Ft 15 11 18 lowres 0

#406 Erkenningsnummer P708816

NOVEMBER 18, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2

politics \ p4

The Brussels connection

BUSiNESS \ p6

innovation \ p7

UGent tops for business

More than one of the men involved in the Paris terrorist attacks lived in Molenbeek, causing politicians to question policies

A global survey of employers puts a degree from Ghent University among the world’s 50 most valuable

\4

\6

education \ p9

art & living \ p10

Surround sound

Hear it, see it, touch it: A Bruges festival sets visitors in the middle of music and asks them to “suspend their expectations” \ 14

© Eric De Mildt

Giving a voice to the unknown Non-profit provides aggression therapy to prisoners, with remarkable results Lisa Bradshaw Follow Lisa on Twitter \ @lmbsie

The organisation Touché has been providing aggression therapy to prisoners in East Flanders for eight years, greatly reducing the risk of re-offending

“I

f you find a weed, you don’t plough your entire garden.

You just pull up that one weed.” That, in essence, is the theory behind solution-focused therapy, and it has helped bring down crime statistics in Flanders.

The non-profit organisation Touché in Ghent uses solution-focused therapy – which concentrates on the future rather than the past – to counsel all its clients. Nearly all of Touché’s clients are prisoners or ex-convicts.

Touché was started eight years ago by three Ghent-area therapists who felt there was not enough emphasis on therapy for offenders that specifically focused on aggression.

They work with several prisons in East Flanders, including those in Ghent, Dendermonde, Oudenaarde and Beveren.

The results have been nothing short of remarkable. Aside from a sharp drop in ex-prisoners re-offending for violent crimes, convicts who have spent years in the Touché programme have formed their own outreach organisation to help at-risk youth stay out of prison. Based in the Oudenaarde prison, its latest venture is a theatre piece that will be performed for the public at the end of the month.

Statistics from other countries show that offering therapy to prisoners “has a much better effect on re-offending behaviour than the prison term itself,” says one of the founders, Marjan Gryson (pictured above). “Our first raw data shows the same tendency among our clients.”

In Belgium as a whole, nearly 58% of ex-convicts re-offend and go back to prison. But the number of those who were jailed for violent crimes who re-offend is much worse: A full 75% wind up back behind bars.

According to early figures, the number of prisoners in

for violent crime who have gone through the Touché programme and wind up back in prison for a violent crime is 17%.

“When you are young, there are support networks set up to help you, but once you are an adult, it becomes a lot more difficult,” says Erwin Mortier, one of Touché’s therapists.

“You get trapped in a vicious cycle of re-offending. So what we do is help them to break out of that trap.”

They do this through a variety of methods, including individual and group therapy, both inside and outside the prison.

Some prisoners are allowed a pass to visit the Touché offices near Citadelpark in Ghent for therapy. There, they can also bring an advocate with them if they choose – someone they trust who is committed to helping them with their aggressive tendencies.

“We try to immediately get to the heart of the solutioon,” explains Mortier, who studied at the Korzybski Institute in continued on page 5

\ CURRENT AFFAIRS

Ypres marks Armistice with 30,125th Last Post ceremony Commemoration of end of First World War included mass and Poppy Parade Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

wardeadregister.be

F

lemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois and King Filip were among thousands who took part in ceremonies on 11 November to commemorate the end of the First World War, 97 years ago.

The biggest ceremony in Flanders to mark Armistice Day was in Ypres, which was the centre of much of the fighting on Belgian soil, the city being completely destroyed in the five major battles that took place there. The day began with a traditional mass in Sint-Maarten cathedral, followed by a Poppy Parade from the church to Menin Gate.

The procession was made up of delegations from across the world as well as marching bands, with soldiers in vintage uniforms from Canada and New Zealand. Five buglers from the Ypres fire brigade sounded the Last Post at exactly 11.00, the 30,125th time the call has been sounded in Ypres since the Great War ended.

To end the ceremony, a flurry of poppies was released through the cupola of Sir Reginald Blomfield’s monument.

Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops passed through the old Menin Gate on their way to the front line; 300,000 never returned, and 90,000 have no known grave. Despite its size,

© Frederik Sadones/Demotix/Corbis

the monument cannot hold all of their names; the 54,395 names inscribed on the gate only go up to August 1917. The rest are inscribed on the monuments in nearby Tyne Cot cemetery.

Super speed-trap in Ghent catches 100 drivers a day A laser-powered speed camera installed in the centre of Ghent is catching about 100 drivers a day in the 30km/h zone, despite the publicity surrounding it. “Everyone has been warned, and still they all drive too fast,” Ghent mayor Daniel Termont said on VRT radio.

The Light Detection and Ranging, or lidar, camera uses a laser to calcu-

late distance and speed, where other speed-traps use the less efficient radar.

The technology allows the camera to be placed in narrow city streets such as in Ghent’s historic centre, where a radar camera would not work.

The camera is in a different street every week and has, since it started in early October, recorded 2,821 cases of drivers exceeding 30km. In 87 cases,

the driver was doing over 67km/h, the speed at which a driving licence can be temporarily suspended.

Termont expressed surprise at how many people continued to offend.

“It’s remarkable, especially since the machine is so visible,” he said. “The papers are full of it, and the thing is standing there as plain as the nose on my face.” \ AH

Number of housewives falls while househusbands double The number of housewives in Flanders has decreased by 40% since 2000, according to figures from the federal economy ministry. There are currently 233,000 women in Flanders who run the household and – in many cases – raise children full time, without working outside the home.

There were more than 300,000 housewives five years ago and more than 700,000 in 1990. “For most families,

22 8,0 00

a dual income has become a necessity,” professor Charlotte Declerck, a specialist in family law at Hasselt University, told Het Nieuwsblad. “I think more women would like to be hosuewives, but it’s often not financially feasible.”

She pointed out that those not working are not well-protected legally if they are not married. If the relationship ends, property is strictly sepa-

153,000

rated, meaning the working partner keeps all earnings from a job. “There should be compensation for the household work that women have carried out during the years,” said Declerck.

Meanwhile, the number of housewives of foreign origin has doubled in 15 years, as has the number of househusbands, from about 3,000 to 6,000. \ Andy Furniere

Among those laying wreaths under the gate was a delegation of Sikhs; 414 of the names on the monument are soldiers from India.

The ceremony in Ypres was attended by, among others, Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois, speaker of the Flemish parliament Jan Peumans, West Flanders governor Carl Decaluwé and the ambassadors of Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Australia.

The king, meanwhile, was in Brussels for the ceremony in remembrance of the Unknown Soldier, which commemorates the dead of both world wars, as well as those who died in conflicts since 1945. The king laid a wreath and, following a 21-gun salute, met and chatted with former soldiers and representatives of veterans’ organisations.

In related news, the Institute for Veterans has compiled a database with the names of 42,000 Belgian military personnel who died during or soon after the First World War. The list of names includes casualties of fighting in 1914-18, as well as those who died in 1919 as a result of injuries sustained in the war. Some of the fallen are buried in cemeteries in Allied lands, but the majority are buried in Belgium.

One in eight pregnant women has gestational diabetes About 13% of women, or one in eight, gets gestational diabetes during their pregnancies, according to the first results from a study of seven hospitals in Flanders and Brussels.

Gestational diabetes involves the development of high blood glucose levels during pregnancy, normally between the sixth and seventh month. The condition leads to an increased risk of overweight babies and pre-eclampsia, which can lead to serious complications for both the mother and baby. Mothers who have gestational diabetes also run a higher risk of getting permanent diabetes.

The researchers measured the blood values of pregnant women before and after drinking a glucose solution. Before the study, it was thought that about one in 50 pregnant women was confronted with gestational diabetes.

Obesity and a family history of diabetes are the greatest risk factors in gestational diabetes. Researchers involved in the study, known as the BEDIP-N project, are working to determine a uniform method to diagnose and treat the condition locally.

The BEDIP-N project is a co-operation between the hospitals UZ Leuven, UZ Antwerpen, Imelda Bonheiden, OLV Aalst, OLV Asse, Sint-Jan Brugge and Sint-Jan Brussel. About 2,000 women participated in the first part of the study. For the second part, the researchers are looking for more pregnant women to be tested for gestational diabetes. \ AF

€12.50

700 €6.5 million

Flemish people were members of a nature organisation at the end of 2014, 7.6% more than the year before and seven times as many as 20 years before, according to figures from the Institute for Nature and Woodland Research

\2

visitors to this year’s Boekenbeurs in Antwerp, which closed last week, the same number as last year but lower than the organisers’ target of 160,000. The book fair included 2,250 signing sessions and 240 performances and readings

new drivers needed by the Brussels public transport authority MIVB in the coming years. The new bus plan alone, which includes four new routes and increased frequency on others, will require 345 extra drivers

paid for a painting by the Flemish artist James Ensor (1860-1949) at Sotheby’s in New York last week, the highest price ever paid for a work by the Ostend-born artist

overcharge by Antwerp city authorities for a passport for adults bought since January 2012, thanks to an administrative mistake that saw the price increase by €5 rather than fall by €7.50. The city said it would correct the problem as soon as possible

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

WEEK in brief The P Committee, which oversees police matters, is investigating an incident at a youth detention centre in which a 14-year-old girl from Syria was shot with a plastic bullet. According to Antwerp’s Rapid Response Team, the girl was threatening to harm herself and others with shards of glass.

The girl suffered bruising in the abdominal area. Children’s rights commissioner Bruno Vanobbergen said the incident was “absolutely unacceptable”.

A motorist who drove into a group of veterans taking part in a remembrance event on 8 November, killing two, was suffering from an attack of acute appendicitis, his family said. The man had complained of stomach pains, which became worse as he was driving home from Marke to Wevelgem. He claims to have blacked out and lost control of the vehicle. Ten more of the group, who were accompanied by supporters as well as a wind band, were injured.

The first 10 days of November were never as warm as this year, with an average temperature of 13.7 degrees compared to a seasonal average of 8.5 degrees. The last warmest result, according to the Royal Meteorological Institute, was in 2011, when the temperature was an average 12.3 degrees.

After 12 years of discussion, a statue showing the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder at work will be installed on the square in front of Kapelle church in the Marollen area of Brussels this week. Bruegel was married in the church, his children were baptised there, and his funeral took place there. The statue by sculptor Tom Franzen was originally part of a three-piece work, but will stand by itself. The installation was delayed when various aldermen could not agree on a location. The unveiling takes place on 20 November at 13.00.

face of flanders Police should have the power to carry out checks on Muslim boys who are being home-schooled because of an increased danger of radicalisation, according to Mechelen mayor Bart Somers.

Mechelen counts about 50 homeschooled youngsters, about half of them from the Salafi movement of Sunni Islam. Research has shown that those youths are more likely to become radicalised, Somers said.

Flemish education minister Hilde Crevits said she would look into the request.

Several mayors of municipalities in Flanders have written to federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon to ask for the power to impose running fines on residents for whom existing one-off fines are not enough. The mayors were responding to a request by Jambon to evaluate the controversial GAS municipal fines handed out for minor offenses, such as noise nuisance and graffiti. Sometimes a single fine is not enough to stop the behaviour, the mayors argued, in which case they should be allowed to impose a fine that accumulates every day the nuisance continues.

Property owners in Flanders will from next year be able to claim the region’s housing bonus for second properties. The bonus is a tax relief currently given to anyone who buys a home to live in as a primary residence. From 2016, that condition is replaced by a rule that the tax advantage on second and subsequent properties may not be larger than that for a primary residence.

