rompuy isn’t particularly know for his talent to rally people for the cause like his American counterpart still can, even with some lost feathers near the end of his term’s first year.

The new EU Prez (source)

No, good old Herman is the greyest mouse you could possibly have for the job and expresses himself in haiku (this is the first and last time I will refer to that, and don’t expect me to write one on his behalf, thankyouverymuch). If you’ve been following the European news for the last couple of days, you will have heard several terms come back about Herman. ‘Aloof’, ‘boring’, ‘consensus builder’ and so on… You will get my own take on Hermie, but let’s just start at the beginning, which was roughly two weeks ago. Being a Belgian native, I witnessed firsthand how this Union got its Belgian Prez.

With the election of the seat about three weeks away, there were rumours – I had to find out through the BBC’s excellent comedy panel show ‘Have I Got News For You’ – about a number of people who were named as candidates : Dr. Fil’s second home native EU bobo Jacques Santer, Holland’s very own adult Harry Potter clone and PM Jan-Peter Balkenende and The Man Who Is President Of So Many Foundations And Institutions He Hardly Knows Which Ones, Only That He’s Filthy Rich Because Of It, the UK’s former Labour PM, Tony Blair.

I admit, the latter’s a rather lengthy moniker, but it is all too true. Blair even prides himself in being the spokesperson for British supermarket chain ASDA in… Palestine! Anyway, to cut a long, money grabbing story short : all of this was sufficient reason for many a EU country to veto Blair’s candidacy, no matter how much Gordon ‘I think the whole UK wants to lynch me’ Brown put his foot down and backed the guy he shoehorned out of Downing St. No. 10 against all odds. (Cue Phil Collins song) Brown would eventually drop Blair’s candidacy in exchange for the EU socialists getting a British Foreign Affairs Minister in Cathernie Ashton. All’s well that ends well…

Anyway, there they were; all major candidates in a row. Oh yeah, there were some others too and almost as an afterthought, Van Rompuy’s name was mentioned as one of them. Cut to a week later and our local journos (on Flemish TV, that is, since I live in The North) came out with the news that their well informed sources within the EU Parliament had told them Hermie was a strong candidate, opposed by no one. When asked, our PM said nothing at first and a week later only that he wasn’t asked and that he didn’t intend to run. But IF asked, he would.

However, this ‘no opposition’ claim wasn’t really all that true. Aside from other ‘informed sources’ who contradicted that there was consensus about Van Rompuy, there was clear opposition… from the UK tabloid press. And the further in the week and the stronger the rumours about our PM’s impending leap up the political ladder, the fiercer the rumours got. The conservative Daily Telegraph, not particularly known for getting their facts straight but rather for their, eh, conservative stance at all cost, even named him ‘Herbert’. All rather silly and all rather out of proportion, unless you know that almost all UK news media is siding with the Tories in the UK right now and they are already campaigning for next year’s national elections. The Tories are fierce – pointy teeth and all – Eurosceptics (anti- European more like it). Then again, political Britain just wants the EU’s benefits and none of the responsibilities and the difference between Labour and the Tories is as thick as a teen’s pubic hair.

Meanwhile, last week, when PM Van Rompuy’s candidacy rumours were getting beyond the point of ignoring, a new problem surfaced in the media : if Herman – the guy who managed to build a consensus between politicians from both North and South on a national level and got a – albeit flimsy – grip on Belgium’s economic crisis – was going to run Europe, who would be running the country? One name popped up : Mr. ‘800.000 Votes Can’t Be Wrong’, Yves Leterme. And the mere mention of the man prompted francophone newspaper Le Soir to literally impose its veto on Leterme as Belgium’s PM, merely because they don’t like his style and they, or rather, editor in chief Béatrice Delvaux (who managed to utter the ‘faux pas’ “I believe that Leterme” before correcting ‘I’ into ‘the paper’ on national TV, thereby exposing her private agenda as well as the fact she used her newspaper for it) came out, guns blazing and knives sharpened. Even the francophone politicians felt that this was a bridge too far. ‘We use the media for our agenda, not the other way around’ was the message when a francophone politician said that ‘Le Soir is not making policy in this country’. As it stands and as I’m writing this, a mere few hours after Van Rompuy’s acceptance speech, this issue is only now starting to become the hot potato which could land this country in another crisis, at a time it needs it the least.

