From the beginning the Vlaams Blok profiled itself as a separatist party whose primary goal was Flemish independence. Barely less important than this stance were it's unashamedly conservative viewpoints with much emphasis for rule of law, traditional (family) values and respect for Flemish language and culture. Another hallmark was its resistance against immigration from Third World countries.It should not come as a surprise that from the get-go the Flemish Bloc was regarded and treated as a pariah in the Belgian political landscape, a condition which in 1989 found its zenith in the installation of a so-called 'cordon sanitaire', an agreement between all other parties to never work together, let alone form a coalition, with the Bloc.
Many critics will point out that the main argument for this 'cordon sanitaire' was the party's 'racist' stance vis-à-vis other ethnicities, and to be sure, in the early days there were indeed a number of unsavoury characters among the top brass, as well as in the lower ranks, who certainly held disreputable views. Personally I think however that the real reason was the Bloc's uncompromising insistence on Flemish independence. Belgium has forever been a strong force pro more European unification, a process that began in the fifties with the creation of the European Community for Coal and Steel and which has culminated in today's EU. A splitup of a key EU state, in many respects itself a mini-EU, would seriously damage the feasability of the continentwide effort to unite European nation states in one political and economical entity.
Despite the Flemish Bloc's isolation, or perhaps just because of it, it achieved a grand breakthrough in 1991, when out of the blue it conquered 12 seats in the Kamer, the lower house of Parliament. Until then it had at the most two seats, but in 1991 the party tripled its votes compared to previous elections in 1987. So shaken was Belgium's PC establishment that key leftist figures and their lackeys in the media dubbed 24 November 1991 'Black Sunday'. Then, in 1992, the Vlaams Blok by means of a young parliamentarian, Filip Dewinter, proposed its 70-point plan, a series of measures aimed at solving many of the problems inherent with unbridled immigration, problems which even then made themselves already felt in many Belgian cities.
Rather prophetically, during his presentation Dewinter stated that with regards to the problems posed by limitless immigration "the West had to choose". The 70-point plan caused a hysterical fit among Belgium's traditional political parties, leading key figures to label the VB as a, you guess it, Nazi party. Which is highly ironic, since to date, some 26 years later... successive governments, neither of which have ever credited the VB for its solutions, have themselves implemented roughly one third of the plan!Throughout the nineties the Bloc continued to grow through successive national, regional and municipal elections. This process was certainly helped by its underdog status, but of no less importance was the emergence of a new leader, Frank Vanhecke, who as president managed to oust unsavoury characters, streamline party structures, and transform the movement to a modern rightwing party which in many respects is undistinguishable from its counterparts in Anglosaxon countries. Indeed, if an unbiased political observer with, say, a Republican background, would have scrutinized the Bloc's programme, he would have been very hard pressed to find even one significant difference with the key goals of his own party - with the exception of the demand for independence of course. But then it can be safely assumed that many European leftist and green parties would have no qualms about placing the GOP itself in a cordon sanitaire too, if they could.
In 2003/2004 the Flemish Bloc was accused of being a racist party, essentially because of the publication of a pamphlet of a minor chapter in northern Flanders which erroneously attributed the vandalization of graves to Moroccans. Excuses from the party chairman himself did not help, nor arguments from a Turkish female (!) VB member. A conviction as a racist party would have meant termination of the party's dotations (in Belgium, political parties are financed by the state), and so the Flemish Bloc changed its name to Flemish Interest.At first, the arrest which was clearly political actually strenghtened the Flemish nationalists. In 2004, the party won a monster score in Flemish regional elections with over 24 per cent of the vote, so that their fraction was the biggest in Flemish Parliament - Flemings do have sympathy for the underdog. But in the following years, the machine began to sputter. And the ten years after the VB's zenith saw a gradual stagnation of the party's appeal, which can be attributed to:
a.) exhaustion among its electorate. Traditional VB voters, who grew tired of voting for a party of which they knew the establishment would never give it a chance, started to vote en masse for a newly emerged Flemish nationalist party, the N-VA (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, or New Flemish Alliance), some kind of VB Lite which strives for organizing Belgium along confederal lines.
