Nicole Jansen
10196803
MA Thesis Literary Studies: Comparative Literature
Joost de Bloois
15-06-201
Abstract. This Master’s dissertation tries to gain insight into the constructs of national identity, history and cultural memory. My aim is to show how these discursive practices are intertwined and how they all play their role in the forming of an individual identity. With a theoretical background I will try to analyse how myths around national identities are created and how they work through in popular discourse. Through the analysis of the novel De Helaasheid der Dingen by the Flemish writer Dimitri Verhulst I will show how this discourse is employed in the novel and how myths and images of national identity are used in literature, imagining a shared identity for the people of Flanders. Flanders has proved to be a particular fruitful site for this investigation as national identity has always been problematic in this nation made up of former Dutch and French regions. The issue of national identity is hence all the more pressing, and causes images and discourse to still be consciously employed in the building of a common ground for the Flemish people.
Constructing a National Identity: The Myth of “poor Flanders” in De Helaasheid der Dingen by Dimitri Verhulst
“Ik ben in België geboren, ik ben Belg./ Maar België is nooit geboren in mij”– Leonard Nolens (Nolens n.pag.).These words of the Flemish poet Leonard Nolens in his poem “Plaats en Datum” (“Place and Date”) are illustrative for a lot of the discourse surrounding Belgian
and Flemish identity. A Belgian identity often proves to be an awkward label. But even so unease is it to speak of a Flemish identity. In Belgium, national identity always seems to be a more prominent topic of debate than in its neighboring countries. Here, national identity appears to be more natural and obvious, it is almost never questioned on its premises. The debate on nationality in Belgium is, on the other hand, still very much alive. It plays a major role in politics and is ever recurring when political debates take place. The idea of something always being amiss in being Belgian is a very persisting idea. These thoughts are not new, but have a long history of repetition in the public debate on culture in Belgium. In 1912 a Walloon politician wrote in a letter to the King of Belgium: "Let me tell you the truth, the grand and horrifying truth ... there are no Belgians. . . .No, Majesty, there is not such a thing as a Belgian soul”(van de Craen 25).
These sort of sentiments state there is no Belgian soul and thus no legitimate nation as a consequence of this. As these sort of statements are omnipresent, they appear to be deeply rooted in Belgian discourse on the nation. They are being repeated in different forms, places and times throughout the ages. Additionally, this sort of discourse is not confined to the view of Belgians on their own country, but is also apparent in an example Piet de Craen has given in his study on Belgian memories. This example comprises the writings of Bill Bryson, a British writer who interferes in the debate: "As countries go, Belgium is a curiosity. It's not one nation at all, but two, northern Dutch-speaking Flanders and southern French-speaking Wallonia” (van de Craen 25). The constitution of the Belgian nation-state is depicted as a somewhat artificial and unnatural one. Bryson subverts the idea of a unified nation-state. It is thus even in foreign views on what Belgium is, that we find a similar discourse on Belgium is in the country itself. Bryson also gives a sense of an important topos in the discourse concerning national identity in Belgium: the myth of “poor Flanders”. In the course of this thesis I will expand on the construction and contents of this myth, but for now, let’s say it comprises a general inferiority complex in the experience of a Flemish or Belgian identity.
Again, this discourse is also employed in other countries, in the Netherlands the collection of “domme Belgen moppen” (jokes about silly Belgians) is vast and never out of fashion. This myth of “poor Flanders” assumes a constant dominance of the Flemish people by great foreign powers. Bryson describes this feeling, as well as the divide between Wallonia and Flanders in the Belgian nation-state: “The Flemings can't stand the Walloons and the Walloons can't stand the Flemings, but when you talk to them a little you realize that what holds them together is an even deeper disdain for the French and the Dutch" (van de Craen 25). If there is anything that holds Belgium together, it is thus the resentment of a foreign invasion, so is presumed.
In this thesis I will make use of studies on national identity, cultural memory and historical memory to trace the construction of this sort of discourse. I will explore the dynamics in the building of the nation-state in order to dismantle the assumptions and “truths” this discourse supposes . I will make use of, among others, Tim Endensor’s work on national identity and popular culture and Andreas Huyssen’s work on history, monumentalism and cultural memory. My aim is to investigate the origins and construction of a national identity, with a specific focus on Belgium as a nation with an awkward attitude towards these notions of national identity and the nation as such. I will analyse the presence of this sort of discourse in popular culture through literature. An important reference in this matter will be the book Marc Reynebeau has written on Flemish identity, Het Klauwen van de Leeuw: de Vlaamse identiteit van de 12e tot de 21e eeuw. I will focus my analysis on the work of Flemish writer Dimitri Verhulst and take up two of his works in my investigation. The first work is the novel which resulted in the international break-through of Dimitri Verhulst: De Helaasheid der Dingen. The second work is on its own cover described as a ‘collection of travel stories from a someone who likes to stay at home’. These sketches of Belgium show us the country behind De Helaasheid der Dingen. I will use this work to supplement the analysis of De Helaasheid der Dingen in my investigation of a persistent discourse which could be described best as the
myth of “poor Flanders” . This myth will prove to be very much tenacious in the work of this modern novelist. The myth of “poor Flanders” has been extensively described in the work of Kevin Absillis, scholar on the university of Antwerp. But is to be found back in many othe studies on Flemish identity. I will base most of my findings on this matter on the work of Absillis and will also use his work in my description of the dynamics in the literary climate of Belgium .
Imagining a National identity
The modern concept of a shared national identity goes back to the 19th century project
of building the nation-state. As an ideology nationalism can be traced back to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century (41 Stapleton). Before
the French revolution, the traditional feudal power belonged to the king, who was endowed with a divine power from above. In 1789 this power was transformed into a power of the people, and the legitimization of this power was not divine, but was to be found closer to home: in the community that was politically active (Reynebeau 21).
Formerly, one’s identity was associated with the class you belonged to in society. Nationality played a marginal role in the experience of an individual identity (Reynebeau 22). In the new nation-state a shared nationality would become not only important but absolutely necessary for the very existence of this nation-state. The process of this transformation from a feudal- to a nation-state came quite naturally. The territory that belonged to the old kingdom was an evident entity that was naturally taken over by the new state. The new nation-state wrenched the power from the old kingdom (Reynebeau 24). And because the fight for power had always been about opposing to the values of the old regime (most prominently opposing to the class system in this old society), this new nation-state already initially possessed a cultural core.
In Belgium this process didn’t proceeded in the same manner. Hence, Belgium is often seen as an artificial state made up of different kingdoms and lacking a coherent Belgian history that would justify the unification of the Belgian nation-state. Reynebeau discerns different types of nationalism and differentiates the French model from a romantic nationalism. Whereas the French model was deliberately creating a homogenizing culture to justify its existence, the romantic variant was based on the “Sleeping beauty syndrome”(Reynebeau 30). This concept entails the experience of national culture as rooted in nature and history. It was thus self-evident and only needed to be awoken in order to reclaim its rightful existence. In this romantic view the nation was naturally grown, it was given by god. In contrast to the French nation state after the revolution, it was not made by man (Reynebeau 30). With the French model as an example, other countries thus more and more justified the nation state through a natural and god-given culture which had always been there but just needed to be awoken again. The big difference between these two nationalisms is therefore the fact that the romantic nationalists traced their history back to primordial times and strongly felt that the unification in present days could be derived from this history, whereas the French Revolution was based on a radical break with the past which would justify the reality of the nation-state (Reynebeau 32).
