It's about culture in the end. In its escalating dysfunction Belgium demonstrates the inextricable link between culture and nationhood.
The article quotes Belgian historian Els Witte:
A language is a culture. In Belgium the two cultures know very little about each other because they speak different languages. There are singers known in one part, not in the other. Television is different, newspapers, books.
How serious is the problem in Belgium?
Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme offered to resign last month, saying that the "federal consensus model has reached its limits," and that he couldn't bring harmony to the country's Flemish and French-speaking regions, raising the specter that this nation of 10.4 million might split up for good.
It sounds like Canada. We need to have all U.S. residents speak English in order to avoid this separatism.
