As of Monday, I am a Belgian citizen.
How did this exciting news become a reality? Was it through a fancy national ceremony? Perhaps a special letter from the King?
No. In very Belgian style, I learnt this via a Monday Morning email essentially saying ‘Congratulations! You are now Belgian. Now book an appointment with your Commune to get a new ID card’.
Still, what better week to be inducted than one where the Belgian Prime Minister decided to resign because he couldn’t get anyone to agree on a Federal Budget. If that wasn’t Belgian enough, the Belgian King rejected his resignation, and somehow someone hopes for a new political compromise.
Of course, being Belgian would be too simple. I need to identify what kind of Belgian I am. Am I a Francophone Belgian, or am I a Flemish Belgian? Or indeed, a German-speaking Belgian that people often forget even exist.
Living in Brussels, I’m in the weird nether-zone of language politics. Brussels is predominantly French speaking, but the city historically was Dutch-dominated, A Bruxellois Belgian has it’s own ambiguous category. Whilst many Bruxellois are French-speaking, there are also Dutch cultured Bruxellois.
It’s hard to explain how dramatic the difference is between these two cultures. Whenever I go to Flanders (which can be as small as a 20 minute train), I feel like I’m in a completely different country. The buildings, language, politics and culture are totally different.
The negative stereotypes of the Flemish from Wallonians are that they are often colder in mannerism and obsessed with money, whereas the Flemish oft view the Wallonians as poor and backwards. There’s also an underlying resentment that Flemish people generally learn enough French to get by, but the Wallonians rarely learn Dutch. Companies oft get around this by deferring to English. For an outsider, it’s all a little crazy.
What is really striking is how much the divide permeates throughout life. I once went to a house party where there was a de-facto segregation. The French speaking folk stayed on one side, the Flemish on the other. They both spoke their own languages and made no attempt to talk to each other. It was like being at a religious school where two groups were divided by sex.
I would say I’m more aligned to the French speaking side than the Flemish one (though I did do my Master in Leuven). The spaces in Brussels are more French language and culture. That said, I’m hardly a typical french-speaking Belgian either. I have been learning Dutch, and perhaps that betrays my outsider status. I remember that when I mentioned I was doing a Dutch class to a French-speaking Belgian, they asked whether I was doing it because I needed it for a job. After all, why else would you learn it?
If this wasn’t confusing enough, I do feel like there is the added complexity of the Brussels international community. Lots of people come here from the different EU countries, not to mention other nationalities working in some other international organisations. If you wander around the EU quarter, you’re much more likely to hear English as the common language, though sometimes you will see large swathes of Italian and Spanish speakers. Many international people live in Brussels without ever knowing any Belgian people.
Perhaps my most legible title is within this group. Perhaps I am what is known as the ‘Belgian Brit’. The Belgian Brit is a dying breed of Brits who came for EU work and managed to attain nationality as a way of continuing living here. Since Brexit, the drawbridge was essentially closed for Brits, meaning I’m probably one of the last to do this.
Unfortunately, even this label doesn’t quite fit. I’m not really a Brit, at least not abroad anyway. A British person abroad is a mild-mannered white person. They have names like John or Jennifer. Their French is mediocre with a very English accent.
I, however, am a foreigner who happens to have grown up in the UK. I speak with what one white Flemish woman called ‘very good’ English, even if she thought I could improve it by mumbling less. My french accent is a little too good which throws off French-speaking people, and I’m a little too outspoken to fit the stereotype of a True Brit™. I unfortunately don’t fulfill enough of what a Brit is imagined to be. Nevermind that I am British by birth and lived most of my life there. Such things are but details.
I actually feel this when speaking to Brits who live in Brussels too. It’s like I have come from a completely different world. Attempts to bond over common experience seems to fail. Perhaps it’s also a generational difference, but I don’t seem to have a strong enough love for Sticky Toffee Pudding. Mentioning that I grew up eating curry only confirms such suspicions. On the whole, I think I came from the wrong class of people to end up in Brussels. EU work, after all, is for the white people.
What makes my experience even more jarring is that I frequently go back to London, and there I am British without any hesitation. In the capital, you can be ethnically ambiguous whilst British. Still, mentioning I live in Brussels does cause a lot of confusion. Why would anyone move there? A Brit living abroad is meant to live in Australia, not to the Continent!
Alas, I think having a sense of identity confusion was always going to be a part of my life. After all, It’s probably no surprise that someone with three different nationalities suffers from a sense of identity crisis.
But then, perhaps a sense of perpetual identity confusion is what actually makes the perfect Belgian citizen.