The new nation-state in France wasn’t just political but stood for the clash of two society types, which we could describe as a traditional versus a liberal stance (Reynebeau 25). This resulted in a transfer from an agrarian society to an industrial society. But in order to maintain national unity a communal identity had to be created. This resulted in a strong tendency towards homogenization which would make it seem as though the power of the nation-state was a natural consequence of an age-old national history that was the heritage of every citizen in the country. Marc Reynebeau stated in his book “Het Klauwen van de Leeuw: de Vlaamse identiteit van de 12e tot de 21e eeuw” that the new regime found it’s justification in precisely this universalist principle which stated all citizens stood in equal relationship to
the state. A consequence of this was that every form of particularism was ruled out. Reynebeau even gives the example that regional language were in consequence of this universalist ideal, seen as backward and as a threat to national unity (Reynebeau 27). In Belgium this outlook is still very dominant in the debates around national culture and identity. Language, which is ofcourse an evident sign of national unity is here already splintered. The collective way of communicating and understanding each other is foremost a matter that can be traced back to language. When we read the same news in the same newspaper, or watch the same television shows, it is possible to refer back to a communal framework that makes us feel part of a larger whole. In Belgium the language divide causes a fragmented cultural landscape that isn’t easily overcome. Literature plays a great part in this communal framework, especially before there was radio, internet or TV. Writings were the main medium where people could feel connected to a group of individuals they didn’t know. By reading each other’s writings, and by writing about the nation, people became aware of each other’s existence and their mutual commonality (Reynebeau 39).
But at the same time, the nation-state needs to distinguish itself from other countries to legitimize it’s power. To claim this independence the nation had to prove how it was different from others to give it the right to split off from a larger whole . Reynebeau writes that this sort of nationalism thinks of itself as objective and argues for its independence with objective criteria such as a common language, religion, customs and traditions but also mentality and instinct, and a communal history (Reynebeau 29). The urge to justify the nation-state is often explained trough the loss of former communal frameworks as religion. The change of societies from agricultural to industrial additionally changed the way people lived their lives. It was thus the consequence of political, economical and industrial revolutions that caused an existential insecurity on metaphysical and religious level in these new times. The search for roots offered a good alternative in the wake of modernization.
As Andreas Huyssen insists in his essay “Monumental Seduction” it was precisely this project of modernization that needed the myth of a “post revolutionary bourgeois nation-state” to thrive (Huyssen 200). The search for origins and stability was desired in a world that was constantly evolving and changing at rapid speed. Huyssen states that the discourse on origin in the 19th century was founded in a sort of “transcendental homelessness” , a sense of
not belonging anywhere, which contrasted sharply with the ideal of an integrated, unified civilization (Huyssen 200).
The discourse on roots and the desire to belong resulted in a rewriting of national histories, making ancient monuments the bearers of an authentic and natural national past. Literature, art, and history became the pillars of a shared memory and a shared national identity. It was in these monuments that truth would be crystallized and myths would become part of a common discourse that constructed a coherent national past that would subscribe the natural and evident power of the new established nation-state. Huyssen writes on the danger of monumentalization, but also on the appeal of it:[…] the monument came to guarantee origin and stability as well as depth of time and of space in a rapidly changing world that was experienced as transitory, uprooting, and unstable (Huyssen 200). National identity was soothing and offered a new framework with which people could make sense of their individual place in society. It connected them to the nation and therefore for their place in the world. Benedict Anderson has summarized the arguments from this discussion as follows: “[T]he convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of imagined community, which in its basic morphology set the stage for the modern nation” (Anderson 58).
It is this urge for monumentalism that made it possible to rewrite history, to construct a myth around the nation which explained its rightful existence. Monumentalism in this way justified the building of the nation-state. It held everything within the nation-state together but at the same time it was also a way to differentiate from other countries, testing the self to “the
Other” and in this way creating even more justification for its own existence (Huyssen 200). But, as Huyssen also points out, monumentalism has the danger of claiming the monopoly on what is true. It claims a one-sided view on history where universal and absolute truths must be established in order to monumentalize. Foucault has also warned for these dangers and condemns monumentality as it stands for “ the fascism in us all” (Huyssen 199). Serving political claims on truth and a monopoly over history, monuments are not free to provide for sentimental or aesthetical needs, they always exert a certain power over us. Monuments cannot be challenged or subverted, as they always only represent the status quo. When we look upon literature as a form of monumentalization, crystallizing and fixing ‘truths’, for example the truth of a Belgian national identity, we can easily see the same dynamics at work. In Belgium however, this dynamics is much more ambiguous. The discourse here consists of myths that often problematize the notion of a national identity, but at the same time create a new realm of truth in their own respect, which presumes a Flemish identity. The myth of “poor Flanders” for example problematizes the notion of a unified Belgium but at the same time unites the Flemish in their struggle with the nation.By repetition of the same ideas and images on national identity over time, a discourse with all its assumptions and prejudices is made natural and elevated to the status of an absolute truth.
Madeleine Lee points out in her article on national identity that these ideas finally become inscribed into culture trough this constant endorsement and approval. “The more familiar they become, the more valid they seem”, and hence myths can be created around notions of national identity (Lee 216). These myths do not hold any truth in themselves but have become a separate reality over time due to the naturalization and repetition of such images. This same kind of tendency can be recognized in museums, archives or in the making of a literary canon. They too attempt to disguise their own “perspectivism” , and they also try to “transform history into Nature” (Brockmeier 19).
Jens Brockmeier, scholar on the university of Toronto, writes in his article “Remembering and Forgetting: Narrative as Cultural Memory” about this dynamics. For Brockmeier language represents the “the living archive of numerous layers of meanings” in the present as well as in the past, which are interconnected through language (Brockmeier 25). Narrative, and in particular literature, is crucial in the experience of communal or cultural memory. It is narrative which makes it able to form the human experience of time. By making a logical, cohesive whole from a chaotic and illogical world we are able to grasp and make sense of the world we live in. In Brockmeier’s words: “(…) narrative endows the inherent historicity of human existence with cultural meanings” (Brockmeier 27). Literature then shows how this past is built in, and incorporated in the present. Even though, as we have seen, this building of the nation state has its foundations in the French Revolution, notions of nationhood still were primarily a bourgeois affair. The pressure was high to strengthen the claim to the new “self-determination” of the state (Lee 214). These new national cultures thus provided the masses with an abundance of representations, stories and descriptions. These images of national culture made men and woman able to answer a poignant question: who am I?
