Friends, Enemies, Countrymen

An analysis of two of Europe’s most prominent multilingual states, and what sets them apart.

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Both Belgium and Switzerland are two of the most successful countries in the world. Similar in population and size, they boast high standards of living, political freedoms, social progressiveness and strong economies . However, what sets these states apart from their western European neighbours isn’t just their chocolate producing prowess, they have distinctly multilingual populations; naturally dividing the societies along linguistic lines with a varying level of national unity seen amongst citizens. These unique cultural divisions have seen Switzerland prosper, with Belgium suffering as a cohesive state. However, it’s parochial to suggest that Switzerland is the model of a perfect state and Belgium, on the contrary, a failed state. The success of statehood is a complex matter to fully understand, nonetheless, when looking at each country's national unity, the success of Switzerland is clearly defined against the shortcomings of Belgium.

It’s impossible to recognise the current circumstances of Belgium and Switzerland without dipping into the history and formation of the two nations. The first Swiss Confederacy, or Old Confederation, began in 1301 as a defensive alliance between three cantons (political subdivisions of land) out of an economic necessity to protect the important alpine trade routes each canton relied upon for their prosperity. The alliance saw no semblance of a unified state in its infancy, but remained united. It is during the later Napoleonic period and with the arrival of enlightened ideals that the cantonal elites started to evoke notions of a “Swiss” nation, in order to bolster their alliance. Importantly, the elites took into account that the proposed union would only be acceptable if all language communities from within individual cantons could come to an agreement of how the nation should be built. Unlike other European powers, including France or Germany, who could use an ethnocentric common culture or identity to bolster national spirit, the budding Swiss created their nation along the principles of union and shared interest, as opposed to ethnic similarity. However, not until 1848 was the federation organised into what is now modern Switzerland, with its distinctive national symbols and reinforced alpine identity.

Compared with the nation building within the Alps, Belgium’s modern lack of national spirit can be seen as a symptom of its creation. To put it simply, Belgium was a nation born out of revolution. Formerly the southern part of the now defunct United Kingdom of the Netherlands, Belgians were largely catholic, agrarian and had a mix of French and Flemish (a Dutch dialect) speakers, with the Netherlands, on the other hand, being primarily protestant and possessing a more mercantile economy. Many reforms by the central government in Amsterdam angered the south, including the free trade movements which undermined the agrarian society’s crop prices. What's more, attempts by the Dutch to make their language the sole official one, despite the prevalence of a large French speaking population, incensed the predominantly French middle class who led the revolt for greater autonomy. Although the revolution had the support of both language groups, there was no common interest or reason for their support of secession. The French speaking elites found themselves, alone, building the post independent nation, with the idea of “Belgian-ness” being created at the same time as the formation of the state. National symbols including the flag were largely of French choosing in spite of the Flemish contribution: the current national flag is an adaptation of the old Duchy of Brabant’s flag; a historically French speaking province.

This history of the two nations explains why Switzerland has a stronger national unity, but fails to explain why Belgium's political situation is so fractured by its diversity. Belgium is clearly divided along its aforementioned linguistic lines and has seen very little unifying factors: around 60% of the population are Dutch speakers, found predominantly in the region of Flanders, while 40% speak French, in the southern province of Wallonia. There is also a centralised German speaking minority found in the border regions of the east. Recognition of language plays an important role in societal happiness and it was not until 1898 that the primarily French government recognised Dutch as equal to their own. Today, this divisive act has created a damaging sense of regionalism, alongside the formalising of language communities within the Belgian federal system.

Since the 1960s, both Flanders and Wallonia have had their own regional governments that share an equal level of power with the central government, allowing for a rise in national division and a country split along linguistic margins. It so happens that a Dutch family living in Wallonia may rely on the federal government for dad’s pension, the Flanders regional government for the children's school subsidies and the local Walloon government for recycling etc. This formal division of a nation, along linguistic boundaries, has made something as simple as welfare a hugely complicated system as to who deals with what; leaving the government to struggle with the bureaucratic headache they themselves have created.

Switzerland's political relationship with language follows a much more different path. Protected by the constitution are four different recognised languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch (a romance language spoken by 0.5% of the populace). Italian functions as a protected minority, whereas German is the most widely spoken. The political relationship between these language groups is contrasting to Belgium, namely by the fact it’s minimal. The federal government is obliged to communicate to all citizens in their native languages, with simultaneous translations of any paperwork provided in, once again, the language of a citizens choice. Although the population is geographically split by nature of the country’s historical formation, there is no official segregation of population under linguistic differences.

