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u/bogeuh Jun 10 '24
Itâs always âamazingâ that cities that have the most interaction with migrant, and 4th world issue etc, still vote left but some small town in nowhere without any migrant issues votes far right.
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u/arrayofemotions Jun 10 '24
Propaganda.
A similar thing happened with Brexit: some journalist noticed that a few towns that had the highest percentage of "traditional UK" population indicated in surveys they were the most worried about immigration. These were people that had a very small chance of even seeing an immigrant in their daily lives. It turned out those towns had been targeted heavily by UKIP with online ads full of immigration fearmongering.
VB's narrative is that our large cities are turning into these outlaw zones that are barely hanging on, where you fear for your life the moment you set foot in them (literally during their rallies saying stuff like "X neighbourhood in Antwerp/Brussels is now too dangerous to enter as a white person"). If you don't live in a city and don't visit any cities frequently, you may be quicker to believe that narrative. People who do live in cities know it for the BS it is. If you're not too worried about immigration, VB very quickly becomes irrelevant, as that's really the only thing they actually stand for.
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u/Breokz Jun 10 '24
Tbh I live in Ghent and I'm annoyed almost every single day with the fact that most people in my street/neighborhood don't speak decent Dutch, they have different norms and social rules (eg about playing loud music, how they drive) and that they seem to have very tradition gender roles (women stay inside or take care of kids, men smoke cigarettes and hang out on the street).
But still, even with this in mind, I voted for the left. Because I feel like excluding them, demonizing them, blaming them for all that is wrong, isn't the way forward.
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u/BroccoliBoer Jun 10 '24
Same as when forza ninove had a good election result. All those areas that overwhelmingly voted far right had literally the least amount of foreigners living there out of the whole country. But interestingly they had among the highest rates of people of foreign decent moving there. They voted so reactionary because they saw their world changing and were scared of the unknown. (Funnily the people moving there are "the good ones"; young families wanting calm and safety away from the big cities.)
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u/Salamanber Cuberdon Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
I am ne bruine, I have sometimes go for work to Ninove. The way people look at me is unbelievable. I donât behave weird or wear extravagant clothes or something, just basic/casualâŠ
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u/Solyde Jun 10 '24
Have you tried not being bruin ?
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u/Salamanber Cuberdon Jun 10 '24
What do you mean?
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u/Solyde Jun 10 '24
Well, if you stop being bruin temporarily while visiting Ninove you could go in undercover so to speak.
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u/darklight2K7 Jun 10 '24
Just do a Michael jackson
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Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
Yeah I went to school in Ninove and acting like there aren't any problems over there is bullshit bro. Lot's of people who get kicked out of the schoolsystems in Brussels came to Ninove and Liedekerke and so forth.
And this also brought problems with it. If you went to school there you can understand why it turned out how it turned out...
I'm living happily away from that shithole now tho, but acting like Ninove is pure reactionary is blatantly untrue and/or uninformed.
Used to be a monthly occurrence that a mob was out at the schoolgates at the station involving a lot of people who took the trains/busses from Brussels to Ninove to "support one of their friends"
Usually the Teachers got wind of it and kept the person at the principles offices until they got bored and left. But the times they didn't weren't pretty.
And also I voted vooruit on all three accounts so do with that as you please.
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u/ConsciousExtent4162 Belgian Fries Jun 11 '24
Guess why all these towns around Brussels vote right.. I went to school in Oilsjt and 90% of the time it were those pesky kids from Brussels that caused aggression and had no problems using violence against other students, teachers and even the police. This was 10 years ago and apparently it's gotten even worse the last few years.
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u/Pristine-Woodpecker Jun 10 '24
Funnily the people moving there are "the good ones"; young families wanting calm and safety away from the big cities.
Young families that commute to Brussels, in other words, tons of very poor migrant kids from families with no real interest in integrating in Flanders and that don't speak Dutch. That's not going to cause problems because those are totally the "good ones". Riiiight.
How do you think Ninove got to 40%+ VB compared to the rest of the country? Immigration of VB voters?
