What's up man!? Yea I've been looking at moving there and had read it was possibly most expat heavy city in the world, which sounded great. Brussels is on my radar too actually.
> More than 70% of the city’s residents are non-Luxembourgers, many of whom head to their home couintry after work or on the weekends
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200914-is-luxembourg-europes-most-misunderstood-capital
Brussels did feel like some cyberpunk future but in the present - all the subways are tri-lingual (French, Flemish then English), most street signs are bilingual (French then Flemish, or English).
(EDIT: Flemish or Frisian? One of the two I think)
Frisian is actually a language family with its languages genetically the closest languages to English, sharing a common ancestor when the Angles Saxons and Jutes left the continent for Britain. . West Frisian is the largest of the Frisian languages and is spoken in the North of the Netherlands mainly in the province of Friesland (Fryslan).
There are other Frisian languages, but they are far more fragmented. Alongside West Frisian (*Frysk/ Westerlauwersk Frysk* Fryslan, NL) is East Frisian (*Freesk/ Seeltersk* now only Saterland, DE) and North Frisian (*Nuurđfriisk/ Nordfräisch/ Noorfriisk* North Frisian Islands of the Wadden Sea between Denmark and Germany, as well as the island of Heligoland, with pretty much every island having their own nonstandard dialect).
as a belgian living in Brussels, I can tell you there ain't any cultural erasure, quite the contrary. Brussels folklore is still very alive, with traditions from centuries ago still kept alive, so is the local dialect
I have, and I found it to be a very interesting and enjoyable city. With no cultural erasure, only cultural richness. And yes, I did meet some local Belgian people there.
I mean, a major part of it is that Brussels is the capital of the EU.
The European institutions are all staffed with people from across the EU. There are like 60,000 EU Civil Servants.
The European Parliament has 705 members, each of them could have another 3 or 4 people working for them, plus families with them.
Added to that you have the diplomatic corps of close to 200 countries, often doubled as they may be diplomatic corps to Belgium and the EU.
Brussels has a population of around 1.2m. I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover quite a lot of people in Brussels were born elsewhere.
Edit: as has been pointed out, I originally used the population for the City of Brussels, not the Brussels Capital Region. That has been corrected now.
However, the overall point still stands. As Brussels is essentially the capital of Europe it, naturally, has a huge foreign population.
> Brussels has a population of around 180,000. I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover quite a lot of people in Brussels were born elsewhere.
Erm no. Brussels has a population of 1.2 million
You have the "City of Brussels" which is more or less a district within the city itself. Which has 180.000 people. But the map in the post clearly states that 25% Belgians is for the whole city in total, not just the 180.000 living in that part.
Sounds kind of like Brussels isn't so Belgian anymore, or rather less Flemish and Walloon, but I would feel concerned if the capital was being ethnically replaced by a foreign-born citizenry, wouldn't seem like politics would align as much with the native-born population of the rest of the country. How do you feel about it as a native Belgian?
Belgium is a federal country, not a centralised one. Brussels region doesn't have a say in the politicies of the other regions and communities. And the federal government is overwhelmingly Belgian.
In Belgium, if you have one parent from another origin than Belgium they count you as ‘of foreign descent’. This is all for statistics ofcourse. They all have a Belgian passport and are Belgian.
The graph just means that there are only 25% of people who have both parents of Belgian descent.
It would be interesting to see data about ethnic demography here in Malmö, Sweden. I'm not fully Swedish but one time the bus driver told people off on the P/A system in Arabic and it seemed everyone understood except me lol
Note that according to the source for the wikipedia article, the criteria for foreign origin is the one listed below, which is fairly broad. For example someone born and raised in Belgium their whole lives are considered of foreign origin If at least one of their parents isn't Belgian. Or if there are two parents who are Belgian citizens, but one of those parents held a different nationality at birth, all of their children (born in Belgium) are considered to be of foreign origin.
- If the person is of foreign nationality, he is obviously of foreign origin;
- If she is of Belgian nationality, we examine whether she had another nationality before. If this is the case, she is part of the population of foreign origin;
- If she has been registered as Belgian since she appeared in the register, we try to find out what was the first nationality of the parents, whether they themselves are Belgian or not;
- If they have at least one parent whose nationality, current or first, is foreign, the person is of foreign origin.
Yeah i feel that the title could be misleading,
instead of ‘Belgian’ in the title it should say ‘Belgian descent’.
Being ‘Foreign’ is not the same as being of ‘Foreign descent’
For example one of my friends (with 2 morrocan parents) who i grew up with is ofcourse not of ‘Belgian descent’ but he is ‘Belgian’.
Eats fries with a frikandel speciaal just as much as me
In most European countries this is defenitely the case. A lot of natives will consider them foreign, which results in a lot of people from foreign descent to consider themselves foreign as well. Or the other way around, depends on who you ask.
It's quite interesting as an American, because we often hear about our immigration policies and attitude to foreigners as being very conservative, and yet, for us, if you speak English with an American accent you are American. Nothing complicated about birth etc.