But Nations exist only in light of their self-defining strategies where an imagined community is created that recognizes the self and the other as belonging to the same referential framework. Madeleine Lee writes in her article “National identity and it’s construction’ that national identity can be seen as a “particular frame of mind” which creates a reality on its own (213 Lee). We all feel part of a greater whole, so there exists a community. But in reality it lacks any putative authentic or natural origin. Only because we feel part of the same referential framework, we are part of the same referential framework. Lee points out in her article “National identity and its construction: the codification of Flemish identity illustrated through Het Verdriet van Belgie by Hugo Claus” that in the 20th century project of
constructed. The myth of a national identity was unmasked and seen as a pure invention of society (Lee 213). Through this invention there could exist a similar conception of the nation-state to be shared amongst its civilians, creating a shared experience of belonging and creating a framework individuals could identify with. This is what makes it possible to have a shared conception of a national identity which wasn’t necessarily natural or real. The focus of my research will be how these feeling of mutual connection are expressed, and in this way allows for a shared the sense of national identity. Benedict Anderson, who coined the idea of “imagined communities” describes how strong this feeling of comradeship actually can be:
Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people,not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings (Anderson 50).
The Crisis of History and Global belonging
The supporters of nationalism were persuaded that culture, social institutions and ways of life could only be understood as the articulation of a national ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ of a people. This unique character presumably could be deduced from a distinct language, or expressions of art and literature, or the law of a nation. But history was even more so an articulation of this national spirit. “The nation and the people were after all considered to be dynamic entities which developed along the lines of a multiple causal process” (Tollebeek 330). Roots were a particular topic of historical writings. These writings were very amenable to become the justification of political purposes. In particular when it was the nationalism of a people whose state was still very immature, such as the young nation-sate of Belgium. These early national histories sufficed to consolidate and confirm the rise of a new national identity.
Jo Tollebeek describes this process of writing a national history in “Historical Representation and the Nation-State in Romantic Belgium (1830-1850)”:
Their writers had to lend unity, specificity , and continuity to the national past. They had to,as Novalis observed in 1798," organize historical essentials."Their work was less a matter of reconstruction than of construction. It not only required the
exploration of a hitherto unknown field, but first and foremost the resolution of new problems of representation inherent in the writing of "national biographies (Tollebeek 330).
With its perspectivism and selective editing, history thus serves as a legitimate source for the justification of national myths. Cultural memory then is something else. It could be described as “a type of memory that is collectively shared and connected to the formation of a group’s self-image and identity” but what also defines it, is that it takes on the form of narrative, rituals and images. It finds its way into a variety of emblematic forms which includes literature (Hermann 334).
In the book Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory Andreas Huyssen discusses the influence of globalization and history on the modern nation-state. He insists that: “Historical memory today is not what it used to be. It used to mark the relation of a community or a nation to its past, but the boundary between past and present used to be stronger and more stable than it appears to be today” (Huyssen 1). This development is attributable, I think, to globalization. The nation-state finds itself in a changing and integrating world. But as Tim Edensor speculates in the preface to his book National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life: “National identity persists in a globalizing world, and perhaps the nation remains the pre-eminent entity around which identity is shaped” (Endensor VI). Even though the terms of historiography have changed radically, national identity based on history will be too persistent to easily disappear.
For Huyssen, it is mainly the new technologies of communication, transportation and mobility that have caused a drastic change in the experience of history, and thus of national histories. Through modern media and technical reproduction like film, photography, and the internet, the past has become more prominent in the present. Our experience of history thus has changed and has become a larger part of everyday life, more so than it was previously. “As a result, temporal boundaries have weakened just as the experiential dimension of space has shrunk as a result of modern means of transportation and communication”(Huyssen 1). History used to guarantee “the relative stability of the past in its pastness” (Huyssen 1). Traditions shaped everyday life on a cultural and social level. This experience of time and the past has been effective in the West in the last two centuries. It fixed the unstable present in a coherent narrative of historical progress. In contrast to this coherent narrative, memory had always been a place of art. Literature consecrated a national past and heritage and mediated social topics concerning religion, ethnicity and class conflicts within the boundaries of the nation (Huyssen 2). How people felt and were being in the world was thus greatly influenced by a coherent narrative of historical time. But a collective memory is hardly the same as a shared history. Collective memories are thought to be about the past. But they surprisingly enough reflect the present as much as the past (Fineberg and Hirst 93).
In the 19th century nation-state the main goal was to “mobilize and monumentalize
national and universal pasts so as to legitimize and give meaning to the present and to envision the future: culturally, politically, socially” (Huyssen 2). Huyssen states it is this sort of dynamics that can no longer be uphold. He describes the “fundamental disturbance” concerning the presumption that history is objective or holds any absolute or scientific truth (Huyssen 2). I think that in academic circles this consciousness certainly is apparent. But in practice, notions of identity are still closely related to the nation, history and roots. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, mostly known for her work in postcolonial studies, has written a lot about roots, belonging and the role of history in the process of identification. Even though
notions of origin and belonging are contested, the dynamics of this process are still very much in place. By distancing from one’s history, or by incorporating one’s history or to call for one’s roots, we are still referring to the same set of myths, histories and assumptions that ought to make up our identity. Identification still is thus still founded in the same discourse.
No matter what the response to these notions are, we must still react in the terms of this discourse and cannot simply defy it. As Spivak explains in “Acting Bits/Identity Talk”, “The notion of origin is as broad and robust and full of affect as it is imprecise. . . . History slouches in it, ready to comfort and kill” (Spivak 281). Even though we may be aware of the imprecise nature of “roots”, it is still a profound notion in our experience of being in the world. Myths are thus still very much in place, even though they themselves are ever evolving and changing into something else. Tough imprecise, their power is not decreasing.
Even though some will be aware of the fundamental disturbance Huyssen speaks about, we still identify and feel very much part of a larger community that is our nation. Jan Nederveen Pieterse defends a stance that is at first glance very similar. He claims that with the rise of globalization museums become the mere remnants of nostalgia. Citizenship is in the process of becoming global, but as Pieterse also points out, it is becoming regional and local rather than national as well (180 Pieterse). In De Helaasheid der Dingen we see that this discrepancy is in apparent. There exists a certain friction between the local, rural village, and the rest of the country, these entities are so separated that the characters in De Helaasheid der Dingen only feel related to the community in the village. What comes from outside is plainly “foreign”, no matter what it is or where it came from.
For a long time now sociologists have not been reluctant to predict the end of local or national identities, it is thus not a very new topic of discussion. Mike Savage, Gaynor Bagnall and Brian Longhurst write in Globalization and Belonging that even though the sociological debate has changed drastically over time, the debate around attachment to specific places remains. They give a quick overlook through time:
“The early social theorists Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel argued that capitalist modernity shattered the personal bonds of face-to-face community and their concern animated sociological reflection for much of the 20th Century. Yet, despite these
prophetic accounts, many urban sociologists emphasized that community ties could be reconstructed even in a modern, complex world” (Bagnall, Longhurst and Savage 1). Even in present days this debate is still biased and still forms enough substance to remain a point of discussion. Since the 1990s globalization theorists state that “in a world characterized by virtual communication, institutional deregulation, and the movement of capital, information, objects and people at great speed across large distances, social life cannot be seen as firmly located in particular places with clear boundaries” (Bagnall, Longhurst and Savage 1). Identities are thus mobile, transitory and diasporic and can never be fixed permanently. Globalization and Belonging argues: “. . .belonging almost always involves diverse forms of mobility, so that people dwell in and through being at home and away, through the dialectic of routes and roots (Bagnall, Longhurst and Savage 1).