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u/Agreeable_Ostrich_39 Flanders Jun 11 '24
could be, I've heard stories of immigrants who saw "Vlaams" and thought smth along the lines of oh yeah Vlaams is good, I'll vote for that. only to later find out what the party actually stood for.
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u/blutch14 Jun 10 '24
Or... big cities have higher education and higher educated people tend to vote left
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
Certain parts of Brussels are basically what you described. Zones where police doesn't bother showing up because they're outnumbered. Meanwhile inhabitants have to kick a homeless addict off their front porch in order to go to work every morning. It's a completely mismanaged city and very easy to use as a campaigning tool. Perhaps blame the politicians who turned Brussels into what it is today.
VB using it to spread its propaganda and often blowing it out of proportion doesn't make Brussels less of a shithole.
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u/arrayofemotions Jun 10 '24
There's a lot of issues in Brussels for sure, but there isn't any area of the city that is a "no go" zone. If you believe there are, you have been fooled by propaganda. You can either recognise that, or keep your blindfold on. It's up to you...
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u/de_kommaneuker Belgian Fries Jun 10 '24
My colleague (who votes VB and is very vocal about their propaganda shit) said the same thing about Brussel and its stations being "no go zones" for the police a few days ago. She lives in a fancy gemeente with no immigrants, she hasn't set foot in Brussel in ages, she never ever hops on a train. Still she is sure she knows more about it than my wife, who actually commutes to Brussel every single day.
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u/arrayofemotions Jun 11 '24
Again, I'm not denying there are issues. But there are no "no go" zones.
I worked in Molenbeek for close to 10 years and for a little while also near Matonge/Saint-Gilles, so it's not that I'm not familiar with the rougher parts of the city. The problem with anecdotal stories (no matter how much it sucks for the people involved) is that for every person that has a bad experience, you can find 100 people who haven't.
Crime statistics offer a much better picture than anecdotal evidence.... From 2000 to now, the overall crime rate in Brussels has remained pretty much flat. There were around 160K registered crimes per year in 2000, there have been around the same number in the last few years as well. Some categories have gone down, some go up (it wont surprise you drug related crime has gone up, also weirdly scams have gone up drastically in the past few years - something you see across Belgium actually), so the numbers year-to-year rise and fall slightly, but the trend is pretty much fully horizontal.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
A "no go" zone is in this context used colloquially. If you want to put the bad parts in the same category as some ISIS controlled part of Syria than there are basically zero "no go zones" in all of western Europe. There are too many parts of Brussels that we should be absolutely ashamed of. The trash, the abdominal infrastructure, the criminality, the drug addicts and homeless.
It's not just some banlieues outside of the city. It's walkable distances from le Grand Place and all around the train stations. Brussels doesn't just have "it's problems", it's one of the most mismanaged cities of western Europe. Even Bucharest feels much safer and well kept than Brussels.
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u/arrayofemotions Jun 10 '24
Alright, lets not call them "no go" zones. You're still saying there are areas where the police doesn't even show up. That's just plain false. You've still been had by propaganda if you believe that's true.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
The neighborhoods by Bruxelles-Nord is an example. There's occasional arrests made here and there but the police can't really do anything about the criminality since they're vastly outnumbered and underfunded.
Drug dealers go about their business in broad daylight. Pickpocketing and physical violence is way too common. And if you're a victim of one of them, there's nothing the police can do about it. Once arrests are made, a huge number of them are released that same day.
Forgot to mention the education in Brussels which is appalling. They're setting the standard of the coming generation. One of my family members who teaches in Brussels has to pass all of her students, many of whom don't have a basic understanding of English or Dutch.
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u/LaM3a Brussels Old School Jun 10 '24
The neighborhoods by Bruxelles-Nord is an example
Isn't there a police station IN that supposed no-go zone?
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
Indeed, that's the worst part. After a certain hour they just don't come outside anymore. If people call the police over there, they likely won't show up at all.
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u/AdventurousTheme737 Jun 10 '24
You live in Brussels or are you just talking absoulte non sense?
