* without a full federal government. As you saw in he video local governments have a lot of power. Plus when people say "no government" the old government is still in charge ntill the new one is formed. Their power is just limited it's a "care takers government". That means the are stll able to do the typical government stuff, except, they aren't allowed to changed things up, I guess.
We in Belgium have a big sence of humor because the politicians are one big joke. Mayonaise is good with almost every dish XD Some stuff is confusing but we are used to it.
for belgian people it's normal !!! But think about this: we are with 11M people, and we have 9 different governments!!! And YES, fries come from Belgium, they were discovered by American soldiers during WW1 in the Walloon part of Belgium These soldiers brought them to the US and since they believed that french speakers are from France, they called it french fries, but it's actually Belgian fries. We even have an original recipe that's very old (and it was carbon-date checked) which describes cooking fries in tailfat from oxes. It's actually how we still cook fries here in belgium, first fry them at 140°C till the fries start to chirp, then let the fries "sweat" out for 45 min, then fry them a second time, now at 180°C and when they start chirping again the fries are ready! (the chirping of fries is a distinct sound, if you listen closely you'll learn it very fast and never forget it) That's belgian fries for u sir!
Yes and when they have a beautiful golden color then they are perfect & crispy on the outside & soft on the inside Mmm frit met stoofvleessaus & zoete mayonnaise 🤤
About the Congo stuff, when they were occupied, they were originally the king's possession, so he could do whatever he wanted with it. He did indeed enslave a lot of people, to work in mines or build railways. When one of them behaved badly, they lost one of their hands. So, yeah there is reason for not so happy nostalgic feelings
Congo was the personal posession of King leopold 2 (1835-1909). He was a monster to the people of Congo and to his own family He gave Congo to Belgium in 1908. Congo became independent in 1960.
Yes, fries were indeed invented in Belgium. There's confusion about this because during the war Americans got to know the dish here (in the French speaking part of our country) and because the people over there spoke French, the Americans thought it was France. Buttttttt in recent times, the 'French' fries actually refers to the way they are cut. The fries you get at like McDonalds or something are 'French fries', while 'Belgian fries' are cut way thicker. You can Google the fries and the story as well :)
Fun fact : the fries that are made for mcdonalds, domino’s, and kfc across the world are made in Belgium by a Belgian company called farmfrites, my mother works there
Waffles aren’t even that big of a deal to us belgians. I mean we make good ones but they’re mostly a tourist thing. Also, even most French people will agree that fries are from Belgium. They are very much part of our cultural identity, along with beer :p you can find what we call a ‘frituur’ on almost every corner, where they only make fries and fried snacks. Mayonnaise on fries is super normal and delicious. As for the government, we all do think it’s insane and complicated…
Not much mention of Belgian beer which is really good. As a visitor non of the political stuff is very visible. It’s a beautiful country with some very pretty towns and cities and the people always seem pretty chilled and open particularly compared to the French.
beer 100% agreed, BUT since the belgian company AB-inBev is the biggest beer company in the world (also owns things like the american Budweiser and the mexican Corona beer) its so difficult to get to drink any non-belgian beer.
And the previous country that had the world record of not having a government was ... Belgium. We made it a bit harder in case someone realy must have that title ... (no worries at the same time the 5 other governments were in seat)
As said before by Frahamen: * without a full federal government. As you saw in he video local governments have a lot of power. Plus when people say "no government" the old government is still in charge ntill the new one is formed. Their power is just limited it's a "care takers government". That means the are stll able to do the typical government stuff, except, they aren't allowed to changed things up,
In Belgium, we have a proverb which says: if someone explains to you how Belgium works, and you tell them that you understood, it is certainly because they explained it to you badly.
the sauce with the mussles isnt actually mayonnaise although we love our mayo with fries. It's called "muscle sauce", a combination of mayo with mustard and some mussel broth. Btw, I think we are champion in having a multitude of sauces that we eat with our fries, we are proud of our "fries shops" (only sells fries and snacks) and you can choose between 15-2 different sauces. Also we have like 7 governments but only 6 are active (don't ask) and we are also 1 of the best countries in the world if you like paying taxes.
