Avuncular American

Belgium's Lost Year: Politics Cancels Governance

(Image source: Brussels Export)

This has happened more than once in the past 12 months: Belgium decides to have an existential crisis when we happen to be away.  But existential political crises are the norm in a country where there are seven parliaments, three languages, and borders that include a wonderful geopolitical construct sometimes called the donut.*

The current kerfuffle is, again, essentially over the future outlines of the "linguistic frontier," both on maps and in how decentralization is pushed to its limits, before the "country" is no more than a shell for the all important regions and communities (Dutch speaking Flemish in Flanders, French speaking Walloons in the south, Germanophones along the eastern border, and a mix of all of the above, plus lots of internationals, in Brussels).  Things came to a head on July 15, the deadline for an "institutional reform" (Belgian for separatism) package.  See Le Soir cartoonist and author of "Dessine-moi la Belgique" Pierre Kroll for his take on the impact of the deadline on the daily life of Belgians.

The recent proffered resignation of Prime Minister Yves Leterme is simply the latest manifestation of the seemingly limitless capacity of Belgian politicians to conduct themselves as if the only thing elected officials should do is play politics.  Things like economic impact, national image, care for the national brand - those are for sissies.  Brinkmanship is the name of the game, and Leterme's resignation (as of this writing, not yet accepted by the head of state, King Albert II) is almost a footnote.  He's still in place, running a caretaker ("affaires courantes") government, and the name most talked about as a replacement in a future (coalition, as always) government is... Yves Leterme ("Leterme II").

Economic, business, and labor leaders throw up their hands in frustration: "A wasted year," sighed Vincent Reuter, head of the Wallonia employers association.  Essentially, the country has had a full year of holdover caretaker governments or short-lived successors since elections in summer 2007.  Months ago Belgian economists hazarded guesses on the cost of the crisis, which has only been compounded since.  The reaction of the politicians?  Hold the economy hostage to the outcome of a redistricting proposal dear to the hearts of Flemish politicians, and anathema to the French speakers.

The redistricting of the Brussels Hal Vilvoorde (BHV) constituency is a vital issue, even though trying to explain it to anyone living outside of Belgium results in understandable yawns.  Vital only because it risks splitting Dutch speakers and Francophones in the only area - the capital and its hinterland - where they live in close proximity.  Francophones (and many interested observers) fear that such a split would only be a precursor to further Flemish moves to bring an end to Belgium as a country.

Rather than splitting BHV, some thoughtful citizens are circulating a petition to unite Brussels and its hinterland, known by its historic name of Brabant (which exists, of course, in Flemish and Walloon versions).   They point out that the greater Brussels represents 2 million people, 1/3 of Belgium's GDP, and "more NGOs, lobbyists, embassies and consulates than Washington DC."  The Greens - probably the only Belgian political grouping that truly coordinates between its French and Dutch speaking sections - had earlier tabled proposals along the same lines, noting the natural synergies that regionalization would bring to the capital area, in terms of transportation and economic development, not to mention the main beneficial side effect of restoring some sense of shared destiny.

But there are other centrifugal forces at play, and not just on the Flemish side.  There has always been a fringe "rattachist" element wanting to find refuge with France, but of late at least one serious politician has come out with a "Belgique française" scenario in case the Flemish carry matters to their logical, separatist, conclusion.  Last month there was brief attention in the international press to the idea of a "Brussels Corridor," floated every few decades when Bruxellois get antsy about being cut off from their French speaking cousins down the road in Waterloo.

*So what about the donut?  It's actually worse than that.  According to Wikipedia (be sure to look at the map):

Baarle-Hertog is noted for its complicated borders with Baarle-Nassau in the Netherlands. In total it consists of 24 separate pieces of land. Apart from the main piece (called Zondereigen) located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas, there are twenty Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other pieces on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also seven Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves. Six of them are located in the largest one and a seventh in the second-largest one. An eighth Dutch exclave lies in Zondereigen.

The border is so complicated that there are some houses that are divided between the two countries. There was a time when according to Dutch laws restaurants had to close earlier. For some restaurants on the border it meant that the clients simply had to change their tables to the Belgian side.

Let's hope that this doesn't become the template for Belgian cartographers.

Mountaintop Trenches: The Dolomites and Europe’s Future

You have to do a bit of climbing to get to these trenches.  They happen to be Italian trenches in the photo on the left, but on the other side of the Piave Valley there are similar Austrian ditches, scraped out of the rock and peat on the hillsides of these Dolomite peaks.  This is the setting of Hemingway's  "A Farewell to Arms."