One last fait divers about Hermie’s run up to the presidency : those pesky British tabloids, in their usual fashion – tits on Page3, filth and smut in the rest of the paper – ran increasingly negative stories about Van Rompuy. His sister – a very red socialist (ex- communist party PvdA) politician of her own – allegedly said he was a clown, hadn’t spoken to him in over a year, and so on. Which wasn’t true. The red nose was a campaign stunt of PvdA, and they had spoken just a week ago, she countered only hours ago on a talk show. So where did the British press get all this misinformation from? You’ll never believe it : a BELGIAN lobby firm, represented by a nephew of ex- PM and former EU Chairman hopeful Guy Verhofstadt. While Verhofstadt himself was probably not behind this vicious attack, his nephew had no qualms about feeding these stories, even when untrue, to the British public ‘because that’s what the media wants to run’. Can I come out and say in no uncertain terms that such morally challenged ratbags (I’ll keep it civilised) like these should be sentenced to a life of forced labour without the possibility of parole, while being prison bitch to a 300 pound serial rapist with severe halitosis (sorry, couldn’t help myself in the end)?

So, my EU friends, now he’s been elected unanimously, what can you expect of your president, Herman Van Rompuy? Well, he IS a consensus builder, and when it’s being said that ‘if he can hold a country like Belgium together, he’ll certainly be able to do the same with the 27 EU countries’, you should take that seriously, because he will do his darndest to put all the noses in the same direction. It’s also said he’s an EU nobody, politically speaking. Do NOT make the mistake to think Van Rompuy won’t know what he wants and he’ll be a harmless puppet to the likes of Angela ‘I was in the sauna on the other side of the Wall’ Merkel and Nicholas ‘I singlehandedly tore down the Berlin Wall’ Sarkozy. Some EU bobos will undoubtedly have felt this way when casting their votes and they will be sadly mistaken. Yes, he IS aloof and he only speaks when he feels it matters. No flamboyance there, but do not mistake him for a sock puppet.

What else? Well, he is a catholic and a conservative. Not necessarily negative treats, even though that makes him my political opposite. However, he’s also an intellectual who several times spoke out against what he calls ‘direct democracy’; aka the will of the people via binding referenda. His reasoning was that constituents could not be trusted with this power, hence they needed elected representatives like him, who would decide what was best for them. This was many years ago, but it stayed with me because it incensed me to no end. If people do not know how to wield democracy, it is, in my opinion, not the task of the elected representatives to make up their minds for them, but to teach them how to wield that power effectively. Not so for Van Rompuy, and I was sorely disappointed when not a single journalist drove this issue home when he was about to take over as PM from Leterme. The fact that he was a consensus builder and didn’t really want the job took precedence over that.

In closing : no matter what his qualities may be, Herman Van Rompuy is very much a politician’s politician, and that, too, will have been a reason why he was elected by his peers (!) as EU Council president for the next two and a half years. The only hope I have for this presidency is that Herman Van Rompuy will learn as much about direct democracy as he will be teaching us about intereuropean consensus. Time will tell…

– dr. Arf

In light of today’s friendly between Belgium and Slovenia in Genk, dr. Arf prepared another guest post which I’m more than happy to publish. Not in the least because I’m having trouble keeping with the regular pace of posting (which I think is pretty obvious). Things will improve, however, as things are heating up yet again within the coalition. More on that tomorrow, as well as the fate of Croatian NATO membership bid.

And now for something completely different

Twenty-two guys chasing a single ball and selling enormous quantities of beer in the process

(If you are a football enthusiast with no sense of humor (although, in my opinion the one automatically confirms the other), please look away now)

The nation known as Belgium, as you all know after having read my ‘Belgium Explained To Slovenes’ guest posts, is fractured to the point of breaking up, but it – or rather, the football adoring sheep that populate it and they are many – comes together whenever the national team is playing. And why? To see them lose and have the national coach explain that it a) was undeserved, b) the ref was unfair, c) they didn’t do all too bad in spite of the loss. Or, in a more positive scenario, have him declare a draw to be a major victory for the team (“We’re doing better”; “team spirit is great” etc…). Anyhoo, I vowed to never, ever watch an entire football match while being conscious and sound of mind for the rest of my life, just like I’m doing everything in my power (up to putting fingers in my ears whenever an unsuspecting or foolhardy DJ is torturing me with a song of theirs) to avoid being subjected to music by The B*****s. But the latter is an altogether different story, best served in a bar along with several helpings of certain alcoholic beverages…

