Capital of Europe

The capital of the European Union is?

Well, there is no single city per se, but most people would agree that it would be Brussels. Ah yes, Brussels; Ville de Bruxelles! Home of the manneken pis and other quaint sights.

The capital of any nation — or even a supranational entity — is valuable not just for the buildings and the institutions but also for the symbolism it can provide to the nation. That Washington DC sits in between the North and the South was no accident, of course; it was the ninth capital city for these here United States, with Philadelphia being the first capital.

Turns out Atlanta, GA is a sister city to Brussels. That city is often referred to as the capital of the New South.

I discovered an interesting fact while checking out the invaluable Brussels Journal. There are 47 council members on the Brussels City Council. In contrast, Atlanta only has 15 council members.

Because of the way politics works in Brussels, there is a governing coalition of 28 council members, comprised of the Parti Socialiste (PS) (17 seats) and the Centre Démocrate Humaniste (CDH) (11 seats). What’s interesting is that 15 of those 28 council members, or 54% of the governing coalition, are not native Belgians. Here’s the list:

Joëlle MILQUET CDH
Christian CEUX CDH
Chantal NOËL CDH
Bertin MAMPAKA CDH
Jean DE HERTOG CDH
Saïd EL HAMMOUDI CDH
Hamza FASSI-FIHRI CDH
Lydia MUTYEBELE CDH
Steven VANACKERE CDH
Nestorine KIMBONDJA KALENGI CDH
Geneviève OLDENHOVE de GUERTECHIN CDH
Freddy THIELEMANS PS
Faouzia HARICHE PS
Philippe CLOSE PS
Mohamed OURIAGHLI PS
Karine LALIEUX PS
Ahmed EL KTIBI PS
Yvan MAYEUR PS
Mahfoudh ROMDHANI PS
Mohammed BOUKANTAR PS
Fatima ABID PS
Marie-Paule MATHIAS PS
Christian VAN DER LINDEN PS
Sevket TEMIZ PS
Mounia MEJBAR PS
Samira ATTALBI PS
Mustafa AMRANI PS
Julie FISZMAN PS

Twelve are Muslim, another three are from sub-Saharan Africa.

The demographics of Brussels is probably under rapid change, but as of the last census in 1991, 63.7% of the people of Brussels identified themselves as born in Belgium (607,446 out of 954,040 total). In 1991, immigrants (naturalized and not) accounted for 325,566 out of 954,040 total, or 34.1% — this figure includes those who have immigrated from France.

I doubt that the number of native-born Belgians somehow increased from 1991 to 2007. If anything, I’m reasonably sure that they make up less than 64% of the population in 2007. But are native Belgians now a minority in Brussels?

Just as a point of comparison, the 2000 US Census shows that the demographics of Atlanta look like this:

White

138,352

33.22%

Black or African American

255,689

61.39%

American Indian and Alaska Native

765

0.18%

Asian

8,046

1.93%

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander

173

0.04%

And the City Council of Atlanta looks like this:

I count 10 African-Americans out of 15 council members, pretty close to the 62% of the Black population in Atlanta.

I’m not suggesting that Atlanta only votes on racial lines; I have no idea how Atlantans vote on their council representatives. But this city council at least makes sense on some visceral level. The City Council is more or less representative of Atlanta’s racial and ethnic makeup.

Is the Brussels City Council representative of the racial and ethnic makeup of Brussels? Perhaps it is. Maybe 54% of Bruxellians are Muslim or immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. It’s possible. I doubt it, but it’s possible.

But the question is this: will the Dutch simply live and let live? Or will the native Belgians get extremely nasty in the coming years confronted with marginalization within their ancestral lands?

Are we perhaps looking at the future of Eurabia when we see the Brussels City Council? Given that Brussels is the Capital of Europe, the situation is simply overflowing with symbolism and portents.

-TS