Take your worst mental image of trench warfare – with its mud, cold, vermin, and high explosives – and then transpose it to the top of a 6,000 foot mountain during several winters.  That’s the World War I recollection of people in this Italo-Germanic corner of the Alps.  Check out the official site of what has to be one of the most spectacular open-air museums dedicated to the First World War, that of Lagazuoi and the 5 Torri.

Our hiking group - formed ad-hoc by Charlie Tessari (photo below right, looking at the formerly Austrian-held positions), wintertime ski instructor, spring and summer hill walking guide, and author of a book with some of the most beautiful photos of this region - is mostly Italian, and of all ages.  We and a family of Slovaks form the Anglophone contingent, and we get abridged versions of Charlie's explanations of the flora, fauna, and geology of this unique mountain region.  The Slovaks know of the Piave Valley; their grandfathers fought here when Slovakia was a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  They grew up hearing songs of the Piave, and of their grandfathers' long-defunct multinational country.

Nowadays they can drive a few hundred kilometers across Austria and visit the battlefields as tourists.  Slovakia, which has gone through several national mutations in the 90 years since the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs waved goodbye to the world scene, is now a part of NATO, of the European Union, and will soon spend Euros just like their former Italian enemies.

Paul Hoffman, former New York Times correspondent and author of “The Sunny Side of the Alps” (a gift from an old friend who knew exactly what we’d appreciate on this trip), writes about this former Austrian region from personal experience.  He married a local girl from the Sud Tyrol (the Italian Alto Adige) in the inter war years, and witnessed first hand the excesses of Fascist nationalism, where the Germanic names on gravestones were Italianized – even the dead weren’t allowed to keep their identity.

World War II and the fall of Fascism led to a mellowing of the nationalism up here, and now signs are bilingual, and there’s a relaxed approach to language.  This year, the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War is being marked along the old mountain battlefields by a series of concerts, multinational hikes and climbs, and various other events.  Europe might be confused over which direction it should take after recent reverses, but there is one avenue that is no longer an option: war.  Make tourism, not artillery duels.  That booming across the valleys these days is summertime thunder, not high explosive.

There's probably no better place in Europe than the peacefully spectacular Dolomites to contemplate the ultimate stupidity of war.

Getting To Know Barack Obama

He wasn't physically there last night, but Barack Obama was very ably "introduced" to the members of Democrats Abroad Belgium (DAB) by one of our number, John-Paul Bernbach, who joined the Obama bandwagon as soon as the Illinois Senator announced his bid for the White House.  The room was filled by those of us who took a bit more time to rally to the cause, and JP's presentation, I hope, will also have provided lingering Clinton supporters in the room ample reason to justify their jumping on board.

Though people availed themselves of the good Belgian beer at the hotel bar, it wasn't a "victory party," and there was no gloating or untoward triumphalism evident over the events of last week.  DAB Chairwoman Faustina Mercado-Sandoval set the tone with a very appropriate Hillary Clinton quote from last Saturday's concession speech:

So I want to say to my supporters: When you hear people saying or think to yourself, If only, or, What if, I say, please, don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.  Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.

With that conciliatory admonition from Senator Clinton, we Democrats in Belgium set to learning more about our candidate.  And JP Bernbach did not disappoint.

It reminded me of the Boy Scout motto: "Barack Obama is: Pragmatic, Non-Ideological, an Organizer, a Real-Politic politician, etc."  JP did well to remind us of these aspects of our candidate, since there's a danger in his being (rightfully) renowned solely for his oratory.  There's a lot of senatorial substance behind the way with words, as we heard last night.  And years of experience in politics, at local, state, and now Federal levels.

Naturally for a group of expatriated Americans, the audience was best informed on foreign policy issues (interestingly, at the very time we were discussing international issues in Brussels, back in the US both Democratic and Republican candidates were concentrating on economic themes, which may have more resonance with voters).  There was concern over the Bush Administration's apparent desire to use "Status of Forces Agreement" negotiations in Iraq to form a secret "strategic alliance" that would complicate withdrawal plans for an Obama Administration.  It was no surprise that Americans in Brussels, home to NATO and the EU, would be more aware than many Americans of national security issues and relations with our European allies.  Several work with US military personnel, and pointed out that the military vote is not a shoo-in for McCain.  As Mark Benjamin noted in Salon a couple of months ago, at the height of the "3:00 AM" excitement:

Clinton has now turned the debate about commander-in-chief readiness into a contest of résumés. And the conventional wisdom is that John McCain -- ex-fighter pilot, former POW and war hero -- wins.  But that's not necessarily the case, say senior military officials and political analysts. In interviews with Salon this week, several experienced military officers said McCain draws mixed reviews among military leaders, and they expressed serious doubts about whether McCain has the right temperament to be the next president and commander in chief. Some expressed more confidence in Obama, citing his temperament as an asset.