Another scholar on globalization, Timothy Murphy, writes in his article on globalization, post-modernism and literature that in modern times
[T]he notion of distinct national cultural heritages is becoming increasingly untenable as populations with different backgrounds come into prolonged contact, intermarry and exchange cultural values, beliefs and practices. We are approaching a belated and unexpected fulfillment of Goethe's prophecy of Weltliteratur, which Marx and Engels echo in the Communist Manifesto: The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature (Murphy 24-25).
But I think we are not even nearly there yet. As I have pointed out, with Belgium as an example, discourses on national identity and belonging have a long standing. It has left its marks on present discourse and assumptions about identity, culture and literature. Cultural memory, which inspires nationalism, signifies that it can be understood as an individual as well as a communal practice. It links the present to the future but also to the past (Bal VII). The past here is thus continuously edited as it keeps on predicting and forming a future. In this way we can imagine the continuously edited national identity, which is indeed contested on its claims to truth, but still is persistent in its existence. I like how William Hirst sees the dynamics of cultural memory at work:
A salient principle to keep in mind when considering the formation of a collective memory is that, unlike history, memory, even the best of memory, is usually more unreliable and malleable than history. This is true both for individual memories and collective memories, at least as we define collective memories. Following Hirst and Manier (2008), we treat collective memories as shared individual memories that bear on collective identity. Unless they are historians, both individuals in isolation and as part of a community will often remember the past inaccurately and will maintain this false belief even when the ‘facts’ are pointed out to them ( Hirst 88).
Nationality and the myths created around it are often still very much in place and define the art as well as the consumption and market a novel will meet. Striking here, and relevant for my own analysis of Verhulst’s De Helaasheid der Dingen” is the radical breach of locality and cosmopolitanism between the city and the village. Whereas the city implies connection to the world, and a distancing or moving away from roots, for Dimitri the village represents his roots and implies a true, authentic and natural Flemish identity.
Construction of a National identity in Belgium and Flanders: The myth of “poor Flanders”
William Hirst and Ioana Apetroaia Fineberg have written about collective memory in Belgium that:
Although Belgium has had 180 years to establish a unified collective memory, what presently exists is, to use Rosoux and van Ypersele’s words, ‘de facto differentiation or “federalisation” of the so-called “national past”’. If we accept this claim, we will want to know: What happened that led Flemings to come to share similar memories about the past of Flanders and of the Low Countries generally? (Fineberg and Hirst 88).
For Belgium it has proved particularly difficult to create a unified national identity. The creation of a shared myth, the collective feeling of belonging to the same heritage and roots has never been established for the whole of Belgium. There are myths, but they only subscribe a Walloon respectively Flemish identity. I think this can be seen as a direct consequence of the language divide. For Belgium the creating of the nation as a “natural and logical consequence of a supposedly age-old national character” was somewhat more problematic then it had been for other nations (Lee 214). Belgium was often seen as an artificial construct as it had partly belonged to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and was partly inhabited by French and even small German communities (Absillis 269). Writers in both French and Dutch attempted to rewrite history in order to satisfy the national ideal of unity, historical continuity and cultural specificity (Lee 214). This clash between the North and the South remained a problem which can be clearly recognized in the Belgian literary climate. The solution was found in a “selective editing” of history (Lee 215). Lee points out that in the writing of these new histories certain events were highlighted and served as a “leitmotif” and formed a chain of stories that concerned the constant return of foreign domination in the history of Belgium. Lee mentions the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302 and the revolt against Philip II, the 1830 revolution and the Brabant revolution as a few important events
that were glorified and became the “paradigms of Belgian resistance against foreign rule” (Lee 215).
The succession of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch and French rule and later on two German occupations would have a profound influence on the attitude of the Belgian people. A distrust of government authorities and the fear of constant repression were a consequence (Reynebeau 55). Though these were all truthful events, the placing and highlighting in the new histories caused a new image to emerge: the image of a defenseless Belgium which was constantly and involuntary the victim of more dominant and aggressive foreign powers. A myth of subjugation was created that would permeate trough the whole cultural spectrum in Belgium. This myth of foreign repression leans on a specific outlook on history, and has little to do with reality. The Netherlands for example also experienced a range of foreign oppressions but experienced these times not as an injustice, foreign rulers were mostly just accepted. But for Flanders it now was possible to create a coherent sequence of events that would depict the Belgium nation state as the following oppressor which would justify the need for a Flemish separatism (Reynebeau 56)
De omslag van bezetting naar autonomie lijkt daardoor op niets dan zuivere logica te steunen. Het zijn ideeën die, geheel in de romantische traditie, het bestaan veronderstellen van een eeuwenoude, vrijheidslievende , maar door vreemde dwingelanden verknechte en uitgebuite ‘natie’. Wat er eigenlijk gebeurt, is dat daarmee een huidige (deel)staat, vroeger België, vandaag steeds meer Vlaanderen, weer in het verleden word geprojecteerd. Het resultaat daarvan is volstrekt anachronistisch, maar het legitimeert wel contemporaine politieke doelstellingen (Reynebeau 57).
After the constitution of the Belgian nation-state in 1830 this project of building a characteristic and differentiating nation-state became all the more pressing. The apprehension that comes with a Belgian identity can be traced back to a specific problem of the Belgian
nation-state. Antoon van den Braembussche writes in his article on Belgian memory “The Silence of Belgium: Taboo and Trauma in Belgian Memory” that the problem is the differentiation into two linguistic communities. These separated communities make up an artificial nation that is unstable and always in danger of breaking up into its smaller communities. On the one side we have the Dutch speaking Flemish community and on the other hand the French speaking Walloons which have been divided communities ever since the constitution of Belgium as an independent nation (van den Braembussche 35). Though people had a free choice of language, fact was that the intellectuals and the economic elite availed themselves with the French language. Even though there were a range of other dialects and languages spoken in Belgium this seemed to be natural as French had been the language of the elite throughout Europe. But this putative claim on being the only official language was not appreciated and natural to everyone.
