Ceci n'est pas la Belgique
Luc de Heusch
Belgium: sixty kilometers of dunes where the summers were mild and sea was gray or green, never blue (horrid Mediterranean blue, light without imagination). We didn't travel abroad yet. Only rich children did that. north, neither poor nor rich, keen on a North Sea that welcoming rowdy, cold rebellious. loved great movement its tides, with strong smell seaweed mussels. Protected by breakwaters, it surrendered recaptured right at our feet vast expanses dreams. How do you exile yourself from happy childhood? Yes, when vacation time arrived, Flanders, beaches, sweet for Belgian interior, who, drunk salty green horizons, came-if they bourgeoisie-to build castles doomed to magnificent collapse. My homeland: federation fine sand castles, Flemish Walloon fortresses, side side, in make-believe nation, confronting laughed shouts varied accents, covering them immense murmur. This champions-Romain Sylvere Maes-were their way winning three Tours de France. So, all became Belgians against French. I also remember nails (allegedly) thrown somewhere France under tires champions same agitation as Nazi flag saw hoisted over Royal Palace Brussels, few moments earlier black, yellow, red had still waved cruel sky spring 1940. To cure chauvinism, childhood disease, avert patriotism,
Yale French Studies