As long as Obama's calm temperament does not come across as aloofness, this may be an important ace up his sleeve in matters military and beyond.

Given the rampant speculation last week about Vice Presidential possibilities, we might have expected more Obama-Clinton ticket promoters in yesterday's crowd.  Not really.  The consensus seemed to be that a Clinton VP slot would load down the Obama campaign with problematic baggage, especially on the "Whither Bill?" question.  There was more interest in a potential Clinton Supreme Court future (for life...) especially since, as JP pointed out, she has a long way to go in the Senate before amassing sufficient seniority for leadership positions.

I think we were very well served to have been treated to a "Getting To Know" evening, scheduled weeks before Barack Obama in fact became the uncontested Democratic candidate.  JP's encyclopedic knowledge of Obama mirrors that of longtime Obama friend Cass R. Sunstein, whose article in the London Independent a few months back is the best one-page summary of the man who could be President:

The Obama we know is no rhetorician; he shines because of his problem-solving abilities, his creativity and his attention to detail. In recent weeks, his speaking talents, and the increasingly cult-like atmosphere that surrounds him, have led people to wonder whether there is substance behind the eloquent plea for "change" – whether the soaring phrases might disguise a kind of emptiness and vagueness. But nothing could be further from the truth. He is most comfortable in the domain of policy and detail.  From knowing Obama for many years, I have no doubts about his ability to lead. He knows a great deal, and he is a quick learner. Even better, he knows what he does not know, and there is no question that he would assemble an accomplished, experienced team of advisers. His brilliant administration of his own campaign provides helpful evidence here.

JP Bernbach has not had the benefit of Sunstein's years of proximity to Obama, but I think that his reading of the man is as accurate.  In all, it was a very nice follow up to last week's cessation-of-hostilities in the Democratic camp, and a great kickoff for the general election campaign to come.  

Memorial Day Where It Counts

Ninety years ago, 368 Americans were buried in what was named Flanders Field Cemetery, one of the smallest of the overseas cemeteries run by the American Battle Monuments Commission.  We went there yesterday to help represent Democrats Abroad Belgium, whose wreath was placed at the foot of the white stone chapel in the center of the headstones.

We have been attending Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and other commemorations at ABMC cemeteries for years (I encourage you to visit their website and take a virtual tour).  Americans who have not had the honor of seeing these hallowed sites in person should be proud that their nation continues to take such good care of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines (and merchant marines) buried abroad.

My father survived World War II with only a couple of tiny shrapnel wounds, but his memories of harrowing battles in places like Guam, the Philippines, and Okinawa stayed with him until he passed away.  The soldiers buried in places like Flanders Field have only one surviving comrade, Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last American "doughboy."

Look at the picture.  American and Belgian flags at the foot of each cross or Star of David.  Every World War I and II American cemetery in the European Theater, whether in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, England, Italy... or in Tunisia, for the dead of the 1942-43 North African campaign... have the same array of flags, usually placed by local people or overseas Americans who keep the memory alive.  Further afield, in Latin America and in the Pacific, other cemeteries unvisited by me continue the same tradition.

Private Harry Volz of Wisconsin, whose Flanders Field grave is pictured here, died on November 10, 1918.  Students of history will know that 24 hours later, on the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month," Armistice was declared and the guns fell silent.  A day too late for Pvt. Volz...

Edward G. Lengel, Associate Professor at UVA and author of "To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918," knows something about remembrance, and wrote this in yesterday's Washington Post:

The Civil War and World War II seem to lend themselves to good storytelling, as long as one avoids the ugly, depressing bits. They appear to have clear beginnings and endings, with dramatic heroes and villains. They move. World War I, by contrast, with its images of trench warfare and mustard gas, is not so easy to manipulate in a marketable manner. Popular historians consequently avoid it. As one trade publisher recently told me, World War I has "poor entertainment value." Attempts to discuss it, even with avid students of military history, often end with the same comments that veterans heard back in 1919: "It's all too dreadful," and so on. So powerful is this perception that even genuinely exciting stories -- those of Medal of Honor winners Charles W. Whittlesey, Alvin C. York, John L. Barkley and Freddie Stowers -- are ignored.

We should step back and think for a moment about what this says about Americans as people. Do we honor our veterans for all their sacrifices, or do we care only if they can tell us a good story? And who, then, is guilty of ingratitude?

