Belgium isn't interested in Holland anymore

Rik Torfs, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), argues that the Belgian media, especially the Flemish, pay less and less attention to the Netherlands. "It's even more curious that for quite a long time, Holland was the country of reference for many of us. ... In Flanders, we have abandoned the Netherlands. It's a country that is apparently well known, and thus uninteresting. Flemish television focuses on China or Latin America. ... But in forgetting about the Netherlands, costs us a lot. China is so foreign that it doesn't really help us understand the problems in our society. The Netherlands resembles us. How can we explain the rise of the extreme right-wing in a country that deplores extremism? What can we say about the failure of multiculturalism, which has cost dearly successive governments? ... He who isn't interested in small differences will never understand great diversity."

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