State of Failure: Walloon Brabant

Introduction 

 
Nobody likes Walloon Brabant. Other Walloons envy its wealth, its pompous SUVs and its solid economy. Flemish nationalists, on the other hand, find that Walloon Brabant’s economic success is a sign the province should belong to Flanders instead. Its Waterloo Lion is the surest sign that this province is merely muddled Flemish territory.

Indeed Walloon Brabant is a stronghold of French liberalism, whereas the rest of the region is mired in the socialist soup kitchens of the PS, but have no fear: liberal politicians are as reliably corrupt as their socialist counterparts.

Important facts

Young Walloon Brabantians train in hockey, a sport that has more respectability than vulgar sports such as football, or peasants’ pastimes like cycling. When they get older and fatter, they resort to playing golf, often employing a mentally challenged neighbour who lives in an outhouse of their surgeon or lawyer villa.

When Walloon Brabantian girls turn 18, the family convenes and mediates a suitably well-off suitor for them, and gifts her a Fiat 500 or Mini Cooper for her trouble. Contrary to national stereotypes, Walloon Brabantians don’t care if the spouse of their child is Walloon or Flemish or even Polish or Brazilian: money is a universal language that all understand and speak.

A rich man’s no man’s land

Walloon Brabant is a transitional zone between Flanders and Wallonia. From Roman legions to Austrian regiments to casual wanderers – at some point everyone gets lost in this no man’s land. Countless rivers, similar-looking forests, deserted golf courses, endless Mercedes garages and fenced villas make this area a bizarre rich man’s labyrinth.

The many small side-rivers of the Money River to Wallonia often disappear in Walloon Brabant forests, only reappearing as small little brooks once they exit the province and flow on to the rest of Wallonia.

A people steeped in myth

According to history, Napoleon suffered his definitive defeat in Waterloo. Historians openly doubted whether this place was real until the Swedish scholarly group Abba re-ignited interest in history in 1974.

Since then, it has been proven beyond a doubt that the region was inhabited by very shy, reclusive tax evaders for generations. However, the locals were far from pleased with the ensuing tourism.  There is still a trial going on at the European Court of Justice, with a demand to extradite Benny, Björn, Anni-Frid and Agnetha, but without conclusive success.

To see and visit in Walloon Brabant

 

Walibi

Walloon Brabant capital Walibi will certainly please the casual tourist. A guided boat tour on the River Radja (named so in honour of the legendary half-Indonesian ninja) or a train travel through the Calamity Mine are mostly preferred by senior citizens.

Louvain-la-Neuve

Louvain-la-Neuve is the counterpart of Louvain-Central. Youth offenders are re-educated here so they still might attain their degree. This way, many adolescents can still become an engineer or economist, or, worst case, a PS politician. Even if the latter is also possible without any qualifications.

Nivelles and Beauvechain

Nivelles is famous for its group supermarket visits, which made the town rise to fame in the middle ‘80s, when groups succeeded in leaving supermarkets without paying. Beauvechain is a theme park for military officers and hawks. They glow with pride as they send and receive rusty old cargo airplanes full of useless peacekeeping troops who hate their jobs.

Ittre

Ittre’s hospitality industry is famous for its customer orientation. Regulars get exquisite meals and enjoy gastronomical luxury. There are also facilities such as prison wall climbing. In addition, the industry’s wards are pretty mellow. They go on strike so often that the hotels pretty much run themselves, resulting in the typically breezy Walloon atmosphere.

Wallonia’s Flemings

As Walloon Brabant is the Flanders of Wallonia, so too have Walloon Brabantians adopted the Flemish work ethic. Pictured: Flemish mores penetrating into Wallonia. They work as hard as West-Flemings, are as falsely modest as East-Flemings, often work in Brussels like the Flemish Brabantians and have Antwerpian sense of disdain for poor people. The only Flemish province they don’t take after is Limburg, because Limburg is Flanders’ Wallonia.

Dining on the company dime

It is said that Walloon Brabantians are all work and no play. That is manifestly untrue. Walloon Brabantians love social outings with investors, or inviting over families of similar financial standing for dinner, where they quietly boast about their latest speed boat or all-in holiday to the Dominican Republic.

No seven-course meal in the province is complete without each participant’s insistence that they will pay. As folklore dictates, though, it is always the company that pays. This may or may not include hookers and cocaine.

State of Failure: Brussels Capital District

Introduction

The Brussels Capital District offers 19 unique forms of misery to its visitors. Brussels proper is but one of the communes of the District, which looks like a puzzle made up by an autistic child with ADHD.