The Flemish Movement was resisting the institutionalization of French as dominant and official language in Belgium (Absillis 270). Their ideology imagined Flanders as a sort of microcosm of Belgian identity. Other had taken the Lotharingen empire or Brabant as the foundtation of the nation-state, Flanders was preferred by the Flemish Movement because Flanders had a renowned medieval history, which meant a rich variety of images to rely upon. This strategy of taking Flanders as the representative for Belgian identity allowed a territorial unity as well as a coherent history that could rightfully claim this territory as its own. It also meant a possibility to subvert a French annexation as trough the Dutch language, Flanders could prove the cultural difference with France (Lee 215). It was this concept of Flanders as a microcosm of Belgian identity that “would soon begin to permeate some of the minds of its inhabitants and, under the influence of Romanticist ideas, came to be appropriated by a new emancipator movement: the Flemish Movement” (Lee 215). It was not until 1898 that the Dutch language became fully recognized as an additional ‘official’ language (Fineberg and Hirst 88)
These developments proceeded simultaneously with the economical decline of Flanders which caused the region to fall behind on its other half, Wallonia. As a result of this economic decline, thousands of Flemish workers were forced to move south during this crisis in 1845-1848. All these developments established the myth of “poor Flanders”, in a material as well as a mental sense. The two wars that followed would respond to these sentiments. In World War I the opposition between the Southern and Northern part of Belgium was played out by the German occupier. They propagandized an effective “Flamenpolitik”, which brought some of the members of the Flemish movement to support the German occupation. Together with this foreign power they would have a better change resisting the subjugation by their own nation-state. After the war these members of the Flemish Movement were condemned by their fellow countrymen and Flamingantism was henceforth seen as a threat to national security (Lee 217). This fear was however not very substantial because the Movement was far from a homogeneous organization, it held a wide variety of political and nationalist ideas. In the second World War however, a second collaboration with the Germans would be made. For Hugo Claus the way in which Nazi ideology is “seamlessly grafted onto” an identity assumed by the Flemish masses is characteristic for the status of the wronged underdog of Belgian society (Lee 224). After the world war, literature from Flanders found itself in an existential crisis. The collaboration with the Germans caused a number of intellectuals from Flanders to assimilate even more to Dutch culture. Only in order to distance themselves from a shameful past, they tried to integrate and be associated with Dutch rather than Flemish literature (Absillis 274).
Nowadays Flanders has become the wealthiest of the two regions in Belgium, the industry that had made Wallonia rich in earlier days was for the most part disappearing:
The Flemish now constitute not only a majority, but a rich majority. The wealth of the Francophones has declined. Data from 2007 indicate that the Gross Geographical Product per capita in Flanders was almost 32,000 euros, whereas it was 23,000 euros
in Wallonia. In February 2009, the unemployment rate in Flanders was 6.7 percent and 16.5 percent in Wallonia. . .(Fineberg and Hirst 88)
But still, we find references everywhere to a Flemish sentiment which captures this idea of inferiority and economical and cultural poverty to articulate a collective identity. With the further complication of a language barrier there is a vast gap between the notion of a Belgian nation and the concept of a national identity. The sentiment of inferiority has been articulated in different ways. One word to articulate this sentiment in Flemish is “Kaakslagflamigantisme” which “duidt dus de neiging van ‘de Vlaming’ om zich achtergesteld en niet voldoende serieus genomen te voelen, en om vanuit deze positie te reageren op het vermeende onrecht dat hem wordt aangedaan (Snetselaar). Snetselaar further explains that this mentality is strongly rooted in the history of Flanders. Suppressed by foreign authorities as well as a French elite in their own country, Flanders has developed a sentiment of continuously being inferior (Snetselaar). “Zo meende de 19e-eeuwse Vlaamse schrijver Albrecht Rodenbach al dat de overheid aan “hem die voor het Vlaamsch is… eenen kaakslag geeft” (wellicht ook de oorsprong van het woord kaakslagflamingantisme)””(Sentselaar). A collective identity is thus constructed by placing oneself against “the other” who is always
better, wealthier, dominant and more cultivated.
Kevin Absillis writes for the University of Antwerp:
Precies met de ‘moderniteit’ (o.a. de grootstad, de aanwezigheid van ‘vreemde’ culturen, een democratisch georganiseerde publieke ruimte waar standaardtaal gesproken wordt, technologie,...) blijkt de Vlaming het keer op keer verschrikkelijk lastig te hebben, in die mate zelfs dat we gerust van een complex mogen spreken. Dit complex, dat we . . . als de Vloek van Arm Vlaanderen in het vizier nemen. . . Kunnen we de geschiedenis van deze Vloek ontrafelen, zijn geheimen kraken en zo finaal achterhalen waarom hij zo hardnekkig het beeld van Vlaanderen en de Vlaming blijft bepalen? (Absillis).
Pascale Casanova writes in The World Republic of Letters about the centre and periphery positions of national literatures. She argues that the constitution of a long national history is indispensable in claiming a legitimate literary tradition that is entirely appreciated in the present (Casanova 89-90). To be acknowledged it is necessary for an author to identify with a long national past that will endorse his claim to be part of a legitimate literary tradition. Here we see already the importance of history and cultural memory in literature: it is not only needed aesthetically but is necessary for the reception and status given to literature.
Kevin Absillis, scholar on the University of Antwerp, and specialized in the subject of nation building, writes in his article “From now on we speak civilized Dutch’: the authors of Flanders, the language of the Netherlands, and the readers of A. Manteau” about the struggles of a Belgian publishing house. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of the literary field and his case study on Belgian literature, Absillis describes the literary climate in Belgium from the 19th
century on. For Bourdieu, Belgian literature was mainly a Francophone matter. The main question for Bourdieu was defining Belgian literature as “Belgian literature in French” or “French literature from Belgium” (Absillis 266). The need to identify with the long tradition of French literature is necessary for Bourdieu to lay claim to being a part of a literary field. The question was if we should regard Belgian literature to be part of the French literary field or if we should consider Belgian literature as an independent literary field where French was the general language. Writers felt a strong urge to identify themselves with one of these to claims to a justified literary tradition. In the 19th en 20th century different stances were taken
by Belgian authors. Some felt affiliated with the French literary tradition which had established itself as a tradition with a longstanding history and a high status, others wanted to honor their Belgian roots and identified strongly with the rising literary tradition in Belgium (Absillis 266). This second strategy proved to be particularly problematic as by overtly positioning oneself in the periphery writers risked to be looked upon as “provincial and backward” by authorities in the literary field (Absilllis 266). But this foreignness sometimes
also proved to be advantageous. The exotic quality of a Belgian author was sometimes precisely the reason why their work was appreciated (Absillis 266). Kevin Absillis draws on the writings of Pascale Casanova when he argues that together with an established standard language, literature serve as a foundation for the building of a nation-state (Absillis 267).
According to Casanova it is only after these foundations have proven
to be quite stable that literature can (and will) aspire to its own autonomy. Thus, literature gradually frees itself from political and national constraints. In the course of events, it develops a set of seemingly pure aesthetic laws of operation (Absillis 267).
