Belgians strip off to mark political impasse

BELGIUM celebrated its entrance into the Guinness Book of Records for taking the longest time to form a government with striptease on the streets, beer drinking and a fries revolution.

In each of the main cities of this politically divided country, students took to the streets to protest that even after 249 days their politicians have not managed to form a government.

In the Flemish city of Ghent several students stripped to their underwear in one of the main squares despite the cold to make their point. Actress Marijke Pinoy led the strip in support of the “Not in our Name” group.

It refers to the politicians who seem intent on dividing the country along its linguistic borders with French speakers on one side and Dutch speaking Flems on the other.

“If we are all naked we see that we are all the same. Politicians must stop pointing out what separates us. They must stop erecting barriers and acknowledge the truth”, the popular actress said.

Some of the students wore just the national flag and sipped gin to keep warm as they listened to Pinoy. “They want to put us in cages and create a cold and narrow Flemish Lilliput country. But we are free thinkers”, she said adding they reject this vision for the future of Belgium.

The organisation plans more events to show up what they consider to be the failure of politics in the country of eleven million people that when they have governments, they have five — one French, one Flemish, one German, one Brussels and an overall federal government.

They have already held public pillow fights and plan a big music festival for May saying they will push for the kind of reforms the country needs and not a division of the country put together little more than 150 years ago.

Some student groups have dubbed their day of action the French Fries revolution after the food the country is perhaps most famous for. Students turned out in force in Brussels, Antwerp, Louvain and Liege.

As the young people marked beating the Iraqi record for the longest time to set up a government since WW2, the Belgian King, Albert II gave his negotiator a two-week deadline to try to put together a government.

The main winners of last summer’s elections were a separatist and conservative Flemish party and a non-separatist and socialist French party.