The District comprises 19 communes, 6 police zones, 28 crime hotbeds, 11 erogenous zones and 24 zones where everyone feels better than the next guy, each with their own frietkot, waffle stand and tourist trap where you can buy phosphorescent little Atomiums.

Important facts

While French is the lingua franca in Brussels, expect to hear a true Babylonian variety of languages. Pretending to be German to get out of a pickle is always a good idea, because even the lowliest rascal speaks some amount of English or Dutch.

Brussels used to be an intellectual free haven for radical thinkers that were too radical even for France. Now it’s a haven for terrorists even too terroristic for France. However, Brussels’ bleak reputation is a little undeserved. Because it’s a true world capital, this also means it has all of the world’s problems dumped onto a territory the size of a hanky.

So close, yet so dystopic

Brussels always surprises. Each corner can hide an imposing palace, and the corner of said palace can reveal a bit of left-behind Congo or Maghreb. European technocrats and fat cat lobbyists go hand in hand with fraudulent Senegalese marabouts, and every metro station has its own diverse cast of youth gangs and ugly ‘70s artwork.

While the District is majority French-speaking, its Flemish inhabitants are kept quarantined and pampered like well-cared for pets, for their own good.

Paris’s retarded cousin

Brussels has an inferiority complex vis à vis Paris. Brussels may have nine steel balls that measure 102m, Paris has a dick that stands 324m tall. During the French Revolution, they beheaded the king, but the Dutch king’s bust merely got a wheel of cheese placed on his head for a crown by the Belgians. In Paris, the streets can boil and burn for days, but in Brussels you can get stabbed for a dumb mp3 player.

The name ‘Brussels’ derives from Dutch ‘Broekzele’, called thus because the inhabitants of this area were the first ones to start wearing pants (“broeken” in Dutch). From there on, this habit spread to the rest of the until then naked-legged Belgians.

The Bruxellois love dressing up anyway. Every day, Manneken Pis gets a new outfit from its hare krishnas, and the juicy Bruxellois dialect is a linguistic drag queen between French and Dutch.

To see and visit in the Brussels Capital District

Brussels proper

Brussels proper is the seat of the Global Panhandler Union. Brussels’ picturesquely uncomfortable and overheated station of Brussels “Central” (these quotation marks probably denote some joke lost to time) causes 75% of all of Belgium’s train delays. This is because of its byzantine architecture, announcements in language varieties understood by no one, and only two available tracks (the other 4 are reserved for EU servants).

Sint-Jans-Molenbeek-Saint-Jean

Sint-Jans-Molenbeek-Saint-Jean was one of the last bastions of Ba’athism to fall as a consequence of the Arab Spring, when mullah Philippe Moureaux was ousted after 20 years of mismanagement. While there is hope for Molenbeek, the rise of IS-affiliated terrorism has affected the commune like it also has in Iraq and Syria.

Salah Abdeslam, an IS member co-responsible for atrocious terror attacks in Paris and Brussels, hails from Molenbeek and was arrested in a typically Belgian fashion: given away by his preference for tasty food.

Etterbeek

As the name lets on, Etterbeek is the dirtiest town of Belgium (‘etter’ means “pus” in Dutch).  Brussels’ students from three universities and 11 colleges make sure pedestrians regularly slip in puddles of vomit or urine, and many streets have a penetrating odour of stale beer. Language conflicts are few and in between here: everyone speaks the language of love.

Watermaal-Bosvoorde/Watermael-Boitfort

Watermaal-Bosvoorde/Watermael-Boitfort is the perfect place to experience Brussels the way its rich, French-speaking elite imagines it should be. A nostalgic atmosphere of la Belgique à papa with fancy cars, exclusive dinners and radio news that pretends immigrants, Flemings and socialists are nothing more than a bad dream from another universe.

Ukkel/Uccle

The enclosed military domain of Ukkel/Uccle has been the subject of a heated debate for years. Some think it houses a NATO base where scientists experiment with nuclear technology, while others believe the Belgian Air Force is experimenting with extra-terrestrial technology. The domain’s spokespeople simply claim the place is being used for meteorological research.

Anderlecht

Anderlecht is home to Belgium’s most successful football club, although that’s a bit like saying you can defeat 10 year olds at wrestling. Still, it’s a force to be reckoned with, and even the superstar Prince was fan of the team – hence its Purple Army.

To this day, Anderlecht hooligans wear high heels and make-up to every brawl, intimidating the Liège, Bruges or Ghent sides, to honour the deceased superstar. I mean, imagine a 100kg ball of rage barrelling at you in a screeching falsetto, wearing Louboutins and decked out in full face make-up? Yeah, I’d get the hell out of dodge, too.

