Belgian Politics
Belgian politics is amusing for outsiders, which probably helps explain why most Belgians are not particularly open about their political views.
Floating around lately is this, the NEE party («nee» is “no” in Dutch). NEE aims to provide voters in the up-coming general election a the choice to not vote for any of the candidates, as opposed to a blank vote which still essentially gives votes to all parties.
As a concept this really isn't too bad, since a vote for NEE would steal votes from parties you didn't really want to vote for but had no choice — overcoming the lesser evil principle. NEE's principal, Tania Deveaux, is offering 40,000 blow-jobs as a publicity stunt which has lately pushed the group into the international spot-light.
With increasing frequency, political junk-mail is hitting my letter-box, obviously leading up to the elections. Ironically the largest amount of junk I receive comes from the Nazi-sympathetic far-right party, Vlaams Belang reformed from Vlaams Blok, which was disbanded by the Belgian Supreme Court after being labelled a criminal organisation.
Have a look at this shit:
Urgent: Stop immigration!
The search of a new electorate by the socialists and the docility of the liberals have made our capital a magnet for immigration. In the first place, obtaining citizenship became GRATUITOUS: no proof of integration or knowledge of the language was required. Under the governments of Dehaene and Verhofstadt, more than 600,000 (!) foreigners became "new Belgians". Moroccan immigration has doubled since 1997 and a large part of Brussels has become Islamic. In ten years (1996-2006), 212,745 "political refugees" arrived, and the government performed massive "regularisation" of more than 100,000 illegal immigrants. And to top it off, voting rights have been granted to foreigners.
Vlaams Belang is the only party which provides an opinion against the voting rights of foreigners, and for the end of immigration. A policy of deportation must be followed for immigrants who refuse to adapt or who commit crimes.
Amongst other things, these xenophobes basically want to impose strict rules on immigrants who aren't Europeans and Christians, the independance of Flanders from the rest of Belgium, and the repeal of anti-racism legislation (citing freedom of speech and ignoring tolerance).
Hopefully I translated their spiel correctly — I don't speak any of the national languages very well, I'm not Christian, and I'm not European. Oops!
Vlaams Belang have been known to receive up to €2.1m annually (~USD$2.8m/~AUD$3.4m). Because of this, does NEE exist because parties like Vlaams Belang receive so much state funding when they don't deserve it?
I find it hard to comprehend how Vlaams Belang can be so popular. Then again, I found it hard to understand the popularity of One Nation in Australia.
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