So why this hatred and utter disdain for football? Because football, my dear Pengovsky.com readers, ruined my childhood. It permeated through every aspect of my childhood in a negative way. Friendships were forged and/or lost on the high school playground, depending on which team you favoured. If you had none, had two left feet to boot and a lot of book knowledge, you were a nerd in the making and hence not deemed worthy to run with the alpha males in the making. I was lucky enough to have only one left foot (the right one apparently was good for kicking round, blown up pig skin in whatever direction it needed to go very accurately, even though I’m born a left hander and footer), and survival instinct compelled me to join in supporting the biggest team in Belgium (Anderlecht, nothing has changed since, even though they try their best to fuck up, I am told). But I was also bookish and smart. And my real sports were cycling and tennis. Not the most wowing sports in those days – save for one Eddy Merckx who was cycling in the Autumn of his career by then but was and still remains the greatest cyclist of all time (sorry, Tadej Valjavec ) and Björn Borg being the Swede everyone knew as the Eddy Merckx of tennis.

Football also ruined any hope of family respectability. Whenever there was football on TV, my granddad commandeered the thing and we had to sit in silence while he and his sons gazed at the black and white screen. And this was usually at the time when my favourite music programs were on. This did not help my growing antipathy towards what I considered to be one of the most boring sports of all (besides golf and curling). Even watching grass grow, I felt and still feel, is more interesting than this sport. Or what to think about having to sit through all the match results of all leagues being read over national radio (yes, ALL of the eight leagues, 18 matches each) while having Sunday dinner. It made the most boring day of the week even infinitely more boring. I think that’s when I became suicidal, which only passed after having been abstinent of this overblown and overhyped game for at least a decade.

Because that’s what it is : an overblown and overhyped game, with twenty overpaid sissies – who manage to roll over and act out certain death when being slightly touched by an opponent and then call this ‘strategy’ - running after a ball and two trying to catch it when it’s shot towards them. There is a scene in a Simpsons episode (stemming from when the WC ‘soccer’ was played in the USA, if I recall correctly) where the sheer boredom of watching this is perfectly illustrated. Art imitating life. I love it. But then, one single Simpsons episode displays more intelligence and excitement than the entire Champion’s League season.

“Why”, I can hear you think, “am I reading this here?” Simple : Belgium is playing Slovenia tonight, which compels me to break my vow, if for nothing else than to support the team of the country I feel more at home at than my own. And I hope I will derive no small amount of satisfaction when the Slovene team kicks Belgium’s team’s ass into oblivion. Please do, ‘tis only just…

N.B.: this is the final post in the series by dr. Arf. To say that the series enriched this blog would be a gross understatement. The great Michael M. once compared yours truly with the Slovenian Wikipedia. However my knowledge of things past and present is puny compared to that of Dr. Arf and if I had any respect for the man and his wisdom I’d hide in a corner every time he enters the room. However, as a bodacious and irresponcible agent provocateur that I am (again, as described by the man who gave us Carniola.org), I (with the help of commentators and fellow bloggers) lured dr. Arf into writing this series and I can only begin to thank him for taking us on this journey.

It began on June 26th 2007. It’s been fun, at times even emotional and hardcore almost to the point of calling the whole thing off, but in the end everything worked out well. Thanks, man! And I hope you’ll treat us to some more of your writing in the near future. And I ain’t talking about comments. Capisce?

LESSON 10: THE FINAL

This Is The End

Since I’ve finally come to the end of this guest series (do I hear a sigh of relief there?), I’m just going to round up various news items and close off with a final assessment before bidding farewell. I would like to extend my eternal gratitude to Pengovsky, who himself is a blogger extraordinaire (once again proven by recent posts about Zoki and the Open Letter To Borut Pahor, to name but a few stand-out examples, not to mention his weekly FF and - not so weekly - MMM posts) for giving me this opportunity to blog…

