Yesterday, on
July 21, King Albert of Belgium stepped down after a 20 year reign to allow his
son, Phillip, to take over. It appears
that Albert got tired of politics. Who
can blame him? Politics takes it out of
the best of us, but it’s unusual to hear of a monarch getting burned out on
what’s generally considered to be a pretty cushy job. But Belgium is a bit different, as is true in
so many ways. It went without a
government for about a year-and-a-half, riven by division between its
Flemish-speaking north and French-speaking south. Flemish is basically a dialect of Dutch, and
the northern speakers of Dutch-Flemish ( Flutch?) are more prosperous than
their French-speaking southern cousins.
Evidently the Flutch are pretty ticked-off over carrying the Frogs, whom
they feel wield undue power in national decision-making. So the Flutch and Frogs hit a governmental
stalemate: neither side had enough power
to form a government, so the country went without for nearly 18 months.
Imagine that. A country with a government so polarized and
divided that it can’t effectively govern.
It sounds so . . . . what’s the
word I want? . . . . ah yes, Congressional. But the U.S. doesn’t possess Belgium’s secret
weapon, the force that was needed to knock heads together and compel action: a king.
Apparently, King Albert had been cruising along for years, doing what
monarchs do: appearing at formal state
functions, waving genially to crowds, looking interested as boring people
explained things. Then the government
actually came to a standstill and the impasse dragged on and on. So long, in fact, that King Albert actually
had to put aside the ceremonial pomp and roll up his (perfectly tailored)
sleeves and get the opposing sides to come up with a compromise.
The effort proved successful since
there is now a prime minister and the government is chugging along, albeit with
a good deal of acrimony. But the
experience soured King Albert and he decided to hand the crown over to his son,
Phillip. And perhaps retire to a lovely
home in the country and take up a hobby, which, since he’s Belgian, might
involve beer-brewing or perhaps mussel-farming.
The crown hand-off occurred
yesterday, on July 21, which is already a national holiday in Belgium. King Albert probably reasoned that everybody
would be off work for the holiday, stores would be closed, fireworks were
planned, and the populace was prepared for the annual festivities so why not
tack an abdication onto the day? It
would be sort of like adding the Inauguration onto the 4th of July
venue to save everybody the time and expense of planning yet another party.
Quite unwittingly, we ended up with
front-row views of the new king as he did his first official duty after being
crowned: laying a wreath on the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier in Brussels. We had
decided to head down to the Royal Palace to take in the festivities. The Palace
is a short walk from the historic old square, and activities were planned from
it to the square and beyond. Since it
was a national holiday, the trolley services were limited, so we walked from
our house exchange house toward the Palace.
When we got about 6-7 blocks from the Palace, we saw people lined up
against barriers, waiting expectantly.
One of the many extremely nice Brussels citizens (Brussilians? Brusszens?) told me that the king would
arrive to lay a wreath at the tomb – a duty performed by the monarch every year
on this day, and the new king’s first job assignment. So we stopped in our tracks, claimed an empty
spot against the barricades, and waited.
A lone policewoman shoo’d away cars
that didn’t realize the street was closed.
Then a van of secret service men showed up, and they were the universal
secret service guys: cropped hair, eyes
constantly scanning the crowd, wires running from the ear to their hidden
walkie talkie. A couple of them sauntered
past us and after a cursory look around, wandered out onto the street and stood
chatting. Journalists with cameras strolled
over to the Tomb, which is marked by a giant obelisk crowned with a figure
known to all (except us.) No one asked to see their press
credentials. A man colorfully dressed in
red, black and gold patterned shorts – Belgium’s national colors – and a matching
scarf over his shoulder, stood among a couple of camaflouge wearing military
guys. The military men were 20 feet from
the Tomb, and the brightly dressed guy lounged with them, chatting animatedly. A 20-something young man, bearing a camera
and an earnest expression, approached a police officer who solicitously guided
him to a better spot to view and photograph the planned event.