b.) the gradual general acceptance of libertine and leftist views regarding many societal issues. In Belgium, as in other countries, the media and the cultural and educational sector have pounded the population so incessantly with typical leftist dadas that, alas, many have now become mainstream and accepted. Examples are gay marriage and adoption, the demise of the traditional family, euthanasia and abortion. To this day however, the Vlaams Belang defines e.g. 'marriage' as a union between a man and a woman, and it absolutely rejects gay adoption. It comes as no surprise then that a majority of young people, who in schools and universities have litterally been indoctrinated with leftist worldviews, regard the VB as totally out of sync with the times.
So here we are, in 2017, with a Vlaams Belang that's 40 years young, and has never held public office, neither in a government, a regional government, a province, or even a municipality. A party that is composed of people like you and me, with completely reasonable and understandable demands, worries, and preoccupations. A party that has had to endure a four decades long barrage of false accusations, dirty epithets, incessant slander, and unjustful exclusion from the political process. Any reasonable person giving so much as a cursory glance to the party's programme would scratch his or her head upon hearing the condemnations of the figureheads of Belgium's so-called 'democratic parties', which one of those regime media outlets, the incongruously named De Standaard newspaper, was so eager to publish this weekend:
* Bart De Wever (N-VA): The N-VA rejects the cordon sanitaire, but does not want to cooperate with Vlaams Belang.
* Wouter Beke (CD&V): ‘I do not negotiate with a party that is fundamentally against human rights. The presence of Filip Dewinter does not make a single difference.’
* John Crombez (SP.A): ‘You don't expect me to explain why I do not want to work together with a racist party? That speaks for itself.’
* Gwendolyn Rutten (Open VLD): ‘For us it is very clear: we are nog going to govern with Vlaams Belang. Not with extreme right and not with extreme left. Our principles are too different [for such a thing to happen - MFBB].’
* Meyrem Almaci (Groen): ‘Vlaams Belang is a racist party and has no respect for human rights. They reject our norms and values. They strive for a divided society full of hatred, we for togetherness and hope.’
I now challenge everyone who still harbors doubts about the VB's democratic content to scrutinize its key publication, Vlaams Belang Magazine, to come up with one, just one, item that proves that Vlaams Belang is the proverbial devil, as aforementioned "gentlemen" and "gentlewomen" would want you to believe. Lecture of this neat, clear magazine, which in every issue thoughtfully addresses grave issues compromising the Belgian state and society's proper functioning itself, will leave the reader shaking his or her head at the completely unfounded hyperbolic accusations.
But damage has certainly been inflicted. As a rather notorious socialist, a certain Dr. Joseph Goebbels, once said, "a lie repeated a hundredfold becomes a truth". It is no surprise then that repeating the same lies for forty years has indeed done serious damage to the way the VB is perceived among especially unwitting and uncritical voters. It has also gravely impaired the party's ability to attract electable politicans and/or capable administrators. In a similar vein we must also mention the shrewd use of language as a weapon by our moral betters, and a very effective one at that, to smear what is essentially a normal democratic party. It is no coincidence that 24 November 1991, the date of the VB's first huge electoral breakthrough, was dubbed 'Black Sunday', a phrase that over time began to lead an own life. Think about it, "Black Sunday". It has the same ominous ring as, say, "Day of Infamy" or "Bloody Sunday". To many a hitherto uninterested citizen (in politics, anyway), surely a party that made gains warranting the use of such a phrase can be up to no good, is it not? The same holds true for the term 'cordon sanitaire'. The choice of words is deliberate. A 'cordon sanitaire', why, that implies that you have to cordon off, contain something, that's... filthy, dirty. Slimy. Smelly. Not hygienic.
Words have power. Mr Goebbels would have been proud.
In 2017, the Vlaams Belang is still standing strong, in the sense that it has a core base of ardent supporters who will never quit. But it barely represents around 8 per cent of Flemish voters anymore. There's no denying that the establishment's dirty tricks haven't missed their effect, although, to be honest, the VB's own stubborn stance on the unattainable (and unpractical) goal of Flemish independence has probably played a greater role in its isolation than many of its leadership would want to admit.