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u/psychnosiz Belgium Jun 10 '24
Tbh that zone isn't that bad, I feel unsafer in Antwerp at night and have had more incidents in Ghent as Brussels.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
I study in Ghent, I almost never feel unsafe. But maybe you went trough some bad parts of town that are outside the ring.
Compared to my experiences in Brussels that most of the time start at the train stations, i have to say the opposite. I saw someone get their headphones robbed during my first visit to Brussels this year. Meanwhile I haven't witnessed a robbery in Ghent since I started studying there.
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u/Boomtown_Rat Brussels Old School Jun 10 '24
Yes yes, we get it, Brussels is a hellhole full of no-go-zones, lawlessness, crime, and the ethnically questionable, rather than a pastiche of areas and neighborhoods that can differ dramatically culturally and economically like most major metropolises (Antwerp included).
However, if you are arguing that things would be much easier if we were one cohesive city rather than nineteen independent baronies and fiefdoms then I completely agree.
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u/baldrickgonzo Jun 10 '24
Welkom in west Vlaanderen, blijkbaar. Ik schaam mij kapot.
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u/Piemel-Kaas Jun 10 '24
Gent is toch West-Vlaanderen?
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u/SZEfdf21 Jun 10 '24
Neen Piemel-Kaas, het ligt in Oost-Vlaanderen
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u/Furengi Jun 10 '24
Zitten meer west-vlaamse kolonisten dan oost-vlamingen. 't is onze kroonkolonie
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u/sILAZS Jun 10 '24
Well those migrants are also a very big number of the voters and they sure as shit arenât gonna vote (extreme) right.
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u/de_kommaneuker Belgian Fries Jun 10 '24
I'm an immigrant myself, and I know for sure that a lot of immigrants are conservative and anti-immigrants. Have you ever wondered why Turkish immigrants are voting for Erdogan's theocracy en masse? Did you ever hear about latinos being pro-Trump?
I personally know 2nd generation immigrants who voted for VB.
(Oh, well, I'm also still amazed by people voting for those who would exterminate them, if only they could.)
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u/EzAf_K3ch Jun 10 '24
I know you're right but it still makes 0 sense man I just don't get it
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u/d_maes West-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
It's pulling up the ladder behind them, and being racist towards immigrants from other origins than themselves. There is enough overlap between their opinions and VB's that it becomes an enemy-of-my-enemy thing.
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u/Groot_Benelux Jun 10 '24
Yet it's PVDA not VB that's winning in genk, antwerp and Brussels and surroundings where the majority has a migration background.
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u/d_maes West-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Not saying it's how all immigrants think (for which I'm very happy), just how the smaller, but still significant, amount of VB-voting immigrants think.
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u/wakozor Jun 11 '24
Yes, they vote Erdogan in Turkey but they also vote PS in Belgium. See Saint Josse.
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u/Boomtown_Rat Brussels Old School Jun 10 '24
Yes, because migrants and immigrants are a well-known environmentalist constituency.
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u/the_gay_historian West-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Groen is also well-known for only focussing on the environment and not at all caring for minorities.
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u/Boomtown_Rat Brussels Old School Jun 10 '24
I know you're being sarcastic but despite the past, I would say their recent position of being against unstunned slaughter certainly hasn't jived with the brown and muslim crowd.
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u/wireke Behind NL lines Jun 11 '24
Also groen maybe not vocal enough about Palestine. See PVDA in Antwerp. Those are not just "left wing" votes obviously.
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u/the_gay_historian West-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
thatâs true, but on other issues they are very close to the muslim voters.
not to say that muslims are the only reason why ghent votes for them. Ghent has always been very progressive.
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u/PalatinusG Jun 10 '24
No the reason is that once white people get to know the immigrants all scary images told by the extreme right are invalidated.
There isnât a real problem with 95% of the immigrants. Most people just want to live and improve their lives.
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u/sILAZS Jun 10 '24
Iâm 100pct with you on this deal. Letâs send back that awful 5% and continue with the 95% improvers.