Gaming the system

Thousands of Flemings and Walloons come to Brussels every day to work, and take the lion’s share of the wealth created there back home with them. As a consequence, there is a lot of poverty in some quarters of Brussels, and high unemployment.

And it’s not like the royal family or our politicians are giving a good example by leeching off the system instead of doing actual work. Luckily, politics in Belgium is accommodating. They are basically beauty pageants for ugly people and those who can either brown nose the best or appeal best to angry white people.

The regular route is then to decry all state welfare while enjoying some of its best parts, and imploring the unemployed to better themselves while steadily sinking away in a bog of corruption and nepotism themselves.

This ‘affairism’ is a typically Belgian trait, and those who condemn it tend to be the first ones to take advantage of it, making everyone more or less complicit in an informal system that sometimes astounds our Dutch or German neighbours.

“Love you, Paris!”

Brussels swings, sings and jives. From the Flemish Zoo in the Dansaert Street to the vibrant Matongé quarter, you don’t need to tell a Bruxellois how to have fun. Pictured: entry plaque to the Flemish Zoo.

Many world-class bands often visit Brussels, and with it their attending clumsiness in how to address Belgian crowds. We have been known to having been called Dutch, “love you Paris”, addressed exclusively in French or in super-broken Dutch, or simply be met by a weird English snarl.

After Lemmy Kilmister died in 2017, Brussels now also boasts the n°1 spot in the most permanently drunken singer still alive, and that’s Arno, who is a living, staggering landmark of the District.

State of Failure: Flemish Brabant

Introduction

Flemish Brabant owes its existence to the ever-changing language conflict, a quarrel that escalated after some cockfighting. But the province has so much more on offer. Discerning visitors will find undisturbed areas of silence right next to mega festival grounds. Some fields are still manually harvested, right next to toxic industry zones and cancer factories. And, there are woods with magnificent palaces next to villages where everyone still gets their water from the village pump.

Important facts

The name ‘Flemish Brabant’ has caused some confusion, because there is also a ‘Walloon Brabant’, and, in the Netherlands, ‘North Brabant.’ The story is a pretty simple one: everything from Waterloo to Eindhoven (NL) used to be the Duchy of Brabant.

However, Antwerp insisted on naming its province after itself, and North Brabant simply couldn’t let go, like a spurned ex-husband who keeps his wife’s photographs and still has an old key. Belgian Brabant got split in 1995 into its Dutch-speaking and its French-speaking halves. Like in that JCVD flick where he has an evil twin, both Belgian Brabants now eye one another suspiciously.

A crippled child

No province summarizes Belgium better than Flemish Brabant. When it started out in 1995, the Walloons took the best agricultural grounds with them, and Europe claimed Brussels as its own, literally driving a hole into what remained of Flemish Brabant. Ever since that tri-partition, there has been an unending gyre between three peoples.

Rich French-speakers from Brussels move to Flemish Brabant, who in turn leave for Walloon Brabant, where the houses are somewhat more affordable, driving the Walloons to Brussels. It’s basically like the plastic soup in the Pacific, only it’s made of disgruntled people.

The cordon sanitaire

To avoid crime and immigration problems from Brussels spreading out to the rest of the country, the province has created a cordon sanitaire around it. The ‘Green Belt’ around Brussels is maintained by both language communities. To the south, a demarcation line is observed by rich, French-speaking racists, and everywhere else, Flemish racists guard the front.

Each year, Flemings drive up the ante by intimidating Bruxellois only the way middle-aged men with too much time can: they cycle around the Green Belt aggressively, in fluorescent spandex and with lots of beer.

To see and visit in Flemish Brabant
 

Louvain

Louvain is a city of records. It boasts the world’s longest bar, the most enlightened despot, the largest number of civil action committees and the greatest amount of student unions per square meter. Louvain is also home to the beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, who discovered the secret of how to turn river water from the Dyle into quality beer and pay €0 in taxes while doing so.

Last but not least, here is also Europe’s only university that manages to lose knowledge rather than gain it: visionary rectors have let its library perish in flames, or chased out half their staff to the other part of the country. In a more recent past, rectors gave away interesting knowledge for a few quarters to so-called spin-off companies. For instance, rector Torfs himself began a retail chain of shoe stores.

The ‘Rand’

Travelers are advised to avoid most of the so-called ‘Rand’ around Brussels. Its western part, the Pajottenland, has been terrorized for decades by the elusive bandit Urbanus van Anus. The eastern portion is more developed, with the national airport of Zaventem. But, despite the Oslo Accords and resolution 446 of the UN Security Council, French-speakers keep building new colonies.

