Our teacher Anna suggested that I uploaded the composition I made for school about a documentary which explained the political and economical situation of Belgium.
Here it is:
The documentary Això no funciona, o potser sí? (This does not work, or maybe it does?), broadcasted on February 2012 by the Catalan public
television, TV3, and directed by M. Dolors Genovès aims to show its audience
different points of view about the political-economical situation of Belgium
and how can it be compared to Catalonia’s own case.
This documental explains how the state of Belgium is organized.
In present days it is divided into three federal states which are Wallonia,
Flanders and the metropolitan area of the capital, Brussels. People of
different cultures live in the country. The Walloons, the Flemish and the German-speaking
minority plus the many immigrants of outside Belgium (as much as 50% of the
population) inhabit there.
Because of their differences in language and culture, Flemish (the majority)
and Walloons have had many discrepancies, some of which worryingly violent.
Some regions have more economical problems than others. After the people of Wallonia
lost their Walloon culture in favor of the French, their industry developed but
in 1960 they lost a lot of money and the factories had to close. One of the reasons
was the independence of Congo, which had been given to the king of the Belgians
during the division of Africa into colonies. Since then, the richest part of
Belgium has been Flanders, the federal state which offers more facilities and
subsidies in studies, medicine, lack of employment, maternity or old age. Many
Flemish people want to change the present situation in order to organize more
of their own government and infrastructures themselves. Others claim that they should completely part
from Belgium and be an independent state instead.
The German-speaking people affirm that they are the only ones who feel
Belgians. They are a very catholic and monarchy-supportive community and they
aim for the right to have a federal state such as the other two cultures of
Belgium, which both have a federal state of their own and share the
metropolitan area of Brussels.
Això no funciona, o potser sí?, mentions a really curious happening which illustrates
perfectly that the Walloons disregard the Flemish (also vice versa). What
happened was that the Walloon TV broadcasted a fake news program where they
announced that Flanders had declared its independence and they did not belong
to Belgium anymore. People believed the story and felt really worried about it,
that part of the country fell into chaos for two days. But, if they had only
turn on their TVs to check the Flemish channel they would have realized that
they had been fooled. This fact was really surprising for me and I believe
Belgians made some meditation about it even though the situation is still quite
the same, as the documentary shows.
About the documentary, I have to say it has some
interesting points, as I have explained above but I think it is too long for
the information it gives. It is very difficult to pay attention from start to
end.
In conclusion, I would recommend watching a selection of scenes from Això no funciona, o potser sí? if you
are interested in the topic.