Drawing on the observations of Absillis, we see that language plays a huge part in the reception of texts. To be appreciated, Belgian authors had to conform to foreign literary norms and conventions. Absillis also points out that Bourdieu and Casanova are overlooking one important group of authors in Belgium: the ones that decided to speak and write in Dutch (Absillis 268).:
It is important to note beforehand that even to this day language is a sore subject in Flanders, not only due to the friction between (parts of) Belgium’s Dutch and French communities, but also because subjugation to the linguistic and literary norms of the Netherlands has at times made it hard for the Flemish to legitimize a cultural identity of their own – despite the fact that this subjugation was a very deliberate move that began within the Flemish cultural elite (Absillis 269)
And even nowadays it is still a wide-spread assumptions that Flanders and the Netherlands should form a literary as well as linguistic unity. These assumptions stand in the way of a critical examination of the inferiority complexes that hide in Flemish literary history (Absillis 269). Netherlands was seen as culturally more developed in contrast to backward Flanders which was seen as an underdeveloped country. Absillis find the explanation for this in the need for cultural emancipation in Flanders.
In their own way Flemish intellectuals valued the image of the Netherlands as a more articulate, cosmopolitan and sophisticated big brother because it could serve as an example to the Fleming in desperate need of cultural emancipation. August
Vermeylen, co-founder of the Flemish literary magazine Van Nu en Straks (‘Of Now and Then’), and leading critic of the Flemish Movement, wrote in 1902: The North has had three ages of continuous prosperity and civilization. Its language stands firm […] But here? Here the Dutch language struggles against a foreign speech […] science and the intellectual life are still to a large extent Frenchified. We strive for a culture of our own that will unite us all […] but this culture we do not yet own. In that respect we can only envy Holland (Absillis 272).
The constant need to conform to dominant and foreign powers caused Belgium to fail in establishing a literary tradition of their own. The French speaking community subjugated to the literary norms of a longstanding literary tradition whereas the Dutch speaking community had to subjugate to literary norms in the Netherlands. In Flanders publishing houses seemed always to be one step behind their Dutch colleagues. The pressure to reform to Dutch language conventions and change their Flemish accent, the pressure to conform to a foreign culture caused a climate in Belgium where it was never believed possible to establish a literary tradition of quality of their own (Absillis 273). In Absillis text we see that these circumstances were all tied together with the building of the nation-state:
“[T]he emergence of Flemish literature was inextricably bound up with the
emancipation of a Flemish nation. In those pioneering days writers were expected to contribute to a Dutch-language Belgian culture, which is to say to the construction of a new national identity. This arguably slowed down the introduction of the more
modern, depoliticized ideas and beliefs about literature that gained momentum in the course of the 19th century in France and also (although probably to a lesser extent) in the Netherlands” (Absillis 273).
What is important here is that a myth is created concerning Flemish identity. The feeling of never belonging, of always having to conform to foreign domination on cultural level brings back a discourse around Flanders which initially was concerned with Flanders material poverty. The image of Flanders as a defenseless country constantly overwhelmed by strong foreign powers aligns with this image of Flanders as a backward country, struggling with modernity and a certain cultural poverty which can never compete with the foreign
established literary traditions. The trope of ‘Poor Flanders’ thus still applies to the discourse on national identity may it first have been a material poverty and now a cultural one. An image of the Fleming as a narrow-minded people became persistent in the discourse on national identity in Flanders, the lack of a standard institutionalized language for Flanders, and the constant need to culturally conform to a foreign nation inspired this (Absillis 273). It resulted in an automatic coupling of Flanders with notions of backwardness and deprivation by the French and Dutch elite alike (Absillis 274). This picture of “poor Flanders” which was culturally dominated by its neighboring countries also
dominated the literary climate in Flanders in a great deal. The cultural inferiority complex caused a lot of writers to struggle and publishers in Flanders to never be able to establish a firm reputation as the
representatives of Flanders high culture. The Netherlands were in this process a guide and example as well an authority to compete with
(Sanders 144). Flemish publishers needed the much bigger market of the Netherlands to survive but to say the least they weren’t always welcomed with open arms.
For the literary world this myth of cultural poverty meant that a lot of writers and publishing houses were not taken very seriously. The peculiar thing is that great Flemish writers such as Louis Paul Boon and Hugo Claus were signed by Dutch publishers and enjoyed great success internationally, but wrote in a very distinct Flemish accent. Their
language wasn’t neutralized or re-written by the Dutch publishers what happened a lot in general. Often writers would be edited until their language conformed to Dutch standards and norms. Every distinct Flemish feature would be ruled out. But in the case of Boon and Claus, their Flemishness never led to accusations of cultural backwardness. Absillis even points out that “Dutch critics at times characterized their language as ‘juicy’ or ‘cute’” but he also points out that this positive appreciation still has “has a patronizing edge to it” (Absillis 277).
De Helaasheid der Dingen and Dinsdagland
In Dimitri Verhulst’s novel De Helaasheid der Dingen the myth of “poor Flanders” percolates through the pages. De Helaasheid der dingen is a modern novel, first printed in 2006, but the discourse on national identity and the myth of “poor Flanders” still prove to be very persistent. The novel describes the semi-biographic childhood of Verhulst, as the writer takes us back to the late 70’s and 80’s and the small village he grew up in. The novel describes the unedifying life in the fictional Flemish village called “Reetveerdegem”, modeled after Nieuwerkerken near Aalst. The novel is written as a collection of short-stories divided into twelve chapters, which have a loose connection to each other. Mainly stories from a short period of time in his youth, to stories of the grown-up Dimitri looking back to his childhood. Through his eyes the mechanisms of culture and identity are laid bare. The interpretation of culture and a subsequent identification or distancing from it show the internalization or the rejection from certain myths of Flemish nationality. I will analyse how the symbolic and thematic use of images of Flemish national identity function and are used in the novel to create a sense of Flemish identity and nostalgia to such an identity.
The little Dimitri grows up amidst his impoverished uncles and father whom all live together in the house of their mother. Their lives have taken a wrong turn and after leaving wives and jobs the four of five sons have moved back in with their mother. The house is a
dump and the “nonkels” spend their days drinking and sleeping. In the first pages of the novel Verhulst already sketches a telling image of the environment he grew up in:
Onze keukenvloer werd ingenomen door emmers die de druppels van het plafond opvingen. Aangenaam waren de avonden waarop wij samen in de zetel luisterden naar de ronde klank van het geplons in de emmers en wij de xylofoonmuziekjes raadden die ons door het kapotte dak werden voorgespeeld. De schaaltjes met rattenvergif werden dagelijks bijgevuld; meer dan wij de indruk hadden deze nesten ongedierte uit moorden kregen we het gevoel uitstekend voor deze beestjes te zorgen (Verhulst 11). Images of inferiority are omnipresent in the novel. Additionally Verhulst couples these ideas of inferiority to an artificial origin of the nation-state. The Belgian nation-state is everything but natural or god-given. If anything, Verhulst is constantly mocking such notions of divine approval or origin numerous passages in Dinsdagland refer to this sentiment.