Almost everyone in Europe can speak at least two languages (the first foreign language would be English in most of the countries) and many are able to have a simple conversation in up to three to five languages :)
As a Flemish Belgian, I 'll give it a try a explain a few things. First of al Belgium is a constitunial monarchy and that's the reason why the king has no crown. He is sworn in in the parlement and does a oath there when he becomes a king (like the president does when he becomes president). A King who's crowned gets is power from God or did so in the past, in the most cases, it's a tradition from early days, but Belgium is a relative young country, so that tradition didn't exist. In 1830 we had a very liberal constitution for that time period and the German prince that became our first king (Leopold I) wasn't to happy about that. On to the difficult political structure. The King is the head of state, leader of the army (officialy a four star general) and has some function when the federal goverment is formed. Belgium has on paper 7 parliaments but defacto 6: The federal parliament The Flemish parliament The Waloon parliament The Brussels capitol region parliament The French community parliament The German community parliament The Flemish community parliament Because there is no other community living in the Flemish region, the Flemish parliament and the Flemisj community parliament, became one parliament, the Flemish parliament. The federal parliament and goverment is responsible for: foreing affairs, economics, pensions, social securitiy and public health, finance and economics, justice and defence (more or less, it's a little bit more complex then that) The regions are responsible for non cultural things like: environment, traffic, work, ... . Things that are territorial. The communities are responsible for cultural things like: education, culture, sports, youth, ... . Things that are influenced by language. Sometimes there are discussion over witch goverment is responsible for what, like economics and work does have some resembling issues. So we have standard procedures, to solve conflicts about that. The world didn't understand how we kept functioning as a country without a federal goverment for 541 days, like you see, it was just one of our 6 goverments. Any more questions about Belgium, feel free to ask. Friendly greetings, Nick
Another thing about functionning without government. We had one. It just wasn't allowed to start new projects. They still opperate on urgent matters , mainly international matters. It's the legislative projects side that grinds to a halt.
@@irissupercoolsy no he said "de facto 6" meaning there are 7, but in practice there are 6. That's wrong because there are literally 6 governments, there isn't a 7th one
Our first king was a "german" prince (Saxen-Coburg) who was the widow of the princess of Wales and remarried the daughter of the French king, so perfect for our neigbours, except the Netherlands ! The only problem, he was not catholic but he learn to compromise.
the first "french fries" was in 1680 where the locals were particularly fond of fried fish when the river froze over a cold winter people osensibly fried potatoes instead of small fish in the shape of a fish and the first fry was born then it became an adiction and BOOM
Jean-Claude Van Damme originally came from my hometown Knokke. I now live in Blankenberge. For work-related purposes I once met his parents and they are extremely kind and humble people.
Well the Belgian king owned the congo personally instead of it being owned by the country of belgium for quite some time. This caused a rather extreme approach to managing the local economy which can be summed up as this: If you don't farm enough of the materials and goods we want you to gather a portion of your town's population gets their hands chopped off.
The chopped off hands came from the militia that had to shoot every bullet on target with as proof the hand of the person, but because they didn't alwayt hit the target they had to get a hand form someone else.
It was called the Rubber Terror (more like a genocide, actually). I'm not so sure the Congolese resent Belgium all that much, for most it's water under the bridge. Also, the country became kind of a hellhole once the Belgians left, with civil wars and other problems.
@UCoAketYorSEbfB3e6lEPhjA we???? My grandparents always worked hard for what they had. The King did those horrible things in Congo. Go somewhere else with your missplaced sense of guilt.
I'm Belgian, and our country doesn't make sense in a lot of ways. Maybe that's why Belgium is considered by many to be the cradle of the surrealist art stream. But we make it work. While the rest of Europe falls apart through world wars and international treaties, somehow we stick together, even with political forces inside our country trying to push us apart. I think the best explanation is that Belgium is too complicated to split. Like a puzzle too complicated to unravel, so we might as well keep it together and try to perfect the picture, even though perfection is impossible with all the cracks between the pieces... Where would we go anyway, without Belgium? Join France, Germany, the Netherlands or the UK? Nah, we'll be fine on our complicated own. Teaching the world a lesson in diplomacy.
I spent a year in southern Belgium. Pom Frittes (fries) are awesome. Mayo or sauce Andalouse on the fries. Best beer in the world. The people are super nice.
Some corrections from a Belgian: - Belgium isn’t any more of an artificial country than the other European nations. But because some think that language defines whether or not a country is “artificial”, they hink that. But what is now Belgium has had quite a long shared history: in the Roman times it was a Roman province and the name for the Gallo-Germanic tribes living there was Belgae (hence the name Belgium), the Frankish Empire started in what is now Belgium and would quickly take over most of Western Europe, the Burgundian dukes united most of what is now Belgium under their rule and even tried to introduce a centralised government and monetary system, for less than a year you had United States of Belgium (a confederarcy) and finally you had the Belgian Revolution in 1830 which gave birth to Belgium. - The linguistic communities where actually first and the regions were introduced latter. We Belgians are known to build add-ons to our houses and we did the same with our government. - Belgian cuisine is actually one of the things that all Belgians have in common: you can find a fries stand in even the smallest of towns.
France: I WANT CONGO Germany: I WANT IT Leopald II: why dont you give it to me? France Germany: sure, Congo goes to Belgium Leopold II: Nah nah nah, Congo is my own property now not belgium's Rest of europe: O shi!t we messed up. Long story short Belgian killed amutaded limbs and other things from the congonees if they didnt wanted to work for Leopold.
