In this interview, Alan offers his own unique perspective on Brexit, Europe, and the political and historical relationship between the UK and the EU more generally.

TMN: Is it fair to say that you’re a bit of an anomaly, being a pro-Brexit expat living in Brussels?

AA: Well I certainly appear to be. Most of the people I know in the expat community either work or have worked for a European institution, mostly the Commission. All of them are Remainers – turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. But among the people I know who have worked in industry, you get a more mixed view.

TMN: So are you able to discuss Brexit with your expat friends here – most of whom, I assume, are pro-Remain?

AA: Not very easily, even if they are Leavers. People seem to be very fixed in their position, for example on whether the EU political process is democratic or not. As I see it this is also the case with UK politicians, whose opinions are the ones that really matter. I’m not aware of a single one who has changed his or her position in 3 years of debate. I think there’s also a problem of understanding; I’ve met people who think the EU is the same thing as Europe. So when I find myself being lectured on people’s EU beliefs, I change the subject.

TMN: Did you vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

AA: No, like almost all the people I know here, I’d lived in Belgium for more than 15 years and so I wasn’t eligible to vote. This issue of eligibility is interesting. There’s an argument that our home country’s membership of the EU affects us long term residents, and so we should have had a say in the referendum. There’s even a European Commission code of good practice on referendums which recommends that people resident abroad should be allowed to vote. But now that we can have Belgian nationality, long term residents like me should really play our part in Belgian rather than UK politics.

TMN: But you would have voted Leave?

AA: Yes, absolutely. I’m a Leaver, as the Monkees almost said.

TMN: Why?

AA: Because as I see it the UK has been slowly leaving the EU ever since its inception. The referendum has simply brought that to a head. I appreciate that such a claim requires a certain amount of justification.

In his first proposal for a European Coal and Steel Community in May 1950, Robert Schuman described it as a first step in the federation of Europe. Before then other leaders had been proposing a United States of Europe, most notably, as Guy Verhofstadt is fond of pointing out, Winston Churchill in 1930 and 1946 and other times. With the famous exception of Jacques Delors, most European leaders have remained fairly quiet about European federalism, but it remains an objective of the EU. And so it should in my opinion if Europe is to hold its own alongside the likes of China, Russia and the USA.

In 1973 the UK became a member – and a very positive one – of the European Community, and remained so for 20 years. But then a major step towards a United States of Europe was taken in 1993 with the Maastricht Treaty. The UK signed it, but negotiated no fewer than five opt-outs, most notably the Euro and Schengen. That is the point, in my view, when the UK started the process of leaving. They developed a sort of half and half membership, half in and half out. I think that’s bad for the future of the EU, and even the UK. The UK wants economic but not political collaboration with the EU. So given the chance, I would have voted to put an end to it. For what it’s worth, I did vote, to remain, in the 1975 referendum, along with two thirds of the electorate.

TMN: So, in your view, the UK’s political situation in relation to Europe was inherently an unstable one?

AA: Well it wasn’t during its 20 years in the EEC, but after Maastricht yes. I wouldn’t use the word “unstable”, to me it has been more a case of gradually drifting away. And of course the EU has moved forward since Maastricht, especially with a European Constitution, which although not ratified was incorporated into the Treaty of Lisbon. For me an example of this “drifting away” is the UK’s reaction to the concept of “ever closer union”. In David Cameron’s pathetic attempt to negotiate a “reformed” EU, which the electorate could then choose to leave or remain in, he arranged that the UK would be exempted from “ever closer union”. This would have been yet another opt-out. He also arranged that the UK be further distanced, protected even, from the eurozone. These are the actions of a country that wants to distance itself from a European Union which is trying to move its members closer together, not further apart.

If the UK was as fond of EU membership as the 75% of MPs who are Remainers would have us believe, it would have wanted to contribute to the development of the EU, as it did of the EEC. It would embrace monetary union, and Schengen, and the other things. The UK makes the second largest financial contribution to the EU, and it should make a large political one.

TMN: I’m a bit confused; it appears that you would have been happy if the UK was properly part of the EU. So why were you in favour of Leave?

AA: Because, as I suggest, the UK simply isn’t “properly” part of the EU. You can’t turn the clock back of course, but if the UK had joined the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, as it was invited, even begged to do, it could have made its appropriate level of contribution to all future developments, namely the EEC, the EU and towards, dare I say it, a United States of Europe. There are lots of interesting reasons why they didn’t join back then, which were very logical at the time. The history of all this makes very interesting reading and helps explain the very awkward position the UK finds itself in right now.

There’s another aspect of what we are calling “proper” EU membership. The ECSC was created to bind the coal and steel production of France and Germany together in a way that would prevent a repeat of the wars between them. But because of their relative size in the initial group of six, these two countries also established a dominant political position which has remained the case ever since. We can see this right now in the sometimes undignified process of selecting the EU’s new leaders. Macron even glorified this duo, if I can believe the BBC website, when he said on July 2nd “…the nominations were the fruit of a deep Franco-German entente”. At least he didn’t call it an entente cordiale. But if there has to be a group of top dogs in this union, then the UK should be one of the dogs.

I have been given examples of how Germany will break the rules if it suits them, and I’m not talking about my Volkswagen Golf. I would like to see the UK challenging this kind of behaviour, but I don’t see it happening.

TMN: So are you saying that, had the UK joined the ECSC when it was originally formed in 1951 – or, perhaps, had joined the EC earlier than it did – then you would have been in favour of Remain?

AA: I would certainly be in favour of Remain if the UK had been what we are calling a “proper” member. Joining the ECSC in 1951, or the EC much earlier than they did might have enabled this, but who can tell? There are a lot of “ifs” in all this re-writing of history. The UK was even cooler about Europe back then than it is now. Churchill argued for a United States of Europe but not with the UK as a member. The Labour party in the post war period was dead against it.

TMN: Do you also perhaps think that the UK is something of a “European outlier”, one which is crucially different to France and Germany in other important respects?

AA: I think this may have been the case until their first application to join the EEC, but that now, apart from what I’m saying about opt-outs, there’s no good reason for any crucial difference.

At the end of the Second World War the UK was in a very different position than other European countries that had been involved in it. The UK did not have to reconstruct itself politically. And it felt that its relationships with other parts of the world were more important. Its objective of preventing German domination of the continent had been achieved, with a great deal of help from members of the British Commonwealth. It was then time to return to its own agenda.

French President Charles de Gaulle twice vetoed UK membership of the EEC because (or at least he said it was because) the UK had too close a relationship with the USA. You could argue he was right, given the way that Blair took the UK into the Iraq war, treating the views of his EU partners with disdain, you could even say contempt. And the media like to talk about UK’s “special relationship” with the USA, but I am of the view that this is more a myth than a reality. The Americans do what suits them; Trump is making sure of that.

But it’s hopefully time for us to forget all this war stuff. The only people who remember anything about the war are oldies like me, and all I really remember is the end of sweet rationing. And that was in 1953. A younger generation of British politicians will need to work out what should be the UK’s role going forward. I think it will be easier for them to do this with the UK outside of the EU than in it. Is it the UK’s destiny to have a unique position, trading with the European Union in the same way that it trades with other major blocks, but politically independent? Can they even do it? They will find out.

Nothing stays the same in geopolitics. There could come a time, not in my lifetime and possibly not in yours, when a UK that has forgotten about its empire and imaginary special relationships is ready to be a real member of the United States of Europe.

TMN: I’m assuming you’re against having a second referendum?

AA: Based on what I’ve been saying I am. But if parliament wants to give the electorate a second vote, who am I to say they shouldn’t. Although the government said it would implement the result, the referendum is not legally binding and a new government could decide not to.

TMN: What do you think of the possibility of a no deal Brexit?

AA: It looks as if it’s more of a possibility than negotiating a different deal. And if the UK leaves without a deal there will no doubt be significant problems. The UK might well go downhill for a couple of years. But I don’t believe the economic damage needs to be irreversible. Businesses in the UK and the EU will work out how to continue to trade with one another whatever the rules. That’s what business does. Not sure if you can say the same about the politicians.

TMN: Final question: Do you feel British, or Belgian, or both?

