The Pachyderm Post

The Pachyderm Problem has two broad phases: Growing Up and Grown.

When the Pachyderm is young and non-threatening – even cute – it is also still small enough to be led out of the bedroom and out of the house before any damage needs to be done.

But, after it is mature, it is larger than the windows and larger than the doors, and it can only be dealt with by destructive means… destructive to the house, to the Pachyderm, or both.

Belgium’s Pachyderm Problem is – this year – fully mature.

That Pachyderm – Flemish popular demands (and perhaps now, expectations) for both greater powers and fewer responsibilities in the malformed mutuality called Belgium – has now reached the point that great damage will result whether a new Belgian governmental coalition is formed or not.

The damage that results from Yves Leterme’s – and the King’s – failure to establish a government will vary, depending on the nature and outcome of that failure. It can include everything from the establishment of Brussels as a European district, to the expulsion of Flanders from the European Union and many other equally or more disastrous results (see Le Soir’s famous “Five Options” edition).

The deeper tragedy, however, may be the damage that results from a “successful” coalition.

This damage will range from the sense of betrayal – and resentment – on the part of almost half the Flanders electorate because of the abandonment of the effectively separatist objectives of the Flemish parties, to the deepened conviction on the parts of many – if not most – Walloons and French-speakers that their citizenship in the experiment called Belgium is at best a perpetual irritation and at worst an affront to a plurality of Belgium’s Flemish-speakers.

But this sad combination will not be the worst damage.

The worst effect of a deeply unsatisfying coalition will be a massive deepening of cynicism, lethargy and political withdrawal on the parts of the majority of people on all sides of the controversies.

This sapping of political energy is the bleeding of political and civic will from whatever national heart may yet beat in the majority of Belgians not yet consumed by the political, economic and cultural conflicts that have defined modern Belgium.

This situation is like a perpetual boxing match whose outcome hinges more on the mood of the spectators that it does on the blows exchanged by the combatants in the ring.

If the audience leaves the arena – whether the fight is won or lost – the match, made in 1831, will be over and done.

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