12:19 it’s a Belgian dish. The french in french fries comes for a term of how it’s been chopped. The mayonaise for mussels is seasoned differently, it’s to amplify the taste if I’m recalling correctly. I’m from Belgium 😂
I live in Belgium, it's not an issue living here. I'm used to being in a complex country. I fluently speak Dutch, French, German and English ( all because of school, if you failed on your languages you couldn't graduate). If you ever were to visit Belgium, I'd gladly give you a tour and help with translating everything since there are roughly 100 dialects that are hard to understand to foreigners but easy to understand if you've been born here like me.
ik woon in vlaanderen en er zijn teveel franse mensen. Ben onlangs naar een ander stad verhuist maar er zijn nog steeds teveel franse mensen. Vlaanderen = nederlands en Walonie zou frans moeten zijn, dit snappen de mensen niet goed waardoor ik mij elke dag een toerist voel in mijn eigen dorp.
@@infinityredDot Hmm, de taalvaardigheid en spelling van het Nederlands is toch nog niet helemaal je dat zo blijkt. Hoofdletters, spellings- en dt-fouten, er is nog werk aan.
@@patrickverhaeghe Dan heb je mensen die naar taalfouten kijken. Je zou beter om je heen kijken als je op straat loopt en kijken waar het geld van je belastingen naartoe gaat :)
I am also Belgian, We put the Congolese people in a human zoo, many died because of the colder climate. We always eat mussels with fries. At school we teach Dutch, French, English, German and if you want Latin. Politicians don't understand at all... Ambiorix, Angèle, Jan van Eyck, Lucky Luke, Panamarenko, Peter Paul Rubens, Stijn Streuvels and many other artists.
I am Belgian and you nailed it quite well. During the covid pandemic, was really great, since Belgium and The Netherlands had different policies. This meant some shops on the border were open, but customers were not allowed in certain parts and/or sections of the store. I am Flemish, but my father was Walloon and his mother, so my paternal grandmother was German. Sums it a bit up.
Hello from Belgium. I identify myself as Belgian, not Flemish or Walloon. My father’s first language was French and my mother’s Flemish (Dutch). And I married a guy from Brussels 😁 I call this country Absurdistan, but the only thing that drives me really crazy are politicians. The most complex thing living here is the tax form. And by the way, here there is no such thing as Belgian waffles. We have Brussels waffles and Liège waffles.
Thank you! Same here, I'm Belgian, not Flemish! It can get complicated, but you're just so used to it, it doesn't even register half of the time. I hope we stay together and don't let the nationalist win the splitting up of our beautiful little country!
The sauce with the mussels is not just mayonnaise, it is usually a combination with mustard. In Roman times, the country of the "Belgae" was much larger than today. Let's not forget that Belgium is called the battlefield of Europe because of WW I and WWII.
I am from Belgium 🇧🇪 and this is my reaction Yes our political stuff is weird and confusing but we’re kindly used to it Yes we have some amazing Belgian writers from cartoons but also just novels Mussels and fries our the BEST combination and some people eat mussel sauce by it And YES fries ARE from Belgium and some weirdo called them french but that is OUR food! And I personally HATE what Belgium 🇧🇪 did to Congo. It is the worst and you don’t even wanna know. But there are a lot of docomantaires about it Fries and Mayo are here THE combo! So that’s quite it😊
Being a Belgium is actually not confusing bc we learn 2 languages in school and just like the other things from the country idk how im not confused but its just normal if ur a Belgian :)
I had a comparitive constitutional law course in college and we spend half on it on Belgium. According to my teacher every other country would be easy once we understood this one 😅
the story of the french fries goes like this. in the First World War, the English and the Americans were introduced to French fries by French-speaking Belgians. for example, the English and the Americans thought that the fries come from France, but NO, that's how they come from Belgium.
still an Anglo-Saxon urban legend, the truth is that the fries appeared in the north of France and the south of Belgium, given the cultural and linguistic proximity of these two regions, in the same moments without the we know with certainty who was the first creator
Yeah that's not what happened at all. Since consumption of the potato was popularized in france around the time of the revolution, it's likely that the French were also the first to fry it, although the exact origins are unclear.
Fries were created in Belgium but in the French speaking part so you guys called it French fries. XD Also the tap water is perfectly clean and drinkable. Maybe it's about the rivers and lakes IDK.
Beside our fries and chocolate, we have the best beer in the world! I could recomend Duvel, Leffe, Grimbergen, Tripel Kermeliet, La Chouffe Blonde D'ardenne, ...
i got to say , the king should have got the military grades by official law before becoming a king ,this is also a reason why his brother did not become the king after king Albert II just a fact. he still is the head of the military...
About the fries: there is also the story that the potatoes are cut in little stripes, or fringed. Which could have been misunderstood by the Americans while liberating the south of Belgium. About the mayo: Mayonnaise is supposed to taste a little tart. The acidity fits the fries. Do not choose the Dutch one (From the Netherlands) which sugar has been added on. The side sauce we serve with mussels is not 100% mayonnaise, Add some extra mustard to the mayo to dip the mussels.