World War II marked the end of this noble tradition of interring American war dead where they fell.  No Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War gravestones for Americans on those Mekong or Mesopotamian battlefields.  Maybe, to borrow Dr. Lengel's phrase, those conflicts lacked "clear beginnings and endings, with dramatic heroes and villains."  I have no doubt that there are heroes, and we've been told plenty about the "villains," but those "clear beginnings and endings?"  It's all so murky, so wrapped up in controversy over contrived incidents and confused war aims.  The Iraq War's "poor entertainment value" has been reflected in box office flops - it's pretty "dreadful" too.

Listening to yesterday's speeches (Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, himself from the World War I-ravaged town of Ypres-Ieper), gave a thoughtful speech in flawless English referring to the WW I foundations of transatlantic cooperation), I had the impression that there was a mite less triumphalism in the speeches by the official American representatives.  As if five years into another murky war without "clear beginnings and endings" have induced a certain realization that the endgame is unknown, and that the ending, while it certainly may not be clear, will be accomplished by a President other than the one who started it.

John Kerry asked, as a young Vietnam combat veteran who had turned against that divisive war: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"  Private Volz from Wisconsin, who 90 years ago in Flanders Field died a day before peace was declared, can rest in peace, as should the dead from Vietnam and Iraq, whatever we think of the merits of the wars in which they fell.  But before we ask a soldier to be the last one to die in Iraq, we had better clarify why we are still there, fighting for whom?

Culture Wars, European Style - May '68

I would be remiss in my duty as an observer of the European scene if I let the month of May pass without a comment on May 1968.  Since I was a pimply teenager in Pennsylvania at the time, I cannot speak from personal experience.  But you cannot be alive in Europe in the spring of 2008 without being bombarded with documentaries, books, commemorations - nostalgia of the most maudlin to the intelligently reflective.  At most recent count, 100 books (!) have been published in French alone.

One of the most thoughtful TV programs (now out on DVD), one of the few to put the street protests in France into their international context, is Patrick Rotman's "68."  Francophone readers can listen to an RTL radio interview with Rotman here.  Rotman, as a 19 year old student at the Sorbonne, was a participant and witness.  It was definitely a turbulent year, worldwide.

Anniversaries, especially those ending in round numbers like 40, are fair game for reflection.  Especially when many "soixante-huitards" (in the States, we would say baby boomers) are themselves in their sixties.  In France, there is a particularly contemporary - political - slant to these recollections: President Nicolas Sarkozy is an anti-68, conservative politician, in a country where the dominant intellectual strain grew up in the shadow of the May '68 protests.  Shadows of the US, where "what did you do during the Vietnam War?" continues to fuel political debate, and where the Republican Party would like to program the national DVD player to skip the tracks between Eisenhower and Reagan.

But just like America's boomer hippies have morphed into Wall Street lawyers and Washington politicians, so too have many soixante-huitards joined the establishment.  Probably the best example of a student leader keeping his youthful ideals while succeeding in the political world is "Danny The Red" Daniel Cohn-Bendit, now a member of the European Parliament for Germany's Green Party, though he has as much of a profile in France (born there while his parents fled Nazi persecution, he's perfectly bilingual and bi cultural).  Cohn-Bendit was recently shown chatting with the long-retired chief of the Paris police, who he credits with saving lives (and perhaps French democracy) by holding his fire during the student/labor protests.

"'68" is perhaps most resonant now because of the current existential crisis in the world economic system, with financial, food supply, environmental, and societal (immigration, aging, unemployment) pressures causing many to question the way the Western world organizes itself.  It's another nostalgia "industry," for sure.  But without necessarily offering answers, this season's European retrospectives serve a purpose in forcing introspection of the most useful type.  For the US too, this will be most evident once the Democratic Party finally sorts out its candidate to face John McCain.  Will it be '60s vs. '70s? (age, not decades).  Or will it be McCain national-security-means-guns vs. Obama's more inclusive definition of security through diplomacy, economic strength, and inclusiveness?  The Culture Wars in the United States are not over yet.

It’s My Party – Israel’s Nakba Denial

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you

Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," 1963

In Europe, some countries outlaw Holocaust Denial, that despicable practice of far right parties (France’s Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has insisted on calling the Holocaust “a detail of history” and has made other outrageous outbursts.  He's had to pay stiff fines).  I know of no law against Nakba Denial, though Israel would like to outlaw talking about the Nakba at the United Nations:

Israel's UN mission is seeking to outlaw use of the term Nakba, after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon telephoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday night and expressed empathy with the Palestinian people in honor of Nakba Day.  Deputy head of Israel's UN mission, Daniel Carmon, complained that the word Nakba is meant to undermine the legitimacy of Israel's founding and, therefore, use of the term should be should be forbidden.