A Pakistani family in Antwerp has filed a complaint against the police after a missing man was found to have been cremated without the family’s permission.

Nadeem Akhtar was found drowned in the port of Antwerp in July. He was in possession of papers and a mobile phone, but police took three weeks to contact the family, only to inform them that the body had been cremated – something forbid-

den in Islam. The case is also being investigated by the federal police.

Last Sunday saw the investiture of the new assistant bishop, Archimandrite Petros Bozinis, in the Greek Orthodox cathedral in Brussels. Bozinis is Turkish and previously worked in Germany. A physicist by training, he also studied theology and Byzantine philosophy. The Greek church has about 5,000 adherents in Brussels.

The town of Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Flemish Brabant, will this year celebrate the holidays with 30 Christmas trees equipped with solar panels to power the lights, thanks to students from the electronics and ICT department at Thomas More University College in Mechelen. The students worked for five months to develop the system. A contractor is working to extend the system to other towns next year.

Flemish waterways authority Waterways and Sea Canal (W&Z) took advantage of the annual drop in water levels in Ghent’s canals last week to begin inspection work on the quays and walls. The organisation also went on its annual fishing expedition to recover bicycles abandoned in the water, which usually uncovers hundreds of bikes.

Work on the sluice at the Snepkaai, which will last until January, means water traffic has to be diverted via Evergem or Merelbeke.

The influx of asylum-seekers to Brussels has barely made a mark on numbers in the city’s Dutchspeaking schools, according to Guy Vanhengel, chair of the Flemish Community Commission. This year, only 109 newcomers have reported to the Dutch-speaking pre- and primary schools in Brussels, he said, compared to 93 last year, before the refugee crisis.

The reason, he said, is probably that non-Dutch speakers live here awhile before considering placing their children in Flemish schools.

OFFSIDE Bats in the belfry They have a bad reputation, wholly undeserved, so it’s a pleasure to find some good news from the bat world.

In Paulatem, part of Zwalm and the smallest village in East Flanders (pop 146), stands a church dedicated to St Gangulphus of Burgundy. In the rafters of the church lives a colony of whiskered bats (Myotis mystacinus), one of the smallest species of European bats.

The colony is well established and considered one of the top three in the region, according to environmental organisation Natuurpunt. The church is located next to the Ten Bieze park, an ideal hunting ground for the bats, whose numbers have been steadily growing to just over 100.

However, the church’s interior is prey to woodworm, which, since the building is a listed monument, has to be treated. Normally that would mean fumigation using sulphuryl fluoride, a highly toxic gas. That would take place next summer when the temperature is right

© BMUSS/VRT

Kathleen Aerts When the TV talent competition K3 zoekt K3 ended, it was not only the launch of a new pop trio, it was also the start of the official farewell to Flanders’ most successful musical act ever.

So why, the public is asking, was one of the original K3’s members left out of the celebration?

Kathleen Aerts was one of the original members of K3, from the time when all three had names beginning with the letter K (together with Karen Damen and Kristel Verbeke). K3 saw the light of day in 1998, as a sort of Flemish Spice Girls. Their Dutch-language hits, however, were aimed at children, which brought them to the attention of Studio 100. The company, which produces kids’ TV programmes and stage shows took over the management of the group in 2002.

K3 became not only Flanders’ biggest-selling music act ever, but also the stars of comic strip albums, musicals and films, not to mention lunchboxes, T-shirts and every other kind of merchandise.

Aerts announced her departure in 2009 in order to go solo. Her replacement was Josje Huisman,

a Dutch woman chosen through a TV competition to extend the group’s audience in the Netherlands.

The members of K3 announced their retirement last spring and that they would be replaced by three younger women, who were chosen through the talent show that ended last week. (None of the new names begins with the letter K.) With the final selection, we also said goodbye to Karen, Kristel and Josje, but people wanted to know why Kathleen, who had been in the group for a decade, had been air-brushed out of the K3 story.

Studio 100 boss Gert Verhulst, also the former boyfriend of two of the three departing members of K3, proffered a vague response. Kathleen herself said that she had been too busy with publicity for her book, Voor altijd mijn mama (Forever My Mum), the story of her mother’s struggle with dementia.

Kathleen’s doctor, for reasons she won’t go into, advised her to get some rest, she said. “Nonetheless I wish the new K3 a super start and a long and successful career,” she said.

Flanders Today, a weekly English-language newspaper, is an initiative of the Flemish Region and is financially supported by the Flemish authorities.

The logo and the name Flanders Today belong to the Flemish Region (Benelux Beeldmerk nr 815.088). The editorial team of Flanders Today has full editorial autonomy regarding the content of the newspaper and is responsible for all content, as stipulated in the agreement between Corelio Publishing and the Flemish authorities.

© René Janssen/Natuurpunt

for the insects to breed. But that is also in the middle of the post-partum period for the bats.

Thanks to a co-operation between the contractor, the East Flanders division of the Monuments Agency and Natuurpunt, the fumigation went ahead last month, as temperatures were higher than normal. The loft where the bats live was completely sealed off. According to Natuurpunt, the bats are doing fine. \ Alan Hope

Editor Lisa Bradshaw DEPUTY Editor Sally Tipper CONTRIBUTING Editor Alan Hope sub Editor Linda A Thompson Agenda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentino Art director Paul Van Dooren Prepress Mediahuis AdPro Contributors Rebecca Benoot, Bartosz Brzezi´nski, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Katy Desmond, Andy Furniere, Diana Goodwin, Julie Kavanagh, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Katrien Lindemans, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Daniel Shamaun, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Denzil Walton General manager Hans De Loore Publisher Mediahuis NV

Editorial address Gossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 467 23 06 editorial@flanderstoday.eu subscriptions tel 03 560 17 49 subscriptions@flanderstoday.eu or order online at www.flanderstoday.eu Advertising 02 467 24 37 advertising@flanderstoday.eu Verantwoordelijke uitgever Hans De Loore

\3

\ POLITICS

5TH COLUMN Always Molenbeek

Since the Paris terrorist attacks last Friday, all eyes are on Molenbeek. It looks increasingly like the gunmen used the Brussels commune as a logistics base.

It is not the first time that Molenbeek has been linked to terrorism. The commune was also named in connection with the terrorist group that was apprehended in Verviers and with the shooting at a Jewish supermarket in Paris last January, with the recent botched Thalys attack and with the shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last year. It is known as the jihadi capital of Europe.

So what is going on?

Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, across the canal from Brussels city centre, is one of the poorest municipalities in Belgium.

It was always working class, with families living close to the industry for which it was known. With an inflow of immigration from North Africa and Turkey in the 1950s, many of the original families moved out.

Now Molenbeek – and especially the area known as OudMolenbeek – is seen as a monoculture. It has a distinct Arab feel to it, which many Belgians find discomfiting. It is known for harassment and petty crime.

Attempts at gentrification have never really caught on. In recent years, trendy companies have moved out – citing safety as the main reason. More than 20 years ago, Johan Leman, a well-known social worker, warned Brussels that Molenbeek would become a hotbed for disgruntlement. He spoke of discrimination, poor schooling and a general disinterest in Molenbeek’s youngsters.

Politically, Molenbeek has been dominated by the Frenchspeaking socialists for years, with the prominent politician Philippe Moureaux its mayor.

Moureaux was a great champion of the North African population in his municipality, but he was often accused of brushing aside its problems.

Three years ago, Moureaux was succeeded by the liberal Françoise Schepmans. Now the parties are arguing about who is most to blame for what has gone wrong. Schepmans points the finger at her predecessor for Molenbeek’s radicalisation. But she has been blamed for not doing enough to stop young men from going to fight in Syria.

The federal minister of home affairs, Jan Jambon (N-VA), has pledged to “clean up” Molenbeek. One of the issues under discussion is how policing is structured in Brussels. The capital has six police zones and 19 communes (and mayors), making Brussels the “weakest link,” said Jambon, in European counter-terrorism. \ Anja Otte

\4

Brussels “weakest link” in EU’s fight against terrorism

Arrests in Molenbeek related to Paris attacks raise questions on policy Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

T

he federal government plans to take new measures to combat the “gigantic problem” of Belgians returning to the country after having fought in Syria, prime minister Charles Michel said at the weekend. Michel was responding to news that the attacks in Paris last Friday night, in which 129 people died, were possibly planned in Brussels.

A rental car with Belgian number plates was found outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where about 90 people were shot dead while attending a concert by an American metal band. The car had been hired by a Frenchman living in Belgium, according to French authorities.

The man was later arrested at the Belgian border along with two other people. Another Belgian vehicle was found close to the location of another shooting, but the justice ministry declined to release further information.

Authorities in Paris have confirmed that two of the gunmen, both French nationals, spent time living in Brussels-City and in Molenbeek. Police carried out a number of house searches at the weekend, and seven people were arrested, according to Molenbeek mayor Françoise Schepmans. One of the men had allegedly been in Paris on Friday, the prime minister’s office said.

“There is a link to Molenbeek in almost every incident,” the prime minister told the political programme De zevende dag on Sunday. Michel said measures had been taken against radicalisation, but the preventive strategy imple-

© Gong Bing/Xinhua Press/Corbis

People are leaving flowers in front of the French embassy on Regentlaan in Brussels

mented until now would have to be joined by more repressive measures.

“There are two possibilities,” he said.

“Either we do nothing more and risk more danger, or we attempt a global approach supported by a diplomatic and a humanitarian aspect – and perhaps also a military side. We have to find the most balanced approach.”

Federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon, meanwhile, pointed out that Belgium was so far the only country in Europe where rebel fighters returning from Syria must appear in court. “And more trials will happen,” he said. Federal police chief Catherine De Bolle, however, said it was impossible to keep tabs on all former jihadists.

“There are 474 Belgians with links to the fighting in Syria, about 130 of whom have returned, 77 of whom were killed and about 200 who are still there,” she said. “Every one of them requires a different approach.

We are trying to match the measures we take to each fighter. But we’re unable to follow every single one 24 hours a day.”

Brussels will this week host an emergency meeting of EU ministers of justice and home affairs to discuss the question of international terrorism. Belgian justice minister Koen Geens announced that Belgium’s border controls had been intensified at the weekend. France closed its borders following the attack, with special checks for rail passengers arriving at Gare du Nord from Belgium.

Foreign affairs minister Didier Reynders advised all Belgians to cancel planned trips to France and to return as soon as possible if already there.

Seven Muslim organisations in Flanders, including the Platform of Flemish Imams, issued a statement announcing their “rejection and repudiation” of the attacks in Paris. “Violent extremism once more showed its inhuman face in these attacks,” the groups said in a joint statement, “attempting to show its ugliest side to the extremely diverse, tolerant and pluralist society of the West.”

Former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt to make film based on book Europe’s Disease Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt (Open VLD) plans to make a film about the problems facing the European Union. Verhofstadt, who now serves as leader of the liberals in the European parliament, has been in contact with the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film about climate change.

“He explained the obstacles that have to be overcome,” in making such a film, Verhofstadt told Humo magazine. Verhofstadt (pictured) has become a crusader for a new European Treaty, which would give more power to the EU institutions and lessen the power of the member states.

That is the subject of his new book Europe’s Disease (and the Rediscovery of the Ideal) and a report issued to members of his group in parliament.

The film will be based on the book, and Verhofstadt plans to release it across Europe in time for the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in 2017.