Various news items

- Last Monday, the 24th, the VRT and VTM news desks received a DVD, containing an admonition by Men Whose Face Were Wrapped In Towels, forcibly waving arms and pointing fingers upward (and using their left hand, which is apparently an insult in their culture), but with their message in subtitles and instead of the audio version, an a capella song, which seems to be a hit among the Youtube crowd, whose main concern in half the comments seems to be where they can download this cool tune (I happen to agree it is a cool tune, although the lyrics may be less favourable to an anti-religious Pagan like me) and the fact that somewhere in the song, with a bit of good will and a dirty mind, one can hear ‘dikke vagina’ (Flemish/Dutch for ‘fat vagina) being sung repetitively. Our national security agency confiscated the DVD’s to determine whether or not this message is a joke, compiled from downloaded internet sources (which isn’t that unlikely), or a genuine threat of terrorist attacks in Belgium, due to our involvement in Afghanistan (for which we have War Monger par excellence and minister of defence Pieter De Crem to thank). You can watch the footage in question here. Subtitles are in Dutch, and I can’t be arsed to translate this kind of terrorist religious tripe, whether it’s serious or not. The gist of it is : “Get out of Afghanistan or we’ll bomb you, you western pigs who cling onto life and impurity when we love purity and death etc.” blah blah blah… Still, that tune is cool.

- Coming back to the Vl. Pro débâcle, last night, after writing the blog post about it, I watched Bert Anciaux (pictured above; the grey haired chappy) being interviewed in the news magazine Ter Zake (‘On the Case’, a rather bad translation, I admit, because it could also mean ‘But Seriously’ but that doesn’t sound too, eh, serious) by the Hottest News Journalist This Side Of The Language Border, Annelies Beck (rather unflattering yet sufficiently illustrating pic above, to the left of the unflattering grey haired chappy). Dear old Bert behaved perfectly the way I predicted. With a pained scowl on his face, like he had a spikey rod permantely inserted up his rectum, he proceeded to explain that he wanted to retain his ministerial post at all cost ‘because he wanted to actively change something’ and not be sidelined. In other words : our self appointed idealist, who started ID21/Spirit/Vl.Pro out of idealism, used this idealism to justify his impending move – of course not confirming it just yet – to SP-a. Bert, above all else, wants to be in the thick of the power circles. To ‘do something’. He didn’t say what, though. So when the chips are down, he jumps ship. What an idealist. Not that it’s surprising, though. I recall him when still being chairman of VU, being very disappointed in national politics (because he couldn’t ‘do something) and moving on to try to get elected at the European level because, and I quote, he was ‘sick of national politics’. But when the CVP (predecessor to CD&V that was permanently in power with various coalition partners for over 50 years, as I explained a few posts back) surprisingly lost the elections, Anciaux insisted his party’s elected officials step aside to enable him to return to the national politics he so despised. Yes, because he could ‘do something. That’s when he became minister of Culture for the very first time and as predicted, it was a disaster. So if nothing else, Bert Anciaux is at least consistent, just as I wrote a few hours prior to his interview with that scrumptious Annelies Beck.

- Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht (VLD, pic with spouse Mireille) is in all sorts of trouble : not only is he being named in a bank stock scandal (his wife sold Fortis stocks just a few hours before this bank was sold to NBP Paribas as a direct result of the Credit Crunch, which implies he could have passed on this – secret – info, as it was the government who negotiated the deal), he’s also personan non grata in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because he very diplomatically, called their government corrupt. Unsurprisingly, he’s not welcome in the DRC anymore. Not that anyone would want to go there, with sadly yet another genocide happening as we speak…

- The Case Of The Three Francophone Mayors of the villages in the B-H-V region drags on and on. Flemish Interior ministers Marino Keulen (VLD) refused to appoint them for the second time in succession, prompting another outburst of outrage out of the francophone parties, who predictably threatened to blow up the federal negotiations concerning the state reform, even though these appointments were not an issue on the negotiating table, as they are, in effect a regional issue. To recap the problem : these are francophone mayors who refuse to implement and adhere to Flemish regional law concerning the Flemish towns they were elected in by the francophone majority living there. The francophone parties would like to usurp these Flemish territories into the mainly francophone Brussels region, which, of course, is a serious bone of contention over here in the north.

And there you have it…

All that isn’t well doesn’t end well and Belgium, by and large, isn’t well. Credit crunches, recessions, banks in trouble, the country still on the verge of a split and politics as usual.
I just hope I’ve managed to give a bit more insight into this enigma of a country, even if it didn’t manage to clear up anything, but rather scratch your head in bewilderment even more than before…

DR. ARF