“Nakba,” or catastrophe, is the term used by Palestinians and other Arabs to describe the loss of their homes and the refugee exodus that accompanied the birth of the state of Israel.  Palestinians, whether they are among the hundreds of thousands who stayed behind in what became post-1948 Israel, or the million-plus who are now living under one sort or another of Israeli control in the Occupied Territories since 1967, or the hundreds of thousands living as refugees (most in camps) outside of historic Palestine – most of these Muslim and Christian Palestinians, whatever their passport (if they even have one) says, must have felt like crying at Israel’s party.

To get some idea of what was lost, just read or listen to the May 15 interview on Democracy Now! with Palestinian doctor and writer Ghada Karmi.  Karmi, who was eight years old when her family “went away for a couple of weeks” from violence in her West Jerusalem neighborhood in 1948, has a unique view of this period, and has written about it in “Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine.”  She explains the unusual title:

The reason it’s called that is that I’ve taken that out of an anecdote... At the end of the nineteenth century, when the Zionists in Europe ... held a very big congress, a conference in Basel in Switzerland, at which they decided ... to create a Jewish state... And they decided that that state was to be in Palestine.

Now, they didn’t know what Palestine was like ... so they sent a couple of rabbis to this place called Palestine, and they said, “Let us know if this is a suitable place.” The rabbis went, they had a look, and they sent back this message to Vienna: they said, “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.” Now, of course, it’s clear what they were saying is, yes, the land is very suitable, it’s wonderful, but it’s full of other people, it’s already taken. And, of course, it was taken by my ancestors. I mean, that’s who it was. That’s who the ‘other man’ was.”

It’s worth letting that anecdote sink in a while.  Those who have read their history books know about the 1917 Balfour Declaration expressing the opinion of His Majesty’s Government that there should be a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, which became operative when Great Britain was given a mandate to govern the former Ottoman province at the end of the First World War.  As James Parkes, in his classic “Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine” wrote, the Balfour Declaration “recognized that there existed already a historic Jewish right, not to but in the country.”  No matter; the Declaration led eventually to the United Nations Partition Plan, and the rest is – history.

Ghada Karmi concludes with devastating logic: “Without Britain, there would be no Israel.”  She takes issue with the notion of Jews In, Arabs Out:

And if you think about it, that has been the basis of the conflict ever since, that the Zionists wanted a territory free of non-Jews in a territory full of non-Jews, and therefore, they had to get rid of the non-Jews in order to make it a territory for Jews. Now, those non-Jews, i.e. the Palestinians, of course didn’t want to be dispossessed, they resisted being dispossessed, and hence, you have a conflict.

... Married to Another Man... had the Zionists said, “This is indeed married to another man. We can’t go here, because the land is already “married.” We can’t be bigamists. We’re going to move on. We’re going to look for somewhere else”—they didn’t. They were determined to do it, and they did it at the most enormous cost to us as Palestinians, because we were dispossessed and displaced in order to make room for the Jewish state, and of course it had a tremendous effect on the whole Arab region.

So, Israel, have your birthday party.  But don’t begrudge the Palestinians their right to commemorate their nation’s tragedy.  In Lesley Gore’s big hit “It's My Party,” she’s crying about Judy taking away her Johnnie.  She lost a boyfriend.  Palestinians lost a country.

You would cry too if it happened to you

Pretend Palestinians at Israel’s Party

First I would like to – seriously – extend my best wishes to the Israel of organizations like Peace Now and B’Tselem, and of Israelis like Meron Benvenisti, Uri Avnery, and Eran Riklis.  Peace Now (photo credit) requires no explanation of its work, but here’s a blurb for the others who represent an Israel that can be a good neighbor:

• B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
• Meron Benvenisti, whose West Bank Data Project documented the metastasizing settlements over decades
• Uri Avnery, formerly of the Irgun, now a peace activist
• Eran Riklis, director of “The Syrian Bride,” a film about the human cost of love across borders.

To these and other Israelis of similar sensibilities, happy 60th anniversary, and may your vision of Israel prevail.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now let’s play Pretend Palestinian ©, where you get to imagine what it’s like when your neighbor/occupier has a 60th birthday party all this month – but you’re not invited!

To make the “game” work, you have to put yourself in the role of resident of a semi-imaginary Washington DC surrounded by, and in some senses occupied by, a hostile Virginia and a domineering Maryland.  Where Washington’s Northwest quadrant – NW – is dotted with settlements of Virginians and Marylanders, a kind of “Area C” – the Oslo Accords term referring to that 60% of West Bank territory that is outside of Palestine Authority control.  In our “game,” it’s the place where non-Virginians or un-Marylanders are regularly evicted from their homes, to fend for themselves in SE.