Then a platoon of police men and women
came marching up the street, two by two, stamping down their left foot hard to
punctuate their cadence: ONE two, ONE
two, LEFT right, LEFT right, they marched.
They interspersed themselves along the crowd barricade and stood at
attention, looking natty in their pressed navy blue trousers, white
short-sleeved shirts and cocky blue hats.
They were mostly young, and all of them were remarkably fit. Flat-stomached and lithe, they bore no
resemblance to the typical specimen of DC’s finest.
The marching band arrived and
marched around the obelisk and stood at attention before us. The crowds were picking up now, but they were
still only two or three people deep along the barricade. It wasn’t exactly a standing-room-only
turnout for the new king’s first official duty.
And there was no security. No one
examined our backpacks; there were no metal screening devices; no buses parked
in intersections to block potential car bombers. There was no attempt to block,
examine or limit the public from witnessing this event. A couple of people on bikes rode down the
street and the police looked on, disinterested.
People lounged in windows of houses and hotels along the street, the
sash’s thrown open so they could lean out and see the show.
Shiny black cars started arriving,
and stopped just a short distance from us.
The old king got out of one to a smattering of applause. The prime minister, young and energetic
looking with his suit coat slung over his shoulder, emerged from another
car. A few minutes later, the band
struck up a song and a car pulled up and the new king got out, looking dashing
in a dark suit with a big purple sash slung over one shoulder. He paused and waved genially, then went to
the Tomb, made some remarks that were no doubt kingly in tone, laid a wreath on
the Tomb, walked back to the car, waved again, and climbed in. The car drove right by us, the window down,
the king waving and smiling. Many people
clapped, some people chanted something that sounded pissed-off, everyone shaded
their eyes from the brilliant hot sun, and the king drove by, looking like he
was having a pretty good day for his first day on the job.
Then everyone picked up their bags
and backpacks, loaded the kids back into the strollers, stowed their jaunty
black-red-yellow Belgian flags, and wandered off to the next event. We had just witnessed the new king of the
country come and go, within arm’s reach of the public. It was casual safety. I suddenly realized that I’d forgotten what
that was like.
The comparison between this leader’s
public appearance in his nation’s capitol city, and Obama’s appearances in
America’s capitol city, is stunning. We
attended the presidential inauguration in January, and had to buy tickets in
advance, after waiting for hours in line, to just get bleacher seats along the
parade route. On the day of the
inauguration, we had to walk blocks and blocks before being able to get to the
parade route because city buses were parked at all the intersections to block
access to Pennsylvania Avenue. We went
through metal detectors to get to the bleachers, and had to surrender a small
backpack we’d been unwise enough to bring. No backpacks, bottles, or anything
remotely serviceable as a device of antagonism, were allowed. Once we claimed our assigned bleacher seat,
we witnessed armed military police and DC police on every corner, along every
street, and in every square. Sharpshooters
patrolled the tops of buildings. Bomb-sniffing
dogs trotted down the streets; mail boxes and garbage cans were removed so that
bombs couldn’t be placed in them.
Helicopters hovered overhead. We
were there to witness the leader of the world’s greatest democracy, and to do
so, we had to surround ourselves to an arsenal of weapons wielded in an
atmosphere of suspicious, watchful distrust.
There are obvious reasons why
security is high around Obama and not King Phillip. For one thing, the typical Belgian is not
armed to the teeth and capable of bringing down the monarch. For another thing, Phillip is a low-profile kind
of leader, unknown outside of Europe.
Obama is known world-wide. And
of course, Belgium doesn’t have America’s track record of attempted and successful
assassinations.
But Belgium is no stranger to
terrifying, gun-wielding haters intent on subduing it. Belgium knows something about attacks on its
people and cities. It has been occupied
by Nazis and German WWI troops, it’s been bombed and blasted to bits, it has
seen tens of thousands of its young men die in battle on the country’s own
turf. But for all its been through, for
all the years of wars and violence and death, you can still stroll along the
main street of Belgium’s capitol and wave at the king as he goes by.
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