Werchter

The area around Werchter is world-famous for its summer music festivals. Its reputation as a free haven for young people for wild, aberrant behaviour, unique music experiences and seedy sex is greatly exaggerated.

In the past few years, the area mainly attracts thirty-something middle class people, and the number of incidents because of urine odours is greater than the number of people who actually hook up.

Tienen and the Hageland

The Tienen area is Belgium’s most well-known wine region. The vineyards from the Hageland have such sour produce that kilograms of sugar have to be added to make its wines suitable for consumption. Tienen’s flourishing sugar industry has spawned many imitators, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Haïti.

Risking lives in Brussels

Every day, many Flemish Brabantians risk their lives to go into Brussels, spend 8 hours at a desk and then go home, without ever checking their prejudices. Pictured: frightened civil servant. Civil servants then regale their scared children with tales of great courage, like how they once saw a beggar look at them strangely, or how they were sure those crafty Moroccan boys were discussing their next gang rape in unintelligible Arabic.

Other Brabantians work in academia, either until they die, drop out out of exhaustion, or die from exhaustion. Flemish Brabant is also home to smug self-made men who are literally experts at everything from cars to building houses to politics and to gratifying oral sex.

Entertainment for idiots and grannies

Vilvoorde is the locus of Flanders’ more commercial television entertainment. Television station VTM has done more to make old people frightened of statistically very unlikely crimes than anyone ever could. Pictured: terrifying the shit out of your granny.

Another great pastime is the rivalry of the Catholic University of Louvain with its liberal counterpart in Ghent to see who can produce the greatest intellectual lightweights. Former Louvain rector Rik Torfs currently holds the candle, but up and coming fedora slinger Maarten Boudry from Ghent is sure to be a tough challenger.

State of Failure: Limburg

Introduction

Limburg’s inhabitants are proud of their province, mostly because they never set a foot outside of it. Gently, they hum their exotic dialects and live on the rhythm of nature itself. Is Limburg truly the most convivial province of the country? Bullshit from a tourist folder.

Whoever makes the effort to decipher their unusual phonemes will discover just as much venom, self-satisfaction and envy as the rest of Belgium.  Many a visitor has been mistaken in the conspiratorial stubbornness of the Limburgers.

Important facts

Limburg is the least-populated province of Flanders. Those who could escape it, have long left, upholding a grand tradition of marriage within the family in the province. Limburgers have the unfortunate reputation of being slow in terms of speech. That is so they can even more menacingly, slowly eviscerate you with words.

There’s only one worse place than Limburg, and that’s the adjacent Dutch province, also called Limburg, which produced notorious racist shithead Geert Wilders – and it’s all the way downhill from there for the Netherlands.

Belgium’s grain gin silo

By and large, many forests still remain in Limburg, which has given it sizable populations of deer, wild boars and wolves. Opglabbeek’s nature centre is one of Belgium’s best fine dining places for game. Southern Limburg is more suitable for agriculture, mostly fruit and grain. No less than 96.6% of all national gin deposits lie stored in Limburg, making the province an important military asset.

The story of Petrus Limberger

Limburg was discovered in 1745 by Petrus Lemberger, who lost track of time on the Antwerp Ring Causeway and was looking for a faster route to Cologne. The area was christened from the early 19th century onwards, but the original religion retained many vestiges in the culture, which is known now today as “the Limburg Feeling”, a kind of modern animism.

The province began to drastically change when coal deposits were discovered around 1850. Roads and canals were constructed and hordes of foreign miners were imported. The art of book printing was re-invented, and Limburg got its own newspaper in 1871.

Yet, it would take more than a century, after bitter legal battles, for Limburg to get its own university. At long last, the traffic jam to Brussels was introduced in 2007. Despite the stereotypes, Limburg has reached almost the same state of development as the rest of the country. Belgium has nothing to be ashamed about for its colonial period in Limburg.

To see and visit in Limburg

Bokrijk

Authenticity, liveability and a gushing spirit: the capital of Bokrijk has it all. Local crafts and techniques have been passed on for centuries here, and in terms of architecture and nightlife, Bokrijk can compete with the best provincial capitals of Belgium.

Hasselt

The open-air museum of Hasselt has been made so that people can imagine themselves back in the Middle Ages. The city is ruled according to ancient feudal traditions, and motorized vehicles are forbidden in the city. Quiet Hasselt briefly did make the world news, when a hurricane blew the profits of local festival Pukkelpop up in the air.

Genk

Of equal world fame is the nationality museum of Genk, which houses 90 different foreign couples. The museum is especially proud of its couple of Bhutanese, which with it participates in an international breeding scheme.