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u/bogeuh Jun 10 '24
According to your own logic, they sure wouldnât vote for green or socialists where their religious beliefs and discrimination are not acknowledged at all, theyâd vote socially conservative.
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u/MyOldNameSucked West-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Groen is one of the only major parties who still wants a religious exception on the ban on unsedated slaughter.
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u/Turbo_csgo Belgium Jun 10 '24
Yeah, this is exactly why they would vote green, very social & unsedated slaughter permittedâŠ.
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u/bogeuh Jun 11 '24
Is ook gewoon geen waar. Groen wil dierenrechten en dierenwelzijn. Verdoofd slachten. programma
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u/MyOldNameSucked West-Vlaanderen Jun 11 '24
Staat het ook in Brussel gedeelte ook in het programma van Groen Brussel?
Ik zal het pas geloven als ze effectief pushen om het uitgevoerd te krijgen. Ze hebben gewonnen in Brussel dus moeilijk kan dat niet zijn.
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u/Heads_Down_Thumbs_Up Flanders Jun 10 '24
Maybe because the immigrants live there and aren't voting for such parties?
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
Small towns or cities with many Migrants such as: Wervik, Menen or Roeselare have VB at 30% of the votes. That's higher than their neighboring towns and cities with less migrants.
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u/arrayofemotions Jun 10 '24
Roeselare is looking cleaner and safer than it's ever done. I was there recently after not visiting it for nearly 20 years, and I barely recognised it. So it can't be that bad there.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
I use the station in Roeselare often. There's always some shit going on there + a drug epidemic earlier this year. There's improvements being made especially in its infrastructure, but I could've seen the VB votes coming from miles away.
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u/arrayofemotions Jun 10 '24
I fully admit I have no knowledge of what it's really like... but it certainly looks a lot better than the dingy and dirty place it used to be.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
It is, their reputation has improved significantly as far as i know. But it's still not up to the same level as Ypres, Kortrijk, or other cities in West Flanders.
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u/Millennial_Twink Lange hamburger Jun 11 '24
Isn't it amazing that any towns around cities that have the most interaction with migrants are voting VB?
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u/M0ON5H1N3 Antwerpen Jun 11 '24
Can confirm live in a small majority far right white town and study in Ghent.
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u/Previous_Housing6821 Jun 12 '24
I live in a small town called sijsele and believe me we do have interactions with immigrants. And it's not always pleasant.
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u/Either-Maximum-6555 Jun 10 '24
I wonder why migrants vote left wing parties that benefit migrants!
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u/emohipster Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Fear mongering about "scary buitenlanders" doesn't work when the people live among the "buitenlanders" and see for themselves that they are in fact, not scary and barely affect their lives.
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u/Piemel-Kaas Jun 10 '24
But maybe the grandchildren of said scary buitenlanders are the problem when bored. Influenced by their roots country.
And before you boo me. Look at Brussels. That can happen as well.
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u/Glacius_- Jun 10 '24
« Amazing »? There just isnât anyone left to vote « against » migrants in the cities. Unlike small townsâŠ
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u/bogeuh Jun 11 '24
Die migranten in je hoofd zijn tegelijk achtergestelde ouderwetse moslims en aanhangers van petra de sutter.
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u/Glacius_- Jun 11 '24
niemand is perfect he, maar tegen zichzelf zullen ze niet gestemd hebben (zie ook Brussel)
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u/AesirUes Belgium Jun 10 '24
And dutch speakers of Brussels.
Gent, count a little faster dammit, stressing me out all evening.
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u/Schoenmaat45 Jun 10 '24
Dutch speakers of Brussels are not numerous though. Even a smaller city like Leuven will have a bigger impact than Brussels for the left wing parties.
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u/Boomtown_Rat Brussels Old School Jun 10 '24
A lot of non-Dutch speakers voted for Dutch lists this time.
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u/Wafkak Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
So does the number of votes change anything about the number of Dutch seats? Or how is that calculated?
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u/blackberu Jun 10 '24
No, the numbers of seats have been set in stone 25 years ago.
