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Originally Posted by alainbouhez
Some short summary about the Belgian system. The kingdom is a federal state. Having a king prevents to have to elect one president who would be a member of one of the communities.
There are three main partners.
The federal government: reponsible for national matters such as justice, police, armed forces, diplomacy, budget, taxes, social help and so on.
Three regions: Flanders, Wallony and Brussels. They are in charge of all matters that are not related to individuals such as maintaining and building roads, pollution, patrimonium and so on.
Three communities: Dutch speaking, French speaking and German speaking. They are in charge of all matters concerning individuals. So: there are some french speaking people living in Flanders, some Dutch speaking people living in Wallony and some French speaking people living in the German speaking part of the country (that is not a region on its own but belonging to Wallony because too small). And Brussels is completly bilingual. The main responsabilities of the communities are education, media...
With other words, it means that if you are living in a region where your mother language is the not the main language, you are protected by the existence of the communities.
It obviously worked better than in former Yougoslavia (where I spent 6 months in 2000-2001).
Is it a clue to find a solution to the Israelian-Palestinian problem? Maybe.
Is it more or less clear?
:rolleyes:
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It seems like a pretty good system for dealing with people of different backgrounds. For it to work in Israel, I suggest the following would have to be true:
1) The two groups would have to agree to live under one government.
2) The communities would have to be self-policing, but would have to do so to the satisfaction of the others (e.g. if a Jewish person committed a crime against a Muslim, the Jewish community would have to vigorously prosecute the Jewish criminal.
3) Neighboring nations would have to stop making threats against the (newly combined) nation.
Probably a whole host of other issues, but the above three would be a start. I wish I could see it happening, but (sadly) I don't think the Palestinians want to live under the same government as the Israelis and vice-versa.
-- Jeff