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BELGIUM - When conversation dries at European dinner parties, hosts often resort to a time-honoured game to liven things up: Name 10 Famous Belgians.
Most people can rustle up Rene Magritte ... Georges Simenon ... there's that singer, Jacques Brel ... what's-his-name, that screen tough guy, Jean-Claude van Damme ...
After that, the naming gets tricky and the struggling guest may eventually beg to include Tintin, and even Tintin's dog, Snowy.
Belgium, it would seem, was born to be the butt of tired jokes. A kingdom created in 1830 out of bits of the Netherlands, it lacks the centuries-spanning national roots of its neighbours. The country is split between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemings, embroiled in a linguistic war that for most outsiders is impenetrable and absurd.
But even by its own surreal standards, Belgium's politics have entered strange and perilous territory.
The state-run TV channel RTBF unleashed a scare on December 12 by airing a spoof news programme which declared Belgium had collapsed. Flanders had unilaterally declared independence from Wallonia and King Albert II had fled to Africa. The country had ceased to exist.
To support its breaking news report, RTBF aired live footage of trams said to be blocked at the new border. It also interviewed real-life politicians who either welcomed or denounced the Flemish Parliament's declaration. The channel's big-name journalists took part in the spoof, which ran only a brief warning to viewers that it was fiction.
Like the American radio listeners conned by Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds in 1938, many Belgians were shocked, even terrified. RTBF's switchboard was jammed by 2600 anxious callers. Some foreign ambassadors, likewise tricked, sent urgent messages back to their capitals.
RTBF said the point of the programme was to encourage debate about Belgium's future ahead of general elections to take place by June.
But, if anything has been achieved, it is the opening of a Pandora's Box.
Flemish independence, until now a marginal notion claimed by extremists, is no longer taboo. The response of many Flemings was revelatory. "Thank God, we've got rid of them at last," was the reaction of a Brussels woman before, disappointed, she learned that the break with the Walloons was only fictitious.
The federal Government is headed by Guy Verhofstadt, with a Liberal-Social Democratic coalition of four Flemish and Walloon parties.
But his position is being stealthily eroded by Flemish nationalism, stoked by ancient resentment at French-speaking dominance, the grip of the old Walloonian aristocracy and the stereotype of Walloons as layabouts and scroungers.
Flanders' leading politician, Yves Leterme, who heads the Flemish regional Government and whose party tops the opinion polls, has seized the moment to demand that the Walloons transfer more powers from the federal Government, including responsibility for employment policy.
Power has seeped to the regions for nearly two decades, leaving the federal Government with a dwindling number of portfolios. If Leterme's demands are met in full, the Brussels Government would be little more than a husk and the potential for regional conflicts over jurisdiction and budget would be huge.
But with this big turf battle looming, the royal family, a traditional healer of national wounds, is fighting for its credibility. King Albert II, his reputation mauled by revelations in 1999 of a secret royal bastard, has big problems with his wayward acknowledged son, Laurent, 43.
According to reports in the Belgian press, Prince Laurent, whose lifestyle reputedly focuses narrowly on fast cars, women, flashy clothes and watches, received between €175,000 and €400,000 ($330,000-750,000) from friends in a long-running embezzlement of Navy funds. The chief suspect in the alleged fraud, the prince's former adviser, Colonel Noel Vaessen, goes on trial on January 8.
In his Christmas Day address, the King distanced himself from Laurent, saying "no one is above the law".
"If justice establishes that there has been embezzlement, it seems fair to me everyone who benefited from it has to make amends," the King said.
What apparently underpins Albert's fears is that the Flemish nationalists will seize on the affair to reduce the monarchy to the role of a simple figurehead. This would not only slash the royals' political powers but would also cut back the public funds for the sprawling family.
Laurent, only 11th in line to the throne, gets an annual stipend of nearly €300,000 and his family live rent-free at their mansion. But according to Vaessen, the Prince is such a spender he could hardly buy food for himself at the end of the month.
With these kind of difficulties, Belgium seems poised for a truly horrible year. The country has a famous tradition of pragmatism and deal-making to overcome its problems. This year, though, things look exceptionally dark. Even Tintin, and Snowy, too, would cast a worried frown.
