Belgium is the Canada of Europe, right?

A-hem

Nah Belgium is full of hot ass man with big dicks and also chocolate (and waffles) what does Canada have, moose?

No, Belgium is too odd for that.

For small tidy country smugness I would compare Canada to Finland instead.

Belgium is far trashier. Canada if it was only populated by replicants of the Rob/Doug Ford and Celine Dion families.

Officially the Kingdom of Belgium.

Canada does have its own culture.

Belgian Royal Family

R6, does it really?

Uhhh…no, it doesn’t. It’s an amalgamation of British, American and French culture. Try turning on a television sometime. Or go to a cinema.

Belgium should be so lucky.

Split between Flemish and French cultural heritage (in that it actually does bear some resemblance to Canada), with a level of political organisation so Byzantine and unwieldy and open to graft it makes India look good, and with a growing Muslim and Congolese population that has ruined Brussels, once one of the loveliest capitals in Europe.

Canada may have its issues, but Belgium is a fucking mess. A couple of years ago the Mayor of Brussels said it was impossible to control the radicalisation of young Muslims because the city kept taking Saudi money, and the money always came with a stipulation of a new mosque with an Imam of Saudi choosing, i.e., one spouting Wahhabist Islam. Of the 11 imams in Molenbeek, 8 didn't speak either French or Flemish and everything was done in Arabic. No one was surprised that the Brussels airport attack was carried out by men from the Molenbeek area.

So on top of a staggeringly incompetent government, and the older French Flemish conflict, you also have the now common European experience of migrant and immigration policies so culturally suicidal, you wonder if the authorities were out on a ledge smoking crack when the policies were made.

I always thought it symbolically amusing, not in a complimentary way, that the EU's HQ was in Brussels.

Canada is full of phoney, racist and passive aggressive rednecks

Let's not forget that in 2007 the then incoming Belgian Print Minister sang La Marseillaise (the French national anthem) when asked if he knew the words of his country's national anthem.

Muslims are turning Brussels into a shithole. They have their own region of the world, they shouldn't be allowed to run roughshod all over Europe.

Belgium has much better local specialty food (fries, waffles, chocolate) and drink (Belgian beer) than Canada. Belgium is more like the Mexico of Europe.

R14 Isn’t Italy the Mexico of Europe?

If Italy is Mexico, Greece must be Zimbabwe.

Ha! I've always said Canada is the Belgium of North America.

It's full of nasty radical muslims ready to take over, Europe is retarded.

but the waffles

Tim Hortons has/had a Belgian Waffle Breakfast Sandwich!

I love Belgium. Worked in Antwerp for a while and spent weekends in Liège or Ghent, occasionally in Brussels. People in the Flemish and Walloon parts were different but welcoming. Comfortable gay scene, lots of invitations, interesting arts, great food.

I admit I do want to go to Maastricht one day.

Oh, wait. That’s in the Netherlands. Never mind.

Uh, r8, I live here. Canada has distinct cultures across the country. I never thought about it much until I married a foreigner.

Uh, R23, that’s why I told you to go turn on the TV or go to a cinema. IN CANADA. How dumb are you? Pretty dumb, I’d say.

I don’t watch much tv. Movies are mostly made for teenaged boys these days.

Didn't Belgium not even have a government for a couple of years running?

What does it say about this country that continued to function without a government?

Then again, it means that maybe a government is not always necessary really. Belgium leads the way!

Belgium has the best Frites!

There is not high expectation for people who call themselves Walloons.

R10 That's so sad to hear. Sorry I did not get to see it before they wrecked it.

Bruges, the capital of the West Flanders part of Belgium, is really beautiful. It has one of the best preserved medieval city centres in the world.

The Muslim/African presence is far lower in Bruges than in Brussels.

Belgium actually has three "official" languages: French, Dutch, and German.

You can see why the place is such a mess. Under ordinary circumstances, this might have made for that "ethnic richness" everyone likes to talk about.

But at this point, the ethnic richness is rapidly shifting: more than half the births in Belgium are to foreign-born "new Belgians", all from the Third World.

Sic transit gloria.