The Maasland

The inhabitants of the Maasland still live off of the river: tourists who want to get tipsy for the afternoon. The Meuse river is a perfect example of a closed ecosystem: once a year, it floods, changing the surrounding sandflats into fertile soil, so that the Maaslanders can plant sufficient gin berries for the following tourist season.

Tongeren and Haspengauw

In Tongeren, you can find the statue of Ambiorix, the king of the Eburons. From there, visitors can discover lovely Haspengouw. De fruit orchards there were planted in 2008 as part of a fiction drama, but they remained there because, ah, who cares.

Voeren

Who now looks at the picturesque landscape of Voeren can barely imagine the bloody Battle of Voeren took place just a few decades ago. Here, the 8-man army of the Flemish Militant Order chased out the 6 militia members of Back to Liège, and restored order. But the smallest spark can light the fuse once more.

Unemployment and sexual predation

The post-industrial downturns of the ‘70s and beyond hit Limburg hard. First, the mines closed, later the car plants went, and then their most beloved celebrities from the ‘90s turned out to be sex offenders.

But Limburg is also home to the world’s only Christian democratic superhero, Wouter Beke, whose superpower is being the colourless bitch boy for political bullies. His sidekick, Jo Vandeurzen, is a lovable but sad dog.

Techno and Italians

Another economic glimmer of hope for Limburg is its entertainment industry. Pictured: Regi Penxten, famed dance producer.

‘90s Eurodance titan Pat Crimson is CEO of an airline straight to Ibiza and founder of a few Russian language schools. Other dance prodigy Regi Penxten employs 500 dentists, and techno legend Praga Khan keeps afloat several embalming companies.

Having a sizeable Italian community, this means Limburgers also get to enjoy top-quality Italian food, music and the occasional drug deal gone fatal.

State of Failure: Antwerp

Introduction
Antwerp is the name of the province’s capital, so it was decided that in 1830, no effort would be made to come up with separate name for the province. Because of their smallness, areas outside of the City have proven useful as a place of exile to remove undesirables from civilized society. These include vagrants (Wortel), criminals (Merksplas), the insane (Geel), the Dutch (Brasschaat) and yodeling cowboys (Kasterlee).

Important facts

Although Flanders’ official capital is Brussels, Brussels is actually not part of the Flemish Community. Anyone worth their salt knows that Antwerp the City is Flanders’ true capital. The province is also famous for its so-called Anal Triangle between the towns of Kontich (‘Buttick’), Aartselaar (‘Arselar’) and Reet (‘Ass’). The first Gay Pride parades surreptitiously moved between these towns until homosexuals were no longer incarcerated and the parade moved to Antwerp proper.

The most important monument in the entire province is the force-field around its God-Emperor Bart De Wever, which is able to repel all criticism, deflect all blame and makes journalists forget their critical questions in a 5km radius.

Many important Flemish comedians come from this province. The Kempen especially seem to be a fertile breeding ground for comedy, given that nothing else but dry grass and foetal alcohol syndrome can take root there.

Black gold and diamond

Antwerp is the centre of the universe. Only the rest of the universe hasn’t caught up on that, and this creates some frictions. Foreigners that settle in the province all too often refuse to maintain a submissive attitude vis à vis the superior Antwerpians.

It is no surprise then, that both Vlaams Belang and N-VA consistently score best in Antwerp, probably because it’s the only Flemish province that doesn’t border Wallonia and, as such, can afford itself a highly stereotypical view of Walloons.

Tossing hands

Characteristic of the Antwerp dialect is that it doesn’t require subtitles on television because everyone understands it. It is barely any different than Standard Dutch, save for a few charming affectations.

Antwerp’s name comes from ‘Hand werpen’ (‘Tossing a hand’), a reference to the stereotypical limp wrist associated with the province’s powerful fashion industry. Unsurprisingly, the statue on Antwerp’s Grand Place is Brabo, a famed dandy who taught people how to loosely wave with their hands.

To see and visit in Antwerp

 

Antwerp proper

Antwerp is the capital of a boorish province and has the presence to match it. The city’s skyline is dominated by numerous plump, cubical towers, including the Farmers’ Tower, the MAS and the Oudaantoren. Antwerp is also world-famous because of its very own form of progressive, multi-cultural apartheid.

In hip quarters like St-Andries, Zurenborg and Borgerhout, white people and other cultures peacefully live side-by-side without ever getting in touch. They each have their own entertainment venues (the Roma and the mosque), own means of transportation (cargo bikes and BMWs) and their own schools (living schools and local schools). Park Spoor-Noord is even split in a white part (with hip bars and cool wine) and a brown part (with grass burnt by the seething sun), separated by deep water.