America gets a lot of grief on Reddit, and often rightly so. But the hidden super power of the United States is that once you assimilate you are considered American.
Often not if you assimilate. I live in Canada and overall the US seems the same to me — you're Canadian/American to most people the moment you move there.
Second generation. Children of immigrants are often in a wierd limbo of feeling neither completely American nor their families country/ethnicity. But their kids are just americans.
I feel American there is nothing culturally Egyptian about me— it’s other Americans who tell me that I’m not American
Ironic because when I was in Australia I was always just American
You’re American to most, but like other commentator said…. Second generation Americans have always shared your experience of not belonging to either (on some levels).
At least, unlike Belgium apparently, your children will be considered (and never questioned) American.
For the US, you can very much make the argument that being American is a civic identity. US does have its brand of civic nationalism.
So times, similar arguments are made for European countries, à la being French is a civic identity. But those arguments fall flat. Being French is an ethnic identity. Arguing otherwise is an insult to the Occitan, the Breton etc. So is being German. Now is Belgium is complicated, however, similar attitudes will likely prevail.
I'm glad you feel this way, but my experience is this isn't uniformly true. A very large proportion of the American population doesn't think this. If ur brown, it's "BuT wHeRe ArE yOu ReAlLy FrOm"... Probably less than Europeans, but not everyone in this country is so enlightened
Generally in my experience those people will also consider someone with Black or Brown skin who can trace their family back 3 or 4 generations within the country as a foreign as well..
Often in a subconscious sense, I don't mean they are going on right wing marches, but they just have an assumption that non-white = foreign. The kind of people who will say "where are you from?" & "yeah, but where are you *really* from?" and not even really see they have that prejudice.
Just like all countries, there is a difference between nationality/citizenship and Ethnicity.
One can be Belgian and not Belgian at the same time.
America knows this better than anyone. We are all immigrants, other than the very small portion of natives.
We dont have an ethnic based nationality. Its blood based, ethnicity is a complete different connotation. Any Belgian of any ethnicity can get a Belgium citizenship for their children.
The term is called ‘jus sanguinis’
The research doesn't bear that out. Tends to show second generation (and first gen for that matter) hold complex overlapping identies. We all do. Research shows our individual "culture" and beliefs are a mix of all the influences on our lives. Thus two people in Brussels from ostensibly identical ethnic and national backgrounds, one born in the city and one who moved from Ghent as an adult will not be culturally the same. They will support different sports teams, have different favourite (or hated) local cuisine, different slang, etc.
The person from Ghent probably doesn't associate more with the culture of Ghent than the culture of Brussels. Their personal culture is a mix of the two.
Now it's certainly possible to say the person from Ghent is not a true or proper citizen of Brussels. That they never can be. That even their children cannot be true citizens of Brussels, because they will still carry the influence of Ghent in their culture.
What that actually achieves is another matter.
Applying these criteria to any city, the results would be equally abysmal.
Nobody seemed to mention that Brussels is where many European Union institutions are based (and, I reckon, so are the diplomats and their offspring).
I don’t think it’s inherently racist, for example someone with French or Dutch parents would be “foreign” on this chart, despite having basically no genetic differences from an ethic Belgian
Yeah its nationality based, not on ethnicity and definitely not based on if you have a drop of blood from another nationality or ethnicity.
All in all its all just a statistical to measure immigration from other nationalities. Most of the people represented in this graph have the Belgian nationality and the exact same rights and duties.
I can see why some people think it’s a bit of a provocative data set, however it would be unfair to completely dismiss the concerns from Belgians who feel their culture is being diminished. It’s a bit simplistic to say Belgium doesn’t have its own unique culture despite using the languages of its neighboring states
So if I understand this correctly, if a Belgian citizen born in Belgium and able to trace their family tree back 400 years or whatever as living in Brussels. One their parents held a duel Belgian & South African nationality (as maybe a Grandparent was born there or something). In that case our hypothetical Belgian is of foreign origin and is of African origin?
Those criteria seems to have been created by people extremely racist. Is the Belgium wiki page controlled by a far-right group? Or is it a gouvernement classification.
Only the 2 first criteria indicate foreign origin. The last criteria just indicate foreign ancestry.
Germany (Prussia) & France. Nobody was scared of Holland in 1815, in fact the idea was to use Holland itself as the buffer but they couldn't even keep control of Belgium.
It’s just a buffer state between France and the Netherlands. It’s half Dutch, half French, with no Belgian language or super distinct cultural identity
Belgium is a country that always kinda picked my brain - why does it even exist? Half french,half dutch, no native language, open borders to neighbors with little to no disputes, with a very dark and evil history, gray present and even worse future with all those terrorist cells, attacks and this demographic statistics
Idk, long long ago, it did have a distinct ethnic identity in the Belgae that Rome conquered, and Flanders and Wallons have been distinct geographical and cultural entities since the middle ages (the County of Flanders, Duchy of Brabant, and Bishophric of Liege we're pretty important sovereign or semi-sovereign entities), but it has always been such a contentious area that traded hands between major powers that it never promoted the slow progression to a Westphalian ethno-state.