AA: I think the simple answer to that question is that I’m English and European. I will become a Belgian citizen in a while and that will oblige me to vote. So I’ll have to get more interested than I was in Belgian politics. But I should say that how I feel about my nationality is unaffected by the UK’s membership, or not, of the EU.

– To get in touch with the author of this article, please write to

The post “I would absolutely have voted for Brexit” – an interview with a Brexiteer living in Belgium appeared first on Brussels Express.

While conducting field work for her thesis in Senegal, she fell in love with a local Senegalese man, Seydina Diakhate. They got married in 2011, and lived happily together in Senegal for eighteen months. Eventually, however, Anneke had to return to the UK in mid-2012 to complete her PhD. Seydina was unable to obtain a visa to join his wife in Britain, and so the couple were obliged to live in a long distance relationship for the next six years.

What follows is the transcript of an interview I conducted with Anneke last week, where she explained, in often painful detail, how the enormous obstacles she faced in obtaining a ‘leave to enter’ visa for her husband have impacted her marriage, her career, and ultimately her entire future.

Thomas Moller-Nielsen (TMN): What happened when you moved back to the UK in 2012?

Anneke Newman (AN): Well, Theresa May was the UK Home Secretary back then, and she worked to implement the Tories’ policy to bring immigration down to so-called “sustainable levels” – in other words, trying to make it as difficult as possible for immigrants to come to the UK.

One of the policies she implemented upon becoming Home Secretary was to make it impossible for a Brit who earned less than £18,600 a year (before tax) to bring their non-EEA spouse (i.e. a spouse who is not a national of at least one of the member countries of the European Economic Area) over to the UK: this was called the “minimum income threshold”.

I was a PhD student at the time earning £14,000 a year, so obviously I fell well below the required threshold; in fact, in 2015 a study found that almost 40% of the working British population fell below this threshold. This meant that I couldn’t bring Seydina over – at least, not until I had finished my PhD. So, basically, we were forced to live a long-distance marriage for several years.

TMN: How hard was it to be in a long-distance marriage?

AN: It was very hard. It took a huge emotional toll on us both because of the uncertainty. But I believed at the time that there was a silver lining: once I graduated, we’d finally be able to live together.

TMN: What happened when you graduated?

AN: I took up a one-year teaching position at the University of Sussex, where my salary now pushed me above the income threshold for being able to apply for a ‘leave to enter’ visa for Seydina. But as I started investigating the steps in the process for getting the visa, I quickly realised that things were going to be far more complicated than I initially thought.

TMN: Why?

AN: Well, for one thing, I could only apply for the visa after I had been earning above the £18,600 threshold for more than 6 months. My work contract was a one year, fixed-term deal but there was a very high likelihood that it would be extended. However, there was a good chance that the Home Office would use the fact that I didn’t have a permanent contract against me in my application.

TMN: What else did the UK government ask for?

AN: We would have needed to fill out an 85-page application form, and provide evidence that we were in a “genuine relationship”, one which we could prove dated back several years. They wanted us to show them a huge amount of personal information like pictures, Skype conversations, WhatsApp messages, things like that.

This posed many problems for us. First, we couldn’t prove that a lot of the pictures we had taken of us together weren’t taken recently. Second, we didn’t have WhatsApp messages or Skype conversations that dated back five years: I’d changed phone and email addresses multiple times over the years, as had Seydina, so we didn’t have access to the records of the very first messages we were sending to one other back in 2011. And thirdly, the records that we did have were in French, so we would have had to pay for a government-certified translator to translate them for us – which wouldn’t have been cheap.

TMN: Did they ask for anything else?

AN: We were also told that we had to pay a £1,500 application fee, with no guarantee that our application was going to be accepted. And that isn’t even the end of it: even if we were successful, the original ‘leave to enter’ visa would only have been valid for two years, after which we would have had to apply for ‘permanent settlement’ , with a whole new set of processes and legal and financial hoops to jump through – that application costs £6,000!

TMN: Did you apply in the end?

AN: No. The immigration lawyer I saw – I remember he was Polish – told me that if there was any way we could go and live in Europe instead we should go, and that we shouldn’t bother applying for the ‘leave to enter’ visa in the UK. I appreciated his honesty. And he was right: I’ve met many couples since then who applied for the visa in the UK – couples who were often in a far better situation than us, in steady employment and in a more comfortable financial situation – whose applications had been rejected, often on utterly spurious grounds.

For instance, at a conference recently I met an Indian woman who had married an Englishman. They are now living in Germany because she couldn’t get a visa to live in the UK with her husband. It was absurd: she was highly educated, she could speak fluent English, and her husband earned good money. Their application was watertight. But the Home Office rejected their application because, they claimed, they didn’t believe they were in a “genuine relationship”.

TMN: And now they’re living together in Germany!

AN: I know. I don’t have hard evidence for this, but based on accounts from whistleblowers about the treatment of other categories of immigrants like asylum seekers, my strong suspicion is that the Home Office puts pressure on its employees to reject ‘leave to enter’ visa applications. They therefore end up telling many couples that they don’t believe their relationship is genuine simply as a pretext for rejecting their applications.

TMN: So what did you decide to do, if you weren’t going to be able to live with Seydina in the UK?

AN: Well, I basically had two choices. One was to remain in a long-distance marriage. The other was to leave the UK. I chose to the leave the UK.

TMN: And you ended up in Brussels?

AN: Yes. Back in 2016 I had been applying for a lot of academic jobs, most of which were based in the UK. One of the non-UK jobs I had applied for was a postdoctoral position in the Anthropology Department at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). In November 2016, the ULB told me that they would offer me the position. Given what the immigration lawyer had told me, I didn’t think twice about taking the opportunity.

Yet, I felt ambivalent about leaving the UK. For one thing, I found my job at Sussex fulfilling and worthwhile. It involved doing something that I consider to be valuable for British society, namely teaching a “Foundation course” to enable young people from less privileged backgrounds to undertake a degree at the University of Sussex. A lot of my students were from low-income families, or minority groups; some of them had lived in foster homes; some struggled with mental health issues, serious health problems or disabilities. I enjoyed teaching them; and they apparently enjoyed me teaching them as they nominated me for an award! But, because of Seydina’s visa issues, I couldn’t go on teaching them. When I told my students that I was leaving, and why, one remarked: “It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but in an era of xenophobia!”

Another point that I think is worth noting here that my university education was, in fact, heavily subsidised by the UK government, and thus by the British taxpayer, through scholarships and artificially low undergraduate tuition fees. In other words, the UK had invested a lot in me, and I, in turn, was in the process of giving something back to the UK through my work.

In short, I’ve lost out, the UK has lost out, the young adults I was teaching have lost out – all because of the UK government’s immigration policy.

TMN: That sounds terrible.

AN: Yes. Another thing that’s terrible, at least for me personally, is that, while I love living in Brussels and have a fantastic three-year contract here, there are very few permanent academic jobs available in Belgium, whereas there are many more opportunities in the UK. So, as a result of leaving Britain, I might have to reconcile myself to a career outside of academia, which is the career I really want to pursue and which is the career I’m currently really progressing in. I want to be clear, it’s not that I have anything against Belgium, and we may have chosen to live here regardless of what is going on in the UK. I also recognise that having a British passport still puts me in an extremely privileged position, globally speaking. It’s just that I feel that my choice to live in the UK with my family has been taken away from me. It’s almost as if I’m in forced exile! As a British citizen, this situation is absurd! Living in the UK is an option that I would obviously prefer to have available. For instance, I’d like to be closer to my parents if ever they need more support once they get older…

TMN: Has the UK government done anything to address these issues?

AN: Not to my knowledge. In fact, there was a government report issued in 2015 by the UK’s Children’s Commissioner which argued, essentially, that children’s human rights are being violated by the UK’s stringent immigration policy in relation to non-EEA spouses. According to the report, at least 15,000 children have been affected by the UK government’s policy, because the non-EEA parent (usually the father) cannot enter the country. British children are often growing up in single-parent families, with the financial insecurity and emotional stress that entails, all as a direct result of such government policies.

TMN: What did the UK government do as a result of this report?

AN: To my knowledge, absolutely nothing. The media also barely covered it.