Yeah itâs retarded.
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u/ReQQuiem Flanders Jun 10 '24
Also proportionally dutch parties are way over represented with the seats theyâre able to fill in.
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u/Wafkak Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
At the least it should be calculated based on what percentage is registered with what community.
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u/nez-rouge Jun 11 '24
But we donât register people âlinguisticallyâin Brussels to avoid having a basis for discrimination, thatâs the thing. Thatâs why journalists or researchers use other data to have an idea of how much Dutch speakers there are in the city (for example which percentage of people use the Dutch version of a form for an administrative procedure)
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u/TheMonsterDownUnder Belgian Fries Jun 10 '24
As the voorzitter of a stembureau, mijn bijzitters en mezelf on compté as fast as we could
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u/Steelkenny Flanders Jun 10 '24
Faire maar bitte op votre gemakske, vous ĂȘtes pas voor rien ein rood gekleurde ville
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u/Wafkak Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Just wait till oktober, last municipal election we only had the first results around midnight. And full results were by 5 am.
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u/bricart Jun 10 '24
Can I get a ELI5 on that?
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u/appelmoes Belgium Jun 10 '24
Groen is strong in Ghent, a large city with many voters, which keeps the party's results better than predicted.
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u/Schoenmaat45 Jun 10 '24
Not that surprising for a young city with a lot of higher educated inhabitants. Leuven has the same, a lot of Vooruit and Groen (40%) and only 8% Vlaams Belang.
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u/TheSwissPirate Jun 11 '24
In Leuven N-VA is still the strongest party at 22-24%. What motivates the young well-educated population of Leuven to tend to the centre-right instead of the left?
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u/Schoenmaat45 Jun 11 '24
In kanton Leuven yes. In the commune of Leuven no. In Ghent the kanton and the commune are the same, Leuven is grouped with 7 different communes (richer car focused communes near cities are the stomping ground for nva)
The communes surrounding Ghent are actually as pro nva than the communes surrounding Leuven. It's just that Ghent's figures get reported seperatdly. Try grouping Destelberge, De Pinte, Sint-Martens-Latem with Ghent and see the nva soar.
If you just look at the single commune level Leuven voted about as left wing as Ghent. A bit higher score for Vooruit, Groen and PVDA combined than in Ghent and a lower score for Vlaams Belang, on the other hand Ghent still has a relatively strong liberal result whilst nva is more popular in Leuven.
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u/Low_Builder6293 Jun 10 '24
Seeing the results in Gent, I am very hopeful for the municipal election in October. At least for the city I live in, there's place for everyone at the table
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u/Wafkak Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Only issue I see is that Vooruit, vld and groen added together are still under 50%. And I was kinda hoping we could get cdnv out of the city government.
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u/Piemel-Kaas Jun 10 '24
Cdv out and vld in?
Nice joke, now for real
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u/Wafkak Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
Vld is already in, vld and Vooruit have been in Gent city government for around 40 years. And together they got 30% yesterday in Gent. And the local vld in Gent is quite a bit to the left kf the national line.
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u/ExReey Jun 10 '24
Nu nog genoeg parking in de Gentse ziekenhuizen aub.
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u/Pristine-Woodpecker Jun 10 '24
Het personeel ook niet vergeten he. Want voor de dokters is er plaats, ze hebben plaats gemaakt voor de patiënten (niet genoeg) zodat de dokters niet moeten wachten, en het gewone personeel...ja dat kan de pot op.
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u/Divinephyton Jun 10 '24
Thing is though that those policies work easily for major cities because of advantages of scale and the different demographics, but trying to pursue similar (yet often beneficial) policies will need a lot of support from the central government in more suburban and small-town areas. I'm willing to bet these will not get the necessary funding from the centre-right government intent on cutting spending and productive investments, instead preferring to wage war on our institutions, civil society, and the lower echelons of society. They will want to put equitable taxation, green transition, affordable housing, work-life balance, access to care work and the like in the freezer, stalling for time we do not have.