The guy that showed American troops how to make fries (first cook them in oil until soft at a low temp, cool down, then crisp up in a higher temp oil) spoke French, but was from Belgium. Actually, there are no Belgian waffles, we have Waffles from Liege and Waffles from Brussels, very different. The "mayo" with the mussels is most often mixed with some mustard and called "mossel saus" :)
French fries actually come from Belgium. American soldiers came through Belgium during the world wars, and were offered fries. But the Belgians which shared the fries spoke French. So they were actually Walloons. Some of the worst crimes committed during the colonial era, were committed in the Congo. It wasn’t actually ruled by the government of Belgium, but by king Leopold II of Belgium. Things like amputation as punishment were one of the most notable atrocities committed during that era.
as a belgian, I am making mussles and french fries with mayo tonight, but I will add some mussle sauce. one thing to add to the video: belgian beers, we have thousands of beers all of them with a specific glass. We are very proud about our beers, if you haven't tried them, do so, but please use the appropriate glass it adds to the taste.
Okay, genuine question from a Belgian here. You were surprised to see fries with mussels. If you guys don't eat fries at the side, what do you eat instead? Or do you just eat the mussels on its own? Never thought the combination wasn't the usual thing people do so I'm interested at how you guys eat it haha
Allo from a coastal Florida town in the US. Mussels we eat here with pasta and lemon and white wine butter sauce. And garlic bread. But that’s probably just local… I just started dating a Belgian guy, didn’t know about the mayonnaise thing until he told me how much he loves cauliflower with Mayo😂 wonderful country wonderful people and great food. Much love for Belgium!
@@sarahwitherell2000 If you are still dating the Belgian guy, cauliflower with mayo isn't considered totally normal in Belgium either. It would rather be acceptable with cold served cauliflower, otherwise a white cream or cheese sauce would be preferred. With grated cheese as a topping and you can also put all that in the oven for a nice cheesy crust.
Just as an FYI: Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde doesn't exist anymore as it was deemed unconstitutional (long story but it had to do with voting lists). The Eupen-Sankt-Vith province still doesn't exist (and it's unlikely it will in the near future). And the mussels are fantastic!!!
I am from the german speaking part of Belgium and I love my country Belgium 🇧🇪 . Don't worry if you do not understand much about belgian politics, even we don't understand it, I think noone does =)
@@Afura33 fr but aye, 80k is still a lot of people if you think about it, by the way, how's the german community's opinion on Germany? personally im from flanders and im interested cuz well we got the whole german speaking region after WW1 so
@@Thanadeez We do have the same bad opinion about the germans as the flemings have about the dutch and the walloons about the french, so a not so good opinion lol. If you ask me this mostly stems from ww2 when the germans invaded the country, annexed the germanspeaking part and destroyed the whole city St.Vith. I remember my grand parents telling me when the germans came, they forced everyone to collaborate with them or they took you as prisoner, shot you or killed your family. But yea this is the past now :) but the opinion about the germans hasn't change so much. However while traveling a lot I realized that in a lot of countries people don't have a very good opinion about their direct neighboors in general lol, seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. Like a lot of others here I am personally not attracted to germany at all, the only thing I share is the language and that's it, but I do also speak french from school maybe that makes a bit of a difference I don't know. We also do not identify as germanspeaking like the flemings or walloons does when someone ask my where they are from. I see them very often saying first I am fleming or walloon and then they say I am Belgian, we here always go straight to the point we are Belgian :)
@@Afura33 yeah it's pretty noticable that most countries don't really like their neighbours, Personally i'd call myself a Belgian way before i call myself a Fleming, i don't really like having different governments and what not, so that's something i really like about the gsc
as someone who has lived all my life in belgium it makes sense to me tbh. dutch speaker = flemish, french speaker = waloon, (ignore the german speakers i never met one, probably just an urban legend honestly) north speaks dutch, soth speaks french and brussels is almost entirely french speaking. all thsoe border shenanigans don't affect us at all except for the few people who live there. maybe a few hundred/ thousand people actualy need to worry about enclaves and such. French fries are actualy belgian the french part of the name actualy refers to the way you cook them and not where the idea came from. In terms of the diamonds enslavement is a minor way of talking about it, king leopold 2 of belgium treated the congo as if it were his private plaything pretty much and he was so unimaginably brutal there that almost every colonial power told his to stop and the belgian parliament stepped in and took control from him because he was so brutal. I'm pretty sure just talking about what happened in a YT comment would violate youtube TOS but let's just say that its safe to say that congo was probably the worst treated colony at the time by a pretty big margin, in about 20 years of rule he killed 10 million people to give you an idea. Also belgium beat the record for the country with teh longest streak without a government which is like 560 days during covid which was previously already theirs because every party in belgium has both a french and dutch speaking version which means that a belgian government needs to be a coalition of at least 3 or 4 parties, up to 6 i think.
About the french fries. As far as I know the story is like this: The territory that is now Belgium belonged in the past to the Netherlands, France, Austria, Spain but also to the Duchy of Burgandy. Burgandy is today a region in France but in the past the Duchy of Burgandy was a major power in Europe. That was back in the 14th - 15th century. These Burgandians introduced their cooking habbits over here. And one of them was the frying of all kind of food in oil, which was picked up by local people. The potato was not yet introduced in Europe back then. That is more 16-17th century. But logically when it became popular it was also being fried. The frying is from origin Burgandy, so french, but the added value over here invented is the frying of potato chips in 2 stages. First you fry the chips, then you take them out of the oil, let them cool down and fry them a second time. That brings the typical crunchy character of belgian fries. I can imagine that was invented by accident.