TMN: The UK government ignored its own report?

AN: Yes.

TMN: How easy was it for you to move to Belgium with Seydina?

AN: It presented its own set of challenges, but was easier than getting Seydina into the UK, and I’ll explain why. Each of the world’s countries has its own rules concerning family reunification for its own citizens. But, as an EU national, if you want to move to a particular country that is not your own with your non-EEA spouse, EU freedom of movement laws will apply, rather than the laws of that particular country concerning its own citizens. And, as it turns out, it’s often far easier to bring a non-EEA spouse over under this EU law than it is to get a spouse visa if you’re actually from that country.

TMN: Are you saying that – at least prior to Brexit – it’s easier for, say, a French, or German, or Polish person to move to the UK with his or her non-EEA spouse than it is for a Brit with their non-EEA spouse?

AN: Yes. So, for instance, for a French national to move to the UK with their non-EEA spouse, it’s pretty easy: they don’t need much more than a marriage certificate. It’s also precisely this EU loophole which made it easier for me to get Seydina a Belgian residence permit, compared to the equivalent in the UK.

Obviously, the current UK government doesn’t like this rule. But, so long as they remain a member state of the EU, they can’t do anything about it. My strong suspicion is that, with Brexit, the UK government may impose restrictions on spouse visas for Brits married to Europeans that are similar in severity to the requirements currently in place for Brits married to non-EEA spouses. I mean, UK politicians are currently talking about potentially forcing EU nationals to get employment visas to work in the UK just like citizens of non-EEA countries. So why not spouse visas, too?

There’s another bit of EU legislation that is relevant here. Because I’ve lived in Belgium with Seydina for more than six months, I am now entitled, under EU law, to return to my home country with him if I choose to. So I could, theoretically, move back to the UK right now with Seydina, and EU law would entitle me to do so, and I would not be subject to the UK’s strict regime. This is called the ‘Surinder Singh’ immigration route, and has been used more and more by Brits married to non-EEA nationals since 2012. Again, the UK government would prefer it if this route were not available, which it won’t be after Brexit.

TMN: So will you move back to the UK?

AN: Under the current circumstances, it’s very, very unlikely. I have my job here now; my contract runs for another two and a half years. Seydina and I have also recently had a baby, and we have friends here. There is so much uncertainty surrounding Brexit generally that the UK isn’t a very attractive place to move to right now. Also, the British government has a pretty dreadful track record on immigrants’ rights whether we’re talking about the appalling treatment of the Windrush generation, the incarceration and forced deportation of asylum seekers including children, and the pigs’ breakfast they’ve made of the process Europeans need to go through to achieve ‘settled status’ to stay in the country after Brexit. I’d be worried that even if I managed to get Seydina into the UK now, he might lose the right to stay later on. There are, after all, plenty of cases of people with ‘indefinite leave to remain’ who have lived in the UK for decades who have recently been forced to leave. In the current political climate, our moving to the UK just isn’t a risk worth taking.

– For more information about Anneke’s situation, please see this article that she wrote (anonymously) for the Guardian a couple of years ago.

 – To get in touch with Anneke, please write to annekenewman@gmail.com

 – To get in touch with the author of this article, please write to tmollernielsen@brussels-express.eu

The post “I was left with two choices: remain in a long-distance marriage, or leave the UK” – a Brit living in Belgium tells her story appeared first on Brussels Express.

The 4th annual HUNGAstRY Festival kicked off this Saturday, June 29th, on one of Brussels’ most glorious summer days yet.

Thousands of attendees took the opportunity to drink delicious Hungarian wine, eat exquisite Hungarian food, listen to some fantastic original Hungarian music, and choose from a diverse array of Hungarian clothes, jewelries, and other goods – all while basking in the Belgian capital’s wonderfully warm summer sunshine.

Below are some pictures from the event, which continues throughout all of tomorrow.

The post 4th annual HUNGAstRY Festival kicks off on a beautiful summer’s day appeared first on Brussels Express.

The second annual Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF) kicked-off in the Grand Eldorado movie theatre at UGC De Brouckère on Thursday night with a screening of It Must Be Heaven, the new film by acclaimed Palestinian director Elia Suleiman.

Suleiman stars as a fictionalised version of himself in this slapstick comedy, whose story often masks themes of great subtlety and, it must be said, frequently frustrating ambiguity.

Its basic plot can be neatly summarised: an old(ish), single, almost perpetually mildly bemused, and apparently virtually mute Palestinian man (Suleiman) sees a bunch of strange, faintly amusing stuff happen in his hometown of Nazareth. Subsequently, Suleiman flies to Paris, where he again sees a bunch of strange, faintly amusing stuff happen. Next, Suleiman travels to New York, where he once again sees a bunch of strange, faintly amusing stuff happen. Finally, Suleiman returns to Nazareth, where stuff is still strange and – you guessed it – stuff is still faintly amusing.

(The final scene of the film, however, is – almost meta-strangely – neither strange nor moderately amusingly: it consists of Suleiman sitting alone at the bar at a club in Nazareth, looking on inscrutably at a group of Palestinian youths as they ebulliently dance the night away. The interpretative significance of this scene is unclear, as is, in fact, the significance of much of the film.)

The putative intricacy of It Must Be Heaven, unsurprisingly, lies in its details, namely in why Suleiman travels to Paris and New York in the first place, and what he ends up seeing both at home and on his travels.

To start with the why: although the death of an unnamed close acquaintance and the mild craziness of (the fictionalised rendition of) everyday life in Nazareth are both key factors in his decision to travel to the West, the primary cause is Suleiman’s need to acquire funding for a film that he is making – a film which, in a paradoxical, self-referentially ironic twist, is also called It Must Be Heaven.

Suleiman, however, does not succeed in persuading a Western studio to produce his film. The rejection he receives in Paris is particularly amusing: he is told by a stereotypically arrogant French producer that, although his film company is “sympathetic to the Palestinian cause”, it nevertheless cannot fund Suleiman’s project because “the film could take place anywhere; it is not Palestinian enough”. This is one of the few points in the film where Suleiman’s near-permanent expression of mild bemusement noticeably transforms into something approaching scorn: he, a Palestinian, is being denied a cinematic platform by a European simply because he fails to conform to the latter’s Orientalist stereotype of what a “Palestinian” film should be.

Similarly, in New York, Suleiman is introduced by a friend to an American film producer. “He [Suleiman] is not a Palestinian from Israel, but a Palestinian from Palestine,” his friend says, before adding: “He’s a Palestinian filmmaker, but he makes funny films. His new film is called ‘Heaven Can Wait’. It’s a comedy about peace in the Middle-East.” All of these remarks are, at best, seriously misleading: Nazareth is a city in Israel, not Palestine; the title of the film is “It Must Be Heaven”, not “Heaven Can Wait”; the film is manifestly not “about peace in the Middle-East”; and, finally, the implication that Palestinian filmmakers are expected only to make non-comedic films is not only insulting, but also, one could argue, mildly racist.

It is here that we can also see the interpretative ambiguity inherent in so much of the film. To take (again) the example of Suleiman being described as “not a Palestinian from Israel, but a Palestinian from Palestine”: are we, the audience, supposed to mock Suleiman’s friend’s ignorance regarding Nazareth’s actual location? Or are we to interpret him as suggesting something else, namely that Suleiman is in some sense a real Palestinian, despite living in Israel? Or are we supposed to interpret him as making an overtly political statement: that all, or at least some, of what is legally part of Israel is in fact properly construed as being part of Palestine?

Regardless, the film encourages us to assume that Suleiman never receives Western funding to make his film – this very film. The intended message here seems clear: in order for a Palestinian to make his voice heard – his true voice, and not an Orientalised caricature thereof – he cannot ask for handouts from the Middle-East’s past or present colonial masters. (As it happens, though, It Must Be Heaven was actually produced by a collection of French, Canadian, German and Turkish film companies – which might suggest that Suleiman is being characteristically ironic here.)

Returning to the issue of what Suleiman ends up seeing: many of the comedic vignettes that Suleiman is a witness to, both in Nazareth and the West, are clearly intended to have interpretative significance. For instance, in Nazareth he observes two IDF soldiers driving a military vehicle while they continually swap sunglasses and narcissistically examine themselves in the car’s rear-view mirror, while utterly failing to take heed of the road ahead; meanwhile, in the backseat of the car sits a lonely, docile, blindfolded Palestinian woman. Similarly, in France, the enormous police presence and overall militarisation of society are repeatedly emphasised: we observe tanks rolling down outside the Banque de France; we witness policemen chasing suspects down streets on segways and roller-blades, and we even see policemen (amusingly) attempt to intimidate an old lady on a subway platform by walking very, very slowly behind her.

Finally – and arguably most symbolically – in New York there is a scene where a woman in Central Park, dressed in a white costume adorned with angel wings, removes her top to reveal the Palestinian flag drawn across her chest. Almost immediately, NYPD squad cars arrive on the scene to arrest her. When the police finally capture and smother her, however, she vanishes, Obi-Wan Kenobi-style, with only her angel wings remaining where she previously lay. Sometime later, however, on a night that looks like Halloween, she reappears, this time with her chest unexposed. A figure dressed as the Grim Reaper sees her, causing his face to contort with rage; the Reaper then stares threateningly across the street at Suleiman, a perpetual witness to this symbolic surrealism.

Though each of these three (sets of) scenes have obvious interpretative significance, it is, in fact, often frustratingly difficult to pin down what exact interpretative significance they are supposed to have. To take the case of the preening IDF soldiers: do they represent all Israelis, or merely the IDF, or only those fashion-conscious, consumer-obsessed youths that one often finds in the bars and clubs of Tel Aviv? Furthermore, is the fact that the Israelis fail to look at the road ahead of them at all relevant? (And is a literal – as well as metaphorical – car crash therefore inevitable?) And what is the significance, if any, of the Palestinian in the back of the car not only being a prisoner, but also being docile, lonely, a woman and blindfolded? On reflection, is Suleiman perhaps intentionally aiming for precisely such ambiguity? Or, when all is said and done, is he merely trying to be funny?

Much of this movie, however, consists of scenes that do not have any obvious interpretative significance. For instance, in Paris, Suleiman adopts a stray bird who happens to fly into his apartment. One afternoon, when Suleiman is trying to write on his laptop, the bird repeatedly tries to stop him from working by hopping onto his keyboard. At first, Suleiman swipes the bird away each time it approaches, but eventually he becomes frustrated, heads to the window, and points upward at the sky, clearly suggesting to the bird that it leave. After some deliberation, the bird acquiesces and flies away. Again: is this whole scene simply supposed to be mildly amusing? Or is it supposed to suggest something else, for example, that hosts inevitably tire of those they are hosting? Or is it, more speculatively, perhaps some kind of bizarre metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? It isn’t clear; indeed, whether or not this scene is intentionally ambiguous is itself inherently ambiguous.

Arguably, nowhere is the film’s ambiguity more pronounced than in its title: “It Must Be Heaven”. To what, exactly, is this “it” referring? Nazareth? Palestine? The world? Or is “it” only intended to refer to Suleiman’s fictionalised renditions of these places (e.g., a Paris where all the women are stunningly beautiful)? Or is “it” perhaps referring to the film itself, thus suggesting a form of escapism through film, one that is especially tailored to those Palestinians whose daily lives consist of ritual subjugation and humiliation? Come to think of it, is the title of the film even meant to be take seriously, rather than ironically? We simply don’t know; and Suleiman, it seems, is not at all willing to tell us.

Suleiman, however, has said the following: “If in my previous films, Palestine could be seen as a microcosm of the world, my new film, It Must Be Heaven, tries to present the world as a microcosm of Palestine.” But in what sense is the world, except in a trivial sense, a microcosm of Palestine? (Moreover, in what sense are Paris and New York collectively even a microcosm of the world?) Yes, it is of course true that in both Western and Middle-Eastern society mild craziness and amusement can be found in many different places. And yes, much of society – even Western society – is becoming increasingly militarised. But where in Europe or America is the equivalent of, say, Gaza, which for years has been subjected to a brutal and devastating Israeli-led blockade? Where is the equivalent of mass home demolitions? Of de-development? Where – the history of the native Americans excepted – is the equivalent of the dispossession, the annexation, the military occupation suffered by Palestinians?

Undoubtedly, It Must Be Heaven has its amusing moments. But insofar as it unambiguously says anything, what it says is at best a truism or, at worst, radically or even grotesquely false. To compensate for this, it seems, the films attempts to feign profundity by engaging in sustained ironic ambiguity – but, in doing so, it arguably ends up saying little of any interest at all.

The post Review of the opening film at the Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF): “It Must Be Heaven” appeared first on Brussels Express.

In this interview, Dave talks about his life working for the EU, the impact of the Brexit referendum, and his love for his adopted country, Belgium.

(An interview I conducted a couple of months ago with Dave’s son, Alex, can be found here.)

TMN: Were you always a fan of the EU?

DS: If I’m honest, when I started out I didn’t really know that much about it: I wasn’t into news or politics at the time. I was so conscious of this that after two years I took a year’s sabbatical to go to the College of Europe in Bruges to do a masters in European Studies. The other students thought I was crazy. The only reason they were at the College was to land a job at the EU. They weren’t so interested in learning about Europe. Whereas I had the job, but did want to learn about it …

TMN: What was the reaction among your family and friends back in England to you working for the EU?

DS: In the early days most people thought, “Wow, he’s done pretty well for himself.” People in general were very supportive. This feeling lasted for about 10 or 15 years. But, slowly, things started to change. The attitude of the British people toward the EEC began to shift almost certainly because of the British media and the lies it circulated. Remember, Boris Johnson started inventing anti-EEC pieces for the Telegraph in 1989. Newspapers found that making up or circulating ridiculous stories about European rules on cucumbers, bananas and prawn cocktail crisps appealed to their British readership and turned them against the EU (or EEC). They seemed to figure that they could sell papers by blaming the EU for pretty much all of the problems in British society, and it became convenient for large segments of the British political establishment to blame the EU for anything that it could. Certainly by the end of the 1980s a lot of people had seriously started to hate it.

It eventually became so bad that when I went back to the UK, I actually stopped telling people that I worked for the EU. My colleagues who ended up moving back to the UK after retirement also used to tell me that they never mentioned to anyone in the UK who they used to work for; I mean, if you said you had been a convict they’d probably have given you more respect!

I remember an interesting story which is relevant here. In the early 1990s, I met a prominent British journalist who was based in Brussels as the BBC’s EU correspondent. I asked him a fairly blunt question: “Why don’t you ever publish anything positive about the EU?”

His reply was interesting. He said: “I used to write both positive and negative stories, but then after a while I realised that only the negative ones were getting published. So I eventually stopped writing positive stories – there was no point.”

TMN: That’s amazing. And this is the BBC we’re talking about – not The Sun, or The Daily Express!

DS: Yes. Again, there just seemed to be an appetite among the British public for nasty stories about the EU. And remember that many of them were fictitious, often made up by Boris Johnson in his column for The Daily Telegraph.

TMN: Do you think this appetite for nasty stories was itself partly created by an antagonistic media system?

DS: Yes, maybe. I also remember another similar story. I sang in an octet called The Commissionaires. We all worked for the Commission and enjoyed a cappella close harmony singing. Just after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty one of our members set the Treaty’s preamble to Gregorian chant. Our audiences loved it and eventually we were asked to perform it for the BBC in the Grand Place and they filmed it.

But when they showed the clip on the lunchtime news, the BBC’s comment on our performance was ridiculous. They basically said: “Look at these British workers for the Commission: not even they are taking the Treaty seriously!” But we were! I mean, we were parodying the language a little bit, but we certainly weren’t mocking the spirit or the principle or even the details of the Treaty. But that’s not what the BBC reported.

TMN: Can you say a bit more about how your relationship with the UK changed over this period?

DS: Well, I noticed during my time working for the EU that the UK was always an outlier of sorts; that it never really belonged in the same way that every other country did. It was always complaining about its various obligations, seeking opt-outs, things like that. And I found myself apologising to colleagues about the British attitude, because I believed in the EU.

Largely as a result of this, in addition to the biased media coverage and the serious animosity large segments of the British people bore towards the EU, I began, slowly, to drift more and more apart from the UK. I remember, around 20 years ago or so, my mum said to me: “You really don’t like England any more, do you?” And, in a way, it was true. Maybe I had just lost touch.

TMN: What was your reaction to the Brexit vote?

DS: I was totally shocked, and seriously disappointed. It felt like a knife in the gut, almost a personal violation; as though my entire professional life had been invalidated, that it had been for nothing. It was also, in my view, a real scandal that people like me, British citizens living abroad, couldn’t vote, especially given that we probably knew more about the EU than the average British citizen.

TMN: Did it affect you in a practical sense?

DS: Not really. Myself and my wife, and my daughter, already all had Belgian citizenship. My son never bothered to get his though: he’s still only a Brit. It could possibly affect him.

TMN: What do you think about what’s happening now in the UK with regard to Brexit?

DS: It’s a constant soap opera. I initially thought that a solution would be found very quickly: that either the British establishment would claim that the referendum result was only advisory and Britain would therefore remain a member of the EU, or that the EU and the UK would quickly be able to reach a deal. I was wrong. Problems arose that I don’t think many people had even considered, or knew about, like the Irish border. The UK is now such a divided country, it’s unbelievable. Ironically it wanted to leave the European Union, but now its own union is starting to appear under threat.

TMN: What do you think were the main causes of the vote?

DS: Well, one factor is the lies and bias of the media over several decades, as I already explained. Another factor, in my view, is the after-effect of the 2008 financial crisis. I don’t understand why bankers can play fast and loose and still not get punished. People felt really hard done by, and justifiably so. They hit out at the first thing they could hit out at: the political establishment wanted them to remain, so they voted to leave. There are also other big related issues, like gross economic inequality. But I think the vote was largely a vote against the establishment, rather than merely a vote against the EU.

TMN: What do you think is going to happen?

DS: I don’t know. It’s all such a mess. Your guess is as good as mine.

TMN: What do you want to happen now?

DS: Well, part of me doesn’t really want the UK to be part of the EU anymore. It always seemed to act as a brake on closer integration. As I explained before, it’s always been a bit of an outlier. On top of that, I really don’t have much fondness left for the UK. I wouldn’t be too upset if it ceased to exist, really: I’m in favour of a united Ireland, and of an independent Scotland. Another great side-effect of Brexit is that for three years now the other 27 Member States have been speaking with one voice on the issue.

However, I’m also aware that the EU doesn’t really want Britain to leave, as it might harm the trade of a lot of European countries, particularly those geographically close to the UK, like Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. It really angers me, though, that even though it was the UK that asked to leave, a lot of people in Britain seem incensed that the EU is not bending over backwards to give the UK all it is asking for in the Brexit negotiations, even though the EU position was crystal clear and unwavering from the beginning. Part of me really wants to see the EU put the knife in, to punish the UK.

TMN: But surely you don’t want the average person in Britain to suffer?

DS: Of course not. But I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing a lot of senior members of the media suffer, as well as most of the politicians.

TMN: But don’t you think that there are, at least, some legitimate reasons for criticising the EU?

DS: If I’m honest, I’ve almost certainly been indoctrinated by the EU just by virtue of working there. The sheer pleasure of working alongside 27 other nationalities is so educational and stimulating. How can anyone ever be racist? But one problem I think the EU has is that it needs to be more open about what it is and what it does, particularly in the UK.

TMN: But how is it supposed to do that, with some of the major UK media outlets being so vehemently anti-EU?

DS: That’s a good question. I don’t know. Take ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) projects for example. Travelling through Greece, Romania, etc. you see huge signs up acknowledging the contributions from the EU. The UK benefits from similar contributions, but they will be mentioned on a small notice board about A4 size – often hidden behind a tree with the EU flag almost invisible!

TMN: What do you think of the criticism of the EU’s handling of the eurozone crisis, particularly in places like Greece?

DS: I have a lot of Greek friends – Greek is one of my languages – and I did feel very bad about that, and very sorry for the Greeks. But I was in Greece for a week recently and the general opinion now seems to be that it was necessary just to restore some kind of order and things are now improving a lot.

TMN: What about the argument that the EU is non- or even anti-democratic?

DS: That’s an argument that a lot of Leavers tend to make: they keep ranting about the EU being an undemocratic organisation run by unelected officials, but it’s not true. The Commission runs the EU in more-or-less the same way that the civil service runs the UK Government – and the civil service is not elected. Furthermore, the main EU decisions are taken by the Council, which is made up of Ministers from the Member States who are themselves elected. The democracy is there, it’s just indirect.

The argument is also deeply hypocritical. The UK has a system of government which is a long way from being democratic. Many people’s votes just do not count if they happen to live in a “safe” Conservative or Labour seat. The current system is weighted heavily in favour of the two major political parties, making it very difficult for smaller parties to get a seat. Just have a look at the last general election. See how many people voted Green, UKIP, Labour and Conservative – and how those votes translated into seats. This is not democracy.

TMN: Would you be in favour of a fully federalised, democratic Europe – a “United States of Europe”?

DS: Yes, I think so, though I in some ways I would prefer to see a Europe of regions, as opposed to a Europe of nation-states. As it stands, I think certain EU member states have too much power relative to others, especially France, Germany, and (formerly) the UK. Having a Europe of regions would go some way toward solving that problem. Although it might be difficult to organise …

Imagine a debate with Flanders, Catalonia, Malta, Yorkshire and Normandy arguing against Sicily, Crete, Westphalia and the Isle of Wight!

TMN: In what ways do you think you hold similar, or dissimilar, views to your son, Alex?

DS: Alex is not as much in favour of the EU as I am. I think in large part he views the EU as an obstacle to third world development, by its imposition of high external tariffs and so on. He’s also been very critical of the way the EU has handled the migrant crisis. He sees the EU as a club of the rich and something of a privileged bubble – and I do sympathise with that view. But I still think that the benefits of the EU far outweigh any cons.

TMN: What, in your view, are the main benefits of the EU?

DS: Well, it’s kept peace in Europe for 70 years. It’s made travel so much easier. It’s allowed products to circulate seamlessly across different countries. It’s allowed people, ideas, and cultures to mingle with and to learn from one another. It has done much to protect the environment, including birds and animals, by designating huge conservation areas . It has cleaned up the seas and the air. And it was a front-runner with action on climate change. And in many areas – chemicals, drugs, foodstuffs, etc. – it makes life easier because authorisation is required only once, rather than in each individual country like in the old days.

I remember that on the 50th anniversary of the of Treaty of Rome the Independent newspaper ran a front page with the title: “50 reasons to thank Europe”. It included things like the improvement of workers’ rights, environmental protection, action on climate change. In short, it’s had loads of benefits.

TMN: Final question: Do you feel British? Or Belgian? Or European?

DS: Well, I certainly feel more European than British. I would like to be able to say that I’m European, though I’m also very happy to say that I’m Belgian: I really feel like I belong here. I speak Dutch and French. I have Belgian friends. I’m active in the community – I’ve even stood in local elections. In short, I definitely don’t feel stateless. I feel very much at home here in Belgium.

To contact the author, please write to tmollernielsen@brussels-express.eu

The post “If I said I had been a convict the British would probably have given me more respect” – a retired EU official reflects on Brexit, his relationship to the UK, and the future of Europe appeared first on Brussels Express.

The new issue of the magazine features a detailed overview of the contemporary Czech comic book scene, as well as a 32-page special report celebrating the life and work of the Flemish comic book artist Charel Cambré, author of the well-known “Amoras” and “Jump” comic strips.

Mr Cambré was present at the launch yesterday, where he offered a number of interesting remarks about the nature both of his own work and the Flemish comic book scene more generally. Joining him at the launch was the Czech comic book historian Pavel Kořínek, who offered an excellent history and overview of the current state of play of Czech comics.

During his talk, Mr Kořínek noted that in the 20th century, Czech comics were “predominantly aimed at children, not adults”, but that this began to change around the start of the 21st century, with the arrival on the Czech comic book scene of adult-catering artists such as Jaroslav Rudiš.