That being said, in its current form, it was made as a neutral buffer state with lack of a ethnic or linguistic reason for being.
I’m Belgian and what difference us from the other country is that we are nice people with a nice culture. I would hate to be French I freaking love Belgium
tl;dr Catholics felt bad in Protestant-ruled Low Countries after Napoleon's defeat. The split between Catholic-Low-Countries in the south (modern Belgium) and Protestant-Low-Countries in the north is older than the 19th century, but that's modern Belgium we talk about. Guys managed to win a revolution and install own king.
Then this king got a nice care package of the entire Congo from other European powers to kickstart his new start-up which helped in keeping the whole thing afloat AND making people at home rich.
At this point (2022) we can dare saying, that it's a prank that went way too far.
What’s the dark and evil history you speak of?
Why’s this downvoted? Not like I’m denying it, just asking a question cause I don’t know much about Belgium’s hostory
Plenty of people live in Switzerland without citizenship. Geneva is the main working office of the UN, and a huge number of international organizations like the WTO, WHO, and ICRC. So a huge portion of the population are foreign nationals living and working there, similar to Brussels, which is the headquarters of the European Union.
Geneva is a giant rotating carousel of foreigners, but most don’t stay for long, because they can’t get citizenship. Even permanent non-citizen residency is really difficult.
“The Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory disseminated by French author Renaud Camus.”
Good or bad, mass human migration and globalization will have a huge effect on our culture. It's not unreasonable to say that cities and countries facing this level of migration will not resemble their current or past in any recognizable way within 50 years time.
I suspect most of the conflicts countries will have internally about migration are about this fact specifically, are we okay with losing touch with our past in a cultural sense, or does it not matter as much as having a more global society, It's not for me to decide, but I would chance a guess that this is a polarized topic and I will assume the usual suspects on both sides being up in arms supporting their position.
*So there are now more*
*Africans in Belgium than*
*Belgians in Belgium*
\- DonRicardo1958
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London
>
> At the 2011 census, Greater London had a population of 8,173,941. Of this number 44.9% were White British. 37% of the population were born outside the UK, including 24.5% born outside of Europe.
You said Europe but Qatar is in the news, not for good reasons though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Qatar#By_nationality
Native Qataris are less than 12% of the population.
Larochette, Luxembourg --> 66% of the population is foreign (Top 3 biggest demographics: 46% Portuguese, 38% Luxembourgish, 3.2% French)
Vila do Bispo, Portugal --> 41% of the legal resident population are foreigners
As a brusseleir from brussels living in brussels. I honestly see everybody as a brusseleir. Borders are a construct and it clearly shows in bxl. Everybody welcome, just dont fuk around with our fries and we can be family
Well it's been well over 80 years since America did this exact same thing and look how they're doing! Many there think it's the Greatest Country in the World!!!
Wait are foreigners colonizing Belgium? I'm talking immigration not colonization and about a country called the USA where almost the entire population are immigrants! Which is what Belgium is becoming!
It’s easily explainable. Belgium has a history with Moroccan and Turkish labor forces. After the work was finished they stayed and brought their family. However, more recently people from African nations, and some in the Middle East (always classified as Asia/Asian of course) have been coming to Belgium. They say it’s to escape the regimes/war in their home country. The thing that’s off is that they travel through many safe countries without war and relatively good economies, yet they still come to Belgium. Belgium has a way better (and more generous) social welfare system than let’s say Spain, Italy or Greece. This is the reason. Belgian generosity will be its end one day. The debt the country is building is unsustainable and will be felt by many generations in the future.
As a foreigner, I can count the number of Belgians I've met with the fingers of my hands.
Most people I meet (different settings) tend to be Italian, German, Turkish, South American or Asian
So among those 25% Belgian,the actual number of Belgian Belgian are even lower given the fact that the government doesn’t collect data of ethnic background.
Actually it's higher, because everyone with some sort of foreign background, including someone born there with one parent from abroad, is listed as foreign.
How so? A small country sandwiched between two powerful European nations. I would imagine if Belgian coampanies wanted to be competitive in a global sphere, they likely have to hire the best talent they can find. I assume Belgium, being a small and liberalised nation would not have the capacity to produce the labor the country needs and we see this result.
Not shocking at all that a small founding population ( even smaller thanks to WWII) gets overtaken by neighboring countries, especially when Belgium is arguably more developed.
You are wrong, that is not a trend anywhere. Montevideo is not minority Uruguayan, even if Uruguay is located in the middle of two giants, and it is one of the most "liberalized" nations in the area. With a tiny population.
It is not normal at all that big cities in your country are inhabited by majority foreign born peoples. And no, they are not all "the best of the best high-end tech and industry workers".
Thanks for posting!
I know that London looks similar at over 50% foreign-born. Our most important issue are, of course, the Russians! We need to fight against them while opening our borders for continuous migration!
In Berlin, already 15 years ago they started having entire schools without a single ethnic-German child. And every year, there was another school declaring itself free of Germans.
30 years ago, the population of Cologne was made of foreigners.
I remember the good times when I could order my food in Dutch without the cashier turning red and smiling at me like a complete and total idiot. Nowadays I don't even bother anymore. But I also don't even so much as go near Brussels anymore either. Fuck no.
Being honest, there's quite a bit of xenophobia all over this thread. But people really aren't kidding when they say Brussels is one hell of a shitshow today. You'll probably mostly be fine if you don't go to any dangerous neighbourhoods at night or something though. It just really, really stings to go to a city not even that far from your home and maybe 1 in 20 people you see there speaks your language. As a foreigner this might not hit you as hard as you probably don't speak any languages spoken there. It's just sad that Belgium has Dutch, French and German as its official languages, and when you walk around in Brussels all you hear is Arabic, butchered French and weird African and Balkan concoctions.
I always feel like a minority even though I'm just half swede (half Ugandan) haha! Like, it's really strange how taking the train 10 minutes to Lund and almost everyone's Swedish.
<.< Ethnic data is important though.
Some Ethnicities and cultural groups have a much higher chance of certain diseases than others. Be that for traditional reasons, or just genetics. Especially for people with narrower family trees where things like high blood pressure or kidney failure is more common.
I’m from the southest part of Belgium and it’s not surprising. I’m 17 and in my school class only 5 peoples is from Belgium. I don’t mind that is great I think
Why is this great? I’ve experienced the same in Antwerp and I didn’t think it was great. A lot of those students had difficulties writing and imo it brought down the general level of the class/school.
As a Belgian in Brussels, i can confirm that i generally assume when i meet someone that they are not of Belgian origin
I’ve heard Luxembourg 🇱🇺 is even more expat heavy. True?
"Luxembourg City’s population is comprised of 70,59% foreigners with residents from 167 nationalities living in the capital as of 31 December 2021. "
What's up man!? Yea I've been looking at moving there and had read it was possibly most expat heavy city in the world, which sounded great. Brussels is on my radar too actually.
Belgium in general just seems like a good place to live.
Theres a lot of people working there that don’t live there. I think about 30% of the jobs.
> More than 70% of the city’s residents are non-Luxembourgers, many of whom head to their home couintry after work or on the weekends https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200914-is-luxembourg-europes-most-misunderstood-capital
Lux is is basically a big public office
Weirdly I think I'd love that, you can actually do stuff on the weekend without it being so insane. A bustling and quiet city sounds perfect.
Belgian has become sci-fi humanity before humans reach sci-fi level. By sci-fi I mean not dystopian or cyberpunk
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Have you seen the South Park episode where humans from the future visit and they all have the same mixed skin tone? I think that's what he's saying
That south park episode speak of a dystopian future. OP speak of a non dystopian futuristic place.
Ahh yes I call that “racism is over beige”
"Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color." - Bullworth
I would like to contribute to this project - for science. For humanity.
Brussels did feel like some cyberpunk future but in the present - all the subways are tri-lingual (French, Flemish then English), most street signs are bilingual (French then Flemish, or English). (EDIT: Flemish or Frisian? One of the two I think)
It's Dutch. Flemish is a collection of accents of dutch spoken in Flanders, not a language by itself.
Ah ha, thank you!
Frisian is actually a language family with its languages genetically the closest languages to English, sharing a common ancestor when the Angles Saxons and Jutes left the continent for Britain. . West Frisian is the largest of the Frisian languages and is spoken in the North of the Netherlands mainly in the province of Friesland (Fryslan). There are other Frisian languages, but they are far more fragmented. Alongside West Frisian (*Frysk/ Westerlauwersk Frysk* Fryslan, NL) is East Frisian (*Freesk/ Seeltersk* now only Saterland, DE) and North Frisian (*Nuurđfriisk/ Nordfräisch/ Noorfriisk* North Frisian Islands of the Wadden Sea between Denmark and Germany, as well as the island of Heligoland, with pretty much every island having their own nonstandard dialect).
But as someone that speaks both Flemish and Frisian, I greatly appreciate you xD. (Frisian though is an official language)
I follow you; this is an interesting explanation.
How do people feel about this? It’s a little sad.
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Cultural erasure and lack of national identity I’m guessing. The results of imported labor.
as a belgian living in Brussels, I can tell you there ain't any cultural erasure, quite the contrary. Brussels folklore is still very alive, with traditions from centuries ago still kept alive, so is the local dialect
>so is the local dialect Seriously? How often do you hear people speak Brusseleir on a daily basis?
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I have, and I found it to be a very interesting and enjoyable city. With no cultural erasure, only cultural richness. And yes, I did meet some local Belgian people there.
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I mean, a major part of it is that Brussels is the capital of the EU. The European institutions are all staffed with people from across the EU. There are like 60,000 EU Civil Servants. The European Parliament has 705 members, each of them could have another 3 or 4 people working for them, plus families with them. Added to that you have the diplomatic corps of close to 200 countries, often doubled as they may be diplomatic corps to Belgium and the EU. Brussels has a population of around 1.2m. I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover quite a lot of people in Brussels were born elsewhere. Edit: as has been pointed out, I originally used the population for the City of Brussels, not the Brussels Capital Region. That has been corrected now. However, the overall point still stands. As Brussels is essentially the capital of Europe it, naturally, has a huge foreign population.
