Child pornography, helicopter sales, murder, and Maastricht
A most uncommon crisis
* Belgium A series of parallel national crises have been transformed into a "crisis of the nation." The people wanted change. But their leaders didn't want to give it to them. Alain Tondeur* The discovery of the Dutroux child sexual abuse ring in August 1995 plunged Belgium into a series of scandals, touching all areas of public life. New life has been breathed into old scandles, from the illegal commissions on the sale of Agusta combat helicopters used to finance the Walloon (Frenchspeaking) Socialist Party, to the mysterious and still unexplained deaths of some thirty people in the Brabant region in the 1990s.
The parliamentary commission charged with the child sexual abuse enquiry finally ordered the public prosecutor to intervene against the national police (gendarmerie), suspected of having hidden or destroyed evidence linking rich and powerful men to the sex-slavery and murder ring of Marc Dutroux. Two homosexual government ministers were accused of a politicallymotivated amalgam of accusations.
But this is more than a series of scandles. Taken together, these developments have plunged this small country into an existential crisis, the end of which is out of sight. Sex and politics
There is a moral crisis, fed by the considerable emotion generated by the horror of the Dutroux crimes. Then there is a crisis of neo-liberal ideology; Dutroux was among other things a cynical businessman, a selfmade man, completely at ease in this society dominated by the unscrupulous race for profits. A crisis of Belgium's law-and-order institutions leans on this shaky pyramid. These scandals have demonstrated their impotence in the face of real crime, and the class nature of Belgian "justice"
There is also a crisis of the representative political system. The social mobilisation has revealed the gulf which separates the aspirations of the majority of society from the preoccupations of the political caste, obsessed with sliming the budget, and meeting the Maastricht criteria for convergence of European monetary policies.
In fact, Belgium was in crisis long before these scandals emerged. The country itself is relatively artificial, formed by the great powers in 1830, without any deep historicosocial legitimacy. In this weak state, a ruling * Editor of La Gauche, newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party (POS/SAP), Belgian section of the Fourth International, which also publishesRood in Dutch. 32 International Viewpoint class divided along national lines confronts a weakly-politicised but massively organised working class, with a history of revolt. Collaboration
The explosive nature of this situation is contained through collaboration between the reformist leaderships of sections of the workers movement. At the political level this has taken the form of the participation of the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) and Walloon (French-speaking) social democratic parties in a series of coalition governments. At the economic-social level, Belgian capitalists have long accepted a "social accord between the social partners". In other words, cooperation with the trade unions.
Like the political parties, Belgian trade unions are divided into separate Christian organisations in each of the two linguistic regions. On the surface this four-way division makes life more complicated. Under the surface, it is an important contribution to the stability of bourgeois domination.
In the 1980s and 1990s, this peculiar Belgian system slowly slid deeper and deeper into a crisis caused by the combination of three factors: the long recessive wave of the international capitalist economy, the growth of tensions between the "linguistic communities" and the Maastricht project for West European integration on a neoliberal basis. (Which is an attempted response to the growing contradiction between the internationalisation of capital, and the national character of all existing states.)
In Belgium, this economic crisis had some specific factors, with particular political repercussions, which are important in understanding the current crisis. First of all, there is the "parasitic" domination of a handful of holding companies, which operate in an ageing industrial structure, based on the production of semi-finished goods for the world market. Unlike the other smaller capitalist economies, Belgium has not been able to specialise in any significant niche of
When, in the late 1970s, it became clear that the economic situation had changed permanently, financial capital withdrew quickly from the steel industry, naval construction, glass-making and coal-mining.
The state rushed in to collectivise the economic losses, and soften the social shock. The opening of the Belgian economy to the multi-nationals was accelerated by a policy of investment incentives and selective tax reductions. There was mass unemployment: joblessness rose higher than 10% faster than in other West European countries. This is a serious problem for the financing of the social security system.
