SERVING THE NATIONS

THE CORPORATE IDENTITY OF BELGIUM

Working document.
(c) Pieter Bos, Serving the Nations
June 1997, Almere, The Netherlands

General about Corporate Identity (CI).

Peoples, tribes and nations, and also cities, are spoken of throughout the Bible as very important to God's plan, very much in God's concern, and they are spoken of and treated as corporate personalities: they have an identity, they are addressed as "Virgin Daughter Judah, Virgin Daughter Babylon", they are held responsible for their actions, they will be judged and they can be redeemed. On the new earth we find peoples in the context of the "covenant formula": "They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God" (Rev 21:3).

The theology for this understanding can be found in chapter 3 of my book "The City Called; Theology of the city and her Redemption."

Personalities, including corporate personalities like tribes, peoples, nations and cities, are created in the image of God.
The CORPORATE IDENTITY (CI) of a corporate personality is
a. an expression of God's character in that personality, because of which it contains
b. her destiny in God and
c. her redemptive gift to her fellow peoples.
Through the fall and the effects thereof, this corporate identity has been distorted and corrupted.
Through years of travelling I have developed and refined a long list of CI's. I have found that the inevitable generalisation of a CI does not make void the general use of this concept.

The Corporate Identity of Belgium.
For the Corporate Identity (CI) of the nation (state) of Belgium I submit "CREATIVE FRIEND."

In comparison to the character of God.
First of all, Creative Friend is very much a facet of the multi-faceted character of God, her Creator. God has created the heavens and the earth, as he claims throughout the Bible, even as a reason to be worshipped and obeyed. Jesus called his disciples "friends", but not until they had been with him for a long time; in other words, for Jesus the concept of friendship denotes depth of relationship and intimacy. "Creative Friend" then combines two precious facets of God's character. It suggests a warmth of relationships, a personalness in creativity that would be nurturing the other members of the family of nations in Europe.

This character shines through.
How do we see this character shine through positively in the Belgium nation?
In the area of "Creative" we can see that Belgium has brought forth many magnificent, internationally known artists, throughout her history.
Painters are Van Eyck, Paul P. Rubens, ???
Architects are Horta, and in fact the whole school of Art Nouveau is of Belgian origin.
Musicians are the first, second, third and fourth "Dutch School" in the late Middle Ages / Early Renaissance???
Of all these artists two are of special importance to mention in respect to our quest: Pieter Breughel, both the Old and the Young. Both these painters of the late Middle Ages express both aspects of the CI magnificently. They were painters of the familiar, expressing the homy situations at feasts and funerals; not the sophisticated nobility or clergy they portrayed, but the every day of life relations were their topics.
But certainly as important as these famous individuals, are throughout the centuries the countless individuals who never became famous, but yet have made music at home in a committed way; even in our tv-minded day it is very common when each member of a Belgian family plays a different musical instrument with excellency.
These are historic and contemporary expressions of the aspect "creative" of the CI of Belgium.

In the area of "Friend" we can see the following. Belgians are internationally appreciated for their friendliness, both in informal contacts as in business and educational contacts. They are known for their warmness, unsophisticated approach to relationships and dynamics. The Flemish version of the Dutch language is the friendlier pronunciation; and certainly in the ears of the Dutch, both through the pronunciation and the many flowery expressions, Flemish is the "friendly" expression of the language that they and the author share.

An example of Belgian "Friendliness" is also the following. In WWII many Jews were "saved" by Belgians, as were in other nations, among others in the Netherlands 1). Research showed that in The Netherlands Jews mainly were helped in a sacrificial way by committed Christians and committed communists. This beautifully reflects the CI of the Netherlands, being "Prophet": going for truth, applying truth; these Christians helped the Jews out of commitment to a principle. For the Belgians the main motive was reported to be friendship; they had befriended the Jews over the years, and were friends to them in WWII even with the risk of death.