Mr Kořínek went on to remark that, unlike comics in other countries, there is no “hegemonic” Czech style; rather, he said, Czech comics exhibit an “eclectic mixture of different genres and drawing techniques”. Another peculiarity of Czech comics that Mr Kořínek highlighted is the fact that the “default” Czech comic publication format is the graphic novel – that is, a complete, autonomous piece of work of around 100-250 pages. This distinguishes the Czech comic scene from the Belgian and American ones, where the publication of much shorter comic strips – or edited collections thereof – is far more prevalent.

Mr Kořínek also noted that the genre landscape in the Czech Republic has become “increasingly diverse and interesting” over the last twenty years or so. Whereas the majority of Czech comics used to focus on medieval-themed tales involving knights, kings, and princesses (and, very occasionally, recent Czech history), now Czech comics exhibit a far more varied set of styles and genres. Intriguingly, Mr Kořínek noted that today the Czech comic book scene is building upon its own local traditions and customs – traditions and customs which, only a few decades ago, barely existed.

Finally, Mr Kořínek discussed the potential pedagogical uses of comic books, and how, in particular, they could be a “brilliant tool” for use in history lessons, and/or to help students to learn about important contemporary issues such as the treatment of mental illness. However, Mr Kořínek also emphasised that students “must be taught how to use and properly engage with [comic books]” before they could reasonably be appropriated for teaching purposes.

Mr Cambré then spoke briefly about his experience as a professional comic book artist in Belgium. Among the many interesting points he made, he emphasised the difficulty these days of getting young children interested in comics given the vigorous competition for their attention from video consoles, iPhones, and television.

In the ensuing panel discussion featuring both Mr Cambré and Mr Kořínek, the latter spoke about how Stripgids’ focus on Czech comics in its most recent issue “presents a great opportunity” for Czech comic artists and the Czech comic book scene more generally. However, he also emphasised that he “certainly doesn’t expect things to change overnight” for comic book artists in the Czech Republic. He also stressed the importance of “connecting national comic scenes” in order to “promote the ‘global republic of comics’”.

Mr Cambré, in turn, spoke about his love for his job, and the enjoyment he feels everyday in being able to draw varied styles and genres throughout the work week: “There’s not a day when I draw without pleasure,” he said.

More ominously, however, Mr Cambré emphasised that we are now possibly at a “turning point” in the global comic book industry:

“Sales are dropping,” he said. “Comic book editors are adopting the easy response by, for instance, printing comic book series about well-known characters, in order to seek some kind of recognition among consumers. But this won’t last forever.”

Mr Kořínek, by contrast, emphasised that “we are now living through the Golden Age of Czech comics – we’re in brilliant shape”. However, he too offered a word of warning:

“Despite what a lot of comic book artists say, I’m not sure if comics are the medium of the future,” he said. “I think – and fear – that it’s likely that mobile phones will be instead.”

In the subsequent Q&A, Mr Kořínek spoke about the decline of satirical newspaper cartoons as a direct consequence of such satire shifting to the internet where, he said, “media can respond virtually instantaneously to events as they occur” in the form of (e.g.) memes. He also noted that nearly all Czech comic artists only work as comic artists part-time, and are usually forced to work other jobs to make ends meet.

Mr Kořínek also discussed how the Slovak comic scene is “less developed” than the Czech one, and how the best Slovak artists can usually be found in Prague.

Finally, he spoke about how there was not a strong dissident comic book scene during the country’s Communist era due to the fact that (as mentioned previously) during this period comic books were predominantly aimed at children, and hence were not viewed as an artistic form “worthy of serious intellectual attention” or even as a medium that could potentially be used purely for satirical purposes.

The post Stripgids #5 launch party celebrates contemporary Czech comic book scene appeared first on Brussels Express.

Romelu Lukaku scored twice for the Red Devils either side of half-time, while Kevin De Bruyne compounded the Tartan Army’s misery in injury time with a trademark quality finish from just outside the box.

Scotland will be disappointed with their performance on a night that saw them rarely threaten Belgium’s goal. The Red Devils were also hardly at their best, but evidently didn’t need to be as the quality and speed of their play proved far too much for the limited, defensive-minded Scots.

“We knew we were going to have to deal with Scotland defending well,” said Belgium’s coach, Roberto Martinez, after the game. “We knew they would try to close spaces and prevent us from playing our football. So we had to keep our focus, and rely on players – like Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne – who know how to open up these kinds of teams.”

He added: “I was very pleased that Romelu got the goal just before half time. After that, it was a very different game. In the end, we had many opportunities to score even more.”

Scotland’s coach, Steve Clarke, tried to remain positive after the defeat. “It was obviously a difficult game for us, but we were competitive against the best team in the world, so there a lot of positives,” he said. “I thought our tactical discipline and attitude were excellent. But obviously we are professionals and we don’t like to lose games.”

Lukaku opened the scoring after the quick-footed Thorgan Hazard was tackled by Manchester United’s Scott McTominay near the six-yard box. With the ball running out of play, McTominay inexplicably switched off, allowing Thorgan’s brother, Eden, the time to stop the ball on the line, look up, and lift a delicate chip over to Lukaku for a simple headed finish.

Lukaku added a second not long after the break, smashing home from close range after Scotland’s goalkeeper David Marshall parried Kevin De Bruyne’s low drive right into the path of the Manchester United striker.

Scotland briefly rallied in the latter stages of the game, with Thibaut Courtois saving smartly from Ryan Fraser’s curled effort, while a frantic goal-mouth scramble involving James Forrest, Oliver Burke, and Scott McKenna ultimately led to nothing after some excellent defending by Thorgan Hazard.

Belgium could easily have had several more goals on the night, with Lukaku especially guilty of missing a host of chances, and De Bruyne also unlucky not to have scored much earlier than he did.

Arguably, the match statistics speak for themselves: Belgium had 25 shots to Scotland’s 4; had 72% possession to Scotland’s 28%; and had 14 corners to Scotland’s zero.

Moreover, Scotland’s ostensible game-plan of defending deep and punting the ball high and long to their lone striker, Oliver Burke, seemed particularly ill-advised given the height and strength of Belgium’s outstanding defensive trio of Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, and Vincent Kompany.

Scotland’s Scott McTominay capped his poor performance with a vicious stamp on Thorgan Hazard, for which he was extremely fortunate to escape with only a yellow card.

The post Belgium maintains perfect qualifying record for the Euro 2020 with easy win over Scotland appeared first on Brussels Express.

Teta Diana is, most definitely, a special artist – and a special person. Born in Kenya to Rwandan refugee parents, she only moved back to Rwanda when she was 5 years old. As a professional musician, she has travelled around the world, performing in Mexico, the USA, the Netherlands, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and many other places besides. In addition to Rwanda and Kenya, she has lived in Belgium, and is currently a resident of Sweden. She speaks fluent French, English, and Kinyarwanda (her native language). All this, and yet she is still, amazingly, only in her 20s.

Teta’s new album, Iwanyu, beautifully reflects this diversity of cultural experience. It is an album that has been recognisably influenced by an array of different cultures, themes and musical traditions: some of the songs are in English, others are in Kinyarwanda, others are in both (some are also partially in French); some of the tracks are upbeat, others are melancholic, and a few are (somehow) able to blend both sentiments simultaneously; some of the songs have a distinctively African feel to them, others are more overtly Western and mainstream, and some are, again, a strange and beautiful fusion of the two.

But though it would be correct to say that Teta has been influenced by a variety of different traditions, histories, and cultures, it would, in my view, be incorrect to say that her music is merely reducible to them – rather, I think, through her music she creatively reimagines them. That is, there is something unique, something individual, something distinctively Teta-ish about her music. Any artist could, theoretically, be the subject of myriad musical influences; however, no one could have combined such diverse and distinct influences and experiences, and yet at the same time have created something so genuinely unique, original, and beautiful, quite like Teta.

Teta produced Iwanyu in Brussels, her goal being to work in a city which reflects the cultural diversity of the album itself. While she was finding musicians to help her work on it, she met Sander Villers – a Belgian sound producer and engineer with an interesting backstory of his own (he has lived in Greece and can speak five different languages). He, along with several other musicians, ended up recording the album with Teta.

