Persistent Nonviolent Conflict with No Reconciliation: the Flemish and Walloons in Belgium

On December 13, 2006, Belgium’s French-speaking public television network RTBF interrupted its regular programming with breaking news that Flanders had declared its independence, the Belgian state was breaking apart, and the King had left the country for the Congo. Inspired by Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds, a ninety-minute news special followed that touched upon a possibility somewhat less fanciful than an invasion from Mars. CNBC reported it as news. Some foreign embassies sent worried messages back home. Thousands of ordinary Belgians made panicked phone calls. The next morning many Belgian politicians condemned the show as a “bad joke” that might open a Pandora’s Box by making discussable a topic that had long been somewhat taboo—the possible dissolution of the Belgian state because of the persistent conflict between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish.