LAND OF 1,000 SCANDALS
After the discovery of an illegitimate Royal, Rachel Johnson explores the Belgian national fixation on conspiracy
Brussels 'I THINK we've been burgled,' I said as I came downstairs one morning to find the contents of our bags strewn over the hall floor and credit cards fanned out, like an abandoned game of bridge, over the dining-room table.
My husband gave a little ay and darted off to see if the thieves had made off with his new golf clubs. But they hadn't. All they had done was to root around for our mobile phones — disdaining our car, hi-fi, children, laptops — and steal them both.
When I told people about our first cam- briolage — the way the thieves had come and gone without sound or spoor, their exclusive interest in mobile phones — my friends all jumped to the same conclusion.
'Sounds like you're under surveillance. What are you working on?' asked one, even though the nearest I've come to sail- ing close to the wind is writing a piece about the charms of the Belgian seaside. 'You'd better ring everyone in your mobile-phone memory and warn them,' said another.
That Belgian trait of seeing conspiracies was very much in evidence last week when a Flemish teenager published a book which claims that King Albert has an illegitimate daughter called Delphine Boel, who is alive and well and living in Notting Hill. While most sensible Belgians rejoiced to hear that their King was a boulevardier after all, and much admired the pictures of his foxy daughter from the wrong side of the blanket in her high-heeled boots, the country's numerous conspiracy theorists reacted dif- ferently. To them, the revelation was part of a dastardly Flemish republican plot to destabilise the francophone monarchy only weeks before the marriage of Albert's son and heir, the droopy Crown Prince Philippe. Brussels is a delightful place, with its food and beer, fine buildings, and proximity to London and Paris. But there is, and I say this with due affection, something of the night about Belgium. Someone once said that it was 'petit pays, petits gens', but for a Small country it produces big scandals, and its little people are now connoisseurs of conspiracy as well as of chocolate. The greatest scandals are the Dutroux case (the abduction and deaths of four young girls); the Cools case (the shooting of a socialist politician in broad daylight, leading to revelations of links between political parties and organised crime); and the Brabant Killers (who raided supermar- kets and shot dead 28 people between 1982 and 1985). They all made world headlines. Years on, they remain unsolved.
Then there are the simmering scandals: the farmers who feed their animals sewage or dioxin-laced oil, the trade in illegal hor- mones and banned British beef, the many children who are still going missing, and the fact that Belgium is the world's entre- pot for white slavery — a place where young women from poor countries can be bought for as little as £650 each.
Scandal has become an industry in itself, with its own unique breed of celebrity. While France has stars such as Johnny Halliday (well, he was born in Belgium but pretends to be French) and Brigitte Bar- dot, Belgium's A-list includes magistrates, journalists, parents of murdered children, detectives. It is curious that the most famous living Belgian, Marc Dutroux, is a paedophile.
One would think, with this cornucopia of crime and corruption, that there would be numerous websites for this nation of scan- dal junkies. But Belgians like to get their fix the old-fashioned way, by gossiping over coffee and crunchy ginger biscuits.
'Every Belgian I've ever spoken to has a pet theory on this or that affair,' says Alan Hope, a Scottish journalist who is writing a book about the Dutroux affair, 'usually 'They're GM.' tying two or three together in a more or less fantastic concoction.'
The aficionados have a range of books to stimulate the appetite. There is the handy Pays des 1,000 Scandales by Dirk Barrez, with an alphabetical list of all the scandals of the last 25 years. For the connoisseur, its value lies in the cross-referencing as this reveals the extent to which all affaires are beginning to merge into one, great, all-pur- pose Belgian scandal. So the entry on les ballets roses, a topic not normally men- tioned in polite company since it refers to under-age orgies supposedly attended by the gratin of high society, is index-linked to the Brabant Killers and the paedophile rings. Marc Dutroux's co-accused, Michel Nihoul, was, we read, an organiser of les ballets roses, and according to one theory, the Brabant Killers were targeting people who were about to spill the beans about les ballets roses.
But the Barrez book is only the icing on the cake. The scandal epidemic has led to an unaccustomed flurry of international publishing interest in a country which has in the past evoked boredom or condescen- sion from foreigners. Adam Hochschild's book on the greatest Belgian scandal of all, the personal acquisition of the Congo by Leopold II, has done very well; and a Brysonesque travelogue, Tall Man in a Low Country by Harry Pearson, has just been published. In French there is Les Dossiers Noirs de La Belgique by Claude Moniquet. He argues that the reason Belgium pro- duces scandal is that it is the artificial con- struct of the Great Powers and lacks the civic glue that bonds countries such as France and Britain.
I agree with him. Belgians carry no brief for Belgium. They are prepared to offer support to political parties who are in charge of everything from cradle to grave, and who carve up public-sector jobs according to party allegiance. Come elec- tion time, the favours are called in. No wonder, then, that the national slogan is on s'arrange. In America, it is a patriotic boast when someone says, 'I pay my taxes.' Here, the privilege of paying the full whack is left to expatriate dummies who haven't hired the right accountant.
But you do not have to pick up a book to find out that Belgium is a dark place. You have only to pass through Zaventem, the national airport. The first thing you see in the arrivals hall is a line of Wanted posters, with artists' impressions of thuggish-look- ing faces. Good Lord! you think. They are of the Brabant Killers, still at large, and, according to the latest rumours, all mem- bers of the police or the military. Marc Dutroux is behind bars, but has not yet been tried; nor have the 11 people accused of organising the murder of Andre Cools in 1991.
Belgium, one is forced to conclude, not only does a great line in scandals, but also seems disinclined to bring its criminals to justice.
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