Jan Olof Bengtsson

Antwerp, July 2006

From The Brussels Journal

“When I was invited to give this talk by my old friend Paul Belien, my first reaction was one of pleasure that a political party in Belgium should be interested in my ideas. I have never been asked to address a political party in Western Europe, and I long ago concluded that a voice like mine is irrelevant to the practice of European politics, and must be regarded merely as a vague murmur in the stratosphere of thinking, with no clear application in the realm of political facts. I had heard of the Vlaams Belang, and its predecessor, the Vlaams Blok, as a controversial party, with widespread support among the Flemish population of Belgium. I knew that the party had been targeted by the liberal establishment, had been accused of ‘racism and xenophobia’, and had been disbanded, in its previous incarnation, by a Belgian court. On the other hand, there were plenty of explanations of the accusations apart from their truth, and it seemed likely to me that the true offence of the Vlaams Belang had been to threaten the vested interests of the European Union.”   Read more