Gore’s film stands as an example, but Verhofstadt’s subject is very different, he told Humo. “Nobody ever thought Al Gore’s slideshow would be seen

© Martin Kraft/Wikimedia

around the world,” he said. But Lawrence Bender, who produced the film, saw it and said: “This story has got to be told.”

Among the most important issues facing Europe is the approach to migration, said Verhofstadt.

“But there can only be a sensible migration policy if we recognise migration as something positive and, in Europe, even necessary. Without migrants, we are a continent withering away. There are many African countries doing a better job of coping with migration than we are.” \ AH

Three Belgians are known to be among those who died in the attacks on Friday, a spokesperson for the foreign affairs ministry confirmed.

There are no Belgians among the seriously injured.

The official threat level in Belgium has been raised from two to three, but only for major events such as football matches or concerts, the interior ministry said. Extra security was in place on Sunday for the traditional Te Deum service in the Brussels cathedral to mark King’s Day, attended by members of the royal family and the federal government.

The complexity of the police and political structures in Brussels is a large part of why Belgium has supplied more jihad fighters to IS than any other country, according to Jambon, speaking earlier in the week.

According to figures from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, Belgium has supplied 40 fighters per million inhabitants to fighting in Syria and Iraq – more than any other European country.

Denmark comes a distant second place, with 27 fighters per million.

According to Jambon, speaking at a debate organised by Politico, Brussels is the weakest link in the fight against radicalisation. Whereas authorities in some cities affected, such as Vilvoorde and Mechelen, have a good grip on the problem, Brussels does not, largely as a result of the capital’s structure, with its 19 municipalities and six police zones for a relatively small city of 1.2 million people. “How many police zones has New York, a city of 11 million people?” he asked. “One.”

Top tax investigator reinstated after libel case fails Karel Anthonissen, director of the special investigations squad (BBI) of the tax authorities in Ghent, has had his suspension overturned following a decision by the prosecutor’s office in Halle-Vilvoorde.

Anthonissen, one of the government’s toughest tax-fraud investigators, with cases against top chef Peter Goossens, cyclist Tom Boonen and former EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht, was suspended in May following a message on Twitter in which he accused then finance minister Koen Geens and chair of the finance department’s management committee, Hans D’Hondt, of “unwillingness” to pursue major fraud.

D’Hondt filed a complaint for criminal libel, and Anthonissen was suspended “for the good of the service”. The prosecutor dropped the charges. None of the parties involved in the case has so far chosen to comment. \ AH

\ COVER STORY

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Giving a voice to the unknown Public invited to stage play penned by prisoners and actors

vzwtouche.be

continued from page 1

Bruges, which specialises in solution-focused therapy. Most of the therapists who work with Touché have been through that institute. “That’s useful because we all kind of speak the same language,” he says. “We are always trying to focus on strength and possibilities and contacts. We try to help the prisoner find the positive spark in his life and not get snowed under by problems and difficulties and that baggage that keeps us from moving forward.”

Mortier – who is responsible for the garden metaphor – says that prisoners often think they have lost everything, but the therapists force them to reconsider their current situation and resources. “’You’re still alive, and you still have this person and this person supporting you, how come?’” they might ask them. “‘What have you done to get to the point of still having these things?’ That strength, that survival instinct runs through all of our work with them.”

They also challenge them to

Aggression is contextual, and it’s very personal rethink how they can act in any situation. “I ask them: ‘Can you envision another person doing something else in that situation?

Give me another resolution to that situation. And another one. And another one.’”

Mortier poses these questions, he emphasises, “always in the form of a question, not as a directive.

I want them to come to me with solutions. I’m not looking at them as the big, bad wolf.”

Which brings up a valid point: safety. Does he really want violent criminals in his office? “I have never personally experienced any aggression towards myself, whether I’m in the prison or here,” he responds. “I’m not scared of them. They’re not monsters.

Aggression is something we are supposed to be afraid of, but the reality is that every person has a few buttons you can push. You discover them in therapy. I can push those buttons or not. And I can help you to not get so angry when someone else pushes them.”

He also points out that Touché therapists do not start out with preconceived notions. “If I treat them with respect, they treat me with respect. Anger never starts in a vacuum. It’s always an interaction. That can be a physical inter-

© Eric De Mildt

Touché therapists challenge prisoners to rethink how they can act in any situation

action or a psychological one.”

Touché is also quite well known among East Flanders’ prisoners at this point, and – whether they voluntarily enter counselling or are required to do so by prison authorities – they are well aware of the confidentiality policy. “We are an independent organisation,” explains Mortier. “We do not report any information to prison authorities or anyone else. Prisoners know that they can speak freely. Touché is a safe haven.”

Touché also works with ex-convicts, particularly if they already started therapy while in prison. Mortier himself travels to the prison in Bruges to work with someone who was transferred from a prison in East Flanders.

Aside from trying to remind prisoners that they have had resources in their lives that have gotten them this far, Touché therapists try to teach them how to use them.

“Say your train is late, and you have an appointment,” says Mortier. “You make a phone call; you send a text message explaining that you will be late. You’re still angry, but you can cope with it.

You have your resources, and you aren’t afraid to use them. But some people don’t have all these resources, or aren’t able to recognise and use what resources they do have. Seeing the problem as an isolated incident and not piling all the problems of the past on top of it – that’s how solution-focused therapy works.”

But none of this is where therapy tends to actually start. Therapy usually starts with recognising what aggressive behaviour is.

It sounds pretty simple, but when you grow up with aggression all around you, explains Mortier, you begin to think of it as the norm.

“If you grow up in a neighbourhood where fighting and stealing is necessary for you to survive, then aggression is normal,” explains Mortier. “But if you then do that on the bus, it’s not seen that way. Aggression is contextual, and it’s very personal. It’s linked to a concept of identity.”

27 November 18.30

This is a theme that is at the heart of Play Again, a theatre piece

by Rebecca Tanghe of Educatief Theater Antwerpen (ETA), which produces theatre on social issues to perform at schools. Together with actor Wim Van de Velde, she worked with a group of 10 prisoners in Oudenaarde who are part of the Project Group.

This group of prisoners, explains Mortier, had come as far as they could through Touche's programme but still wanted to be involved. “They were like, ‘now what?’ They wanted their voices to be heard beyond the prison walls and asked how we could help them do that. How could we give a voice to the unknown?”

So the Project Group was born, and their first initiative was to make a movie called Binneninzicht (Inside Insight) with Ghent director Nic Balthazar. The film finds the members of the Project Group talking about their lives with young people who have already had brushes with the law.

“They are now ambassadors of Touché,” says Mortier. “They can rephrase the solutions they found through us into a language that troubled youth understand.”

Play Again, meanwhile, stars Tanghe and Van de Velde as a counsellor and prisoner, respectively. The prisoner, says Tanghe, “gets the opportunity to replay his life – do it over again. But it’s not that easy.”

Tanghe, who has been involved in several ETA productions, said she wanted to work on a piece specifically focused on aggression. “In primary school, teachers work with children on their aggressive behaviour, and there’s a lot of attention given to bullying. But when the kids get older, there’s less time for this.”

So she contacted Touché, which put her in touch with the Project Group. After two sessions of rewriting based on the prisoners’ feedback, the piece was ready, and it will soon premiere at the prison itself. “It was all new to me: the prison, the stories, their frustrations,” says Tanghe. “It was a very, very touching experience.”

She had previously starred in an ETA play about sexual harassment and domestic abuse. “I talked with a lot of the victims, but never with the perpetrators. They were just ‘evil’,” she says. “But I knew the reality was much more complex.

Why does someone grow into such an aggressive person? I think if you understand why, you can change it. The prisoners we talked to all wanted to change.”

Oudenaarde prison Bourgondiëstraat 6

Email info@vzwtouche.be for ticket info

\5

\ BUSINESS

week in business Air Brussels Airport Brussels Airport passed its target of 20 million passengers for the year with two months to go. At the end of October, the number stood at 20.2 million, 7.3% higher than the same time last year, heralding a record year in 2015.

Car repair Touring Glass The car windscreen repair service is increasing its network from 13 to 65 service points in February when it becomes the exclusive partner of auto repair company Auto5. Auto5 accounts for about 5,000 car glass interventions a year.

Cars Volkswagen Flanders’ environment minister has confirmed her decision to take legal action against car manufacturer Volkswagen, over the company’s admission it used software to falsify emissions tests. The complaint allows the public prosecutor to investigate possible environmental damage.

Mining Nyrstar The mining and metals company, based in Balen, Antwerp province, is reported to be considering the sale of its mining activities, following poor performance and the continued low prices of raw materials.

Ports Zeebrugge The port of Zeebrugge has dropped plans to become the European hub for pangasius fish imported from Vietnam, two years after signing a memorandum of understanding. According to the port, the Vietnamese have been unable to provide the necessary quality guarantees.

Tech Option The Leuven-based technology company, specialised in wireless communication, has received backing of up to €10 million from American firm Danlaw, a producer of telematics. A €6 million convertible loan has already been approved.

Transport Van Hool The bus constructor, based in Koningshooikt, Antwerp province, has won a contract to build 20 electric Exqui.City tram-buses for the Austrian city of Linz. The contract follows previous orders from Metz, Barcelona, Parma and Hamburg.

\6

Survey of global employers puts UGent degrees in top 50

Graduates from Ghent University are coveted by international business Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

A

degree from Ghent University is among the 50 most valuable in the world, according to the Global Employability University Ranking, published by the Times Higher Education Supplement.

The rankings are compiled from a survey of more than 4,000 CEOs and human resource managers around the world.

The list is headed by Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford, with Ghent in 49th place. The University of Leuven came in at 62. No Belgian managers were consulted for the poll. “We score this well without having any votes from our own country,” said Ghent rector Anne De Paepe, “which shows how highly our graduates

© Hilde Christiaens/UGent

are rated internationally.”

Employers stressed the importance of sustainable co-opera-

tion between universities and business; the reputation of the institution for research, they

Facebook ordered to stop tracking internet movements of non-members Social media site Facebook has been ordered by a Belgian court to stop its practice of tracking the internet behaviour of people who do not have profiles on the site. The ruling last week, upholding a case filed by the Privacy Commission, also means other websites will have to change their practices.

The ruling will have no effect on the five million or so members of Facebook in Belgium, who have already – whether they read them or not – agreed to Facebook’s privacy policy. That policy includes the social media site’s practice of tracking internet movements while logged on to the site.

Facebook uses the information to profile its members; it also sells it to advertisers and marketers as a tool for targeting ads.

But Facebook also tracks the movements of non-members, via what is known as a datr cookie – a small package of data placed on the computer of anyone who visits a website that links to Facebook, such as with “Like” or “Share” buttons. According to the ruling, those users have never given permission for Facebook to track their movements. Should

Facebook fail to meet the Wednesday deadline, it will face a fine of €250,000 a day.

Facebook argued that the datr cookie was intended to detect whether a visitor was a genuine person and not a virus. It also argued that since Facebook’s European headquarters is in Ireland, only the Irish data commissioner had jurisdiction. The company intends to appeal the ruling.

Bart Tommelein, the secretary of state for privacy issues, said he was “absolutely delighted” at the ruling as Facebook had committed a “serious breach” of people’s privacy. “It seems to me a logical ruling,” he said. “Why should someone who is not a Facebook client be followed? Why do they have to know what websites that person visits?”

The Privacy Commission, meanwhile, warned that other cases could follow. “It would not be logical to stop at Facebook alone,” said chair Willem Debeuckelaere.

“This is something we will have to discuss with the data protection authorities of other member states.” \ AH

said, was less important to them than the expertise of graduates and their international profile. Other important factors included flexibility, personality and professional experience.

