Brussels, not just waffles and chocolate

Belgium is at the crossroads of several major European states.

To the south is France, to the north the Netherlands, to the east Germany, and across the sea the United Kingdom. Geography of things: Belgians straddle different realms. The country is split between Dutch and French speakers (a small portion speak German).

Perhaps this “douglarisation” explains why Belgium has produced so many amazing artists.

For a small country, the list is long and impressive, from figures like Breughel and Rubens to more contemporary artists like Magritte and Luc Tuymans.

This country is not just about waffles, chocolate and Manneken Tobago’s multiculturalism has also bred great artists, there is one big difference. Belgians take greater pride in their culture.

An entire section of the capital is devoted to museums like the Musee des Beaux Arts (which houses Breughel’s The Fall of Icarus, made famous by WH Auden). In addition to the museums, all over the city there is a fervour for art in public spaces.

Brussels is famous for its pareddown but unmistakably stylish architecture. Large swaths of the city, such as the municipality of Ixelles, are littered with examples of Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

Historical factors have also given Belgium’s mixture of worlds a particular complexion.

Haunting the splendour is the savagery directly tied to it. In the Congo, Belgium’s first colony, at least ten million people were murdered under King Leopold I, who oversaw a genocide found there. Despite this appalling history, Belgium continued to rake in new territories, also assuming possession of Rwanda before both colonies eventually attained independence in the 1960s.

Walking around Brussels today, you can see it’s far more diverse than some other European cities. Locals are handsome, stylish, friendly and unfussy.

But key railway stations are now being flooded by a wave of refugees, some said to be from Syria, fleeing the regime of a modern-day king, Bashar al-Assad.

Belgians have been reluctant to take in refugees. But last month the EU’s Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi issued a key legal opinion – which could soon be reflected in the country’s law – stating EU countries must issue a visa in cases where someone is “at risk degrading treatment.” Terrorist attacks, which were once unimaginable in a city whose most famous landmark is a statue of a peeing child, have also completely changed things. As in Trinidad, patrols by armed soldiers and police officers are now routine. Even in the most fashionable recesses of the city: the military stand guard amid galleries, arcades, furniture shops and restaurants.

And this is a place that has not forgotten. “Remember” is writ large on a wall at the Maalbeek metro station, which was a target of the March 2016 terror attacks, part of the wave of terror in Europe last year, a spillover of the Syrian civil war. Last week, a chilling video circulated, featuring the so-called Islamic State claiming it was still present in the city This, unfortunately, is another key resemblance between TT and Brussels. The issue of terrorism has been a tremendous challenge to law-enforcement authorities in both places.

But if people are on edge in Brussels, they don’t show it.

This is something Belgians have in common with their English cousins: stiff upper lips, though the Belgians’ are coated with powdered sugar from the warm waffles on sale in their cobbled streets.

That said, Brussels is a city most English citizens deride, given their dismal views on the European Union, whose headquarters are there. Which is ironic, as no other organisation has had a more positive impact on British prosperity in the decades since the 1960s than the EU. Many EU officials who meet for after-work drinks in the EU quarter seem unbothered by developments like Brexit and Trump. If the sword of Damocles hangs – with key elections due this year in France, Italy and Germany – it hangs rather lightly. A victory for another far-right, anti-globalisation party in Europe could spell disaster in a union still suffering tabanca because of its rejection by Britannia.

Here in TT, similar questions linger over the regional union that we anchor. But the nature of the threat is different. It is not ideological. It is not fuelled by xenophobia and race. Rather, it is, ironically, energised by apathy.

Nobody here cares about Caricom. Notwithstanding regular summits – on diverse topics ranging from cricket to ISIS– people have not seen enough tangible benefits arising from its legal treaties and provisions.

If the opposite of love is indifference, then in Europe the EU is hated, while here, Caricom might as well not exist.