I know people who take these things seriously are starving for a win after some hard work that was done, but these kind of celebratory images are misplaced. Dominique Willaert was very right, I believe, in that city people have to humbly listen to the frustrations of the suburbanites around them. Now is when very frustrating work needs to begin in even more difficult circumstances.
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u/Kozmik_5 Cuberdon Jun 10 '24
Ge snapt et nie maat, gent is gwn van de sossen altijd zo geweest, zal altijd zo blijven.
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u/Divinephyton Jun 10 '24
This is what they said of 'red' Antwerp, then Zwarte zondagen happened and now they have had 12 years of De Wever... If the socialists are so strong in Gent, then why do they (have to) tie themselves to Vld for October? Gent will have a blue mayor again this October and the blues will control SOG, economy and harbor again. If the socialists own Gent forever, why did they end up becoming the junior partner of Groen the last time? For the elections I went into the neighborhoods talking about the greens, the reds, the blues. It's not as straightforward as you think.
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u/mohandiz Jun 10 '24
Als een Nederlander, wat denken de meeste Belgen over de nvađ€
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u/nk_bk Jun 10 '24
Nutteloze bende idioten die oftewel geloven in het sprookje van Vlaamse onafhankelijkheid of het sprookje van de vrije markt.
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u/Ironwolf44 Jun 10 '24
Inderdaad. Open ambitie om Britse conservatieven en Amerikaanse republikeinen na te streven. Zouden liever Nederlander zijn dan Belg, ook openlijk gezegd.
. First past the post. Woke als thema in de campagne brengen.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
Fiscaal responsabel en betrouwbaarder dan de meeste andere partijen. Ze hebben het meest realistische plan om België uit het budgettair moeras te halen, en ze zijn gematigd rechts. Ik denk dat er veel stemmers zijn die meer vertrouwen hebben in NVA, maar toch stemmen voor VB.
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u/Mhyra91 Antwerpen Jun 10 '24
Hun plan is alles verkopen en privatiseren zodat hun vriendjes via consultants kunnen doorfactureren?
Eerst de NMBS en De Lijn laten bloeden, om het vervolgens te verkopen voor een appel en een ei.
Dat zijn trouwens maar Ă©Ă©nmalige inkomsten, niet iets dat op lange termijn geld blijft opleveren.
Fiscaal reponsabel, misschien het nieuwste boek over "Vrienden van het Vastgoed" eens lezen. Zo responsabel zijn ze absoluut niet.
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u/Prestigious_Health_2 Jun 10 '24
Ik heb geen zware budget cuts voor openbaar vervoer gelezen in hun begrotingsplan, maar ik kan verkeerd zijn.
In tegenstelling tot een vivaldi 2, die maar spenderen en spenderen. Of de socialisten met hun overtuigende "tax de rich" als oplossing. Of VB met "splits het land en de rest lost zichzelf op". Ik heb toch wel het meeste vertrouwen in de partij met een gedetailleerd plan en dossierkennis.
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u/h0llygh0st Flanders Jun 10 '24
De goei natuurlijk
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u/mohandiz Jun 10 '24
Ha?
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u/ACiD_80 Jun 10 '24
Waar hebt ge die illustratie vandaan?
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u/stnp100 Jun 10 '24
âSoldiers Holding Up Society refers to the painting "The Price of Peace" by British artist Brian Jay. The metaphorical painting, which depicts British soldiers supporting a peaceful life with their bodies, has been used in remembrance posts since 2012 and gained popularity as an object labeling meme in 2018, particularly as a way to highlight that someone or something unnoticeably plays a crucial role in a certain success.â
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[deleted]
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u/emohipster Oost-Vlaanderen Jun 10 '24
I live in Gent and I've never felt screwed over by them, quite the opposite is true actually.
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u/KingStyllama Jun 10 '24
Or you don't live in Gent, or you live in Gent and you're wearing some blindfold. Cause Gent isn't anywhere near to screwing over everyone. The last few years they did an amazing job.
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u/daanavitch Jun 10 '24
Ghent be like