You, as a resident of SE or NE Washington, have to use a slow two-lane road with traffic lights every 1,000 feet to visit your relatives in suburban Wheaton Maryland – but must make a detour via Baltimore.  The Beltway ring road, you see, is reserved for Maryland and Virginia citizens only, and allows them to bypass those parts of Washington that are run by the “DC Authority.”  The “DC Authority,” which has issued defiant “No Taxation Without Representation” vehicle registration plates, has no Senatorial representation, so its protests are largely ignored.

On the Fourth of July, picnicking Virginians and Marylanders gaze at fireworks on The Mall, but people in SE can only catch a distant glimpse of the “bombs bursting in air” above the Security Barrier that has been erected just east of Capitol Hill...

Okay, you can only go so far with the analogy, but you get the picture.

Palestine could have been celebrating its 60th anniversary this month along with its Israeli twin, but history got in the way.  To convey a sense of what was lost, BBC World TV has been broadcasting a poignant half hour documentary this week called “Jaffa Stories,” by Adam LeBor, author of “City of Oranges.”  Bittersweet, it shows Jewish and Arab residents of what was – and some hope might become again – a picturesque port city where peaceful coexistence ruled.  Jaffa might have remained a major Palestinian city, had the Arab residents not fled Irgun/Stern terrorism in 1948.  One Israeli Arab Jaffa resident on the BBC program hints that his father made the right decision by staying on when most of the family fled.  But that is a judgment only possible in retrospect.

To stay or to leave – that is again the question confronting Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in 2008.  Every day, they face humiliation and frustration that would have long ago overcome other less hardy peoples.  2008: Israel’s 60th anniversary, and the 41st anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza (okay, Gaza is no longer “occupied,” it’s just under siege, and East Jerusalem and much surrounding West Bank land have been annexed into Israel).

Somehow, Palestinians struggle on, still striving for a few crumbs of land in the hope of constituting a rump state, a tiny remnant of what their fathers and grandfathers spurned in 1948.  By expanding settlements in the face of international opposition, by appropriating water resources vital to Palestinian existence, and by myriad daily bureaucratic “deaths of a thousand cuts” (and cutting down thousands of ancient olive trees), Israeli treatment of the people in its Occupied Territories is calculated to discourage and demoralize.  So as Israelis quaff their birthday champagne, here’s one for the persevering Palestinians.

The Ineluctable Reality of Borders

Those pesky external border posts - poof! ...they're gone

 One of the occupational hazards of being an avuncular blogger on the Brussels lecture circuit is that I now get a multiplicity of invitations to events.  Many of these are welcome, providing useful fodder for posts.  Some are eminently avoidable, such as a recent invitation to join a demonstration protesting the expulsion of undocumented immigrants ("illegal aliens," as we would say in the US).  I'll give that one a pass, because I don't agree that "Borders = Repression," as the organizers would have it.

Living in a member state - some say the "capital" - of the European Union, and one which is a proud member of the Schengen (unguarded border) Zone, it's easy to forget the function of border controls.  Now that the Euro and Schengen have been a reality for the better part of a decade, crossing from Belgium to France and back through Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands can be accomplished without even showing your passport and without changing your currency.  In multinational border regions, such as the Maastricht-Aachen-Liege triangle or the Luxembourg-Lorraine-Trier-Belgian Ardennes area, commuters of several nationalities can and do live in one country, work in another, and shop in a third, all in the course of a single day.

For this benign corner of Europe, the nasty work of external land border controls has been "outsourced" or at least subcontracted to those Schengen members on the periphery (I stress land borders, since all countries are still responsible for monitoring international arrivals at their air and sea ports, as well as their coastlines).  But here's the rub: despite Schengen (or perhaps because of it), there is still a problem of undocumented immigrants in every EU country, and it presents a challenge to democratically elected governments.  Because there are parties - some of them also democratically elected - on the Flemish separatist extreme right who use the immigration issue as a wedge to gain votes and seats in the very assemblies for which they express contempt.  Which is my very long way of saying that Border Controls ≠ Repression.  They're just part of the landscape.

