Seasonal remarks

Do we have intelligent and capable politicians? That is certain!

If one is lucky enough to know or meet one, he often impresses us with the wisdom of his words, the firmness of his resolve, the penetrating force of his views and his open-mindedness.

But when he leaves us to rejoin his fellow politicians, this intelligence - intact - suddenly seems to devote itself entirely to a vast parlour game whose rules and rites escape both our control and our understanding.

And so-called election periods make it all the more blatant.

They argue and we do not understand about what, they distrust one another and we do not know of what, they love each other, no longer love each other and love each other again, and we do not know why.

They quibble, plot, swagger, meddle, caucus, cook things up, manoeuvre, outfox one another, split hairs, stigmatise, flatter, hand out sinecures, come in, go out and even tell the truth, if only to better deceive their counterpart.

And they often draw the main resources of their activity from the search for a solution to problems they had managed to create out of thin air.

It is as if they had invented a game whose rules they jealously guard, but which resembles a curious mixture of Stratego, blind man’s buff and liar’s poker.

In any case, it is more often reminiscent of a game of chess than of a game of patience!

Citizens of course have the right to know, through the media, that these jousts are taking place, but since all of this is played out behind closed doors, commentators talk to us about it more than they actually tell us.

The vote we are regularly invited to cast allows us to change neither the players nor the rules of the game.

This closed-circuit abulia is not merely sterile: it is harmful! And it insidiously creeps into the various bodies of the State, traditionally stable and reassuring for the safety of people and property.

Take, for example, the judiciary, which despite the quality of its members is in a state of total decomposition.

Weighed down by charges, yet very often deprived of the benefits they are supposed to provide us, surrounded by committees and "councils" whose purpose and usefulness are hard to fathom, urged to be civic-minded but de facto deprived of patriotism (except when a Belgian wins a race or a match), we are all the more afraid because we do not know whom to cry it out to. And we shut ourselves away in a narrow selfishness devoid of any collective ideal.

Politicians warn the people against extremists; how right they are! And they do not realise that it is their own behaviour that drives the people into the arms of the latter.

Is it really just a dream to imagine politicians who combine common sense and rigour, and who put their qualities at the service of their country as much as of their region?

And above all, above all, not having to answer them, when they ask you the way: "You won’t find it, it’s straight ahead."

Hippolyte Wouters

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BAM!