At cantonal level, citizens have the right to choose the language of each canton, with Switzerland’s impressive use of direct democracy allowing for this process to be streamlined. This is seen in the issue surrounding the French language groups within the Canton of Bern during 2017. A referendum was held in order to determine the future of these people in a predominantly German speaking area; requiring a national vote on the subject. This area of Bern was then broken off and placed in the Canton of Jura, which matched the majority's desire to be part of a wider French speaking community, but in a democratically decided multilingual canton, allowing for the German minority. This highlights the effectiveness of the Swiss in dealing with controversial language issues, successfully adopting a policy of smaller monolingual areas combining to make a unified nation.

Additionally, Switzerland has actively sought to remove language preferences; the official name of the country being one of these examples. The use of Confoederatio Helvetica, or Swiss Confederation in Latin, means a neutral language is preferred, negating the need to show any sort of preference whilst preserving a unique feeling of “Swiss-ness” by avoiding the use of English.

Politically, each nation has a divided sense of responsibility. The recent Belgian political crisis of 2010-11 saw a parliamentary stalemate, where there was no formed government for over five hundred days, caused by the opposing Flemish and Walloon parties inability to work with one another. Interestingly, only one of Belgium’s political parties is unitary, the rest focusing on regional issues which are heavily language orientated. This caused a new wave of secession fuelled feeling in Flanders as it moved ever closer to breaking away from this troubled union. By contrast, the Swiss rarely vote based on language identity during federal issues. The most recent referendum on the reduction of social measures during the coronavirus pandemic, is a strange anomaly of this fact; the German speaking groups favouring an increase in social freedoms and the French, stricter set measures to ensure the populations safety.

Both nations are, in effect, “imagined communities”, where the state is a socially constructed institution, moving away from the more obvious collections of ethnically and linguistically similar peoples seen in other European nations. However, this lack of political cohesion is a breaking point for Belgium’s success, where Flemish and Walloon groups identify under ethic nationalist principles defined by their regions, rather than a strong sense of civic nationalism that unites the people under a core identity; a very Swiss phenomenon.

Away from the technicalities of policy and theory, sport shines another light into the relative divisions of the two nations. You would be forgiven for watching the Belgians play football and thinking their fantastic fans, adorned in the national colours, aren’t all too indicative of a divided homeland. Football might be one of the only unifying factors where “Belgium” is the source of national pride, but look a little closer and you’ll see the same divisive qualities filtering down into the ‘Red Devils’... De Rode Duivels...Les Diables Rouge...Die Roten Teufel. National anthems are an awkward silence as the players try to not to appear divided; players host press conferences (unless presenting to a media group who broadcast solely in French or Dutch) in English, denying the simple privilege of speaking in an individual player’s mother tongue. Even the language in the changing room and on the pitch is English, as to avoid the negative stigma of favouring one language over another. Using English, out of fear of seemingly favouring French or Dutch over one another, devolves a unified national pride among players.

The language divisions also exist amongst the Swiss National Team, however, the notions of “Swiss-ness” prevail and the usually multilingual coaches alleviate language difficulties by addressing individual players in their native language, but hold team talks in either German or French; which nearly all players would understand due to the multilingual nature of Swiss education. Switzerland's team certainly doesn’t represent a perfect model, as former players have noted the team often ate and socialised in their own language groups. However, this is a far cry from the difficult union of Belgian football.

The future for Belgium holds a certain degree of uncertainty. Its wobble in dealing with its most recent political crisis perhaps sheds light on the fact that another similarly unstable period in its political fabric could spell the end for this awkwardly assembled nation; arguably only held together by each side’s unwillingness to give up Brussels to one another. Switzerland's unique history has given it a helping hand in providing many of the answers to its success, but to this day, it still lays out answers for nation building around the world. Importantly, understanding the shortcomings in the value of national unity doesn’t stop at the borders of the aforementioned states. Europe’s most recent secession movements in Scotland and Catalonia provide another gaze at the issues caused by the divisive nature of a disunited population. Younger, multiethnic, countries in the developing world can look to the Swiss model as to how to create stable federal nations, in light of previous mishandling of ethnic and linguistic issues.

As a result, understanding the role of nationalism in these two countries still delivers an extremely important guide as to how to integrate naturally divided societies into larger collectives. In the modern globalising world, it is surely an issue which will become all the more apparent.

Just a thought.

Further Reading

Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 2016).

John Breuilly. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Samuel Humes. Belgium: Long United, Long Divided (London: C.Hurst & Co, 2014).

Clive H. Hurst. A Concise History of Switzerland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Ellis Palmer. “World Cup 2018: How do Belgian Players Speak to Each Other?” BBC News. July 2 2018.