“Of course, we are not working at the same level as a company, but we do bear in mind what employers expect and how they see the workplace of the future evolving,” said De Paepe. “Our ‘dare to think’ mentality, our years of experience in encouraging entrepreneurship in students and of course the quality of the education – these are all ingredients that make a Ghent University degree the kind of mark of quality that can open doors worldwide.”

DP World to invest €270 million in port of Antwerp Terminal operator DP World has announced it will invest €270 million in the port of Antwerp between now and 2020, with the creation of 300 jobs. “Antwerp is easily accessible, has higher productivity than Rotterdam and has many advantages to offer its clients,” said CEO Rob Harrison.

The first phase of the investment will create 100 jobs and involves spending €175 million on additional container cranes at the Deurganck dock.

DP World is based in Dubai and has 65 terminals in six continents, employing 36,000 people. Last year the company handled 60 million standard containers, a number it plans to increase to 100 million by 2020. DP World Antwerp employs 850, handling around two million containers this year, up from 1.8 million last year. The company aims to increase that to 2.7 million.

Harrison also announced that the company was dropping its dispute with the Port Authority over the loss of part of its concession to competitor PSA. DP World will be compensated with a stretch of quay at another location.

Harrison also called for Antwerp and Zeebrugge to join forces in the creation of a joint port authority. “There’s too much energy being lost in competing with each other,” he said. The new authority “should decide which direction each of the ports should go in, and what is best for Flanders.”

Antwerp ought to concentrate on containers, he suggested, while Zeebrugge keeps the focus on ro-ro ferry services. \ AH

Newspaper contract safeguards 3,500 Bpost jobs The government’s decision to give Bpost the contract for delivering newspapers and magazines has safeguarded 3,500 jobs that would otherwise have been at risk, according to analysis by business magazine Trends. The sum paid by the government for the service, part of a package of “services of general economic importance”, counts for a lesser share of the organisation’s income than before but remains crucial in other ways.

The new contract comes into effect at the end of the year and runs until 2020. For the first time, the job of delivering the press to subscribers was put out to tender on EU instructions, with AMP and BD Group also competing. However, they withdrew from the process.

Bpost had warned that the loss of the delivery service would cost up to 3,500 jobs. In addition,

© Courtesy Bpost

the contract imposes certain other conditions on Bpost: the maintenance of a network of 1,300 service points, at least half of which must be fullservice post offices – of which each municipality in the country must have at least one. Bpost must also supply a range of public services alongside its

commercial activities, including banking services, home delivery of pensions and administrative handling of fines.

The government subsidy for these tasks stands at €261 million a year, falling to €245 million by 2020. “The subsidy may be less, but it was a choice between work and no work,” union representative Jean-Pierre Nyns said.

Meanwhile, children can send their present wishes to Sint Niklaas by post, with the opening of the annual postal service for children’s letters. Each letter sent will receive a reply and a small surprise.

To receive a reply by 6 December, letters should be sent before 30 November, but all letters received by mid-December will be answered. No stamps required. Send letters to: Sinterklaas, Spanjestraat 1, 0612 Hemel. \ AH

\ INNOVATION

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Pay it forward

week in innovation De Block orders practice-oriented trials

Laid-back event offers expat start-ups friendly ear and advice Lee Gillette More articles by Lee \ flanderstoday.eu

entanon.com

A

12-step programme it isn’t, though host and organiser Jenny Björklöf quips: “You could say Entrepreneurs Anonymous is for entrepreneurship addicts.”

Created over pints at a Dublin pub in 2011 by students thirsty for start-up advice, Entrepreneurs Anonymous has over 4,800 members and offers informal talks, workshops and networking events in 12 European cities. Thanks to Björklöf, Ghent is one of them.

“It’s a safe place to discuss your idea without others stealing or dismissing it,” she says.

“Entrepreneurs have a pay-it-forward mentality.

Something I learned while looking for speakers is that they wish they’d had advice when they started out.”

Speakers are locals who’ve started up recently and explain how it’s done. “We don’t get highflying superstars but the entrepreneur next door you can relate to.”

Not unlike Björklöf. From Finland, she started as an au pair in Ireland seven years ago, then sold vegetables, minded toilets and was even a McDonald’s mystery shopper. Her studies at Cork College of Commerce concluded as the recession hit, but she landed a job at Volvo in Ghent, where she “endured” five years.

“The corporate world drained my entrepreneurial soul,” says Björklöf, the daughter of entrepreneurs. A cousin in Cork replenished it. “She said: ‘I want to start my business: Can you do it for me?’”

Björklöf could, as a matter of fact, and she helped her establish a company that imports Finnish garden houses. In the process, she also found that going solo can feel desolate.

Björklöf missed having colleagues, and wondered: Where do entrepreneurs meet in Cork? “I couldn’t find a fun event involving more than tech start-ups or stiff business types.

I heard of EntAnon, but Dublin was far away,” she says, using the Entrepreneurs Anonymous acronym.

Luckily, its founder wanted to expand, so Björklöf started the Cork chapter. Her events featured a winner of the entrepreneur reality

© Natasa Ahacic

Entrepreneurs Anonymous offers expat entrepreneurs advice and camaraderie

show Dragon’s Den, the online wine specialist Curious Wines and a Belgian microbrewer.

“Entrepreneurship is making a living out of what excites you,” she says. “The start-up decision is a big life change. If I can help, I’m happy to, and being around entrepreneurs is so positive; they’re motivators, not naysayers.”

Björklöf brought that motivation back to Ghent and attended networking events to see what was out there – and what wasn’t. “Most required Dutch to understand anything, which was a problem for many anglophones.”

With that, she’d found her niche: English-speaking expats interested in starting a business in Belgium. “Non-expats are welcome, of course!

The two groups inspire each other.”

October’s inaugural meeting at a Ghent Irish pub featured An Beazar, founder of EnProve, which helps companies manage energy; David Mellett, whose Economy2dot0 promotes the collabora-

tive economy; and Bert Van den Broeck, owner of animated video production company Alph Studios.

As for the audience, it was eclectic: “A toy seller, a health coach, a Java developer, a graphic designer, freelancers,” says Björklöf, adding that many of those who attended did so with a desire to innovate. “An energy measurement entrepreneur hit it off with a software developer. That’s why I organise these events; interesting synergies happen.”

Future possibilities: a panel on recruitment, a free business clinic, advice on getting sponsors, overcoming bureaucracy and start-up costs.

From there, the only way is up.

“One expat-entrepreneur-to-be claimed Belgium is 15 years behind the rest of Europe,” Björklöf says, “which means it’s easy to be outstanding. An expat has seen more. Bring over a concept; it’ll be new here.”

Ghent researchers discover meaty use for medical scanners Scanners are almost as good at detecting the quantity of lean meat in a pig carcass as a skilled slaughterhouse worker, researchers from Ghent University have found.

Computer tomography (CT) is the go-to procedure in medicine to provide a picture of a patient’s internal organs without resorting to invasive procedures. By passing an X-ray through the body, the scanner can create an image of the density of the various tissues, shown either as black (no tissue), dark grey ( fatty tissue), light grey (muscle) and white (bone). These images can be combined to form a 3D image.

In meat production, leanness of meat – the percentage of muscle to bone and fat – is an important factor in the economics of breeding and marketing. In normal circumstances, sample carcasses are evaluated by having a skilled butcher carry out a full dissection of half of a pig carcass, separating lean meat from the rest.

The team from the university’s working group on animal production, led by Stijn Hellebuyck, carried out both procedures side by side. “The carcasses for scanning were selected from a slaughterhouse in Flanders; they were chilled

© Courtesy UGent

The scanning process takes just 30 minutes where a skilled butcher would take 16 hours

overnight and then they were scanned,” he explains. “After that we dissected them to compare results, but normally there would be no need. The scanning takes place in the veterinarian school of the university. The dissecting is also done here.”

The results showed the scans to be almost – but not quite – as accurate as the dissection, mainly because of the difficulties the machine faced in accurately drawing a line between one sort of tissue and another at the borderlines.

The results were consistently off by about 500 grams of lean meat per carcass, or an error of 1.2%, which allows for corrections to be made

to the process.

The big barrier to introducing the procedure is cost – at first glance at least. “But the big advantage is that you only need 30 minutes to scan one pig instead of six man-hours for a dissection. If you calculate that cost, then CT has something going for it.”

Hellebuyck’s team normally dissects 15 carcasses a year, which takes three to four people and lasts three to four weeks. “This year we’re just starting up with CT and developing the right procedure, so we’ve only done four carcasses,” he explains. “We hope to do some more scanning next year. When you have the right procedure worked out, it only takes 30 minutes for scanning, some calculations, and then you’re finished. There’s no need for a dissection.”

A skilled butcher would take 16 hours for that same job. So is this the future of meat marketing?

“The goal of this research is not to develop a CT scanner to measure the lean meat percentage in the slaughterhouse but to create a procedure in which a CT scanner can be useful in a calibration test,” says Hellebuyck. \ Alan Hope

The Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre will start a programme of practiceoriented clinical trials, on the order of federal public health minister Maggie De Block. Her department has allocated €5 million per year for the trials in 2016 and 2017. Before a pharmaceutical company can introduce a drug on the market, it has to prove that it is sufficiently useful and safe and track side effects, by carrying out tests of the drug on patients. For care providers and health insurers, this procedure is not always enough. They want to know not just if the medicine works, but if it works better than existing treatments. In the public trials, drugs will be compared with each other and with other kinds of treatments.

Website rates hospitals for infections The Scientific Institute for Public Health (WIV) has created a public overview of the efforts of hospitals to prevent on-site infections. The scores of 105 Belgian hospitals concerning hygiene can be examined online and will be updated every year. WIV has criticised the shortcomings of epidemiological monitoring of infections contracted in intensive care units and after surgeries. Because of this, many hospitals are not able to provide precise statistics on infections contracted inside their premises. The report also emphasises hospitals’ insufficient screening of prevention efforts. \ tinyurl.com/infection-survey

“Treat throat cancer in specialised hospitals” The Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE) has advised in a new report that throat and laryngeal cancer should only be treated in specialised hospitals with a multidisciplinary team.

Currently, all of the about 100 hospitals in Belgium treat throat and laryngeal cancers.

“Mouth and jaw surgeons, ear, nose and throat therapists, radiotherapists, oncologists, pathologists and radiologists should be involved,” said KCE project leader Joan Vlayen.

“Because of the risks of speech and swallowing problems and facial deformity, speech therapists, dentists, nutrition experts and psychologists should also be involved.” \ Andy Furniere

\7

loop.be

FINALLY, POINTS THAT GET YOU UP IN THE AIR FASTER. Brussels Airlines launches LOOP. Earn points with your whole family, even when you fly just a short distance.

Register now on loop.be and enjoy unique benefits.

The Bulletin and ING Belgium invite you to a seminar on

An UpdAte on estAte plAnning • Marc Quaghebeur, partner, De Broeck, VanLaere and partners, “2015, new rules for wills and inheritance tax”

• Tim Carnewal,

December 10, 2015

Orange Room, ING headquarter building Cours Saint Michel, 40 – 1040 Brussels Metro: Merode

• Registrations from 17h30 • Seminar starts at 18h00 sharp

notary, Berquin, “How can a notary help you”

• Dave Deruytter,

head of Expatriates & Non-residents, ING Belgium, “Your estate planning priorities as an expat in Belgium”

Free entry • Register before December 4 at : www.thebulletin.be/estateplanning

\ EDUCATION

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Lessons for a new life

week in education Teacher training reform would restrict CVOs

Prison education group looks to benefit inmates and society Tom Peeters More articles by Tom \ flanderstoday.eu

KLASBAK.NET

The Klasbak network aims to improve education for prisoners and reduce the risk of re-offending, taking lessons from European neighbours like Norway.

