What's wrong with your country? (27 Viewers)

treze

New Member
Jan 4, 2003
21
Estonia:

I live in Estonia. Most of you don’t know where it is, am I right? Estonia is below Finland, near Scandinavia, neighbors are Russia, Latvia, Finland. We have a nice country, small and with outrageous women – their just so beautiful. Specially all the tourist love Estonian girls. That’s why we have so many men-tourist around the world.

The life here is quite good. We have some problems with drugs, also lots of people drive a car when they are drunk. That’s quite sad. Criminality is also quite high and healthcare, yeah nothing good to say. But for foreigner the life here is cheap. Alcohol is easy to buy, a quality 0,5 vodka costs about 3,2 euros. Beer is 30-40 cents. For example, hot-dog costs around 70-80 cents and a meal in a restoran is about 5-6 euros, plus a drink.

Estonian people are quite shy, but we have great nightlife here, at the capital Tallinn. In summer time, the “summercapital” is Pärnu, with great sandy beaches. Lots of nice clubs, splendid hotels with spas and so on. Lovely countryside with small towns everywhere. My favorite one is Võsu, it’s near the north cost. A small townclub and a sandy beach, nice to visite.

Football here is quite poor, the quality is rising, but still. We have three major clubs, and on FC Flora, who is holding the tights in the local football association. The weather is also quite good, in summers off course. Right now the temperature is 25 c. We have cold winters with lots of snow. And I just want to repeat, we have so many beautiful women, so if you don’t believe, come to visit. Welcome to Estonia! Small country with different views. Cheers! :)
 

Geof

Senior Member
May 14, 2004
6,740
Seven introduced it a bit. But I'll give it a try:

BELGIUM:

-Problem n° 1 is that there are no Belgians. Jules Destrée, one of the first big Socialists in Belgium said to the king: "Sire, il n'y a pas de belges". You have the Flemish, the Walloons, and somewhere between you have Brussels. The people from Brussels don't feel like being Flemish or Walloon, they actually have no clue of what they are.
The Flemish are a bit richer and are sick of giving money to Wallonny who doesn't recover of the fall of it's Steel and Charcoil industry. So the Flemish try to build up their own identity. For example when Kim Clijsters won something, the Flemish told about the "Vlaamse speelster", while the Walloons saluted the victory of "La joueuse belge"... A bit pathetic.

-Problem n°2 is the image we've got from ourselves. The French have been calling us "les p'tits belges" for ages now, and we eventually accepted that. We are convinced we are a "small" country, and thus we can't really do something on an international level. The people don't believe in the strength of Belgium and that annoys me. If an artist wants to have a good carreer he has to move to Paris. Same goes for making movies,... In recent years, though, we have discovered some great artists in movies and music. We had to wait for them to win major awards in the "Festival de Cannes" to realize that. Le huitième Jour, La Chambre du Fils, L'enfant,... are all brilliant movies. But of course not very known, as they aren't at all in the style of Hollywood superproductions.

Oh, and we have Jean-Claude Van Damme....

-N°3. Corruption, Immigration, Criminality, drugs,... but that applies for most of Europe's countries I guess.
 

Slagathor

Bedpan racing champion
Jul 25, 2001
22,708
Le huitième Jour was a great flick indeed. Although I have to admit I probably would never have watched it on my own initiative but I saw it because our French teacher showed it during a class on highschool.

Personally, I think that there is one reason and one reason only why our two countries (Belgium and Holland) are so different: you realise you're small, we refuse to accept that.
 

Geof

Senior Member
May 14, 2004
6,740
++ [ originally posted by Erik ] ++
Personally, I think that there is one reason and one reason only why our two countries (Belgium and Holland) are so different: you realise you're small, we refuse to accept that.
What's to accept? We're small countries, alright. But does it mean we have to act small? be small?

The only one that realized that was our king Leopold II. He received Congo as a gift, and gave Belgium it's only colony. He build enormous buildings for the glory of Belgium, he developed the trains,.... Now, of course he wasn't really a democrat, and you can say a lot of bad about the concept of colonies, but he wanted to put Belgium on the map of Europe, just like France, Germany or the Netherlands.

Belgium has a strategical position in the EU, in fact we (together with Luxemburg and the Netherlands) started the whole idea after WWII with the creation of the BENELUX. We managed to have Brussels as the capital of the EU and the NATO, but people here haven't yet found a way to exploit that. All they do is complaining about traffic jams when there is a EU-summit, or the rize of the prices...
They don't realize the profit we could make out of these thousands of overpaid eurocrats. They don't realize what a shithole Brussels would be without that. I mean, we got the Eurostar to London, the Thalys to Paris, Köln, and Amsterdam. would these trains exist if Brussels wasn't the capital of the EU?? No!

The Belgians aren't proud of their country anymore, that's very sad. How could foreigners know Belgium if we don't believe in our own aptitudes?

When I was talking with Americans about Belgium, I realized they couldn't put it on a map, they had no clue of the languages we speak, or the culture, but they knew: Bastogne, Belgian Beer, and Belgian Waffles :wallbang:

At least, Belgium is better than Luxemburg....
 

Slagathor

Bedpan racing champion
Jul 25, 2001
22,708
Luxembourg people seem to be prouder though...

Anyway, I was talking to some Americans the other day and they were telling me about how they were in Belgium just a week earlier and how they loved it. Their exact words: "It's such a great city!"