Waar in hun geschiedenis hebben de oude Belgen de Heer misnoegd, dat hij hen heeft opgescheept met een logge knol?. . . .Prachtige paarden heeft Hij geschapen en hun namen waren navenant, maar de Belg schonk Hij de vleesversie van een plompe parochiekerk, een massief ros dat, voor het gezouten en in gefileerde toestand tussen twee sneden brood verscheen, diepe voren in de velden trok. (Verhulst 111)
And in a passage about the strong religious worship of Maria in Belgium:
Sterker nog: al wat Vlaand’rens grootheid maakt, heeft niet de tapijtindustrie , niet een polyfoon componist of een Vlaamse primitief maar Zij ons gegeven. Het eigenaardige is dat Maria zelf niet wild loopt voor Vlaanderen. . . .Maar als we op Haar reisdagboek mogen afgaan kunnen we vaststellen dat Zij Vlaanderen uitsluitend als doorstroomland gebruikte. Bovendien vond Ze het, als Ze hier dan al eens over de vloer kwam, best wel vermakelijk om onze gezinnen op de proef te stellen.. . .Nee als Maria haar koffers neemt, dan is het tien tegen een naar Frankrijk, waar het zoals genoegzaam geweten goddelijk leven is ( Verhulst 52).
France is represented here as the dominant, god-given nation which is superior to Belgium that keep on being mocked, even by God. The decline of religious belief is according to Verhulst followed by a new religion. Social traditions such as “de Koers van Vlaanderen” are what holds the nation, of at least the Flemish part of this nation together.
De kerken lopen leeg, maar de kansel werd koers en het leed werd aangemoedigd met proper gewassen en gestreken vaandels. Sommige van die vlaggen zijn gesteven met fascistisch gif, zij wapperen niet voor de wedstrijd maar voor de camera, en salueren in de wind voor een land van spruitenteelt en industrieterreinen dat ooit onafhankelijk zal zijn. Le plat pays, mais pas le mien (Verhulst 94).
Another tradition in Dinsdagland that holds the people together is carnaval. Social roles here can be subverted, now it’s the common people that rule and can ventilate the stress and irritation they experience in human life. The programmatical components of
Flamingantism are, at least for a Flemish readership, clearly codified into culture is
capitalized upon . . . Even de most tenuous association with the Flemish movement, based on a folklore Flemish past, acquires a larger symbolic value, and can serve as a pars pro toto for an entire value system. Bourgeois tastes in interior design are a prime example of this. These ghastly interiors typify the belief in an intrinsic “Flemish character” as a bourgeois agenda, and stress the pathos and anachronism of its expressions “ (Lee 221). Through this age-old tradition medieval Flanders is evoked the set of images it evokes make up a sense of national unity and singularity. The differences that normally occur in society are polarized into binary juxtapositions. The own national culture from the past is the desired norm, and makes it possible for the Flemish to distinguish from other and thus identify with their own. This Bakthinian interpretation of such a folkloristic tradition, where laughter and subversion are an alternative to normal life has an atmosphere that is also apparent in De Helaasheid der
Though he describes in De Helaasheid der Dingen a miserable youth, his all-round irony and humor give his observations a somewhat ambiguous taste to it. The irony and humor he describes this miserable house with shows a hidden sense of nostalgic and love for his youth and family. Reetveerdegem is a place one must escape, a place that dooms you to a life of laziness and lose of purpose. A life that will make you superfluous. But at the same time there was a certain solidarity in this communal misery, a belonging that Verhulst nostalgically seems to long back for. There is a certain sense of freedom, of being outside of society and not living by the norms this unjustified nation-state implores on them. There is a certain pride to be part of the Verhulst family exists which celebrates recklessness, poverty and mistrust of authority. The Verhulst family was poor, but stuck together in this experience and were not ashamed of this: “Wij waren arm, altijd geweest, maar droegen onze armoe met trots. Dat iemand zijn luxueuze auto voor onze deur plaatste ervoeren wij als een vernedering, en we schaamden ons bij de gedachte dat iemand van het dorp zou hebben gezien dat een Verhulst het financieel behoorlijk stelde” (Verhulst 10). The celebration of this underdog status in society almost takes on an epic quality. The marginal Verhulsten are posed in conflict with the established, petty bourgeois centre. This marginal status is often directly coupled with a socialist ideology, with the rule of the people, the power of the nation as a state of the common people:
En de levensgevaarlijke rotte en met paddenstoelen overgroeide trap boven het keldergat werd gekoesterd als architectuur van het proletariaat. Mijn vader was een socialist en stelde alles in het werk om als dusdanig te worden erkend. Bezit schakelde hij gelijk aan extra afstofwerk. Bezit bezat jou, nooit omgekeerd. Dreigden wij door onvoorziene spaarzaamheid het einde van de maand te halen met een financieel
overschot, dan haalde hij de bankrekening leeg en zoop hij zijn volledige loon erdoor om ons te beschermen tegen de verleidingen van het kapitalisme (Verhulst 11).
This balance between tragedy and hilarity, between non-sense and sense makes for a novel which captures an ode as well as a condemnation of Verhulst’s youth. The shameless drinking, the singing of obscene songs are the consequences of a social impotence, an incapacity to live life. The Verhulst family is defenseless towards their faith. They seem destined to unhappiness, and have accepted their faith. From all facets of their lives speaks fatalism. They are as the Belgian state, defenseless towards its faith of domination by foreign powers. The Verhulsten just take life as it comes, there is nothing they can do about it. They can do nothing about losing their job, nothing about losing their wives and children, nothing to stop the bailiff from taking their TV. Injustice is being done, and all they seem to be able to do is just accept it and move on. When aunt Rosie is being taken back by her abusive husband the uncles just watch motionless but dreadfully:
We waren allemaal vervuld van medelijden toen oncle Robert kort nadien zijn vrouw in de wagen zegde dochter op de achterbank liet plaatsnemen. Maar wij hadden ons niet te moeien met het huishouden van een ander en lieten het betijen, met jeuk in de handen (Verhulst 29).
One of the most poetic sentences from the novel is “God schiep de dag en wij sleepten ons er doorheen “ (Verhulst 42). These passages show a general attitude towards life which is fatal and cannot be changed. All is described with a bravado which creates a myth around this little village in “poor Flanders”. Poverty seems primarily to be a material poverty. But through the book this material poverty becomes cultivated and is a prominent feature in the identity forming of the individuals, as we have seen, it is something to be proud of. Everything that is remotely seen as bourgeois or pretentious is condemned and looked down upon.
In De Helaasheid der Dingen the city is seen as this bourgeois, modern place whereas the small villages are the containers of the “real” Flemish identity, where old-fashioned customs and ways of life are preferred to a modern cosmopolitan life in the city. The real Flanders, the Flanders of the people cannot be found in the city. Tim Edensor has studied this spatial dimension of identification with the nation in his book National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. In his study this juxtaposition of the city and the rural stands for an alienation of roots versus the return to them. He writes: “Nations possess, then, what Short has termed ‘national landscape ideologies charged with affective and symbolic meaning. So ideologically charged are they, that they are apt to act upon our sense of belonging so that to dwell within them, even if for a short time, can be to achieve a kind of national self-realization, to return to ‘our’ roots where the self, freed from its inauthentic – usually urban – existence, is re-authenticated” (Edensor 40).