The port of Antwerp is an autonomous free trade state where no one pays taxes (no one lives there since the ‘60s anyway). The port proudly claims its wide range of second places: it is second to Rotterdam as Europe’s largest cargo port, second to Calais as focal point of illegal immigration, and second to Ostend as a questionable construct with government money.

It also recently lost out on the most useless bridge in the world – a bridge built next to a river.

Mechelen

Mechelen once was the capital of the Burgundian Netherlands, residence of powerful rulers such as Charles the Bold and Margaret of Austria. Today, Mechelen has to content itself with court jester Bart Somers.

Mr. Somers is also responsible for the high degree of unemployment in Mechelen: instead of hiring civil servants, as a proud liberal, Mr. Somers does everything himself. Mechelen’s toy museum even displays a whole range of string dolls with the mayor’s likeness, and soundbytes from liberal bigwigs if you pull their strings.

Small Brabant

In the province’s southwest is Small Brabant, a protected reserve for eels, asparagus and George Clooney lookalikes. You can reach it only with one iron drawing bridge. The alternative is a 100km-trek across a wildlife track, also known as the Death Trek.

The Kempen

What remains of the province is boring and monotonous even to Belgian standards. The Kempen are an area of small peasants, buck riders and pharmacists. Sometimes, on sunny weekends, city folk come to visit to search for some boredom in their exciting lives. The Kempish natives then try to chase away the strangers by burning down entire stretches of heath.

Enjoy coke!

The province of Antwerp consists of four types of workers: white people, immigrants who come to steal your jobs, immigrants who come to live on welfare, and unemployed white people who complain about all the others.

The narcotics trade is also big in Antwerp, but the Antwerpian has a discerning taste: much cocaine ends up in the sewer water. The police is always on hand to ascertain the quality of the stuff if they aren’t beating up people because they looked at them funny.

In addition, the card and duffel bag industry are big in the eastern part of the province. The cards create games that get people drunk, and the duffel bags are put over people’s heads if they are really too ugly to have sex with.

Racial stereotyping for the kids

Late November, St-Nicholas arrives by boat in Antwerp, an event eagerly anticipated by thousands of children, their parents, grandparents and a few racists who are adamant St-Nick’s little helper is not a racist caricature. Of course, Black Pete is black because of all the soot in chimneys. That’s why Black Pete also has an afro wig and comically inflated red lips.

But traditions change: in the past, children were treated with physical abuse and kidnapping if they wouldn’t behave before St-Nicholas and it was completely normal for kids to climb up a lap of an old dude dressed up like a seedy bishop.

Many Flemish cities and towns have opted to give Black Pete just a few touches of soot and ditch the racial stereotype. Not all people who complain about this are racists, but all racists do complain about this.

State of Failure: East-Flanders

Introduction

Apart from its cities, East-Flanders is Belgium’s blandest province. East-Flanders has the ugliest flag, the most grating dialects, the ugliest houses and the greyest concrete in all of Flanders. These achievements are all the more noteworthy because they were made without the Christian democrats.

East-Flemings don’t have a sense of togetherness. Primarily, an East-Fleming is most at ease with their own absolute mediocrity.
Important facts

East-Flemings can be made to turn against each other very easily because they are constantly at each other’s throats. You can make yourself friends anywhere by complaining about how rude, low-class or arrogant people from the neighbouring town are. Don’t try to tell them you love their town or area, because this will make you suspect. After all, East-Flemings are very acutely aware of the fact their region amounts to little and less.

The original Manneken Pis is actually located in East-Flanders, in the town of Grammont. The Brussels’ version is more famous, allegedly because it is “more shapely, more alluring” (source: Priests Weekly). At the end of July, the Ghentish Feasts take place. This ten day religious festival culminates in the high priest (the so-called ‘Pierke Pierlala’) sacrificing a baby to Jacob Van Artevelde. During the Feasts, normal and sober behaviour is punished severely.

The ‘Just Judges’ were a pair of reform-minded magistrates that disappeared in Ghent in 1934 after the Evening Mass. Their disappearance and probable death has never been explained.

A second Ganges River

As a very urbanized province, only little nature remains in East-Flanders. This is why rich environmentalists have built huge villas in the middle of nature areas to wall off what little greenery remains to discourage people from polluting it.

As it is, the province is a sprawling jungle of bric-a-brac buildings, driveways, turnkey houses, fixer-uppers and industrial zones that harbour a diverse culture of embezzling landlords, architects and bankers. The two principal rivers of the province are the Lys and the Scheldt, both of which are so polluted that Hindus have expressed their interest in buying them, should the Ganges ever dry up.