:howler:

It's a real shame. I love Belgium. Especially the west, but I told you that already I think...
 

Geof

Senior Member
May 14, 2004
6,740
++ [ originally posted by Erik ] ++
Anyway, I was talking to some Americans the other day and they were telling me about how they were in Belgium just a week earlier and how they loved it. Their exact words: "It's such a great city!"

:howler:
typical :rolleyes:
++ [ originally posted by Erik ] ++
It's a real shame. I love Belgium. Especially the west, but I told you that already I think...
You did yes.
 

Geof

Senior Member
May 14, 2004
6,740
++ [ originally posted by ali-P ] ++
i love my country very much we don't have wrong
wowow Turkey is a very nice country but you can't say there is nothing wrong there. some examples

1. What about the Kurds?
2. The Turkish police and jails have quite a bad reputation. Human rights aren't a priority.
3. Millions of Turks emigrated to Europe to work there. That isn't a very good sign for a country, is it?
4. Ecology doesn't seem to be an issue either. The government build these huge dams on the Euphrates, and totally changed the climate of a region, bringing new ilnesses with it. Meanwhile, Syria and northern Irak are now dependent on Turkey for their water supply.
5. More than 80 years after the massacre of the Armenians by the Early Turks, it still doesn't exist officially in Turkish history. Let alone some attempt of excuse...

Turkey is marvellous but you can't asy there are no problems.
 
OP
Kaiser Franco
Dec 27, 2003
1,982
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread Starter #118
    ++ [ originally posted by Geof ] ++
    We managed to have Brussels as the capital of the EU and the NATO, but people here haven't yet found a way to exploit that. All they do is complaining about traffic jams when there is a EU-summit, or the rize of the prices...
    They don't realize the profit we could make out of these thousands of overpaid eurocrats. They don't realize what a shithole Brussels would be without that. I mean, we got the Eurostar to London, the Thalys to Paris, Köln, and Amsterdam. would these trains exist if Brussels wasn't the capital of the EU?? No!
    Brussels wouldn't be a shithole without NATO and especially the EU. It would just be a nice small/medium-sized capital with lovely maisons de maître and Art Nouveau complexes in lieu of skyscrapers and massive administrative buildings.

    I've worked at the EU and I share the concern of some ppl in Brussels regarding those high wages.

    When a secretary at the Commission has a higher wage than a uni professor in thermodynamics at ULB, there's something wrong with it.

    When a Czech civil servant who used to earn peanuts in his home country is suddenly making so much that he will pay 900 euros a month for a 60 square meter apartment without even blinking, whereas the average "Bruxellois" is forced to move to the outskirts because he can't afford to live in his own city's centre, let alone buy a home, there is something wrong with it.

    When just next to the EU site, with all the neat avenues and flashy cars, you have one of the poorest areas in the country where half the ppl are unemployed (Saint-Josse)...guess what : there's something wrong with it.

    Plus the Eurocrats are the most arrogant, self-important, lazy ppl I have run into. And when I say lazy, I really mean LAZY (not all of them obviously, but still). Seriously it takes three of them to do the work of one in twice the time. Heck, even the infamous Italian public service doesn't make my skin crawl as much. Also, they form a hermetic, elitist caste of their own and Im only happy not to be part of it anymore. They are the equivalent to what Italians call the "razza padrona", on a European scale (though yeah I won't spit on any of those fat EU procurement contracts they propose and which certainly would make my business skyrocket instantly).

    There is no doubt that without the EU, you wouldn't have so many major banks, insurance companies, consulting firms and what not in Brussels, but frankly, to anyone who like me is a very strong supporter of the idea of a European Union, I must say that having seen how it actually operates and thinking that it is these guys that are supposed to represent it, defend it and develop it, has been a big disillusion.

    ++ [ originally posted by Geof ] ++
    When I was talking with Americans about Belgium, I realized they couldn't put it on a map, they had no clue of the languages we speak, or the culture, but they knew: Bastogne, Belgian Beer, and Belgian Waffles :wallbang:
    That's hardly representative of Belgium's stance in the world. For the record I was asked why the Tower of PIZZA is leaning (yeah it's because we keep munching the dough on one side).

    On the whole I agree that Belgians quite blatantly lack patriotism and tend to overduly diminish themselves. But with this comes a great sense of self-derision which the gung-ho, jingoistic, my-country-right-or-wrong nations of this fvcked-up world will never be able to comprehend, and this is what makes you, despite all your flaws, less worse than them.
     

    Geof

    Senior Member
    May 14, 2004
    6,740
    I agree with most of that.

    When I said that Brussels would be shithole without EU and NATO, I meant it on international level. Of course I realize that it's a very nice city. Plus, as one said to me, it's a big capital at human size, unlike Paris or London.

    True on the image of the Eurocrats too. But they coud spend most of their easy-earned money in Brussels, and we have to exploit that more. And of course there is the housing problem. Living in the city centre is too expensive for a normal human being, even the Marolles are becoming a posh place to live. Which is a pity. We're losing the popular side of the city. The real Brusseleers can't afford to live in their own city anymore.
    Who's to blame for that? The EU for paying them too much? The Eurocrats for their mentality? The city council, which seems to do nothing against it? Can't really blame the owners who accept the highest bid...
    But this problem is the same in every major city isnt'it?
     

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