I really like your content and the way its released, I was here for Bts, but I also like the reaction about other countries, feels like Im learning with someone else. Cool dude....happy I subbed!! Stay safe!!
Belgian reacts: The intro's the biggest bs. It's not a part of the Netherlands and France joined together. It's a lot more complicated than that. The only part of Belgium that was French (apart from when it was occupied by the French under Napoleon) was the county of Flanders (not to be confused with present day Flanders). In fact, it is the Netherlands and France who actually hold land that should technically belong to Belgium. Writes out the Dutch (Brussel, Halle, Vilvoorde, Voeren) and German (Eupen, Sankt Vith) names and pronounces them with a bad French accent... :') That province didn't and won't happen. The German parts happened because of World War I, and historically belonged to the counties and duchies that make up Belgium, in the Dutch/Belgian enclaves they speak the same language. His little history lesson says how they were portioned long before there was a Belgium or Netherlands, but doesn't explain why they're still a thing. Also, it only matters on an administrative level, since borders are pretty much irrelevant in the EU. Why would it be confusing? :') Flemish = Dutch, Walloon = French (and the Germans were forced in with them). The communities are based on the official languages, German is an official language, Arabic isn't. Wallonia has the Walloon region government and the French and German community governments, Flanders merged the region and community governments into one, and then there's the Brussels region government. So 3 governments for 3 regions, and 2 governments for communities. And on top of that a federal government. They may be equally important in their decision making, but they don't have the same powers. Like education is done by the communities, and something like defense or justice is done by the federal government. Exceptions, where both the federal and regional governments have power, are things like finances/economy. Switzerland has 26 governments, in the USA every state has its own government with its own constitution... How is it insane to cater to people's specific needs, rather than a one size fits all? It's not like you actually notice you're being dependent on one government or the other. Because the king is a regular guy (apart from holding said office and having palaces at his disposal and stuff). Apart from appointing people to form governments, it's a ceremonial/diplomatic role. The national dish is not mussels with french fries. There is not one national dish, there are many. It's not mustard, it's a mustardy mayo (even though a good mayo will contain mustard as is, this one will have more mustard). In Belgium fries do go with everything lol (well except for foreign food). And yes fries and mayo. And we have a million other sauces than just mayo and ketchup as well. My American ex was quite partial to Andalouse and Samurai. They're french fries because they're frenched, not French fries because they're French. And no matter who created them first, we def have the biggest fries culture and make them better. Yeah, waffles in America are disgusting (kind of like every other foreign food, like Olive Garden lol). His nickname is "The muscles from Brussels", so yeah... :p Belgium didn't do anything to Congo, Congo was the private possession of the king. And it was blood rubber. There were quota of rubber that had to be reached, if they weren't reached they had to pay in hands (literally). Eventually the locals figured out it was easier to just raid other villages and chop off hands than to reach the quota. The king didn't condone this, and didn't like it, but didn't care enough to stop it because it was earning him a lot of money. So eventually the international community stepped in and told Belgium to take over. Again, no part of Belgium should belong to France, maybe Belgium and the Netherlands could be reunited to form the Seventeen provinces once more (although then parts of it would still be in France and you'd have to annex Luxemburg as well). But the last time Belgium and the Netherlands were united it took 15 years to spark a revolution and Belgium's independence. There never really was anything to unite any of it all in the first place. Any unification was because of Philip the good of Burgundy and Charles V (and his son Philip II of Spain is the reason the Netherlands exist), but too long to explain. Environmental issues like the water quality is about the rivers (and even though they're working on it it's not exactly something to worry about as a regular person), like recently there have been 2 separate scandals concerning 3M, one where they polluted the environment with PFOS, and one where they had been dumping FBSA illegally for years in the river Scheldt (like their plant in Decatur did in the Tennessee river). Same shit as in the movie Dark Waters with Mark Ruffalo. Happens everywhere, certainly when there's American companies involved, just so happens that Belgium's small and therefore what would be a problem in e.g. Maine is a problem in Belgium, or north west Texas. You have to put things in perspective. Floods, like only just recently, are a problem because idiots like to build in flood sensitive areas (not too dissimilar to people's houses getting wrecked each hurricane season in the USA).
@@imwinningthisone7613 Lol yeah. I wouldn't mind a re-unification of the Seventeen Provinces, but that would be too hard. Too much water under the bridge. Belgium and the Netherlands have two different ways of life, because Belgium retained the catholic and Burgundian lifestyle whereas the Netherlands adopted the protestant way of life. We still have many things in common, but at our core we are different. A while back there was even an article about how it's not easy for Belgians and Dutch to do business together, because the Belgians want to wine and dine (the Burgundian heritage) without even talking about business yet, whereas the Dutch just want to get straight to the point (let alone waste money on all that lavish bs). It is kind of sad though that it got split up (and stuff got lost to France, and Luxemburg's independence), cause if it had stayed a whole it would've been an economic powerhouse.