W

hen the European Prison Education Association (EPEA) held its biennial congress in Antwerp last month, it was glad to see that its host country had initiated its own prison education network.

“We were one of the few European countries without a national division,” says president Liesbeth De Donder, a professor and doctor of adult educational sciences at the Free University of Brussels (VUB).

“Klasbak is now the official Flemish member of this organisation that aims to exchange expertise about the development of prison education.” Klasbak existed a few years ago on an informal level, uniting people who teach in prisons, but this year it became an official non-profit organisation.

“The biggest difference with the past is that our perspective has become much wider,” explains De Donder. “We’re focusing not just on formal education but also on non-formal and informal learning. Courses in aggression control or training about how to take on a mother or a father role in prison: it’s all education, just like any other social-cultural training, going to the library, doing sport…”

In Belgium, a programme already allowed prisoners to follow the same courses as they could outside the detention centre. In the future, Klasbak also aims to collect data about the effects of the education received by the prisoners.

More specifically, they’re inter-

Call for English lessons in primary school

sentenced, differs from the situation in prisons.”

Dorien Brosens, a researcher at VUB, recently studied the reasons why prisoners take part in educational programmes. “People might think prisoners do these things so they can spend time out of their cells or because their lawyer tells them to, thinking it will help them get released earlier,” De Donder says. “But we found they did it for goal-orientated reasons: a new chance in life, a degree or to help them get a job after they’re released.”

One of Klasbak’s main goals is to remove the mostly organisational obstacles prisoners encounter when seeking education. “Sometimes they don’t even know they

Outside jail these people would almost never follow courses, but in prison you can reach them ested in the link between education and recidivism. “International research shows that the chance of recidivism is smaller when prisoners participate in these educational programmes,” says De Donder. “But in Belgium and Flanders, there is simply no data available.”

It’s also not always easy for prisoners to study what they want to.

“All prisons have different systems, and a prison director often has the last word,” she says. “On the other hand, the situation in detention houses, where people are waiting for trial but have not yet been

A plan by the government of Flanders to update teacher training policy would severely restrict adult education centres (CVOs), according to De Morgen. Flanders is expected to have a shortfall of 17,000 teachers in 2020 if the discipline doesn’t become more popular. Under the new plan, university colleges would train teachers for preschool, primary school and the first four years of secondary education. Universities would be responsible for the future teachers of second and third grade in secondary education, while CVOs would only train teachers for practical courses, like welding in professional education. This only constitutes about 8% of their current activity.

have the opportunity to study.

Sometimes there’s a waiting period of three or four months before they can participate. Sometimes they have to choose between work and study.

“Don’t forget prisoners are a very vulnerable social-economical group,” De Donder continues.

“They are poorly educated and have mostly had low-paid jobs. We know for sure that outside jail they would almost never follow courses, but in prison you can reach them, which gives us hope.”

A role model for the development of educational programmes in

© S Vincke

Along with traditional lessons, prisoners in Wortel are taught practical skills like cooking and DIY

the Flemish detention system is Norway. “It’s the most developed country for prison education in Europe: 40 out of the 170 participants of the EPEA congress were Norwegians. Unlike the Belgian voluntary system, education is obligatory for Norwegian prisons.”

Next summer, Klasbak wants to be ready with its process of policy planning. An external bureau will guide the organisation in gathering a mix of people involved in prison education. “Now, there’s not much exchange,” explains De Donder. “Vocvo, the Flemish Support Centre for Adult Education, co-ordinates all teaching in prisons, but we also aim to involve more informal learning.”

The organisation also wants to become a platform for expertise, collecting data and initiating new research. “As a university, we have experience doing internships in prison, and we want to pass on that expertise.”

Take Foriner, a new European project on which the VUB is

already working with Vocvo. “We are following up Belgian prisoners in other prisons, such as in Poland.

But, of course, it would be a big improvement if we could develop, with the support of EPEA and the federal prison institutions, a real European project that would also include Polish people in our prisons, so they can follow courses in Polish. At the moment, such things depend too much on people’s goodwill.”

The prison courses offered by nonprofit organisation De Rode Antraciet have a wider potential, says De Donder, setting up specific initiatives in the prisons of Antwerp, where an open learning centre replaced the odd classroom, and in Bruges, where prisoners can obtain a certificate after they have worked for a certain period in the prison kitchen.

“It’s our role to translate all these small-scale initiatives into a wider policy. But above all, Klasbak is a multi-disciplinary organisation and open to new ideas.”

In an op-ed for public broadcaster VRT, Master’s student Jenka Van de Voorde and her thesis promoter Ellen Simon of Ghent University have appealed for English to be introduced in Flemish primary schools. For her thesis, Van de Voorde examined the knowledge of English vocabulary among Flemish and Dutch children.

Currently, English is only integrated in secondary education curriculums. Primary schools can provide English as an option, but they don’t have to register the results or interest among pupils. As a result, there is almost no support, follow-up or evaluation of the programmes. Van de Voorde and Simon criticised the choice of French as the second language in Flemish schools.

6,000 new teachers needed every year Until 2024, 6,000 new fulltime teaching jobs will have to be created each year to meet the need in Flemish schools, according to a job market prognosis requested by education minister Hilde Crevits. The figures are based on the expected increase of the number of students, the inflow of students in teacher training and the number of teachers who are retiring.

By 2024, the Flemish education sector will need 10% more teachers than today. The problem is worst in secondary education, where Flanders will need three times as many full-time teachers in 2024 than in 2015. That means 3,443 new teachers will need to enter secondary education every year. \ Andy Furniere

\9

\ LIVING

week in activities Putteke Winter During these evening events at parks across the region, enjoy the winter ambiance with fire shows, live music, street theatre and seasonal refreshments. This Saturday (21 November), it’s at Het Vinne provincial park in Zoutleeuw, starting at 18.30.

Until 16 January, Across Flanders, free \ puttekewinter.be

Euregio MTB Classic Four mountain bike courses between 24 and 55km through the beautiful Mechelse Bos and Connecterra, part of the Hoge Kempen National Park.

Prizes, free raffle, winter BBQ and more. 21 November, start between 8.30 and 14.00; Gemeentelijk Sportstadion, Kolenmijn Limburg Maaslaan 2, Maasmechelen, €5 \ tinyurl.com/euregio-MTB

Torchlight Tour A self-guided, nighttime walking tour of an 18th-century abbey and its grounds. Jenever and fun activities along the way.

Reservations required on 0471 28 39 30, minimum two participants. Every Friday until March. 20 November 19.00, Abdij van ’t Park, Abdij van Park 7, Heverlee (Leuven), €16 \ dijlefloats.be

Winter Wine: Musical Walk Take a guided walking tour of the vineyards of the Westhoek. Your guide tells the history of winemaking in the region, shares local stories and anecdotes and sings traditional songs. Select Fridays until February. 20 November 18.30, Dranouter Music Centre, Dikkebusstraat 234, Heuvelland, €10 (€30 with dinner) \ muziekcentrumdranouter.be

Artisans Day Hundreds of artisans open their studios for one day, demonstrating more than 50 crafts ranging from chocolate-making to furniturebuilding to glass-blowing. 22 November, across Flanders, free \ dagvandeambachten.be

Sign up now: Santa Run Register now for this fun run in Antwerp, starting at Park Spoor Noord and ending at the Bonaparte Dock. Your registration gets you a Santa suit with hat and beard, and afterwards you can join the DJ party. Register online by 11 December. 12 December 17.00, €22 \ gvasantarun.be

\ 10

Funding dreams

À Fonds initiative supports enterprising young Brusselaars Georgio Valentino More articles by Georgio \ flanderstoday.eu

AFONDS.BRUSSELS

R

ecent years have seen more and more government initiatives aimed at harnessing citizens’ creativity for the common good. One politician is taking this strategy a step further with a programme that gives young people a voice in civic life.

Last month, Brussels minister and Flemish Community Commission (VGC) board member Pascal Smet inaugurated À Fonds, a public fund that rewards enterprising youngsters with subsidies of up to €3,000 for their social and cultural proposals. With an annual budget of €28,000, the programme will help launch several grassroots projects this year.

Smet’s target audience, young people aged 12 to 26, are at the cusp of adulthood, when creativity flows freely but experience and opportunity aren’t nearly as forthcoming. Youngsters don’t find themselves in positions of civic authority nor are they granted private loans to pursue their projects. À Fonds gives these young dreamers the support they need to make their dreams real.

Anyone can apply so long as they are within the age range, working independently of professional institutions and willing to share their experience with others. Project criteria are relatively open-ended too, but all prospective projects must be organised for and by young people and have some kind of link to Brussels.

The city is a laboratory.

We shouldn’t underestimate the collective wisdom of its citizens Candidates are reviewed by a mixed jury that includes VGC staff as well as youngsters who live and work in the world that À Fonds seeks to enrich. Smet intends this to be a truly participatory initiative.

© Raissa Vandamme

A young Brusselaar at the launch of À Fonds

The inauguration of À Fonds was itself a perfect example of collaboration between youth and government. The programme’s logo and promotional artwork are the fruit of an open call to young artists. It was 23-year-old artist Sil De Boeck who got the job.

“This shows that the fund is really there for and thanks to youngsters,” says Smet’s spokesperson, Lore Vandoorne.

De Boeck will continue his participation by pitching another artistic project to À Fonds. In the meantime, the Luca design school graduate’s four colourful prints – representing scholarship, art, sport and camaraderie – can be seen at schools across the capital and even on beer mats in several Brussels pubs.

“Youngsters get all kinds of ideas while they’re at the cafe,” says VGC youth co-ordinator Neal Raes. “We left enough space to jot them down for later use.”

De Boeck didn’t just contribute images, however.

The young designer also gave the programme its name. “À Fonds” is admittedly a curious title for

a Flemish Community project – it can refer to a fund and also means to do something thoroughly – but De Boeck insists it was a no-brainer.

“The expression came to mind immediately,” he says. “It’s a French saying, yes, but it’s been adopted by the Flemish community here. This kind of fusion has become typical in Brussels.

The young generation doesn’t think in terms of language categories anymore.”

Projects need not be artistic like De Boeck’s. À Fonds encourages youngsters to pursue their passions, be they sport, science, technology, politics, mobility, architecture or animal welfare. The sky’s the limit. By allowing these youngsters to spread their wings, Smet predicts that the programme will benefit Brussels residents young and old.

“The city is a laboratory,” says Smet. “We shouldn’t underestimate the collective wisdom and experience of its citizens. Some of these experiments may fail but that’s natural. Young people should be able to make mistakes and learn from them.”

BITE A share of the soils: Ghent launches garden-sharing scheme

GENTENGARDE.STAD.GENT

If you want something, sometimes all you have to do is ask. All across Flanders, there are people who would love a bit of space for a vegetable garden. At the same time, there are people with plenty of space but no time or energy to cultivate it.

Solution: bring them together. And that’s what the city of Ghent is doing.