Be that as it may, we normals have to go to war with the weapons we have. In the vessel that's available. As for me personally, the VB is not ideal, but it is the political movement that best suits my needs, and, in my honest opinion, it is the sole party truly grasping the enormous dangers threatening our society.
What is the alternative? Let me give you a stellar example, one of the persons quoted above, namely Wouter Beke, Chairman of the CDV, the "Flemish" "Christian" "Democratic" party. The photo below shows you this cretin during the party's New Year's reception, January 9 of this year. Mr Beke is exhorting his followers to repent, since he is of the opinion that the humanitarian crisis as posed by the colossal "refugee" influx from countries where they actually hate us and our way of life....
... is our fault. Look, just look at this jerk's body language. Look at the gigantic image of the drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi, who died because his own dad failed to provide decent life jackets and should not have attempted the crossing in the first place - let alone that apparently he was a human trafficker himself. Yet here we have Mr Beke, hurling accusations in Frans, Klaas, Barbara and Sofie's faces: "You are responsible!!! This is all your fault!!! We have to put it right!!!". What an insane point of view! The whole of the muslim world is a cesspool of all societal pathologies imaginable, essentially brought about by their gruesome belief system 'islam' itself. But somehow, somewhere, we are responsible, and thus we should welcome millions of barbarians in our midst, cater for them, and have ourselves overrun and killed.
Like all Belgian parties, the CDV has a Youth chapter. It is called, not surprisingly, Jong CDV (CDV-Youths).
It's Chairman is Sammy Mahdi. A muslim.
The screenshot is from a Het Laatste Nieuws article, March 23, 2017. It shows Mr Mahdi around the time he wrote an op-ed with the famous quote "I want the military out of my street. Not tomorrow, today". You see, since the terror attacks on Zaventem International Airport and in the Brussels metro on March 22, 2016, scores of Belgian Army soldiers were deployed in the main cities to guard against terror attacks. After one year, all that camo caused an unbearable strain on Mr Mahdi's nerves so that he publicly went on record to demand that the troops be sent back to their barracks.
At basically the same day his op-ed appeared, 23 March 2017, two troopers patrolling in Antwerp stopped a lunatic who drove his car at high speed over the city's famous shopping street 'De Meir' (this was one day after the terror attack on Westminster Bridge in London). Upon arrest, it appeared that he had weapons in his trunk as well as suspicious liquids. He carried a French passport (and camo clothing). His name? Mohamed R. Although police ultimately failed to prove an intention to carry out a terrorist attack, the madman's behaviour was so suspect that he was held for several months. Which is a scandal actually, because now and then we all drive at 55~60 miles per hour through shopping centers with guns and stuff you can use to make bombs in the back of the car, isn't it?
Anyway, after that PR disaster Mr Mahdi had the good sense to shut up for a while about the Belgian Army being ordered back to the barracks. Mr Mahdi probably figured it was better to lay low for some time.
Just imagine he's got now the attention of a couple more of those darn Flemings. Just suppose that they find out that the next in line for succession at the helm of the "Flemish" "Christian" "Democrats" is a muslim. Just suppose that they find out that before he moved to Vilvoorde last May he used to live in a quaint little commune of Brussels with the cute name of Molenbeek. Just suppose that they find out that 'Sammy' is not really what stands on Mr Mahdi's passport but that it's actually 'Samir'. Why, his country of origin is Iraq! What d'you suppose is more likely, there being a lot of Sammy Davis Jr fans between Tigris and Euphrates, or the people there now and then naming their newborn sons 'Samir' cause it's a household name in those parts?
And Allah forbid, just suppose that they find out what 'Mahdi' means.
Mr Beke, Chairman of the "Flemish" "Christian" "Democrats", does not negotiate "with a party that is fundamentally against human rights", although such an assertion is complete nonsense. But instead, he prefers to let his butt keep the seat warm for a guy named after the prophesied redeemer of islam. And that is no nonsense.
Belgium 2017.
MFBB.
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