Re-reading this it made me think of how this region has always fought of foreign oppression. The county of Flanders fought against the French (sorry Flemish nationalists, it wasn't about Flemish culture, it was about money and power), there were revolts against the Burgundians, against Charles V, against Phil II it resulted in a full blown war, then there was a brief moment of independence under Austrian rule (which gave birth to the United States of Belgium, the name should already give a clue about how they didn't exactly view themselves as one entity, but as separate states joined together), and then the real independence from the Netherlands (which again, I'm sorry Flemish nationalists, wasn't because of the Walloons, even the Dutch parliamentarians spoke French to accommodate, it was because of protestantism vs catholicism and because William I was a despot, so again, same as with the Austrians (although here it was because Joseph II was an enlightened despot, which didn't rub well with the catholics either) and French before).
@@DVineMe yeah and in the end Belgium really got the short end of the stick here, atheism rates are going up in both countries (meaning that the reason for the revolution is now invalid) and Belgium is in the Netherlands' shadow, falling further and further behind.
@@imwinningthisone7613 Oh yeah, but it wasn't just about religion either, without the liberals who opposed William's despotism (which of course is irrelevant today as well) the catholics wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Still the difference in religion did shape the culture. What comes to mind right now is Rembrandt's painting of those doctors, all in their black (protestant) clothes. Catholisism fought protestantism by being flamboyant as well (Baroque anyone?) lol. (and sadly enough also by things they would've have done before) Not so sure about the latter part though, honestly I think both countries are falling behind. The Netherlands still has its name and therefore tourism and business, although Belgium has quite a few things to show tourists as well (if only Belgians were as good a salesperson). The port of Antwerp is still one of the biggest in Europe (it was the biggest one during the re-unification, maybe that's what those Flemish nationalists are after), there are Belgians working on Dubai, and so on... So on the business side it's not that bad. Belgium is still creating and influencing, just as the Netherlands, but with less of a name. Still when talking about who has anything to say in the world? Neither one. Whereas in this day and age the whole of Europe would've listened to a powerhouse such as the Seventeen Provinces.
in Belgium if you live in the dutch part, you will at least be able to speak dutch, French, English and a bit of German. Schools lay heavy focus on language here
that is also common in the Netherlands although French and German are depending on the level of education but French has a minimum of 2 years and if you do a higher education you have already had 1 year of german and can choose between french and german.
@Flopjul. It's very different in the Netherlands. You don't know what truly being bilingual means, neither do you have any genuine kingship with Romanesque culture (all of Belgium), French language, or France. Yes you're pretending, I know, I live in the Netherlands and notice you are kinda trying to be Belgium by appropriating its language, culture even to the point of cultural identity. I know you are unaware of it because it is done in complete silence. Meanwhile degrading Belgium out loud on a regular basis.
I am Belgian and it is fun to see people trying to keep up with us. for us its just a simple way of living.(btw French fries were supposed to be named fun fries)
the funny thing is belgians get angry when other countr's say french fries. it's just fries. its because during the ar americans learned about fries in the french speaking side of belgium, that's why oh and the politics, a lot of people just ignore it. we were the country who went the longest without a governement. it's crazy
As said before by Frahamen: * without a full federal government. As you saw in he video local governments have a lot of power. Plus when people say "no government" the old government is still in charge ntill the new one is formed. Their power is just limited it's a "care takers government". That means the are stll able to do the typical government stuff, except, they aren't allowed to changed things up,
4:06 Switzerland is a pretty good example of what you just said.. There is a French speaking region, a German speaking region, an Italian speaking region and a Romansh speaking region… In Europe, it’s absolutely normal to speak more than 1 language…It’s not weird at all 4:57 That’s the Schengen Area for ya :)) There are no borders between most European Union countries so that’s fun..it almost feels like a big “country” full of “smaller countries” lmao
I´m Belgian from the 1 %Part german speaking, and i love my Country so much. i love the wallons, and the flemish peoples. And our Football, the fries the humour and belgian lifestyle. we have invented the french fries, not the french ;) Thanks for your sympatic video
original fry was born in Namur in francophone Belgium, where the locals were particularly fond of fried fish. When the River Meuse froze over one cold winter in 1680, people ostensibly fried potatoes instead of the small fish they were accustomed to, and the fry was bor
I think the explantion of how Belgium became a country was kinda strange. It let you believe the Flemish broke away from the Netherlands and that the Walloons broke away from France. Both of them and Luxembourg were part of the Netherlands and then they splitted of.
@@galaxia4709 Yes, absolutely yes. However, what is often forgotten is that be were not a part of the netherlands for long. Only from 1815 to 1830. Before that what became belgium was briefly under french control, and before that we were the austrian netherlands, and before that the spanish netherlands. So really the area now belgium had been politically seperate from the netherlands from somewhere around 1580.