The new deeltuinen (garden-sharing) initiative is part of the city’s food sustainability project Gent en Garde. “It’s not news that a lot of people, especially in an urban area, have become alienated from food production,” said alderwoman Tine Heyse of Groen, responsible for environment. “At the same time we see a great desire by many to

© Courtesy Stad Gent

regain a connection to the way their food is produced. That explains the success of neighbourhood vegetable gardens in the city over the last few years.”

Ghent decided to go one step further, and last month Heyse organised the first “speed-dating”

for owners and seekers of garden space. At the same time, the Gent en Garde website has a new “supply and demand” section, in which those who have free space can advertise to those in search of some land.

Christophe Rogolle of the environment department freely admits that the idea was borrowed from the women’s wing of the farmers’ union Boerenbond (KVLV), which runs a similar operation in other parts of Flanders.

On the KVLV website you can find people looking for garden space in Lichtervelde in West Flanders, Hamme in East Flanders and Kessel-Lo near Leuven. At the same time, someone is offering six acres of land in Wakkerzeel, Flem-

ish Brabant, a share of a fruit, vegetable and flower garden in Hasselt and a vegetable garden that feeds the poor in Oudenaarde.

The Ghent scheme is supported by KVLV, Rogolle explains, which will also provide model documents for social contracts between borrowers and lenders. The city will provide residents with technical assistance and support, as well as information on vegetarian restaurants and places where food can be taken for food banks. The Gent en Garde site also provides tips for anyone looking after a vegetable garden.

“A shared garden brings people together around a common interest,” Heyse said. “It can also help break down age, cultural and language barriers.” \ Alan Hope

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Born from improvisation Unique troupe of actors return to the stage in Ghent after Bozar premiere Toon Lambrechts More articles by Toon \ flanderstoday.eu

CHRISTOFORUSGEMEENSCHAP.BE

E

arlier this year, a different kind of theatre piece was staged at Bozar in Brussels.

Ceder featured not professional actors but people with disabilities.

They’re back on stage this month at Vooruit in Ghent.

“Every professional actor in Flanders dreams of standing on stage at Bozar. It’s a venue where international pieces are played,” says Nele Vereecken, recalling the first performance of the piece in Brussels’ famous hall. And yet it was there that Ceder had its premiere.”

With two other directors, Michiel Soete and Sara Sampelayo, she was responsible for the artistic side of Ceder. “The applause visibly did them good.”

Ceder is the name of a fictional petrol station, a lost place, so to speak, at the end of the world.

But Ceder is not forgotten. People come, people go. People meet, and unexpected things happen.

And slowly, step by step, a story unfolds.

Ceder is played by 14 people with disabilities and two young actors.

It came about thanks to a collaboration between three institutions in Merelbeke, East Flanders: De Heide, Caritas and the Christoforus Community.

“It came about a bit coincidentally, the idea to create a play,” says Vera Lemmens, educator and art therapist at the Christoforus Community. “We were involved in organising an international meeting of residents of institutions that would take place in Brussels. For the evening programme, we wanted to present beautiful things made by our residents.”

First, she says, they toyed with the idea of a concert, but then the municipality of Merelbeke asked

© Erik Duinslaeger

The priority of the Ceder project was to give the cast members a good experience first and foremost

if they were interested in creating a play with the two other institutions. The local culture department engaged three directors via Platform K, an organisation that realises theatre and dance

improvisation,” she explains. “We started with exercises with the participants, and, from this raw material, we outlined a story. The idea of a petrol station came up as a setting where the characters of

We worked with an openness that you often can’t achieve with professional actors projects with people with disabilities.

Vereecken had experience in this field and is also working on a similar project with non-professional actors. “Ceder was born from

the play meet. Eventually, Ceder became a very cinematic piece.”

Of these improvisation sessions, Vereecken says: “It keeps a play alive and gives actors a certain freedom. They know what to do,

but without an overly tight script.”

And she’s happy with the result.

“The co-operation was very organic, in an open atmosphere.

Sometimes things clashed, but that’s only normal. We worked with an openness that you often can’t achieve with professional actors. There was a desire to play, a search for adventure that you don’t always have with professionals.”

The residents were deeply affected by the experience of creating the piece, she says. “There were moments of deep intensity during the improvisation sessions, moments that really came from inside them, from their own expe-

22 November 14.00

50 weekends in Flanders: Original shops in Antwerp Flanders Today has launched an e-book with ideas for how to spend a year’s worth of weekends. Visit our website to get your free copy of 50 Weekends in Flanders. We’ll also print one of our suggestions every week here, too.

You can easily spend a couple of days exploring quirky stores in Antwerp’s side streets. Here are some of the places where you’ll find the port city at its most creative.

FABRIKA GET MAZED This concept store opened this year in a grand townhouse near the old stock exchange. Designed like a maze, it sells beautiful clothes, vintage furniture and handmade jewellery. It also has a hairdresser

hairdresser, perfume consultant and coffee bar.

GRAANMARKT 13 Ilse Cornelissens and Tim Van Geloven have turned a townhouse shaded by old trees into a spectacular concept store, gallery and basement restaurant. The shop is filled with interesting and unusual brands, ranging from clothes by Belgium’s Sandrina Fasoli to furniture by Dimore Studio. Meanwhile, down in the basement, the young Belgian chef Seppe Nobels cooks up sublime eats.

COFFEE & VINYL Lars Cosemans used to run a cluttered record shop called Vinyl, but in 2011 he moved his stuff to this bright shop in the hip Zuid area.

He now sells vintage records in the back of the shop and coffee in a front room furnished with old schoolroom chairs. Paintings by young Antwerp artists hang on the walls.

\ graanmarkt13.be

YOUR Jorrit Baars created this vast showroom on two levels (pictured)

\ your-antwerp.com

\ coffeeandvinyl.com

where you can buy anything from a pack of bubblegum for €2 to a luxury car for €200,000. He also stocks bikes, clothes, photo books, gadgets, perfume and even diamonds. There’s also a resident

Vooruit

Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 23, Ghent

TINYURL.COM/50WEEKENDS

in the middle of the store and a coffee bar.

\ facebook.com/getmazed

riences.”

Lemmens also looks back fondly on the project. As an educator, she attended most of the rehearsals. “In the beginning it was sometimes difficult for some of our people,” she says. “When we organise a play in Christoforus, we work with a solid storyline. Others had the time of their lives during the improvisation sessions.”

Ceder is not therapy, Lemmens points out, but the project has its value, even if only because of the friendships that grew between the people from the different facilities. “But mostly because a project like this lifts people up,” she says.

“Their self-esteem grows, they’re pushed beyond their own limits.”

Vereecken also doesn’t want to talk about Ceder as a therapeutic project. “That question is often asked, but that wasn’t our goal.

The priority was to offer these people a good time, a nice experience.”

The approach of putting on such a play with actors with a disability isn’t so different to working with professional actors, she says. “The individual differences between people on the stage are more defining,” she explains. “I have learned that it’s important to leave things open and to give space to new and unexpected twists.”

While it’s important to have structure, you need “plenty of space in it,” she continues. “Otherwise, the result doesn’t really come from them. Now Ceder is truly an authentic piece of theatre, made up of their own experiences.”

THE RECOLLECTION An inspiring concept store run by three friends who share a love of good design. They exhibit “objects of desire” in a sober white inte-

rior in the antiques district. Here you find white chairs by Martin Margiela and salvaged furniture made by Piet Hein Eek. You can also pick up a potted plant or discover a new perfume. \ therecollection.com

CLINIC An ancient dentist’s chair sits at the entrance of this concept store in southern Antwerp. So you know from the outset that you’re going to be surprised. And so you are. Headphones, chunky Danish sweaters, stylish tank tops by Le Fabuleux Marcel and jackets by Paul Smith.

The tone is witty, light and fun. You can also drink coffee in the basement, read a newspaper and chat with the friendly staff. \ Derek Blyth \ clinicantwerp.com

\ 11

Your guide to life in Belgium The autumn issue of The Bulletin Newcomer is your guide to making the most of life in Belgium. It mixes practical information with features on the new cultural season, accessibility for people with reduced mobility, parenting, finance and lifestyle topics.

Newcomer

THE DEF INIT IVE GUI DE TO SET TLIN G IN BEL GIU M

Curtain up on the new arts season How hand icap-friendl y is Belgium The chall ? enges of pa renting abro Your hand ad s-on guide to expat life

COME IN ...and make yourself at h o m e in Belgium

Plus our new Health Guide – 25 pages of interviews, articles and essential addresses, in response to the massive demand by Belgium’s international community for information on the country’s medical sector.

AUTU MN 2015 €4,95

PLUS HE ALTH 001_001_N

C1502_cov

er_P.indd

2

DEPOT BRUXEL

GU ID E: INTE

LES X

RV IE WS, AD

VI CE & ES SE

NTIA L AD DR

ES SE S

Pick up your copy at newsstands or at www.thebulletin.be

Register now on www.eustudiesfair.com FEBRUARY 5-6, 2016 EXHIBITORS CONFIRMED:

Book your stand now at eustudiesfair@politico.eu or +32 2 540 90 77

@EUStudiesFair

EUStudiesFair

\ ARTS

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Darkness and light

After multi-leg, multi-language tour, a stage play comes home Tom Peeters More articles by Tom \ flanderstoday.eu

KVS.BE

After wowing audiences across Europe, Flemish actor Bruno Vanden Broecke is bringing his monologue about missionary life in the Congo back to the city where it all started.

T

he monologue Missie (Mission) was first performed at KVS theatre in 2007.

After more than 200 performances in multiple languages, the play is returning to its Brussels birthplace. But its real roots lie, of course, in the former Belgian colony.

Missie is based on a series of interviews conducted by David Van Reybroeck, author of the huge and much-laureled tome Congo: The Epic History of a People. Van Reybroeck adapted his interviews with “White Fathers” for the script.

White Fathers, named after their colourless habits, are remembered well, particularly by older generations of Flemings. When these priests returned from Congo, a Belgian colony until 1960, they also brought back colourful stories about their missionary work. Vanden Broecke, who served as an altar boy, also has memories of one such White Father. “One anecdote in particular, about driving around in jeeps in the jungle, really captured the imagination of the parishioners.”

Vanden Broecke is a popular Flemish television actor, having starred in comedies like Het eiland (The Island) and, more recently, Safety First. But unlike the TV adventures of the profoundly bizarre Sammy Tanghe or security officer Dirk Porrez, the events narrated in Missie really happened. “The man on stage, André Vervecken, is a composite of several White Fathers,” Vanden Broecke explains.

In Missie, the Antwerp actor succeeds in transforming a mosaic of stories into a character of flesh and blood, one you feel empathy for while he looks back on his life. “My main goal is to give the impression that my character’s words are made up on the spot.

Almost all my energy goes to that. Everything else is form and style.”

Vanden Broecke has played André, under the direction of Brussels director Raven Ruëll, so many times that he can call him up with a flip of his finger, in Dutch, French and German. According to the actor, the decision to perform the monologue in different languages was spurred by a simple observation.

“During the first shows in Brussels, people were reading the text above my head rather than listening to me,” he explains. Believing that documentary theatre is all about letting

© Koen Broos

Vanden Broecke decided to perform the monologue in different languages after noticing that the surtitles detracted from his performance during the first few shows

people forget they’re watching fiction, he decided to shift to theatregoers’ mother tongue and went on to attract rave reviews as he performed at venues across Europe.

Having seen the audiences’ gratitude, he feels blessed, he says. “Every actor has this oncein-a-lifetime play,” he explains. “For me, that’s Missie. Playing it around 30 times a year, the text has grown with me. Since the first performance, my life has also gone through many changes. My father died, and I became a father myself, so when André talks about commitment and about his parents, I can better relate to it.”