Meanwhile, Belgium's already high state my back and 'll scratch yours. ou scratch debt rocketed, due to a strong the political and business elites, and a welldeveloped lobbying system exchanging favours for public sector investment
Government debt is 133% of GDP. The interest payments along represent 25% of the state budget. This terrible burden deprives the authorities of any room for manoeuvre when faced with labour or business demands, or What is "Belgian" anyway?
In 1987, the Italian Carlo De Benedetti launched a hostile take-over bid against Societé générale de Belgique (the country's most powerful holding company. The authorities blocked him by inviting the French group Suez to take a major stake in the holding. The "Belgian" (or Flemish) base of the economy is a recurring concern of the politicians, but once again the Belgian bourgeoisie proved powerless in the face of the concentration and internationalisation of capital...
Particularly since the Maastricht Treaty was adopted in 1992. European unification is a decisive process for Belgian capitalists. Even though their state is losing substance in two ways: its powers are being delegated higher, towards the European institutions, and lower, towards new "community" organisations for Flemish, Walloon, and Brussels residents, and for the small German-speaking minority. The central state looks increasingly strange, suspended awkwardly between these two levels of decision making. And yet, the central state is still the most legitimate, in the eyes of the population. Which means it still has an important role in managing the class struggle on behalf of the rich and powerful.
This legitimacy is the result of the prestige of the royal family, and an unjustified, but nevertheless real assimilation in peoples' minds between the maintenance of the national state, and the maintenance of an all-Belgian social security system. The contradiction is obvious: in this international climate, the ruling class has no choice but to weaken the cement of its own state.
The pseudo-federal reform of the country is politically unavoidable The paradox is that this process designed to contain centrifugal forces in the regions is in fact accentuating the formation of two increasingly distinct societies, not just speaking languages, but with separate political lives. There are, in effect, no national political parties, national media, or civic groups which operate uniformly across Belgium.
Mare Dutroux's serial rape and murder of
an unknown number of girls, and the impotence of the country's police and judicial institutions in the face of these outrages were the catalyst which united all the elements of the growing crisis in Belgian society. This
Or rather, it's not so strange. The fate of our children, is, after all, a condensed form of our fears and questions about the future. For the majority of the population, the commercialisation of the sexual violence done to these little girls is the sign of a barbarity which menaces society as a whole. Massive response
With the institutions completely discredited, hundreds of thousands of people decided that they must mobilise themselves to show their refusal of the inhuman society that is taking shape around them. The parents of the victims, projected, against their wishes, into the centre of media attention, encouraged this civic mobilisation. They became the natural leaders of the movement. People trusted these unfortunate parents of the murdered children, because they gave the impression of thoughtfulness and responsibility, and of a determination to "go as far as is necessary"
This was a massive social mobilisation. On 20 October 1996 about 300,000 people participated in the "White March" called by the parents of the victims. There were hundreds of spontaneous local initiatives by high-school students, manual workers, civil servants, housewives, fire-fighters, bikers, and truck drivers. Innumerable expressions of the desire of ordinary citizens for change! Many were inspired by one magistrate, M. Bourlet's promise to "go all the way, if they don't stop me first". These words catalysed the desire of wide sections of society to "go all the way" in their struggles against al forms of injustice.