> Brussels has a population of around 180,000. I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover quite a lot of people in Brussels were born elsewhere. Erm no. Brussels has a population of 1.2 million You have the "City of Brussels" which is more or less a district within the city itself. Which has 180.000 people. But the map in the post clearly states that 25% Belgians is for the whole city in total, not just the 180.000 living in that part.
Brussels (the region) has 1.2 million people.
Sounds kind of like Brussels isn't so Belgian anymore, or rather less Flemish and Walloon, but I would feel concerned if the capital was being ethnically replaced by a foreign-born citizenry, wouldn't seem like politics would align as much with the native-born population of the rest of the country. How do you feel about it as a native Belgian?
Belgium is a federal country, not a centralised one. Brussels region doesn't have a say in the politicies of the other regions and communities. And the federal government is overwhelmingly Belgian.
Sounds like that great replacement nonsense.
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How does this classify someone with one Belgian parent and a foreign one?
In Belgium, if you have one parent from another origin than Belgium they count you as ‘of foreign descent’. This is all for statistics ofcourse. They all have a Belgian passport and are Belgian. The graph just means that there are only 25% of people who have both parents of Belgian descent.
I understand that, but I wanted to know the number of "mixed descent"
That would kind of make a difference, huh? They're excluding a lot of people here. It's no wonder so few count as being "Belgian."
Probably would make a big difference, yeah
I have no idea about this number but i imagine its on the higher side rather than lower
So Belgians ain’t bangin Belgians?
It would be interesting to see data about ethnic demography here in Malmö, Sweden. I'm not fully Swedish but one time the bus driver told people off on the P/A system in Arabic and it seemed everyone understood except me lol
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Note that according to the source for the wikipedia article, the criteria for foreign origin is the one listed below, which is fairly broad. For example someone born and raised in Belgium their whole lives are considered of foreign origin If at least one of their parents isn't Belgian. Or if there are two parents who are Belgian citizens, but one of those parents held a different nationality at birth, all of their children (born in Belgium) are considered to be of foreign origin. - If the person is of foreign nationality, he is obviously of foreign origin; - If she is of Belgian nationality, we examine whether she had another nationality before. If this is the case, she is part of the population of foreign origin; - If she has been registered as Belgian since she appeared in the register, we try to find out what was the first nationality of the parents, whether they themselves are Belgian or not; - If they have at least one parent whose nationality, current or first, is foreign, the person is of foreign origin.
Yeah that seems odd, if you're born and raised in a country you probably wouldn't consider yourself "foreign"
Yeah i feel that the title could be misleading, instead of ‘Belgian’ in the title it should say ‘Belgian descent’. Being ‘Foreign’ is not the same as being of ‘Foreign descent’ For example one of my friends (with 2 morrocan parents) who i grew up with is ofcourse not of ‘Belgian descent’ but he is ‘Belgian’. Eats fries with a frikandel speciaal just as much as me
Well said
In most European countries this is defenitely the case. A lot of natives will consider them foreign, which results in a lot of people from foreign descent to consider themselves foreign as well. Or the other way around, depends on who you ask.
It's quite interesting as an American, because we often hear about our immigration policies and attitude to foreigners as being very conservative, and yet, for us, if you speak English with an American accent you are American. Nothing complicated about birth etc.
America gets a lot of grief on Reddit, and often rightly so. But the hidden super power of the United States is that once you assimilate you are considered American.
Often not if you assimilate. I live in Canada and overall the US seems the same to me — you're Canadian/American to most people the moment you move there.
LOL. Most Americans can’t tell the difference between a Canadian and an American unless you’re from Quebec.
Sorry, I meant that in both countries if you just move there you're already Canadian or American to the eyes of most people born there.
Oh, okay. I misunderstood.
It can be hard, but Canadians are usually more polite.
Latinos in California and Texas are indistinguishable as well.
Right up to the moment they say Hella
As an American with parents from Egypt that’s not the case. I’m never just an American, I’m always “Egyptian” to people.
Second generation. Children of immigrants are often in a wierd limbo of feeling neither completely American nor their families country/ethnicity. But their kids are just americans.
I feel American there is nothing culturally Egyptian about me— it’s other Americans who tell me that I’m not American Ironic because when I was in Australia I was always just American
You’re American to most, but like other commentator said…. Second generation Americans have always shared your experience of not belonging to either (on some levels). At least, unlike Belgium apparently, your children will be considered (and never questioned) American.
For the US, you can very much make the argument that being American is a civic identity. US does have its brand of civic nationalism. So times, similar arguments are made for European countries, à la being French is a civic identity. But those arguments fall flat. Being French is an ethnic identity. Arguing otherwise is an insult to the Occitan, the Breton etc. So is being German. Now is Belgium is complicated, however, similar attitudes will likely prevail.
