IVS
Superstar
LMAO! No aliens and not GOD. Learned men a la a priesthood invented it.
Belgium under terrorist attack, blasts hit airport and metro..
- Thread starter dterpsss
- Start date
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Some good points. But there are other areas as cheap as Molenbeek in Brussels (in Saint-Josse, Schaerbeek, Anderlecht, Forest, Saint-Gilles; Saint-Josse, Laeken etc) and the experience of living there vastly varies on the person. As I said before, Molenbeek is big : my sister lived in an area of Molenbeek which is middle-class for like 10 years, never had any big issues except for some petty crime one might witness in any capital. A female friend of mine lived closer to the rough area for various years and never had an issue. A male friend of mine lives near the Canal too, he bought an appartment there and things are ok. The place he talks about (Vaartkapoen) is a well-known concert and party scene right in Molenbeek.
Something that may have contributed to his bad experience : he's not Belgian, and he's Dutch. What I'm saying is that there is in Brussels some level of resentment (especially in poorer areas) towards expats, who are seen as having all the "good" of Brussels while not even being from there (consider the thousands of people who work at the European Commission/Parliament etc, NATO, big firms and so on and who make big money, often without paying any taxes either) while local kids can't even find a job. This is not exclusive to Molenbeek either, and the city of Brussels itself works more to accomodate this international community than larges portions of its native inhabitants. And the fact he's Dutch means he could've been mistaken for a Flemish guy : Flemish people are seen as more racist than French-speaking Belgians (based on who they vote for, whether it is true or not is up to debate) and also of kind of "taking advantage" of Brussels, because not many are born in the city. "Sale Flamand" ( = "Dirty Fleming") is an actual insult in some neighbourhoods (Flemish people, on the other hand, have "Kut Marokkaan",which means "fukking Moroccan", more or less). Especially if they don't speak french or with a strong dutch/flemish accent.
He does make good points about the political landscape and design of Belgium in general and Brussels in particular as a reason for bad cooperation between sometimes competing administrations. This I fully agree with. Also the responsibility of Moureaux and of the french-speaking Parti socialiste is really beyond any doubt imo.
The problem with most of this media attention is that it only gives one side of the story : dutch-speaking Een TV did a documentary about Molenbeek a couple weeks back and it shows a more nuanced situation. Now the dude who did it did not try to make it better than it is, he acknowledged the issues but also the good stuff and the people who, well, just go to school, work, raise kids, etc. It's only in dutch, but here it is : Eén - Openheid in de moskee
I see. That's why I asked you.
The thing of the 19 different majors in the city, one for each neighborhood, each one with their own police, sounds so ridiculous.
And yeah, I agree that Molenbeek ain't THAT bad.
I've been in bxl a few times in the last 2-3 years. One of the Airbnb houses where I stayed was very close to Molenbeek, and i had to walk through a part of it almost everyday. Of course I found it different from the other neighborhoods, you could guess that it might have been a problematic area, but it was no way dangerous for me or my girlfriend. Of course you have to watch out, as you do in almost every other big city. But nothing bad happened. I just had some communication problems since almost anybody understood English, that's all.
if terrorism isn't islam, they are committing these attacks in his name, and allah is all powerful...why doesnt he do something about it 
or...this IS islam
or...this IS islam
People start complaining about "Human rights"
They should be scooped up and thrown in deprogramming camps, you've got to be proactive not reactive. You're dealing with fanatics and cultists.
The Belgians let that town not only become a terrorist hotspot, but Europe's terrorism capital instead of going in like Putin
Europe's most wanted man was chilling there for 4 months, residents had the audacity to say they didn't know he was there when he was ordering Pizzas
Dwayne_Taylor
Superstar
Ehh....fukk Belgium
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Damn right. The historical problem is that Brussels is really 19 small towns who came together (which is different from Paris for example) that's why each Commune has its own mayor and, well, habits are hard to change. Once someone has some power it's hard as hell to take it away. There is a Brussels-Region though, which is more centralized, but it's another layer and they don't handle the same things. shyt is waaaay too complex. Police is different : it used to by Commune, now it's "only" 6 police zones since 2001, but it's still too many for a town the size of Brussels. We sometimes joke that we're experts at making simple things complicated.
One of the reasons also is the francophone-dutch speaking division. At the Brussels regional level, dutch-speaking representatives have a fixed quota of representation, regardless of how many dutch-speaking people actually live (and vote) in the Brussels Region. On the other hand, there is no real quota at the Commune level (the only obligation there is to have someone in charge of "Dutch-speaking affairs"). So you understand that politically, dutch-speaking politicians have no problem "losing" Communes in which they don't really have any power in anyway, and why it's more of an issue for french-speaking politicians. As I said in another post, there's a lot of internal division totally unrelated to religion, migration or whatever that have played a big part in all of this...and almost all no politician at the federal level come from Brussels : everyone knows that Flemish ministers try to get more gains for their Region (gotta secure possible future votes), same with Walloon ministers. Brussels is kind of the kid that is torn between two fighting parents. It's the economic motor of the country, but is structurally underrepresented at the federal level and the Brussels Region has less power than Flanders and Wallonia, meaning that specific issues pertaining to Brussels are hard to tackle.
Glad to read you were in Brussels, hope you enjoyed it!
Yeah I loved it.
Bruges was very nice too. I also enjoyed Leuven
Are you only there for work?
The American
Defending America against cacs
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
No, I'm half-Belgian and half-Central African, lived in Brussels in total like 9-10 years (2002-2005 and 2006-2012). In Paris now though.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Small vid of people who were asked to say one word after the events. For those who think Brussels is full of cacs who should somehow pay for what happened in the Congo a century ago.
wild100sboy
:mjpls:
This kinda news makes me scared to travel 
Virtuous_Brotha
Superstar
As expected a lot of idiots talkin about "pay back" and how little they don't care,coli got me thinking i'm psychic from the predictions i make on threads