More than anything else, Missie is the story of a man who leaves his roots behind in an attempt to build something new. In writing the monologue, Van Reybrouck wanted to correct the existing image of White Fathers – but not from a historical perspective.

“At an earlier stage, some articles in the media argued that we had made a sort of pre-colonial manifesto, but they were missing the point,” says Vanden Broecke. The play is not about colonialism as such, he says, but

“about one man with his faults and shortsightedness, but also full of idealism and commitment.”

André is the exemplification of a man who once made a choice and stuck to it, without too many regrets. “Back home, he is confronted with his brother who in his 60s is starting a new life with another woman, and André just doesn’t get it.

“The argument between the brothers raises questions about love, but also about commitment and the shallowness of our times. How do I raise my children in an era when everyone has to have an instant opinion about everything? Is it still possible to think first, make a careful decision and then go for something? And why is there no space for doubt anymore? That’s a motivation to keep on playing the piece.”

Doubt is not a weakness, but a strength, says Vanden Broecke, switching to the topic of his new monologue, Socrates, which premiered

1-5 December 20.00 (In Dutch)

this autumn.

By raising questions without necessarily offering answers, in this new play, too, Vanden Broecke holds up a mirror to his audience.

“Often I see young people after the show turn their heads towards their smartphones,” he says. “I understand they have to maintain their networks, but why aren’t they talking to the people sitting next to them? I would hate to see my children go through life swiping like that. It just isn’t making your life any more profound: People need time to do nothing and get bored.”

Vanden Broecke has always liked to mix the light with the dark on stage. “If you’re always serious, people walk away from you. If you dip seriousness into the light, they might be triggered,” he explains. “I see it as my ultimate challenge to counter the cliché that something light is superficial and something serious has to be true.”

KVS

Arduinkaai 7, Brussels

More performance coming up Song from Far Away • Ivo van Hove / Toneelgroep Amsterdam For the second part of his trilogy of monologues for Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Flemish theatre director Ivo van Hove picked a piece by British playwright Simon Stephens.

A young banker, played with vulnerability by Eelco Smits, is confronted with the sudden death of his brother and has to leave New York to deal with demons from his past. (In Dutch) 25-26 November 20.30, Kaaitheater, Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussels \ kaaitheater.be

Shake-Speares Sonnets • Zuidpool Assisted by his Haken Continuum Fingerboard, Jorgen Cassier of Antwerp theatre group Zuidpool sings a selection of Shakespeare sonnets the way they were originally published in 1609. In their original form as little songs, they focus on the art of diction.

(In English) 3-5 December 20.00, Theater Zuidpool, Lange Noordstraat 11, Antwerp \ zuidpool.be

Masurca Fogo • Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch Almost 20 years after the late German choreographer Pina Bausch created Masurca Fogo, her homage to love and desire is still widely considered one of her most sensual choreographies (pictured).

“Fogo” means fire in Portuguese, and it’s given very physical meaning here. All together now: “All I need is the air that I breathe (and to love you)”. 10-13 December, deSingel, Desguinlei 25, Antwerp \ desingel.be

\ 13

\ ARTS

week in arts & CULTURE Actor Dora Van der Groen dies at 88

The Flemish actor, stage director and drama teacher Dora Van der Groen has died at the age of 88. Van der Groen was one of Herman Teirlinck’s first students, a name now synonymous with the Antwerp drama school. Van der Groen was in more than 100 film, TV and stage productions, playing numerous memorable roles, including Lady Macbeth and Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She was also the director of the drama department of the former Koninklijk Vlaams Conservatorium in Antwerp.

Her best-known TV work was in popular series such as Wij, heren van Zichem (We, the Men from Zichem) and Terug naar Oosterdonk (Back to Oosterdonk). She was hailed for her performance in the 2001 film Pauline en Paulette, in which she played the mentally disabled Pauline.

Black directors are Brusselaars of the Year Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, directors of the new movie Black, have been named Brusselaars of the Year. Black, which opened last week in cinemas, is about young lovers who are part of rival gangs in innercity Brussels. Fallah, from Vilvoorde, and El Arbi, from Antwerp, met while studying film at the Sint-Lukas arts academy in the capital, where both lived during that time.

“Merci Bruxelles,” commented El Arbi on the announcement.

“I feel Belgian and Moroccan, Antwerps and Brussels all at the same time.” Kinepolis experienced trouble on the film’s opening day when youth under 16, the legal age to see the film, started rioting when they weren’t allowed in.

Hof van Cleve Gault&Millau’s fave restaurant The 13th edition of France’s influential Gault&Millau restaurant guide puts Hof van Cleve at number one in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Chef Peter Goossens’ restaurant in Kruishoutem, East Flanders, received 19.5 out of 20 points, the highest rating in the country for the fifth year in a row. Hof van Cleve isn’t alone at number one, however: Chef Christophe Hardiquest’s BonBon in Brussels ties for the top spot with the same score.

Other top scorers in Belgium were Kobe Desramaults’ In De Wulf, with 18.5 points, and Geert Van Hecke’s De Karmeliet, with 17 points.

\ 14

Can you feel it?

Immersive music festival in Bruges inspires a passion for sound Georgio Valentino More articles by Georgio \ flanderstoday.eu

CONCERTGEBOUW.BE

F

rom the early, Symbolist-inspired experiments of Claude Debussy to the brazen post-war iconoclasm of John Cage and beyond, avant-garde composers have spent the past 100 years breaking down conventional barriers. Perhaps the most fundamental of these has been that between performer and audience.

The second edition of Concertgebouw’s Surround! festival continues the tradition by putting us punters right in the middle of the action. Concertgebouw’s artistic director, Jeroen Vanacker, explains why an immersive experience is better than a front-row seat.

“This is a totally different way of experiencing music,” he says. “The audience doesn’t just hear and see the performance. They feel it. It’s all around them.”

Each of Surround!’s four days highlights a different strategy used by contemporary artists to reach out and touch their audience. There are sound installations that are experienced individually. There are acoustic performances in which otherwise traditional musicians interact with spectators in non-traditional ways.

There are electronic performances in which the audience is surrounded by loudspeakers and showered in entirely computer-generated sounds. And finally there are hybrid performances that fuse organic and electronic elements.

This out-of-the-box approach isn’t new to the Concertgebouw. Vanacker and co inaugurated Surround! two years ago and had even earlier hosted a Cage-inspired happening that was all about pushing the artistic envelope. The venue even has a permanent collection of sound installations dubbed the Sound Factory.

Vanacker notes that children are far more receptive than adults to these installations.

This he attributes to youth’s naive curiosity, a curiosity too often repressed by cultural programming that divides the sonic world into music (good) and noise (bad).

“It’s difficult to get adults to suspend their expectations,” he says, “to listen to pure sound, without composition or meaning.”

Vanacker recalls his own youthful fascination with noise. “I would listen to everything,” he says. “My favourite part of the summer holiday was hearing the coast tram cruise down the street. Its rumbling came from a distance and reached a crescendo as it passed. It was

© Kristof Vrancken

Visitors to Surround! are invited to immerse themselves in sound and music

like magic.”

Fortunately for the wide-eyed child within, Vanacker pursued an arts education that allowed him to indulge his passion. His discovery of American experimental composer Cage gave him the perfect alibi. Cage effectively advocated that everyone listen like children.

As today’s generation of experimental composers stands on the shoulders of giants like Cage, Vanacker conceived Surround! as half contemporary exploration and half history lesson. He even borrowed one of the earliest artefacts of electro-acoustic music for the occasion.

The Acousmonium, built in the 1970s by French composer François Bayle, is an electronic orchestra comprised of dozens of loudspeakers of varying sizes and tonal qualities.

The system will warm up with well-known archival works on 19 November before channelling new material by contemporary Dutch composer Esther Venrooy the following day.

In another nod to the old masters, Surround!’s closing night concert on 21 November sees (and hears) the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra perform works by one of Bayle’s peers,

another giant of the European avant-garde, Iannis Xenakis. The composer fled civil war in his native Greece in the late 1940s and established himself in Paris, where he championed the application of mathematical principles to music theory.

“Xenakis is dear to our hearts,” Vanacker says.

“He was an architect as well as a composer, so sound and space are always linked in his works. He even wrote scores on graph paper to indicate the spatial dimension.”

After paying homage to the greats, Surround! brings us up to date with some of the latest experimentations in sound and space. The state-of-the-art Wave Field Synthesis system is presented alongside its precursor, the Acousmonium. Where the latter cultivates tone by selecting cabinets of differing sizes and specifications and arranging them in organic configurations, the former is all about precise geometry. Its 192 identical speakers are arranged in a perfect square around the audience and controlled by meticulous algorithms, creating a hyper-stereo effect.

The festival also boasts the world premiere of a site-specific composition by Lithuania-born, Leuven-based composer Vykintas Baltakas, created for the Concertgebouw’s Angel Room.

“The Angel Room is a special place,” says Vanacker. “In 2012, Luc Tuymans painted a mural in a side corridor, which we soon realised had very particular light and acoustic properties. It has since become its own dedicated performance space.”

There’s also the Belgian premiere of Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen’s multimedia performance Black Box Music. Musicians surround the audience and receive direction from a conductor whose hands are hidden in a black box, the contents of which are broadcast via infrared camera.

Finally, frequent Concertgebouw collaborator Venrooy presents and defends her doctoral thesis in the context of Surround! An artist, researcher and instructor at Luca School of Arts, Venrooy has spent her entire professional life exploring the relationship between sound and space.

Concertgebouw

18-21 November

’t Zand 34, Bruges

Sound/Check gives budding musicians a taste of the business

SOUNDCHECK.POPPUNT.BE

This month, Poppunt, the Flemish contact point for musicians and DJs, is hosting Sound/ Check, the follow-up to Muzikantendag (Musician’s Day). The goal is still to give information – primarily to young and new musicians – about all things related to making music, from a cool cover design to a solid promo plan, but the scope of the event is wider than before.

“We teach people that it all comes down to telling a story,” says Wim Thijs, the programmer of Sound/Check. “This is informed not only by the music, but also by things like the video clips they make or the visuals they use.”

Sound/Check gathers some 130 music professionals, who will give advice at seven places in Ancienne Belgique in central Brussels. In the Soundlab, Black Box Revelation will play some songs and talk about how they began.

Budding musicians can also have a variety of

professionals evaluate demo recordings, or find out about the latest trends in the business.

Most of the music professionals are Belgian, but Sound/Check also presents a few big shots from abroad, like the innovative German musician Nils Frahm or Justin Gerrish (pictured), the producer of Vampire Weekend. Thijs: “Convincing people like that is not a matter of remuneration. What’s more important for them is whether they can freely share their vision.” And of course they can.

In the lobby of Ancienne Belgique, you’ll find an instant vinyl booth. You want to cut a unique vinyl copy of your demo? Do it here for free. Beware, there’s only time to make four or five recordings per hour, so you might have to queue. But it sounds worth it, as is the whole Sound/Check event. \ Christophe Verbiest

21 November Ancienne Belgique

Anspachlaan 110, Brussels

\ AGENDA

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Death becomes him

PERFORMANCE

Caligula 19-28 November

V

eteran Flemish stage director Guy Cassiers takes on two giants: French philosopher/novelist/playwright Albert Camus and infamous Roman Emperor Caligula.

Cassiers’ Caligula is a contemporary adaptation of Camus’ 1944 drama of the same name, which was itself an existential reading of historical record. Although sources are scarce, it is generally accepted that its subject was not one of Rome’s most enlightened despots.