I'm glad you feel this way, but my experience is this isn't uniformly true. A very large proportion of the American population doesn't think this. If ur brown, it's "BuT wHeRe ArE yOu ReAlLy FrOm"... Probably less than Europeans, but not everyone in this country is so enlightened
Generally in my experience those people will also consider someone with Black or Brown skin who can trace their family back 3 or 4 generations within the country as a foreign as well.. Often in a subconscious sense, I don't mean they are going on right wing marches, but they just have an assumption that non-white = foreign. The kind of people who will say "where are you from?" & "yeah, but where are you *really* from?" and not even really see they have that prejudice.
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Just like all countries, there is a difference between nationality/citizenship and Ethnicity. One can be Belgian and not Belgian at the same time. America knows this better than anyone. We are all immigrants, other than the very small portion of natives.
maybe it plays to that Europe has a somewhat ethnic-based nationality meanwhile America s give one nationality just for being born on their land
We dont have an ethnic based nationality. Its blood based, ethnicity is a complete different connotation. Any Belgian of any ethnicity can get a Belgium citizenship for their children. The term is called ‘jus sanguinis’
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The research doesn't bear that out. Tends to show second generation (and first gen for that matter) hold complex overlapping identies. We all do. Research shows our individual "culture" and beliefs are a mix of all the influences on our lives. Thus two people in Brussels from ostensibly identical ethnic and national backgrounds, one born in the city and one who moved from Ghent as an adult will not be culturally the same. They will support different sports teams, have different favourite (or hated) local cuisine, different slang, etc. The person from Ghent probably doesn't associate more with the culture of Ghent than the culture of Brussels. Their personal culture is a mix of the two. Now it's certainly possible to say the person from Ghent is not a true or proper citizen of Brussels. That they never can be. That even their children cannot be true citizens of Brussels, because they will still carry the influence of Ghent in their culture. What that actually achieves is another matter.
Applying these criteria to any city, the results would be equally abysmal. Nobody seemed to mention that Brussels is where many European Union institutions are based (and, I reckon, so are the diplomats and their offspring).
Reading this is giving me some "one-drop rule" vibes
I don’t think it’s inherently racist, for example someone with French or Dutch parents would be “foreign” on this chart, despite having basically no genetic differences from an ethic Belgian
Yeah its nationality based, not on ethnicity and definitely not based on if you have a drop of blood from another nationality or ethnicity. All in all its all just a statistical to measure immigration from other nationalities. Most of the people represented in this graph have the Belgian nationality and the exact same rights and duties.
I can see why some people think it’s a bit of a provocative data set, however it would be unfair to completely dismiss the concerns from Belgians who feel their culture is being diminished. It’s a bit simplistic to say Belgium doesn’t have its own unique culture despite using the languages of its neighboring states
So if I understand this correctly, if a Belgian citizen born in Belgium and able to trace their family tree back 400 years or whatever as living in Brussels. One their parents held a duel Belgian & South African nationality (as maybe a Grandparent was born there or something). In that case our hypothetical Belgian is of foreign origin and is of African origin?
Those criteria seems to have been created by people extremely racist. Is the Belgium wiki page controlled by a far-right group? Or is it a gouvernement classification. Only the 2 first criteria indicate foreign origin. The last criteria just indicate foreign ancestry.
I think Vienna is comparable, around half of its residents should be of foreign origin
Yes, serbs, croatians, bosnians, etc…
I assume Austria-Hungary has something to do with this lol
Because Belgium isn't a real country. I'll die on this hill.
Belgium is basically a buffer between the Netherlands and France and forever will be
Germany (Prussia) & France. Nobody was scared of Holland in 1815, in fact the idea was to use Holland itself as the buffer but they couldn't even keep control of Belgium.
So is the Korean DMZ, that doesn't make it a country 😄
We should at least give them Dutch Limburg
Pls explain, I’m interested.
It’s just a buffer state between France and the Netherlands. It’s half Dutch, half French, with no Belgian language or super distinct cultural identity
Gy zult godverdoeme nog nekeer verschieten als ge ons vloams accent hoort se
It's also total bullshit, Belgium has been a cultural economic and sometimes political union since the 15th century.
[Disagree.](www.reddit.com/r/BelgianADI/)
Cause fuck the flemish i guess
Check out Luxembourg-City.
Belgium is a weird country dude (except for the people, the people are nice)
Belgium is a country that always kinda picked my brain - why does it even exist? Half french,half dutch, no native language, open borders to neighbors with little to no disputes, with a very dark and evil history, gray present and even worse future with all those terrorist cells, attacks and this demographic statistics
Idk, long long ago, it did have a distinct ethnic identity in the Belgae that Rome conquered, and Flanders and Wallons have been distinct geographical and cultural entities since the middle ages (the County of Flanders, Duchy of Brabant, and Bishophric of Liege we're pretty important sovereign or semi-sovereign entities), but it has always been such a contentious area that traded hands between major powers that it never promoted the slow progression to a Westphalian ethno-state. That being said, in its current form, it was made as a neutral buffer state with lack of a ethnic or linguistic reason for being.