Uti possidetis and the importance of internal borders - especially in Belgium

According to Wikipedia, we are told that uti possidetis (Latin for "as you possess") is a concept in international law, and that "the term has historically been used to legally formalize territorial conquests."  Thanks to Dr. Christian Behrendt, writing in the Brussels daily Le Soir on April 30, we have an expert opinion (he's a professor of comparative constitutional law at the University of Liege) on why, in the next couple of days, defining internal borders will be of utmost importance as Belgium may face yet another existential confrontation between its "warring" Dutch-speaking and Francophone politicians.  "Warring" is of course figurative, but memories are still fresh of the 1970s, when the confrontations were also physical.

Dr. Behrendt explains why the brouhaha over the proposed splitting of a federal electoral district called "BHV" - currently comprising the officially bilingual but in reality largely francophone capital Brussels, with the officially Dutch-speaking (but often with francophone majorities living in their midst) towns of Halle and Vilvoorde - has to be "gotten right" this time around.  Without going into even more arcane Belgo-Belgian political trivia, suffice it to say that the Dutch-speaking Flemish majority has sufficient votes in the national parliament to push a split through, but that there are constitutional safeguards which allow the French-speaking minority to veto (or at least temporize) such a unilateral diktat.

The future of the recently-formed Leterme government (for those who are gluttons for punishment, my blog category "Brussels" has a series of background posts on the crisis which led - very painfully - to the formation of the current government - you'll have to scroll down a bit) may depend on a negotiated solution to the BHV issue.  And here's where we get to Professor Behrendt's uti possidetis, which he interprets as "you will own what you have owned."  For those in the Francophone capital and its surrounding districts, as well as the French-speaking heartland of Wallonia in the south of the country, the "borders" set by a split of the BHV electoral district could be used - by a future Dutch-speaking Flemish nationalist majority bent on independence for Flanders - to set in concrete a "linguistic border" that would cut off hundreds of thousands of French-speakers from their linguistic cousins.

Borders - they might be imperfect, but they're all you have

For Francophone interests in the - perhaps inevitable - split of BHV, the key is to negotiate a compromise that will give the Flemish parties a face-saving "victory," while extracting important concessions: the expansion of Brussels to include Francophone-majority communes on the periphery; the formal, institutional linkage between Brussels and Wallonia; the permanent safeguarding of linguistic rights in "border" zones?  All problematic, possibly unattainable.  But the stakes are extremely high: as Dr. Behrendt concludes, the solution to BHV could wind up as a key legal element in an eventual national "divorce settlement."  Today's drawing of a voting district boundary could become tomorrow's border between two countries, should the nationalists hold sway.

Anyone who thinks uti possidetis is just for the history books (who remembers "The Treaty of Tordesillas?") should read noted Africa expert Michela Wrong in The New Statesman, about the dangers of tampering with uti possidetis:

Africa as we know it is a recent invention. Quixotic and impractical, its colonial frontiers are poorly charted and easily challenged. Fear of the mayhem that would ensue if member states regarded existing boundaries as being up for debate prompted the Organisation of African Unity, in 1964, to embrace the doctrine of uti possidetis, that colonial borders should remain as they are. The Eritrea-Ethiopia debacle, which will be finalised next month [note: after she wrote this in October 2007, fighting resulted in the February 2008 UN withdrawal from the disputed border, and there have been sporadic clashes since], undermines that principle, weakening future attempts at peaceful arbitration. The message it sends is that "final and binding" frontier rulings are negotiable; and that while minnows must obey international law, large countries with friends abroad can defy it with impunity. There could be few more dangerous signals to send a fragile continent.

"Facts on the ground" are of paramount importance in the Israel-Palestine conflict, as planners of the "separation barrier" know only too well.  Today's line in the sand, though it may not have any footing in law, is still a boundary of control, and becomes a negotiating chip.

BHV is not going to cause a shooting war between rival Belgian parties, but the point is this: it is incumbent on the responsible members of Belgium's main democratic parties, Flemish and Francophone, to get BHV right, so that the lines drawn today will not become an even more intractable bone of contention should separatist nationalism reign in a not-too-distant future.

Honorable Dissent: The Resignation of Ann Wright

There will be a flood of "commemorations" tomorrow, the eve of the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and we will be on the road (and will miss Brussels' "Literary Wake").

So this would have been my March 19 entry, marking the fifth anniversary of the resignation of American diplomat Mary Ann Wright.  Her resignation letter is on the web in its entirety on "Government Executive.com," but here are key excerpts:

I strongly believe the probable response of many Arabs of the region and Moslems of the world if the US enters Iraq without UNSC agreement will result in actions extraordinarily dangerous to America and Americans. Military action now without UNSC agreement is much more dangerous for America and the world than allowing the UN weapons inspections to proceed and subsequently taking UNSC authorized action if warranted.