During the "crazy week" of 15-20 October workers in hundreds of enterprises stopped work and organised street demonstrations to protest against the removal of the Magistrate charged with the Dutroux investigation, after he committed a formal infraction of procedure. This began as a completely spontaneous movement, but was picked up by shop stewards and some lower-level union officials. The workers' demonstrations coincided with a massive spontaneous mobilisation of high school students. Workers and young people found themselves standing on the steps of the country's courthouses, ridiculing the judiciary and denouncing the class-based hypocrisy of the system. The police intervention against youth demonstrations was surprisingly violent. Here comes Albert
The government stabilised the situation a little by pushing King Albert II forward. He exceeded his constitutional powers, by entering into dialogue with the families of the victims. It proved to be a contradictory stabilisation. The price of calm was the establishment of a parliamentary commission of enquiry on the judicial enquiry into the Dutroux case. This is not a public relations manoeuvre. The committee has all the powers of a public prosecutor. And it operates under intense pressure from public opinion, which demands "the truth" and is extremely sensitive to the slightest hint of cover-up. The parents of the victims attend the sessions of the committee and, by virtue of their enormous moral prestige, they have a virtual veto over its operations.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Belgium no longer faces a series parallel "national crises", but a real "crisis of the nation." People are uncertain about their identity, and their future. They are ashamed of their political representatives, and their mediocre institutions. They recognise that the political class are nothing more than managers of a run-down, unjust and undemocratic society. And they think that they deserve something better. Those at the bottom are no longer willing to be ruled in the old way, while those above are divided on how best to reform the system of domination. Popular or populist?
There is tremendous confusion in the popular "movement". But this does not make it "populism." That is certainly a risk. But a risk which existed before this crisis, not one created by it. This new situation also represents some possibilities for positive developments. For instance, there is visibly a widespread aspiration for greater social control
Belgium * over "the system". This is something new.
There is a desire to participate in the redefinition of the rules of social life, and to give a deeply democratic meaning to the social cohabitation of Dutch-speakers, Frenchspeakers and immigrants on the small territory called Belgium. What does the left have to say?
If the trade unions, the social movements and the left intellectuals had the same positive qualities as the workers and high school students who went on strike during that "crazy week" of October, there would be a real possibility of creating a powerful force in favour of change. A force liberated of all the confessional, corporatist "pillars" of Belgian public life. A force capable of giving people a new collective identity, in the struggle for democratic and social demands, and in the creation of new forms of solidarity
Unfortunately, only very limited forces see these possibilities, and are trying to exploit them. The Social Democrats are as pathetic than ever, clinging to power as if it was their only salvation. The leaders of the trade unions have made no proposals which could have given the mobilisations their full social dimension. And yet, it would have been easy to link questions of citizenship and democracy to the struggle against unemployment by reducing the working week.
Civic groups and associations have been virtually silent. What is left of the women's movement has been largely absent from the mobilisations and the discussions. Most of the country's intellectuals have been preoccupied with the "irrationality" of the masses, who's "emotion" threatens the rule of law, which, they stress, is the incarnation
" The citizens in the street are paving the way for fascism, gentlemen!
All these forces want one thing above all: a return to "normal." They refuse to see that the far right's main chance to profit from this situation will come if, and only if, the masses are demobilised, with the impression of powerlessness.
At the institutional level, only the Greens are willing to say that the collapse of the current political regime is positive, if it leads to democratic reforms which would put an end to the whole system of privileges, clientelism and corruption. But the Greens don't make any link between these democratic demands, and the social and economic demands which would have a greater echo in the most active social layers of society. Layers among which the Greens, of course, have few networks.
The future is hard to predict. Belgium's women, workers, and young people have gone through a major experience of collective action, in which they have tasted the power of resolute, thoughtful mass action. The fruits of this experience will soon blossom, in all areas of society. The Dutroux crisis is over. What comes next? * Source: A six page feature on the Belgian crisis was published in the October 1996 issue of our French monthly Inprecor This article is available on request from our Paris office.
February 1997#285 33
Gay history with a new moral
* reviews
Frederic Martel's book Le rose et le noir (The Pink and the Black), acclaimed by the French press, has received more mixed reviews from lesbian/ gay and anti-AIDS organisations. They complain that his historical and sociological methods are dubious. Writing the history of the modern French lesbian/gay movement is certainly no easy task. But Martel's goal is less to establish the historical facts (even roughly) than to stigmatise in every possible way the "deviation" that he thinks threatens gay people: "communitarianism"
Martel's work seems seductive. He sets out to write "the history of a double revolution: first gay liberation, then AIDS". That explains his title: "pink" for gay people, "black" for AIDS. We have been waiting for this history for at least fifteen years.!