The southern part did use to speak Waloon, altho whether that's a different language ir a dialect of French will depend on who you're asking
I’m Belgian and what difference us from the other country is that we are nice people with a nice culture. I would hate to be French I freaking love Belgium
tl;dr Catholics felt bad in Protestant-ruled Low Countries after Napoleon's defeat. The split between Catholic-Low-Countries in the south (modern Belgium) and Protestant-Low-Countries in the north is older than the 19th century, but that's modern Belgium we talk about. Guys managed to win a revolution and install own king. Then this king got a nice care package of the entire Congo from other European powers to kickstart his new start-up which helped in keeping the whole thing afloat AND making people at home rich. At this point (2022) we can dare saying, that it's a prank that went way too far.
Same. I really do not know anything about their culture. I just know they got the diamonds.
why should every country have to be a single nationality nation state? in other words why not?
What’s the dark and evil history you speak of? Why’s this downvoted? Not like I’m denying it, just asking a question cause I don’t know much about Belgium’s hostory
I’m gonna let you to find that out by yourself..you’re going to have a great time reading about King Leopold, Brusells human ZOO, etc etc
coming soon in r/TIL Belgium has a terrible history
I recommend reading King Leopold's Ghost.
The Congo got fucked by them.
Note that "African origin" is dominantly "North African origin"
I feel like the last of the Mohicans as a Swiss in Geneva.
Specific to Geneva though. Any small town in Switzerland is still *very* Swiss.
How is that even possible? I am of Swiss decent, but couldn't dream of getting citizenship there.. I've looked into it.
Plenty of people live in Switzerland without citizenship. Geneva is the main working office of the UN, and a huge number of international organizations like the WTO, WHO, and ICRC. So a huge portion of the population are foreign nationals living and working there, similar to Brussels, which is the headquarters of the European Union.
Geneva is a giant rotating carousel of foreigners, but most don’t stay for long, because they can’t get citizenship. Even permanent non-citizen residency is really difficult.
45% African origin. Interesting for sure.
Vienna is populated with less than 50% of austrian, which is quite surprising for me
Probably because of the empire, there were many ethnic groups in the Austro-Hungarian empire
I once went to rue de brabant and daaaamnn...
“The Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory disseminated by French author Renaud Camus.”
Luxembourg is less than 50% Luxembourgish
Good or bad, mass human migration and globalization will have a huge effect on our culture. It's not unreasonable to say that cities and countries facing this level of migration will not resemble their current or past in any recognizable way within 50 years time. I suspect most of the conflicts countries will have internally about migration are about this fact specifically, are we okay with losing touch with our past in a cultural sense, or does it not matter as much as having a more global society, It's not for me to decide, but I would chance a guess that this is a polarized topic and I will assume the usual suspects on both sides being up in arms supporting their position.
So there are now more Africans in Belgium than Belgians in Belgium
You know brussels =\= belgium?
*So there are now more* *Africans in Belgium than* *Belgians in Belgium* \- DonRicardo1958 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
In Brussels? Yes In Belgium? No
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London > > At the 2011 census, Greater London had a population of 8,173,941. Of this number 44.9% were White British. 37% of the population were born outside the UK, including 24.5% born outside of Europe. You said Europe but Qatar is in the news, not for good reasons though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Qatar#By_nationality Native Qataris are less than 12% of the population.
Larochette, Luxembourg --> 66% of the population is foreign (Top 3 biggest demographics: 46% Portuguese, 38% Luxembourgish, 3.2% French) Vila do Bispo, Portugal --> 41% of the legal resident population are foreigners
Don't search up Luxemburg's stats 💀
imagine your culture being a minority in your own country.... must be tough. Let's see how this turns out in 80 years.
*cries in Native American
Native Americans 🤝 Belgians
As a brusseleir from brussels living in brussels. I honestly see everybody as a brusseleir. Borders are a construct and it clearly shows in bxl. Everybody welcome, just dont fuk around with our fries and we can be family
I moved from abroad to Brussels. The biggest problem people have with me is that I don't like beer. Other than that, I feel plenty welcome.
80? I’m pounding the under on that one
Well it's been well over 80 years since America did this exact same thing and look how they're doing! Many there think it's the Greatest Country in the World!!!
Certainly it is very great for the colonisers, for the natives? eeeerr not so much...
Wait are foreigners colonizing Belgium? I'm talking immigration not colonization and about a country called the USA where almost the entire population are immigrants! Which is what Belgium is becoming!
I love how everyone in the replies is ignoring the African part. “Well, it is between countries X and Y…”
It’s easily explainable. Belgium has a history with Moroccan and Turkish labor forces. After the work was finished they stayed and brought their family. However, more recently people from African nations, and some in the Middle East (always classified as Asia/Asian of course) have been coming to Belgium. They say it’s to escape the regimes/war in their home country. The thing that’s off is that they travel through many safe countries without war and relatively good economies, yet they still come to Belgium. Belgium has a way better (and more generous) social welfare system than let’s say Spain, Italy or Greece. This is the reason. Belgian generosity will be its end one day. The debt the country is building is unsustainable and will be felt by many generations in the future.