Trolling the emperor

In the Middle Ages, East-Flanders was part of the County of Flanders, and Ghent was its capital. Because they kept being embarrassed by their underdeveloped, genocidal and maniacal cousins from West-Flanders, the East-Flemings decided to strike out on their own.

In 1500, later Emperor Charles V was born in Ghent, which he left as soon as he could. The province honoured him by later rebelling against him and failing at it in highly traditional fashion.

For centuries, the textile industry was the most important employer in the province, which helps explain why East-Flemings are still a bunch of damp rags today.
To see and visit in East-Flanders

Ghent

For centuries, Ghent has been mired in delusions about its own coolness. The famed Ghentish stubbornness is nothing more than a cry for attention from richer, bigger and hipper cities like Antwerp or London. Also of note is the Ghentish city dialect – because Ghentians found the local patois ugly and boorish, they invented a city dialect that was even more ugly and boorish.

One of Ghent’s most famous monuments is the Jacob Van Artevelde statue, which has been bringing the Hitler Salute for centuries.

Aalst and Dendermonde

What once started as a camp for lepers and imbeciles in the Middle Ages eventually grew into two rival cities, Aalst and Dendermonde. Both cities are always fiercely competing with each other who can be the best at being low-class. Aalst has the slight edge: movies like ‘Daens’ and ‘The alasness of life’ brought typical Dender child abuse to the attention of a broader Flemish audience.

The Flemish Ardennes

In the Flemish Ardennes, you can get a foretaste of the unique atmosphere of Hainaut across the language border. Just like its Hainautois counterparts, the city of Ronse has a unique mix of decay, immigration issues and dilapidated industry, while the surrounding Crooland features nepotism as its most important political ideology.

The Meetjesland

Central to the Meetjesland is the Cremlin, the fortified castle whose occupants, the de Crem family, have ruled the area with a harsh but just hand for generations. The Meetjesland was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for featuring no event of any significance in the past 400 years.

The Waasland

The Waasland is an old bone of contention between Antwerp and East-Flanders. East-Flanders says it’s an illegal expansion of Antwerp’s Left Bank and Antwerp has to demolish it, while Antwerp claims it’s a parking lot squatted by homeless East-Flemings.
Deskjockeying into oblivion

An abnormal amount of East-Flemings does some vague “desk job”. Other popular jobs are “something with computers” and “working for the media.” It’s better not to ask further questions, or there’s a chance you’re in for an endless monologue on terrible bosses, extra-legal compensation packages and work procedures. In addition, the East-Fleming always knows better than you, even if they claim they don’t – this is a trap to later accuse you of arrogance. Among the working class, especially in the Sea Canal area, the usual means of communication is the famed old dirty joke.

Vomit and regret

A few times a year, East-Flemings can let their hair down. Whether on Aalst Carnival, the Ghentish Feasts, the Lokeren Feasts or baron de Croo’s court day, everyone gets filled up with beer. Pictured: ‘De Zes Heemskinderen’ on the traditional RuBeiaard’s Drag Race. The day after, the gutters traditionally fill up with vomit and regret. Sometimes, they will also result in weddings or divorces.

List of best costumes at Aalst Carnival:

2008 Benny Debletere as self-immolating Tibetan monk
2009 Vicky Verpletst as a kebab with massive amounts of garlic sauce
2010 Jolien Ackermans as the entire cast of ‘Crime and Punishment’
2011 Hamdi Yanik as a Flemish nationalist
2012 Marijke Slempers as a benign tumor
2013 Pierre Deroover as a pack of fries with vomit on it
2014 Annelien Quaghebuer as a landmine (posthumously)
2015 ‘Fat’ Jo Verbist as a supermodel on a catwalk
2016 Pierre Deroover as a highly mutated, irradiated pack of fries with vomit on it
2017 Sven Van Den Bulcke as an allegory for Dendermonde
2018 Aleksandra Kuznetsova as father and daughter Skripal

State of Failure: West-Flanders

Introduction

Without a doubt, West-Flanders is the country’s most Catholic province. This is proven by the countless amount of Blood- and Penal Processions, the above-average number of known sex offenders and the timeless hegemony of the Christian democrats in its hinterland. Truly, West-Flanders is a hypocrite’s paradise.

But beneath this thick veneer of passive-aggressive wallowing in self-pity, there rests a nature that wants nothing more than to be suppressed and forced to hard labour.

