Son of a Red Devil

6. Belgium has an appalling record among the countries of the EU for recruiting foreigners.

75 Chapter 6 Belgium has an appalling record among the countries of the EU for recruiting foreigners. Joëlle Milquet rying to find work as a black guy in Belgium must be one of the most traumatic and debilitating experiences I ever have gone through. During a cultural program on a Dutch channel, Tom Lanoye, a Flemish writer from Antwerp was asked by the host: “How black is Belgium actually?” He did not seem to understand the question. In fact, this host should have pushed him a bit and asked him: “Except footballers or musicians, are they also black cops, firemen, civil servants, journalists or columnists writing for the most popular newspapers in Belgium let alone in Antwerp?” I do not think he would have needed much time to think about it. He could always have pretended of course, while knowing the answer from the beginning. Joëlle Milquet, Belgian Deputy prime minister for Employment and Equality admitted during an interview published by the Humo that Belgium has the worst record among the countries of the EU for recruiting people from foreign backgrounds. The Humo is one of the most popular magazine in Flanders especially among the youth. Blacks are barely integrated into the fabric of Belgian society and even less so in the Flemish region. I heard it is the country with the highest rate of unemployment among people from foreign backgrounds compared to any other country. The things Bruno and I had to go through during our job search were just an endless series of outright humiliations. It would be too massive to tell it all for it deserves a book of its own, so I will try to condense it as much as I can. Maybe the best way would be to start with the Belgian - especially that of the Fleming - public perception of black people. They still cannot get over the fact that a black person T 76 can do anything more than just play football or dance. It still baffles Flemings when a foreigner speaks Flemish as well as they do. At job interviews, the fact that I spoke Flemish so fluently was always an issue; for Walloon as well as for Flemings. Concerning the latter, this is a bit ironic given their sensitivities and fanaticism about their language. Bearing in mind that some Flemish fanatics would disrupt any council meeting in a ‘communes a facilité’ that takes place solely in French, or paint over road signs or street names written in French, even if they were written in Flemish as well; their watchdog called ‘De Tak which is an organisation that would fanatically control whether the law concerning the Flemish language is implemented and respected at every public service place in Brussels, so that Flemish customers can be attended to in their own language; their big billboards with ‘Waar Vlamingen thuis zijn’ (‘Where Flemish are at Home’) along the streets in Flemish towns; their yearly ‘gordel’ on bikes which can attract up to 60.000 people, with prominent Flemish politicians leading the procession. The whole meaning and political message of this event is to underline the Flemish identity of some Flemish towns around the periphery of Brussels and to reclaim it as such, much to the irritation of the Walloons living there. Their ‘wooncode’ decree which gives the green light to any landlord of an apartment or house to refuse to rent or sell it to any Walloon who wants to come to live in a Flemish area in order to safeguard its Flemish identity. This decree has been condemned by the United Nations but nothing has changed since then. The local Brussels railway network (the STIB) banned French songs on their tube stations after some complaints from Flemish commuters. Yes, that is how far things have gone in order not bruise the ‘amour propre’ of some Flemish fanatics. The media is another big determining factor in the way Flemings perceive blacks or people from foreign backgrounds in general. We barely do exist in the Flemish media and when they speak about us we are rarely portrayed in a positive light. One is more likely to see a black face on a German channel than on a Flemish one. It took me a long time to get used seeing a black man with a woman of Turkish 77 background present the news in the morning on ZDF, a German channel. Probably even...