09 augustus 2005
Near boiling point
"The question is whether the politicians really have the will to do anything about it and, if they don't, how long the people will put up with them." (Mark Steyn)"It" is about "slow societal suicide". Don't forget to read the whole thing.
The first thought that crossed my mind while reading that piece was: how do you know if people are near their boiling point? I quickly guessed that one of the indicators in Flanders could well be the number of votes for Vlaams Belang, especially now when all other traditional parties last year were doomed to form a government together at the flemish level, and maybe will soon be at the federal level as well.
I do not want to dismiss a vote for Vlaams Belang as a mere irrational protest vote (I know a lot of sensible, intelligent Vlaams Belang-voters), but I rather consider it to be one expression of a genuine concern about how those voters perceive - rightly or wrongly - our politicians to be doing nothing about our "slow societal suicide". The fact that Vlaams Belang is locked into a cordon sanitaire only seems to magnify the attractiveness of a Vlaams Belang vote as an anti-regime vote.
I haven't thought this idea through, maybe my readers want to share their ideas on this.
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