I met up with Teta and Sander for a joint interview late last week. During our discussion, we touched on a wide variety of different subjects, including Teta’s own personal/musical life story, Sander’s and Teta’s own musical influences, and, lastly, the nature and meaning of music itself.

Thomas Moller-Nielsen (to Teta): When did you start singing? Have you always wanted to be a musician?

Teta: I’ve loved music and singing for as long as I can remember: when I was a child back in Rwanda, I used to sing in front of the bathroom mirror all the time. I never really seriously considered becoming a professional singer, though, until I was in my late teens. It just didn’t seem like a possible career for me. In Rwanda, as in a lot of other places, singing isn’t really considered to be a serious profession; it’s something that drops-outs do. But I was lucky: my father was artistically-oriented – he was an amateur poet – and he really encouraged me to pursue my dream.

TMN (to Teta): How did you end up in Brussels?

Teta: Well, in 2016 I had an experience in San Francisco on a project called the Music Action Lab. It was basically a gathering of selected musicians from all over the world, brought together to try to make socially relevant music. It was that experience of talking to and playing music with these people that persuaded me to finally create own album, one which married different musical styles. Brussels just seemed like the perfect place to get it done. Not only did I know the city well – I had been coming to Brussels on and off since 2015 – but Brussels is a multicultural city, with the largest Rwandan community outside of Africa. I could feel at home away from home.

TMN (to Sander): How did you two meet?

Sander: I remember the day very well. I had just finished a very long session at the recording studio where I was working at the time. It was Friday night, but I really felt like I just didn’t have the energy to go out: I was totally exhausted. So, I lay down on the couch and was just about to fall asleep when something inside my head told me: ‘It’s Friday night. Make yourself go out! Make yourself meet people! Make yourself socialise!’ So I did. I got up from the couch, put my jacket on, and walked straight out of my apartment toward the centre of town. I ended up at a bar I knew that had a good live music scene. Teta was sitting right next to me at the bar, and we started chatting. She told me she was planning on recording an album, and that she needed a sound engineer to help produce it. Naturally, things just went from there.

TMN (to Teta): How did you choose your band members for the album?

Teta: Well, given that I wanted to make a musically mixed album, I chose musicians from many different backgrounds: from Rwanda, from Belgium, from France, from Senegal. In general, I don’t pick a person to be in my band purely on the basis of their technical musical ability. Rather, I choose them by going with what I feel in my gut. If I feel a connection with them, I pick them; if not, I don’t.

TMN (to Teta and Sander): Who are your biggest musical influences?

Teta: Though I love listening to many different kinds of music, my biggest musical influences are probably those Rwandan singers who were singing just before and after the 1994 Rwandan genocide: one in particular was known as Kamaliza. I remember they encouraged the Rwandan people to remain unified, and they tried to get the refugees who had fled the country to come back to Rwanda. I think that’s probably the reason why unity is such an important theme in my songs.

Sander: I also love a lot of different kinds of music. When I was younger I used to listen to a lot of hard rock, but over the years I’ve also grown to love jazz, blues, hip-hop. Now I listen to virtually everything: Depeche Mode, Rammstein, Paul Simon – I love all sorts of music. And all the music I listen to has influenced me in various ways.

TMN (to Teta): How did you come to write this album?

Teta: Well, when I was starting out as a professional singer, I made a lot of mainstream pop music. I had some big hits; I was successful. But deep down, I also felt that I wasn’t really making the music that I was born to make. In a way, I felt like I was in a trap: my producers just wanted me to keep producing hit after hit after hit, to sell and to sell and to sell. But I wanted to really express myself, to make a different kind of music, an authentically mixed kind of music, one that married different musical styles, cultures, and traditions. One that really came from me. I felt that I had proved that I could make successful pop music. Now, I wanted to make an album for and from me, one that I could truly be proud of on a personal level.

TMN (to Teta): What does the title of your album, Iwanyu, mean?

Teta: In Kinyarwanda – my native Rwandan language – “iwanyu” means means “home”. I suppose it’s ironic that I’m producing an album called “home” while I’m abroad. Although my home is, in an obvious sense, in Rwanda, I also feel that I can, in a sense, be at home anywhere. For instance, I was in northern Sweden not long ago, and I ended up spending an evening with a group of Saami people [an indigenous Nordic tribe]. We got to talking, and they ended up playing me some of their own traditional music, “the joik”. What I heard really amazed me. It reminded me almost immediately of a kind of traditional Rwandan music called “amahamba”, which is sometimes also called “cow song music”: it’s a slow rhythm, consisting mostly of vocals and few instruments (claps and inanga/cithare). It was bizarre: here I was, an African girl in the middle of one of the coldest, remotest parts of the world, and yet, in a sense, I was back home in Africa. It was surreal.

TMN (to Teta): Can you say a bit more about the style of music on the album?

Teta: I like to mix and marry different musical cultures and styles, but my main influence is Rwandan traditional music. On the album, I wanted to incorporate Rwandan traditional music into most of the songs, and to talk about Rwandan traditions and culture in the lyrics. One of my goals in making this album is to introduce the West to traditional Rwandan music. However, I also want to encourage more Rwandans to listen to that kind of music, too – a lot of the mainstream music back in Rwanda has become very “poppy” and “hip-hoppy”. In a sense, I want to reintroduce traditional Rwandan music back into Rwanda.

At the same time, though, I want to demonstrate the fact that I have been influenced by Western music and traditions; I don’t want to reject that part of my musical upbringing and experience. I want to create original traditional Rwandan music – or music that, at the very least, has been influenced by traditional Rwandan music – that can be heard internationally.

TMN (to Teta): A lot of the songs I’ve listened to on the album are rather melancholic. Is it fair to say that this is the kind of music that you enjoy making the most?

Teta: It’s true that I like making melancholic songs. My background is probably a large part of the reason for that. Although I sing about different topics, I tend to think about my roots – about where I’m from – a lot. Both of my parents were refugees from the 1959 civil war in Rwanda that lasted over 30 years: that’s why I was born in Kenya, and only moved to Rwanda when I was 5 years old. And then, of course, I was alive (but very young) when the genocide happened in 1994. It affects you when you are born a refugee. Your country of origin – your “true home” – becomes very important to you. So there is an element of patriotism in my songs, of pride in my country.

TMN (to Sander): Was it a different experience compared to what you’re used to, recording African music?

Sander: No, not really. But recording with Teta was quite a different experience compared to anyone else. She was amazing to work with, but she was very protective of her music: she didn’t seem to want anyone interfering with the vision she had for her album. She seemed to be a bit suspicious that people’s advice was in actual fact intended to take away her autonomy in designing the album and the songs – and in a way, I suppose this is understandable, given her experience making pop music back in Rwanda. In the end, though, everything worked out great, and I love the album that we ended up making.

TMN (to Teta): Is it true that you were very protective?

Teta: Yes, I was very protective. I wanted to be fully independent, and to make the album without any fear of judgement. I really wanted the album to come from me. And I’m happy with the result: this album has really, I think, helped me connect with my own artistry, with myself as an artist.

TMN (to Teta and Sander): What does music mean to you?

Teta: To me, music means freedom. It lets me feel free, to be who I was born to be. It’s an incredible, unique way of expressing thoughts and feelings, and I feel very grateful and lucky to be a musician.

Sander: Music is a universal language of feeling, of emotion. It tends to have a similar effect on most people. Just look at music in the movies: when there’s a sad scene, they play music that everyone instinctively recognises as sad; and when there’s a happy scene, they play music that everybody recognises as happy. It’s amazing.

TMN: But there’s a sort of duality to music, isn’t there? It’s universal – it can induce a similar effect on everyone – but it’s also very particular, insofar as a given song can still mean particular things to particular people at particular times. No?

Sander: Yes. Music is both personal and public at the same time. That’s what is so incredible about it; that’s what makes it so magical.

Further details

For more information about Teta and her music, visit her website or her YouTube channel.

For more information about Sander and his mixing studio, Villemix, visit his Facebook page.

The post “I want traditional Rwandan music to be heard internationally” – An interview with Rwandan music star Teta Diana appeared first on Brussels Express.