In Verhulst this authentic quality indeed stand in sharp contract with the petty minded urban citizen that is no longer in contact with his roots. The rural stands for a return, not only to roots but to the real authentic self that identifies and is constructed through these roots. This discourse is very much a romantic one, the “gesellschaft” of the city is a separate realm and contrasts sharply with the romantic rural “gemeinschaft” (Edensor 40). Endensor points out that this discourse is foremost prominent in European nations where the locality of the nation stands for a justification of the nation, it is the place from which we have sprung, and where the core of the national spirit emerges. This rural locality is most prominently the place where myths can reside, it evokes the sense of a locality which has a “class of forebears, the peasants, yeoman or pioneers who battled against, tamed and were nurtured by these natural realms (Edensor 40).
The dynamic process of identity forming is in consequence a major theme in the novel. Verhulst is caught between this old world of rural and “poor Flanders” which stands in sharp contrast to the world outside the village. These localities play a great role in his identity
forming and in his growing up. He is only able to grow up because he leaves the suffocating milieu of his childhood house. Even though the city as such is never explicitly shown, cosmopolitanism, and expansive globalization sneakily ooze trough the streets of Reetveerdegem. It is the cosmopolitan Dimitri that looks back with nostalgia to his childhood, even though it was miserable, it was authentic and real. Reetveerdegem is the last remnant of old Flanders which is gradually disappearing. The grown-up Dimitri that has moved away from his roots is representative for this new world. He now condems the situation he grew up in. He now lives in a whole other world. The myths of his childhood are unmasked. He is not destined to misery, he can be happy and live a good life. He can have a nice girlfriend. But only by moving away has he been able to look further than these myths of fatalism and the subsequent material and cultural poverty. He had to move away from his former identity, literally as well as figuratively.
And when he lives outside the village, he is automatically no longer part of the brotherhood in the Verhulst family. His estrangement from this former self is most notably in the following passage where Verhulst returns to his village as a grown man, to look up his uncles who he hasn’t seen or been in contact with in a really long time.
Ik ben allang geen meer van hen , het bewijs is dat ze ook tegen mij iets gaan praten zijn dat zou moeten doorgaan voor algemeen Nederlands, net zoals ze tegen mijn zoon praten. Terwijl ik weet hoe bekakt ze dat vinden. Ik spreek mijn oude dialect niet meer. Heel af en toe begin ik het spontaan te spreken, als ik woedend ben, of dronken. Weinig dus. Enorm weinig. Ik ben geen meer van hen maar zou het willen, om mijn loyaliteit te tonen, of mijn liefde, hoe men die gevoelens ook noemen moet (Verhulst 199).
Language here proves again to be the most indicative characteristic for the alienation Verhulst feels regarding his family. It divides them, shows them his loyalty now lies somewhere else. It shows them he is now part of another group. Throughout the novel language is always the
sign of a separation between social groups. It shows the disdain and alienation the Verhulst family feels towards institutions and authorities. When one of Dimitri’s uncles has a car crash as a consequence of drunk driving after the contest in “het wereld record zuipen”, this discrepancy between the inhabitants of this Flemish village and the authorities becomes excruciatingly clear. When Dimitri’s grandmother opens the door for a police officer who tries to bring the terrible news that uncle Herman is in a coma she says to him:
Ik weet wel dat al mijn zonen, dus ook onze Herman, soms in verschrikkelijke toestanden thuiskomen ’s nachts. U had de toestand eens moeten zien waarin onze Pierre gisteren verkeerde. Maar daar een naam op opplakken kan ik niet. Comateus of welk woord gebruikte gij? Awel, ik kan mij daar iets bij voorstellen, bij een comateuze toestand. Dat komt hier alle dagen voor, ik heb alles al gezien. Maar als ge zo vriendelijk zoudt willen zijn om mensentaal te spreken! (Verhulst 52).
The officer replies: “Comateus is een wetenschappelijke term, mevrouw. Het wil zeggen dat je niet dood bent, maar dat je ook niet meer leeft. . . .”(Verhulst 52). But grandma discards this explanation “Comateuze toestand, mijn voeten. Wetenschappelijke term, mijn voeten. Een mens moet wat horen in zijn leven” (Verhulst 52). Language thus shows the eventual alienation between Dimitri and his family as well as the alienation between social groups in Flanders. It is a means of identification to an ‘imagined community” which poses a Flemish dialect against scientific language, against a language used by Flemish authorities. When the uncles and Dimitri visit a couple from Iran to watch Roy Orbinson live on TV, the importance of language is fore grounded again:
‘Welkom, ‘ zei de man. Nu begrepen wij wel wat dat betekende, welkom, maar het was een woord dat toch vooral gebruikt werd in boeken en films. Van die films waren we zeker. Feit was dat we zelf dat woord nog nooit hadden uitgesproken, en dat we het nog niemand hadden horen uitspreken. . . .
Het enige probleem waar we nu mee zaten opgescheept was onze taal. Die mensen praatten nog maar net een mondje Nederlands, in zekere zin beter dan wijzelf. Hun Nederlands was proper. Om niet te zeggen: Hollands. (Verhulst 80-81).
These foreigners and the Verhulsten are seperated through their use of language. But what is most striking in this passage is the implicit status that is given to the Dutch language. The foreigners speak better Dutch then the Verhulsten. The Dutch language is here being proposed as better, more “proper” and still of higher status than a regional Flemish accent. To integrate in Belgium, it is still the Dutch language that needs to be learned. Flemish dialect is backward and old-fashioned. In consequence, it is not the Iranian couple that is searching for words. But it is the uncles and Dimitri that need to appropriate their language in order to communicate. Dutch is still superior and therefore the uncles limit their sentences to a few words: “‘Jij Roy Orbison kennen?’ vroeg onze Herman” (Verhulst 81).
Another representation of identification can be found in the environment Verhulst describes in his novel. In the village there lives an old and horrible lady called Palmier.
Maar Palmier mocht niet sterven, dat was de lastigheid. Haar gronden zouden in de greep vallen van harde makelaars die haar hele goed zouden verkavelen en deze gronden zouden aanbieden op de markt van smakeloze villa’s.
Wij hadden de praalzucht al gemerkt van de inwijkelingen, die de voorlaatste gronden van de Kerkveldweg al hadden opgekocht: ze plaatsten protserige brievenbussen met stenen cherubijntjes in hun voortuin, en gaven hun bakstenen bunkers namen die ze vervolgens in gietijzer goten en aan de gevel hingen (Verhulst 34).
But as we learn later on, the critique on this concrete village has nothing to do with the petty-mindedness of its inhabitants. It has nothing to do with the gaudiness of the tasteless villa’s, or how they will fit in with the landscape. Rather, the visual is here a means of expression for an unwanted identity (de Haan 21). These villas stand for something else: they are a rejection of the local culture and morals. They signify denunciation. Locals associate these objects as
