Portuguese guy here, but isn’t this just a direct consequence of the perfectly divided electoral system? If your voters are all X-language speaking, they (the voters) don’t really care about your Y-language level. I was surprised to learn that even in Brussels the electorates are divided by language.
In other multilingual countries being a poliglot is a great political advantage, I’ve just read about this unlikely white gay mayor in a mostly black town in South Africa. His secret? A rare white Zulu-speaker.
In Switzerland if you’re running in a bilingual Canton you’re also expected to speak both and if you aim for national politics you know German is essential.
But here you can always build a career encapsulated in your own language bubble. People normally learn languages because they need or feel it will bring them a big advantage. If it’s just a “nice thing to do” most won’t.
Definitely agree.
The irony of linking to a reddit image 😅
Anyway, is there a corresponding image for the Flemish ministers? Or even the ministers *German *proficiency?
I’m not sure that I really care tbh. As long as they’re respectful towards the other language and do their jobs. Languages are hard, not everyone finds it easy to learn (myself included, my French is not great to say the least). They can’t all be Raoul Hedebouw, changing language mid-speech.
I was too lazy to rehost the image, if Reddit because our Imgur, why not?
I always have the impression that Flemish ministers have at least 2,5 in French. I care because as a French speakers I’m fed up with our ministers not even caring enough to speak the majority language of the country. Gives a very bad image of French speakers.
For me it mostly gives a bad image of how hopeless the situation is. Absolute top politicians should at least be able to have a basic conversation in the other language but they often can’t even do that.
One of the reasons Flanders is so extremely sensitive about the language rules and the language communities is because they see frenchification happening everywhere they go, especially around Brussels (but also in other cities). And when even our top ministers cannot be bothered, it doesn’t exactly hint that people will adapt and speak Dutch rather than expecting others will accommodate them in French.
It would take the nationalists down a few notches if ministers were equally as fluent in Dutch as their Flemish counterparts are in French. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just comprehensible and showing effort.
Your last point is very true. Such Dutch incompetence feeds the NVA and VB like crazy
I do care. Exactly because not being able to speak the language means you cannot ever represent me. Languages are easy, if you can’t learn Dutch to mediocre competency in your profession you simply should not be in politics.
To me what you’re saying about not caring about it comes across as being ok with it that someone teaching programming in C# doesn’t know how to use Visual Studio. Technically they might be able to do it in another way but it’s not acceptable.
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Ja, dat is ook erg vervelend.
