I really share the increasing sense of sadness and despair in your recent posts, Eoghan. For those of us who've made Brussels our home for a decent amount of time, these changes to our city (slow at first and then seemingly kicked into overdrive by the pandemic) are really hard to witness. The question I always come back to is: what can we do? I am constantly veering between trying to get involved and signing up to a political party (which one? Which language? Welcoming of later-in-life-Belgians?), and selling up and leaving Belgium altogether. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be all ears.
I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to be such a doomladen start to the year - maybe the weather has something to do with it. I wasn't even going to write about this this week, but sometimes you just have to get it out of you or you'll boil over.
Completely agree. Good to vent! And it's reassuring to see we're not alone in being so alarmed by these scenes of poverty and distress. The real problem will come when we no longer find it shocking or alarming.
Unfortunately there are no easy answers or solutions, and as you rightly put your finger on, often it's community action that gets things done. But community action demands a huge amount from people, and not everyone wants to or can do it
You know I find VOLT to sometimes be a caricature of the expat EU consultant class but If I were you I'd be tempted more and more to vote and even join them as simply non of the traditional parties care about Brussels anymore unless it means filling their pockets via mandates. And given we'll have a regional government that has MR-PS dominating on one side and Groen-N_VA on the other - there is simply no effective opposition that will be able to have a coherent message against this Grand Coalition other than PTB (testimonial Marxist-Leninist-Lin Biaoist party), Team Fouad Ahidar (grifters, political adventurers and social reactionaries) and Vlaams Belang (neo-fascist). Ideally, someone has to get the small parties like VOLT but also the Citizens List, Plan B, Transparencia etc all together and create a joint list. You can be the first by joining VOLT for example and driving the message home that there needs to be an electoral alliance that has at its core people elected representing the interests of Brussels rather than Flanders or Wallonia, or simply themselves. I personally will probably do like many others and either switch off politics or just leave the city. I'm done being angry. I'm at the acceptance phase. This blog though is nice to read, most of it shows the better side of Brussels.
The mistake we all make is to entrust politicians to solve that for us. They won, because they lack the will, or the means, or both. Mostly, they don't care, they're too busy fighting each other for the media's attention.
What we can do is support l'Îlot which is a fantastic association sheltering and providing shelter, care and warm in a very lean and adapted way. You can help either with donations if you don't have time, and/or by volunteering like I did last year by (for example) helping the kids with their homeworks and playing with them (that gives some respite to the parents and the kids will pay you with a lot of emotional reward). The social workers over there are giving their best to help out and it gives them renewed energy when they have volunteers coming to provide extra help.
I really share the increasing sense of sadness and despair in your recent posts, Eoghan. For those of us who've made Brussels our home for a decent amount of time, these changes to our city (slow at first and then seemingly kicked into overdrive by the pandemic) are really hard to witness. The question I always come back to is: what can we do? I am constantly veering between trying to get involved and signing up to a political party (which one? Which language? Welcoming of later-in-life-Belgians?), and selling up and leaving Belgium altogether. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be all ears.
I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to be such a doomladen start to the year - maybe the weather has something to do with it. I wasn't even going to write about this this week, but sometimes you just have to get it out of you or you'll boil over.
Completely agree. Good to vent! And it's reassuring to see we're not alone in being so alarmed by these scenes of poverty and distress. The real problem will come when we no longer find it shocking or alarming.
Unfortunately there are no easy answers or solutions, and as you rightly put your finger on, often it's community action that gets things done. But community action demands a huge amount from people, and not everyone wants to or can do it
You know I find VOLT to sometimes be a caricature of the expat EU consultant class but If I were you I'd be tempted more and more to vote and even join them as simply non of the traditional parties care about Brussels anymore unless it means filling their pockets via mandates. And given we'll have a regional government that has MR-PS dominating on one side and Groen-N_VA on the other - there is simply no effective opposition that will be able to have a coherent message against this Grand Coalition other than PTB (testimonial Marxist-Leninist-Lin Biaoist party), Team Fouad Ahidar (grifters, political adventurers and social reactionaries) and Vlaams Belang (neo-fascist). Ideally, someone has to get the small parties like VOLT but also the Citizens List, Plan B, Transparencia etc all together and create a joint list. You can be the first by joining VOLT for example and driving the message home that there needs to be an electoral alliance that has at its core people elected representing the interests of Brussels rather than Flanders or Wallonia, or simply themselves. I personally will probably do like many others and either switch off politics or just leave the city. I'm done being angry. I'm at the acceptance phase. This blog though is nice to read, most of it shows the better side of Brussels.
Same here. 👂👂
The mistake we all make is to entrust politicians to solve that for us. They won, because they lack the will, or the means, or both. Mostly, they don't care, they're too busy fighting each other for the media's attention.
What we can do is support l'Îlot which is a fantastic association sheltering and providing shelter, care and warm in a very lean and adapted way. You can help either with donations if you don't have time, and/or by volunteering like I did last year by (for example) helping the kids with their homeworks and playing with them (that gives some respite to the parents and the kids will pay you with a lot of emotional reward). The social workers over there are giving their best to help out and it gives them renewed energy when they have volunteers coming to provide extra help.
https://agir.ilot.be/
Such sad but cruelly fitting timing that this is published on the day of yet another shooting on the Brussels metro network (https://www.rtbf.be/article/chasse-a-l-homme-dans-le-metro-de-bruxelles-suite-a-des-coups-de-feu-le-reseau-de-la-stib-fortement-perturbe-11499473).
I know, talk about dramatic irony