There's no revolution in Belgium. Really

Suddenly and shockingly, Belgium came to an end. State television broke into regular programming late Wednesday with an urgent bulletin: The Dutch-speaking half of the country had declared independence and the king and queen had fled. Grainy pictures from the military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane. Only after a half hour did the station flash the message: "This is fiction." It was too late. Many Belgians had already fallen for the hoax.

Let me tell you a secret. Most of you won't know it, but I lived in the Netherlands, before I moved to Bangkok a long, long time ago. And as such I know Belgium and it's people very well. When the Dutch are making jokes about stupid people, the Belgians are the ones who are depicted as being stupid. OK, they don't speak perfect Dutch, it's a weird accent, and I'm not so sure if they would be welcomed back to the Netherlands, but I really never concidered them to be stupid. That was, until now.

Staging a fake revolution is a very dangerous thing to do. You never know who believes it, and jumps on the band wagon, killing people along the way. Insulting your royal family by saying that they have abandoned their country and people at the first signs of trouble, is unforgivable.

For those who don't know what the situation is in Belgium: the Northern part of the country speaks Flamish, a language which is very closely related to Dutch. The Southern part of the country speaks French. And those 2 groups of people have had their problems together for a long, long time. Nothing serious. No killings, no torture. No, but they ignore each other if possible. Occasionaly the tension between the 2 groups flares up again.

In this case, the TV station made this hoax up to start a discussion. I can only say: this was in very bad taste, there would have been a million different possibilities to start this discussion if that is what they wanted. I for one, do not encourage people to act as stupid as the Belgians did on this occasion, specifically because it is very close to my home, and you never may know what the fallout is from a stunt like this.

But as usual, I don't care what you do, as long as you don't forget: Love a soldier. Love, Jenifer Bloom. bloomjenifer@yahoo.co.uk