@@slome815 1815-1830 is insignificant. It's misleading, even misinformation to say Belgium was part of the Netherlands in general in history especially since people have wrong preconceived notions about BE already (1-0 for separatism/flamingantism), which you shouldn't feed imo. 1815-1830 has no true meaning in the 2000+ years of history of Belgium since its inception in the Roman Empire. During the Austrian time Belgium was called Belgium Austriacum btw, enjoying the maximum autonomy within the Austrian Empire. So, long before 1580 like you are saying. The Netherlands/Holland didn't even exist during the Roman Empire until long after in 1581 when they became the 7 United Provinces in an effort to try and unite. Saying BE was part of the Netherlands also has many other wrong implications which people will start subconsciously believing and use as ad-hoc arguments, like you see happening in this extremely biased video, the worst I have ever seen honestly.
I live in Belgium, as far as the different languages in our country go, it's pretty normal. You also learn the other language in school(altho definitely not everyone is perfectly bilingual). The politics tho confuse me too and some people have no idea what's going on i feel like hahah. I love it tho, confusing but I like it hahah
okay so first of all loved seeing the confusion and want to assure you that we are as confused about the politics as you are second French fries are in fact a Belgium invention more specific Wallonia. Common lore claims that the original fry was born in Namur in francophone Belgium, where the locals were particularly fond of fried fish. When the River Meuse froze over one cold winter in 1680, people ostensibly fried potatoes instead of the small fish they were accustomed to, and the fry was born. Proponents of this story claim that this Belgian town is not only the source of the French fry, but indeed, of its name: American soldiers, stationed in the francophone region during World War I, allegedly dubbed the potatoes ‘French fries’, and the common (if slightly imprecise) moniker was born. In 1680 that region was part of the Spanish Netherlands and only 14 years later became part of France for 3 years. but because it now is part of Belgium we get to claim its invention as our own.
Thanks for this reaction 😊👍 Now, I think the logical sequel should be France. If you do it, please don't forget the French flag video. Have a good day 🙂
Typing stuff as I watch: Belgium is very complicated. When we tried to change the sound norms for airplanes in the capital (the hour at which planes could start taking off in Brussels etc.), we ended up failing because we didn't know which government was responsable and they couldn't agree about what should be done. About fries: the way I heard it, fries were invented by a Belgian living in France. And do Americans really not eat mayonnaise with them? I eat mayo with everything! (well, actually veganaise, because I'm vegan, but that's besides the point...). Coming to your guesses about Belgian colonialism: slavery, racism and patriarchy, taking everything valuable... especially chopping off hands has become a prominent symbol for the colonial regime in Belgian culture. We're not proud of it (at least most of us aren't). On a different note: keeping it together is easy if nobody understands how it works. Everybody stops everybody from touching anything, so change is slow. Nonetheless, do visit Belgium sometime. We're a fun little (but beautiful) country. :)
Congo was a 'Belgian' colony for a while, it was actually a territory of our king, the people there were in fact slaves and were tortured. after a while the king gave the territory to the Belgian government (now an actual Belgian colony) who used it for diamond mining along with uranium mining for for example the A-bomb in WWII.
I am from Belgium. And yes the French fries do originate from Belgium. They are the most popular food here. And the most popular sauces to go with them are mayonaise and ketchup. Another thing we are very proud of is our wide collection of Belgian beers. Waffles and chocolate are a bit of a thing here too, but not nearly as popular as fries and beer.And yes, the political structure here is confusing and most of us don't even understand it ourselves.
I am from Flanders. Don't look at the demographics it's basically voting and they do the rest I don't care. We all work together and we love each other. Most of us speak German Dutch and French and we love our country. Thank you 😊
I am Belgiam for sure, I was born in Belgian Congo in Léopold Villes (Kinshasa) I lived in brussels for 30 years, I moved to flanders for 10 years and I live now in Wallonia at 6 km from Luxemburg, 15km from Germany and 10km from France, is it belgian enought for you?😅 And of course, I speak flamish , french and english just in case lol. The funny thing is that my kids are born in Brussels from a french speaking father (me) and a flamish speaking mother (my ex) as they've been rased in flander they are flamish while I'm french, due to there flamish scolarity and flamich social environnement, they have a complet different mentality than mine pfiou... they now adultes and when we are together, we dont even know what langage to use, so we inconsciently use the 3 langages in the same time, that's what define Belgium actualy. Congo was in a first time the prived propiete of Leopold 2, not Belgium, he give it to us juste because all those exactions he let made and soon as the new king (Baudouin) was on the trone at the age of 18, came the independance revolution and congo became Zaire and now, god know why they rechange the name for Congo again...