This character is corrupted.
We can also learn about the Belgian CI from its corruption. Needless to say that the following is not meant to criticize or ridicule or caricaturise, but to help understand the Corporate Identity of this precious people of Belgium even in its corruption.
The Belgians have a very low self-image. The jokes they tell about themselves are cruelly self-denigrating, and they know it, and they still do it, as if they hate and want to torture themselves. How could this happen? Was Belgium not a very visible and self-appreciating nation during the Renaissance? Yes, indeed, she was, and that at the same time is the cause of this low self-image in our day. Internationally there has been a major shift in appreciation of Friendliness and Creativity over the past centuries. Our time is so much more materialistic and pragmatic, that Friendliness and Creativity have become "good enough for the weekend", no longer relevant for real life. Friendliness is good enough for the break time; Creativity and Culture is good enough for special people, who as such the world can do without. And the surrounding nations have behaved self-centred in a most hurting way in this respect toward their smaller sister Belgium, valuating her by their own standards! The corrupted expression of the CI's of the surrounding nations proclaimed and practised, without too many words, the depreciation of the Belgian CI all the time: the Dutch 1): truth is better than... Friendship and Creativity; the Germans 1): obedience and punctuality is better than...; the French 1): prideful beauty is better than...; the English 1): empire building is better than... Friendship and Creativity. In this way they have imposed a low self-image upon Belgium.
This low self-image is being "proven" by corrupted expressions of the CI, visible to the eyes of the Belgians themselves. Much of their art has become kitsch, and the Belgian kitsch is very kitschy indeed. The Belgium friendliness has corrupted into cliquishness, as expressed in the position of the Vlaamse Blok and of Masonry, both in numbers and influence. Both expressions of cliquishness are so ugly in the eyes of the Belgians, that they cause the low self-image to increase. The way the child abuse case of 1996 was treated, and the sense of "treatment behind closed doors", has confirmed this aspect of the image.
Also the growing and painful divide between the Wallonians and the Flemish is a dynamic the Belgians are ashamed of, not contributing to the healing, redeeming, of their wounded self-esteem.

A testimony, how I found this CI.
For January 1991 I was invited to join a three day spiritual leaders prayer retreat near Turnhout. It was not to be a time of teaching and learning, but of prayer, in order to start the year together in prayer (Shortly before, I had made myself available for any type of ministry I could provide, as a way of expressing my apology for the Belgian jokes the Dutch were telling all the time, and this was the first response from the Belgian side.) I just sat in and joined in. But at meal times I asked the type of questions in search for the CI. It was then that I heard for the first time the Belgians themselves tell these terrible jokes at their own expense. I pursued through the retreat, asking questions and praying all the time. The last morning I asked for the opportunity to share, and I submitted the above. Also I asked forgiveness, as a Dutch spiritual leader to Belgian spiritual leaders, for the Belgian jokes and the rejection in general of the Dutch toward the Belgians.
The response was unexpected and overwhelming. Strong emotions erupted; many pastors started to cry. One of the pastors prayed along this line: "Father, I thank you for this revelation; to day is the first day in my life I can love my nation, I can enjoy being Belgian."
This was the time I "discovered" the CI of this country, or, as I prefer to say, that I received revelation of it, with confirmation, from God. On the many occasions I ministered in Belgium after this time, several times I shared about my understanding of the CI, and always got positive responses.

In the monograph on the European Union some material can be found on the what I feel as being an ab-use of the CI of this nation.

I am aware of the divide, even painful divide, of the Belgians into Flemish and Wallonian Belgians, even to the extent that it was remarked: "There is only one real Belgian: the king." However, while seeking to further confirm the above, I was emphatically told, by Flemish and by Wallonian Belgians, that this finding implies, covers, both people groups. This raises of course the question, whether each of them has also some character-traits of themselves, as being also separate people groups. I am inclined to answer that question in the affirmative, but I have not (yet) tried to discern the separate CI's of these two people groups.
The design of the park in Brussels between the House of Parliament and the royal palace, dating from 1770, shows already the influence of Masonry. However the main increase of this movement dates from the early nineteenth century, when it was "en vogue" to not be Roman Catholic. As the only relevant alternative intellectuals was offered Masonry, as a "sophisticated" way of protest against the RC church. Since then Masonry has become very wide spread and influential throughout Belgian intelligence and public life.

Endnotes:

Wherever another nation is mentioned for the sake of comparison, that nation is marked 1) and a monograph about the CI of that nation is available or in the making. Back to tekst.