The world-famous American stand-up comedian, who admitted to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct back in November 2017, offered a virtuouso C.K. performance consisting entirely of original material. During the show, C.K. joked about his usual favoured array of subjects including relationships, religion, and sex, as well as more controversial topics such as the handicapped, the Holocaust, and (most controversially of all) his own past history of sexual misconduct.

Famed for his dark humour, C.K.’s new material seemed even darker than usual – though this didn’t at all appear to faze the audience, who, if anything, were only eager for more by the end.

C.K. also gave what appears to have been a similarly well-received performance earlier in the evening at the same venue, with audience members present claiming that they were “crying with laughter” and that they “laughed so much [their] stomach hurt”.

The warm-up acts were also strong, with Tony Woods, in particular, giving an excellent performance.

(Due to online leaks of some of his previously unpublished material, Louis C.K. has now claimed copyright over all of the jokes delivered in his show, making it legally perilous to repeat any of them in any online medium. Click here for an interesting discussion of the lawfulness of this move.)

The post Comedian Louis C.K. receives standing ovation from Brussels crowd appeared first on Brussels Express.

During our conversation we touched on a variety of topics, including Tim’s background, his relationship to the UK and Belgium, and of course the Brexit process.

Thomas Moller-Nielsen: Can you speak a little bit about your parents’ backgrounds?

Tim Gheysen: My mother is from a single-parent, working-class family in Sheffield, who, with a bit of intelligence and a lot of hard work, was able to gain a place studying modern languages at Oxford. My father is from a Flemish working-class family in Kortrijk. They met while working for the European institutions in Brussels.

TMN: What language was spoken at home?

TG: My parents always spoke English together. In fact, the language spoken at home was almost exclusively English. I picked up my Dutch from speaking with Flemish friends who lived nearby, and from very occasionally speaking it with my father, with whom I mostly spoke English.

I remember making a conscious decision when I was very young to try to speak Dutch more regularly. I realised that my entire schooling was either in English or in French, and that I really wasn’t getting the chance to speak much Dutch on a day-to-day basis. Moreover, I realised the importance and value that Dutch, and languages in general, could play in my future; I figured that, if I didn’t try to work on my Dutch now, I might end up losing the ability to speak it entirely.

These days, I speak Dutch just as fluently as I speak English, although English is still definitely my mother tongue. I also speak to my dad in Dutch far more than I used to; now we probably speak in English just as much as we speak in Dutch.

TMN: Where did you go for university?

TG: I went to the University of Sheffield. I read Business Studies, French and Spanish. At first, I was excited about going to live and study in England. But I ended up really struggling with British culture, particularly British university culture and the associated binge-drinking. I mean, freshers’ week was fine – it obviously involved a lot of drinking – but then it just stayed like that all year, every year!

TMN: So you never seriously considered staying in the UK after your degree?

TG: No.

TMN: Do you feel more Belgian, or more British?

TG: I definitely feel more Belgian than British, although I also don’t feel 100% Belgian. I think I lack a full cultural understanding of the UK – and this is in spite of the fact that I listen to a lot of British music, read British books, watch a lot of British TV shows and films, and so on. But, in some respects, I also feel that I’m not fully Belgian. For instance, because I went to an international school I don’t have any experience of the Belgian curriculum or school system. These kinds of things add up.

TMN: Did you vote in the Brexit referendum?

TG: No, I didn’t. I hadn’t registered, and on top of that I also didn’t really have the time: I was busy setting up my new recruitment business.

TMN: Do you regret not having voted?

TG: Yes, as I would have voted Remain. But I also partly feel that it would have been unjust to vote. I don’t feel very British, so why should I be making decisions on their behalf?

TMN: Why would you have voted Remain?

TG: Because I love the EU. I appreciate the way in which it tries to erode the divisions that tend to accompany the separation of territory into nation-states. I also feel that the EU furthers the ability of member states to collaborate, communicate, and achieve a better world. It’s a great example of what cooperation among states can accomplish.

TMN: What are your thoughts on the divisions within British society, in particular British people’s differing attitudes towards the EU?

TG: Well, there’s no doubt that there was a certain amount of hostility toward the EU prior to the Brexit vote. Having said that, there was no real demand among the British people for a referendum. It just wasn’t the main priority for most people.

TMN: So you don’t think the referendum should have been called?

TG: No, I don’t think the referendum should have been called. Or, rather, if it had to be called, it should not have been called in the way that it was. Basically, I think the referendum was held without the UK’s leaders having a real plan of what to do if the result was to leave. Cameron thought he could call the referendum and win it, but he fatally underestimated the opposition and the overall level of resentment among the British public. He had no plan of what to do if Britain left; he’d done no research. And now he’s dragged the entire country into this ridiculous situation. I mean, regardless of whether you’re for leaving or for staying in the EU, no one could seriously have wanted what’s happening in the UK right now.

I also feel that at the time of the vote there was very little actual information conveyed to the public by the British media. It was mostly very partisan and sensationalist, both from the right-wing and the left-wing press. In my view, the media really failed to help the British people grasp the central issues. As a result of this, I think the British people had no idea, really, what leaving entailed; about what it would mean. This even applies in my own case: I like to consider myself a relatively well-educated and well-informed person, and yet I felt at the time that I couldn’t in all honesty make a fully informed assessment of whether the UK should stay in the EU or leave. And if the population isn’t properly informed, it sort of defeats the whole point of having a referendum in the first place, doesn’t it?

TMN: Isn’t this rather an elitist view, saying that people are too ill-informed to be able to make such a decision?

TG: No, not at all – as I said, it applies to myself as well! I couldn’t truly say that I made a properly informed assessment of the situation, despite being well-informed on the matter relative to most other people. I’m also confident that there are plenty people in the UK who feel the same way as me.

TMN: Why wouldn’t you have abstained in the referendum, then, if you admit to not being sufficiently well-informed on the issue?

TG: I was going with the information that I had at the time. On balance, given the limited information that I had, I thought it would be best to vote Remain. (Though, as I previously mentioned, I didn’t actually vote.) I didn’t really know what the best option was, though. To be honest, I would have preferred not to have been in a position where I was expected to make such a decision.

TMN: Are you against having referendums in general?

TG: No, I’m not. But I feel referendums should only be used when the nature and consequences of the decisions are immediately obvious and clear to the public, for instance in the case of legalising abortion or the death penalty. Cases that are more complicated, such as trade agreements or Brexit, should mostly be handled by elected officials who are paid to understand, consider and research those issues.

So no, I’m not in principle against referendums, or even against having a referendum on the UK leaving the EU. But the UK government should have first spent a substantial period of time studying all of the likely consequences in the event of leaving or staying, and then presented those findings, honestly, to the British people. Similarly, the media should have done its job, and presented the information to the British people in a fully factual, non-partisan manner: “this is what happens if we stay, this is what happens if we go”.

If both the media and the government had done that, and people really wanted to leave, then fine, we should have left the EU: that’s part of living in a democracy. I just disagree with the way the referendum was run, and the reasons for it.

TMN: Are you angry with the people who voted Leave?

TG: No, not at all. Obviously, in a democracy they have the right to vote as they please. They’re not bad people. But I do think the vast majority of them were not properly informed of the central issues – which (to repeat) I think was also true of the vast majority of Remainers, including myself.

TMN: What do you think the future holds for the UK?

TG: I think the UK will probably leave the EU eventually. But I also think that the EU wants to punish the UK, to make an example out of them. And I don’t think the EU is wrong to do so: in my view, the UK should contribute to the EU system if it wants to benefit from it. It’s likely paying your taxes. You may not like it, but it’s necessary in order to have good things like roads, schools, and hospitals.

There’s also no doubt in my mind that the EU feels very hurt by the the UK’s decision to leave, which is very understandable: the EU was created as a model of unity with shared beliefs and values, where different nations with different languages and cultures could come together to form a stronger whole. It’s a model that the UK has played a large part in sustaining and developing over the years – and now, after the Brexit vote, it’s looking like it might collapse.

If you also feel that you might be worth interviewing on similar issues, feel free to get in touch at tmollernielsen@brussels-express.eu

The post “I honestly don’t know whether I should have voted Remain or Leave” – A Belgian-Brit reflects on Brexit appeared first on Brussels Express.