I strongly disagree with the use of a "preemptive attack" against Iraq and believe that this preemptive attack policy will be used against us and provide justification for individuals and groups to "preemptively attack" America and American citizens.

We should give the weapons inspectors time to do their job. We should not give extremist Moslems/Arabs a further cause to hate America, or give moderate Moslems a reason to join the extremists. Additionally, we must reevaluate keeping our military forces in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Their presence on the Islamic "holy soil" of Saudi Arabia will be an anti-American rally cry for Moslems as long as the US military remains and a strong reason, in their opinion, for actions against the US government and American citizens.

Reading this five years on, I think you might agree that Ann Wright knew her stuff: after all, she had served in Sierra Leone (where she was decorated for heroism), Micronesia, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Grenada, Panama, and Nicaragua.  Not exactly a list of soft assignments.

I have written about the other two Foreign Service Officers who resigned over the US invasion of Iraq, Brady Kiesling and John Brown.  Ann (as she is known) Wright's case is different, in that she resigned on the very eve of the invasion, while serving as the Deputy Chief of Mission (no. 2 person after the ambassador) at the US Embassy in Mongolia.  Ann Wright was also a Colonel in the US Army Reserve, and had spent a combined total of almost thirty years in active duty and the reserves.  When she wrote her letter, she was leaving a lot.

Ann Wright has become well known in activist circles, and has penned a book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience: Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq" with co-author Susan Dixon.  Folksy, articulate, and extremely well-informed, Ann Wright can be seen discussing the book here on "Fora.tv" with fellow dissenter Daniel Ellsberg (of "Pentagon Papers" fame during the Vietnam War), who has written the foreword to her book.  The Ellsberg/Wright duo speak of those American (and British) civil servants and soldiers who risked their careers (and risked imprisonment) to challenge their government's actions in bringing the US and UK to war.

Ann Wright is obviously an authoritative source when it comes to dissenting government insiders.  For those who wish to register their principled opposition but yet not go as far as she, Brown, and Kiesling did, the State Department does have the "Dissent Channel," one of the Secretary's "Open Forum" means of presenting alternate policy views.  It was instituted in the wake of Foreign Service resignations over the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.  Now that the US is again mired in a seemingly interminable foreign war, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) is trying to get the State Department to breathe life into these internal dissent mechanisms.

Overseas Democrats: Brand America On Their Minds

It's still going on (Sunday is platform day), but I'll give my impressions from my "local volunteer" participation yesterday at this weekend's "Europe, Middle East, Africa" (EMEA) Democrats Abroad Caucus in Brussels.  The caucus was a little different from those that we've seen on TV, in that the task was not to vote directly for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton by people-clumping in corners of the room.  Rather, it was to choose delegates to go to Vancouver's Democrats Abroad Global Convention, and thence to Denver for the Democratic Party Convention.  But voting there was, and (delegate) candidate speeches.

The one "voting with your feet" moment came early on, when people were asked to divide themselves into Obama and Clinton camps, to proceed with the voting process for delegates, based on February's Global Presidential Primary results.  Out of the several hundred Democrats gathered in the hotel's ballroom, maybe three dozen got up and caucused in the Clinton room (they were treated to something the Obama people didn't hear, a presentation by Clinton supporter and former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who was in town for the Brussels Forum, a wonk talk-fest).

I missed Holbrooke's talk (apparently he said that whatever happened, party unity will be essential), but did listen to a few of the Clinton delegate hopefuls expound on their candidate.   Unless I missed a ranter or two in my shuttling between Obama and Clinton supporters, none of the trash talk that Democrats are coming to associate with the primary campaign was evident among these overseas Democrats.  Each camp seemed to observe their mothers' rules: "if you don't have anything good to say about someone... ."

The Clinton camp, perhaps because of its smaller numbers, were a generally disciplined, quiet group, but did present a rather white, older, uniformity.  In contrast, the Obama camp was presented with a list of delegate-candidates that genuinely "looks like America," and would have no trouble ensuring gender, racial, age (there were student candidates, and those whose political activism started with the Adlai Stevenson campaign), and sexual orientation diversity.

The common denominator in the speeches was a passionately-held conviction that America needed to "repair, restore" itself after the deterioration on all fronts during the Bush years.  Given their expatriate lifestyle, these overseas Democrats were more conscious than most of the need to revamp Brand America through actions, not just talk.  Some, who might be characterized as more exile than expatriate,  explained that the Obama campaign inspired them to get involved in resurrecting a country of which they had begun to despair.

My overall impression: the Democratic caucus process is messy, confusing, inefficient, but also scrupulously fair and inclusive.  As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."