Caligula ruled by virtue of a distant dynastic relation to Julius Caesar, but his cruelty, licentiousness and rumoured insanity anticipated

Brussels Woody: Theater Antigone and Lazarus perform this tragicomedy about relationships, inspired by director Woody Allen, part of Bronks’ XL festival for people aged 12 to 21 (in Dutch). 20 November 20.00, Bronks, Varkensmarkt 15-17

Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerp TONEELHUIS.BE

the decadence that would plague the Late Empire. His reign was brief but filled with scandal. In a resounding vote of no-confidence, he was assassinated by his own officers just a few short years after ascending the throne.

Camus, however, dared to be different in his modern interpretation of Caligula. On its original premiere in a freshly liberated Paris, the drama was presumed to be a straightforward indictment of Nazi totalitarianism. Audiences soon discovered that it had little to do with the occupation, having been completed years earlier and containing a much more nuanced, philosophic characterisation of

\ bronks.be

© Kurt Van der Elst

Caligula’s turn to the dark side.

Camus cast the old boy not as a bloodthirsty tyrant but rather a desperate human being unable to come to terms with freedom, responsibility and, above all, death.

The end result is of course the same: brutality on an epic scale.

Cassiers shares Camus’ interest in the anatomy of power. His adaptation retains the original essence, while adding contemporary elements such as minimal-

ist set design and an industrialrock soundtrack. The cast includes professional actors – Kevin Janssens, having just cut his teeth as a monstrous bad boy in the film D’Ardennen, stars as Caligula – as well as amateurs, who play the luckless patricians.

Caligula premieres in Antwerp before taking the show on the road to CC Hasselt and Brussels’ Kaaitheater. (In Dutch) \ Georgio Valentino

VISUAL ARTS

Myrddin

Photography Performing Humour

As the youngest son of Flemish jazz musician Koen De Cauter, Myrddin De Cauter grew up with so many musical possibilities he found it difficult to choose between them. His father helped him master the clarinet when he was just a boy. He used the instrument to explore jazz, classical and

De Cultuurloft, Ghent DECULTUURLOFT.BE

a variety of other styles. Then, aged 14, he discovered flamenco and set aside his clarinet in favour of the Spanish guitar, which became his signature instrument in adulthood. This intimate solo performance is the fruit of a decadeslong voyage of discovery. \ Georgio Valentino

25 November, 20.00

FILM

Science Day

Liebling

Although initiated by the Flemish government, co-ordinated by Mechelen science centre Technopolis and supported by many universities and institutions, Science Day isn’t just for professionals. Quite the opposite, the idea is to engage everyone, especially our young people, in all things scientific. The best way to do that is to open the laboratory doors and show the world exactly what our scientists are up to – and how their work makes our lives easier and more enjoyable. Science Day boasts hundreds of events across Flanders. There’s even a mass experiment in which everyone can participate. \ GV

Across Flanders DAGVANDEWETENSCHAP.BE

DEBUREN.EU

26 November, 19.00 Liebling is an irreverent exercise in Flemish indie filmmaking. Adapted from Jeroen Perceval’s 2009 stage drama of the same name, the plot revolves around a circle of emotionally fragile Antwerp artists let loose in the south of France. The film stars the same cast as the play, includ-

This was Tomorrow: World premiere of the film scheduled for global release on 1 December, featuring highlights from Flanders’ dance music festival Tomorrowland, with an introduction by the National Orchestra of Belgium, which puts a classical twist on electronic dance anthems. 26 November 19.00, Sportpaleis, Schijnpoortweg 119

EVENT Bruges Winter Moments with Flowers: 20th-anniversary edition of the renowned floral event, featuring decorations and creative displays with Christmas and winter themes by master florists, plus inspiration for festive table settings. 25-27 November & 2-4 December, Oud Sint-Jan, Mariastraat 38 \ happenings.be

FESTIVAL Antwerp

© Paulien Oltheten/Galerie Fons Welters

FAMILY 22 November

deBuren, Brussels

Art isn’t such a serious enterprise.

In fact humour is one of the artist’s most powerful tools. When used effectively, comedic devices speak to both the heart and head. Even when used ineffectively they’re at least good for a laugh. Luca School of Arts and Flemish-Dutch culture forum deBuren have organised this mini-symposium to explore the uses of humour in photographic practice. Dutch multimedia artist Paulien Oltheten and Flemish film historian and photographer Hilde D’Haeyere are invited to discuss the role of irony, pastiche and the absurd in their own work. In English. \ GV

© Koen Degroote

Antwerp

\ sportpaleis.be

CONCERT 19 November, 20.15

FILM

GRAFIXX: A celebration of paper and print, young talent and artistic experimentation, featuring works by graphic artists, lectures, exhibitions, workshops for all ages, animated films and live performances that combine musicians and illustrators. 20-22 November, DE Studio, Maarschalk Gérardstraat 4 \ grafixx.be

FAMILY Bruges UGC and De Studio, Antwerp VILLANELLA.BE

ing Bert Haelvoet, Steve Aernouts and Ellen Schoenaerts. Indeed, it was their enthusiasm that helped Liebling make the leap from stage to screen as the three lead actors became the film’s producers and cheerleaders. The premiere screening is followed by a massive celebration at De Studio. \ GV

Ice Sculpture Festival: This popular annual event invites families to discover a magical world of ice, with massive ice sculptures and ice bar. This year’s edition features Maya the Bee and Vicky the Viking. 20 November to 3 January 10.0018.00, Station Square \ ijssculptuur.be

CONCERT

get tic

kets n ow

Brussels Natalie Merchant: The American musician performs songs from her new album, Paradise is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings, a re-recording of her 1995 debut solo album. 21 March 20.00, Koninklijk Circus, Onderrichtstraat 81 \ cirque-royal.org

\ 15

\ BACKPAGE

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Talking Dutch Mindfulness is niet mijn cup of tea

In response to: Paris terrorist attacks were planned in Brussels Sylvia Colmenares Roncancio: I thought so... This will completely affect the way Europe was opening their doors to immigrants.

Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

I

know this will be unpopular and may even be illegal, but I think there should be a law in Flanders banning the use of English words. All of them. Now. No more “oh my god”. No more “last but not least”. And an absolute ban on words like “mindfulness”.

I’m counting on Ludo Permentier of De Standaard to back me up here. Last month he wrote an article on the growing number of English words used by Dutch speakers. Veel Nederlandstaligen geven hun imago graag een boost met Engelse woorden en uitdrukkingen – A lot of Dutch speakers like to pimp up their image by using English words and expressions. He cites examples like “be reasonable”, “not my cup of tea” and “keep in touch”.

Permentier notes that the most recent version of Het Groene Boekje – a dictionary that gives the correct spelling of new Dutch words – is packed with English words. Uit de 10.000 nieuwe woorden in het Groene Boekje van 2015 – out of the 10,000 new words listed in the 2015 Groene Boekje, hebben we er willekeurig 1.000 gekozen – we chose a random selection of 1,000.

Daarvan zijn er 162 herkenbaar Engels – Of those, 162 were recognisably English.

It might not be such a problem if Dutch speakers were taking up beautiful English words, like bumblebee or dandelion. But they’re going for all the ridiculous ones, like brainstorming, helicopter view and mindfulness.

This is obviously annoying for Dutch speakers who want to preserve the purity of their language. But it’s also a problem for people trying to learn the language from scratch.

Buitenlandse studenten die in de Lage Landen Nederlands komen leren klagen erover – Foreign students who

CONNECT WITH US

VoiceS of flanders today

In response to: Black takes Belgian cinema where it has never gone before Larry Moffett: Sounds like a Belgian version of Boyz n the Hood.

In response to: Talking Dutch: Mindfulness is niet mijn cup of tea Ke Ross: If only Americans would haul in some expressions in other languages to their vocabularies! Mon dieu! That would be sehr gut. © Ingimage

come to learn Dutch in the Low Countries complain about this: wij krijgen niet de kans om onze taalkennis in praktijk te brengen – we don’t get the opportunity to try out our language skills in practice, want iedereen wil per se tonen hoe goed hij of zij het Engels machtig is – because everyone wants to show off how well he or she speaks English.

And there’s another reason why Dutch speakers like to say things in English. Het Nederlands is een suffe taal en ook moeilijk om te leren – Dutch is a stuffy language and it’s also difficult to learn, young Dutch-speakers claim.

In de perceptie van jongeren is het Engels een trendy taal – Young people see English as a trendy language, die ze ook nog eens vanzelf leren door de media en door hun favoriete muziek – which they can teach themselves through media and their favourite music.

So it looks as if English words are here to stay, even if they’re not your cup of tea.

Tweet us your thoughts @FlandersToday

Poll

In response to: UGent researchers want English taught in primary school Mike O’Connell: All the Belgian youngsters – and most older people in Flanders that I met in my four years living there – speak excellent English anyway. They put the British to shame.

CASPIAN @caspian Just arrived here to Minard in Ghent, and can safely say that this is the most beautiful venue we have ever seen in our 10 year history.

Paul Abraham @Fastpedaler We’re at a goth wedding in Ostende. It’s quite an experience!

Anyone who thinks that it rains a lot in the UK should try Belgium!

LIKE US

facebook.com/flanderstoday

the last word Labour relations

Football fleece

a. They should just ban them outright. They are nothing but a danger. City-sponsored fireworks are certainly enough

“A hospital is not a hotel for people who think it would be handy to have a nurse on hand to clean up the mess made by visitors.”

“There are a lot of people and organisations that have to get a piece of the pie.”

b. Sure. The new rules will improve safety, and it could be improved even further by raising the age limit to 18

Gynaecologist Hendrik Cammu of Brussels University Hospital reacts to patient complaints that maternity stays are too short

Should the federal government further regulate fireworks to make them harder for the public to purchase and use?

43% 57%

c. No, the new regulations will be enough. Fireworks are supposed to be fun; the government can give it a rest now

0%

Have fireworks lost their sparkle?

Federal consumer affairs minister Kris Peeters is considering further restrictions to fireworks, following up on changes already made to regulations that will take effect in 2017. Those include a ban on sale of F3 class fireworks – the largest and loudest – to the general public and limiting Type F2 to those 16

and over.

A surprising number of our readers thought sales to members of the public ought to be banned outright, leaving only municipalorganised displays. Usually when the subject comes up, from the Enschede disaster of 2000 to the annual toll of accidents, people complain a ban would be a step

\ Next week's question:

too far.

A majority of you feel the same way, but agree that Peeters should consider more changes, including increasing the minimum age for buying fireworks to 18. The proban side is a sizeable minority, though. There’s no support at all, on the other hand, for the laissezfaire argument.

Everyone agrees something needs to be done about radicalism in Molenbeek (see p4). But who do you think is responsible for taking action?

Log on to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!

\ 16

About face “Anything that could give offence is better left out.”

The Catholic education network issued advice to schools regarding the appearance of Zwarte Piet, suggesting no red lips or curly hair, and streaks of soot instead of blackface

An economist explains why the new Red Devils shirt costs €10 to make but retails at €85

Dead reckoning “I have no problem working with human tissue. I consider the question of what this can do for society. Thanks to our research into the process of decomposition, we might be able to trace missing persons faster and solve more murder cases.”

Toxicologist Jan Tytgat’s team at the University of Leuven is examining whether the odour of dead humans has any particular characteristics compared to animals

5ELNGFR*bbgbbj+[O\R