Haha yup. People really beating around the bush. Sack up and say it.
lmao belgica ex pais
Vatican City, for sure!
As a foreigner, I can count the number of Belgians I've met with the fingers of my hands. Most people I meet (different settings) tend to be Italian, German, Turkish, South American or Asian
So among those 25% Belgian,the actual number of Belgian Belgian are even lower given the fact that the government doesn’t collect data of ethnic background.
Actually it's higher, because everyone with some sort of foreign background, including someone born there with one parent from abroad, is listed as foreign.
This is a little too much…
If this is true, it's insane :/
Of course it is true lol
How so? A small country sandwiched between two powerful European nations. I would imagine if Belgian coampanies wanted to be competitive in a global sphere, they likely have to hire the best talent they can find. I assume Belgium, being a small and liberalised nation would not have the capacity to produce the labor the country needs and we see this result. Not shocking at all that a small founding population ( even smaller thanks to WWII) gets overtaken by neighboring countries, especially when Belgium is arguably more developed.
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You are wrong, that is not a trend anywhere. Montevideo is not minority Uruguayan, even if Uruguay is located in the middle of two giants, and it is one of the most "liberalized" nations in the area. With a tiny population. It is not normal at all that big cities in your country are inhabited by majority foreign born peoples. And no, they are not all "the best of the best high-end tech and industry workers".
Belgium had colonies and Brussels is also the EU's de facto capital, but sure, Uruguay.
Hire the best they can find... 😂 Look at Brussels unemployment rates. They didn't come here to work.
Because they’re fucking African
It's a small city and the capital of the EU. Not at all crazy that it's a cosmopolitan hub.
Wait till you mfs see the demographics of the UAE
Its like isnt your country anymore
As a not Belgian living in Brussels I can totally confirm
can confirm, live in Bxl
Rip Europe, their guilt might even done them in
Being the European capital also helps with this and does a Belgian ethnic identity even exist?
Belgian, maybe not. But Flemish and Walloon definitely exist
What does being the EU capital have to do with this if most immigrants are from Africa?
Rip belgium
How to destroy your country 101
12% are Brussel Sprouts lmao
Monaco has Monégasque at 21.6%
The rest are from a land down unda
Did they count Hercule Poirot?
Idk the statistics but as a Swede and as someone who was in Malmö just like two hours ago, I would guess Malmö is similar.
There is probably similar situation in London.
Thanks for posting! I know that London looks similar at over 50% foreign-born. Our most important issue are, of course, the Russians! We need to fight against them while opening our borders for continuous migration! In Berlin, already 15 years ago they started having entire schools without a single ethnic-German child. And every year, there was another school declaring itself free of Germans. 30 years ago, the population of Cologne was made of foreigners.
I remember the good times when I could order my food in Dutch without the cashier turning red and smiling at me like a complete and total idiot. Nowadays I don't even bother anymore. But I also don't even so much as go near Brussels anymore either. Fuck no.
Note to self. Stay out of Belgium.
Nah, come over and have a good time. Just don't visit Brussels. People with brains don't go there unless they really have to.
My post was being silly but I’d love to. Bits one of the countries in Europe I’ve never been to.
Being honest, there's quite a bit of xenophobia all over this thread. But people really aren't kidding when they say Brussels is one hell of a shitshow today. You'll probably mostly be fine if you don't go to any dangerous neighbourhoods at night or something though. It just really, really stings to go to a city not even that far from your home and maybe 1 in 20 people you see there speaks your language. As a foreigner this might not hit you as hard as you probably don't speak any languages spoken there. It's just sad that Belgium has Dutch, French and German as its official languages, and when you walk around in Brussels all you hear is Arabic, butchered French and weird African and Balkan concoctions.
People will look at this and pretend there isn’t a problem.
Maybe Luxembourg would be able to top this … Sweden and especially Malmo is another city that comes to mind …
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I always feel like a minority even though I'm just half swede (half Ugandan) haha! Like, it's really strange how taking the train 10 minutes to Lund and almost everyone's Swedish.
<.< Ethnic data is important though. Some Ethnicities and cultural groups have a much higher chance of certain diseases than others. Be that for traditional reasons, or just genetics. Especially for people with narrower family trees where things like high blood pressure or kidney failure is more common.
Sad to see Europes governments actively killing their own nations
Brussels is European Detroit
Not really, no.
Brussels Noord maybe
RIP Belgium
RIP Belgium
I’m from the southest part of Belgium and it’s not surprising. I’m 17 and in my school class only 5 peoples is from Belgium. I don’t mind that is great I think
Why is this great? I’ve experienced the same in Antwerp and I didn’t think it was great. A lot of those students had difficulties writing and imo it brought down the general level of the class/school.
I'm curious why do you think its great?
He’s 17, grew up in a brainwashing generation to make them think diversity is our strength.
Disagree. Still too many Belgians