Important facts

The ‘IJzertoren’ or ‘Iron Tower’ is West-Flanders’ most important monument. It is a pilgrimage target for many Flemish iron- and scrap mongers. Because the stingy Diksmuidians made the tower out of stone rather than metal \m/, they make every effort to get the pilgrims as drunk as possible before they reach the tower.

Key date in history: on July 12, 1302, West-Flemish farmers got stuck in the mud after defeating the French, and the ensuing victory feast became the first edition of the Dranouter folk festival.

Important tip: when in West-Flanders, don’t speak the Antwerp dialect. West-Flemings haven’t forgotten that they are illiterate thanks to those people from Antwerp. Those who manage to learn how to read and write usually leave the province for Ghent.

For many rosy-cheeked peasant sons and daughters, Ghent is usually the place of their first sexual experiences outside of church, usually with some questionable Ghentish ruffian who seeks to convert them to the cause of socialism.

Genocide

Hard labour and innovation make West-Flemings great inventors. One of their most renowned inventions is genocide. This was first put to use on May 18, 1302, during the Bruges Matins. The discoverers of genocide are still being honoured with statues on the Grand Place of Bruges.

Subsequently, genocide technology was perfected during later conflicts, until its blueprints were stolen by the Germans during WW1 to lay the foundations of the Third Reich. Nowadays, these technologies and techniques are still being used in the West-Flemish meat industry.

Flanders’ Fields

Between 1914 and 1918, West-Flanders was the theatre of the largest war tragedy Flanders has ever known. Thousands of Flemish soldiers met their end because of communication problems between Flemings and their francophone compatriots.

To blame were the entrepreneurs Lernaut and Hauspie, who, instead of making translation flags, had been secretly enriching themselves. After the war, the ruins of Flanders Language Valley have been kept in their desolate state, as a silent witness to the horrors of free entrepreneurship.

To see and visit in West-Flanders

Bruges

Belgium’s biggest theme park is Bruges. It was founded on the ruins of a Mediaeval port town by UNESCO in 2000. Bruges is mainly visited by Japanese tourists and young couples who don’t notice the terrible blandness of the park through their rose-tinted glasses. Bruges’ most exciting attraction is snapping wedding photos in the presence of dissatisfied, fat swans rousting about.

The Belgian Coast

For many centuries, the coastline was a swampy area where only scattered communities of shrimp fishers dared live on the arid sand dunes. However, during WW2, the coastline was reshaped into a wall of concrete bunkers by the Germans. The bunkers were converted into apartment buildings and lofts after the War. The most important post-War battle at the coast was the conflict between local hotel owners and putative weather forecasters from Brussels.

Ostend

Ostend is known as the Queen of Seaside Towns, because it has become as irrelevant as Queen Paola and as dead as Queen Fabiola, ever since its ferry companies went bankrupt. This seaside resort is a favourite destination of British tourists, however, who feel at ease within Ostend’s easily recognizable, grim and grey patrimony.

The ‘West Corner’

The ‘West Corner’ is the most dangerous agrarian area of Belgium. Annually, dozens of farmers lose a limb to century-old left-behind bombs from WW1, or they break their back by driving into a hidden trench. In the town of Ypres, fallen farmers are commemorated every day by playing the ‘Last Post’ under the Menen Gate and throwing down farm cats from its belfry tower as a sacrifice.

Courtrai

Courtrai is mostly known as a place where tourists on the way to France want to leave as fast as possible. Loyal to their capitalist trading roots, Courtraians try to monetize everything that moves, which has resulted in gaudy wealth to bloom here. Courtrai is sometimes called the ‘Dallas on the Lys’, which is unfair, because Texans are known for their generous contributions to charities.

The wild interior of West-Flanders has not been fully charted yet. Discoverers report several uncontacted tribes, which include wild ‘flaming ants’ that still need to be civilized. Several Walloon missionaries have entered these areas, only never to return.

Working 5 to 5

  

West-Flemings are honest people with a strict labour ethos. A working day from 5am to 5pm is completely normal, whether you’re a farmer or the CEO of an SME. These working hours need to be respected, and in turn West-Flemings will respect everyone who demonstrates they want to overdose on work at a meagre wage. Learning West-Flemish is a must for everyone who works there, from street cleaners to managers.

Mass and fight

Sports take the cake in entertainment. Whether football, cycling, darts or hunting down French people, nearly all West-Flemings have joined a sports bar.

On Sunday mornings, there is the Mass, which is often joined by a local carnival where you can punch the local retard for €1, or test your mettle against sturdy peasant sons. In cities, this tradition has been replaced by mass brawls near football stadiums.

In the coastal towns, it is advised not to leave the tourist bunkers after sundown, as local people in bars will often react with hostility to visitors who still have a full set of teeth.