Yes, as a belgian i can inform you that fries do come from belguim and i can sometimes be triggered by the phrase french fries and the reason its french is because the method used to cook the fries is called frenching. also, in almost all of europe mayonaise with fries is the complete norm and you would rarely see someone with ketchup with their fries.
from a Dutch perspective: Somehow the Femisch fail to learn French (or at least they make it look like it) and the Walloon people most definitely don't speak a single word of Dutch. I guess that is why they fail to argue and stay one country. Also things get so complicated that is hard to form a government ....It can take years to get a majority-agreement in Belgium )multi party-system) (Although in recent elections we mess up quite bad in the Netherlands as well) Fries and ketchup? You're missing out! Technically at the time Fries were invented, the territory was Dutch, so technically they are Dutch Fries ;-) About colonial past of European countries: Ever figured out what the British people did to the native Americans? You still celebrate thanksgiving for those colonial things (Pequot Massacre). It was just common practice to rule the colonies with an iron fist. We sent our convicted murderers and rapists to those countries and called them soldiers. You can imagine why we're not that popular in our previous colonies. One thing that got (too) little attention : when European countries fought wars they did it in Belgium. Waterloo, almost the entire WW1, large battles in WW2....
Not quiet true: In Flanders everybody had to learn French at school. Since about 20 years that is not the case anymore for a part of the secundary schools. But yes, in Wallonia Dutch was never obligated. They are thinking about it, though.
I’m am from Belguim and trust me we are language robots! Dutch, German, France, and even English, ALL in one little tiny country! Ps this is so fun to see everyone struggling to understand our politics, provinces and languages!!!♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪
We Belgians use the complexity of our country even as a weapon. During both world wars, the German army needed Belgian officials to keep our institutions running. They obliged by day and fought back at night, while maintaining a delicate balance between preventing arrest, helping the population providing the Allies with crucial information and sabotaging the ennemy.
Fries and mayo is completely normal, even in the Netherlands and Germany. I personally think fries and mayo is more normal than fries and ketchup. An other version of the saus is called 'frietsaus' which translates to 'sauce for fries' but it isn't as good as mayonnaise.
The people from Congo where forced to work in the mines and if they don't work good enough, they cut a arm or hand of😢 so there are still people with 1 arm cuz Belgium cut them of😐 Sorry for that😔
Please don't say "strange". It isn't strange. It is just not American. Otherwise it seems like you are saying everything American is "normal" and others do "strange" things.
Hi :) i’m from the french speaking part of belgium Yep, everything is kinda complicated, mostly from a political point of vue (ps: yes, the king is chill lol) But i also think we are all mostly nice people so we can appreciate and respect other communities and our languistic and cultural differences Also : Beer. Don’t forget beer😂 And they made it seem like the land is super flat (and it probably is compares to other countries) but not that much. If you go to some parts of south belgium, you will find « hautes fagnes » for exemple And sorry for the super long comment, i add along with the video :’) but YES our fries are like national treasure, i really don’t know why you say « french » fries in english About Congo, yes it was pretty much slavery (hands cut, etc). A very horrific and sad past for my country that i love. I’m sorry on behalf of our ancestors my dear Congolese friends. Thanks for reacting!
So, this is a brief summary of the colony of congo: Leopold II controlled the colony of congo. He used the congolese as slaves, and if they didn't want to work, he cut off their hands. Not himself personally, of course. He is said to have killed an estimated 10 million congolese. This is huge when you realize that hitler only had 6 million deaths to his name. He was a bad leader, but King Philip is now good with congo, he apologized for what happened then and since then belgium is helping with the evolution of congo.
Belgian here, french fries got their names during world war 2, when americans were fighting in the ardennes during the battle of the bulge. Since the civilians spoke french (walloon area), the US troops thought they were in France, hence the name french fries. Congo was the private colonie of our king at that time. If you didnt work, they would cut off your hand or other severe punishments often torture and leading to death. The only reason why this country has survived 200 years is because the alternatives such as splitting the flanders and walloon regions just sucks and isnt a viable solution. But you know, staying together isn't a viable option either 🤣
As for the blood diamonds from congo, yes. We have a ridiculous amount of diamond stores in Antwerp and there have been some scandals; although I haven’t heard anything about it the last couple of years. Antwerp is at a drug war now , families targetting other drug lords and their families with grenades regularly, small shootings.. On the bright side; there have been several attempts of the public to remove statues of Leopold II and/or his generals. Where I live; they threw some hard to remove blood red paint all over a certain general to make a point because he literally has blood on his hands and I love how people keep doing it tbh.
Belgian here. Our country is confusing as fuck, but also kinda funny. On the topic of speaking multiple languages, most Flemish people will speak a dialect of Dutch (or rather Flemish Dutch) and will start learning French from age 10 onwards, plus English at age 12 or 13 onwards. Some Flemish even learn some basic German in school, and Latin is still a well-known field of study in school from age 12-18. For the national dish, some people will claim its fries with beef stew, rather than mussels, but mussels are also quite popular here. IMPORTANT NOTE!!! If you're going to try fries with mayonnaise, PLEASE get some actual Belgian mayonnaise from Devos Lemmens or Calve. Mayonnaise from other places is just not the same! Also surprised our terrific selection of abbey beers wasn't mentioned in the video. We Belgians are very proud of our typical abbey beers.
People generally think about all these governments in one country like this : it being a great opportunity to give as many people as possible a high ranked position, earning millions in a short time.
