Flanders today
# 98
september 23, 2009
Build a better brain......................... 6 Researchers at the Free University of Brussels have data to prove that bilingual children solve complex calculations more easily than monolinguals. So schools should start language learning as early as possible.
I N D EPE N D E N T N E W S W e e k ly news
business
active
living
Back to Natur....................... 12
Antwerp’s landmark museum of contemporary art is now worthy of the praise, both inside and out. A fantastic new façade beckons you inside to the launch of its heavily political autumn shows
Do a photo rally, unmask the bad guy in Citygame, walk treetop cables and ride a raft down the Dijle River (that you have to build yourself) at Natur-Natur, where average folk can feel like heroic adventures
Belgium usually walks a middle ground between the strict French neutrality and the open pluralism of Britain, where public servants with headscarves or turbans are not uncommon. But Flanders did not remain immune to the issue. In 2007, Antwerp banned not just headscarves but all openly religious or philosophical symbols for
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Fears of flood of immigrants unfounded
Anja Otte
city employees working with the public. They make some people uncomfortable, said Antwerp mayor Patrick Janssens. “Suppose a public servant wears a huge cross. People who have come to report a divorce may wonder how this person’s reaction or moral judgment will be. This we should avoid.”
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agenda
interview
Regularisation wave fails to materialise
Should Muslim girls be allowed to wear headscarves in secondary schools? The issue has become one of the most polarising in years
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arts
Formerly MuHKA. .................. 11
The clash of the headscarves hen France banned Muslim headscarves from its classrooms in 2003, the idea did not travel north to Belgium. In fact, when liberal Patrick Dewael suggested to follow suit, most policymakers reacted negatively. “Who cares what a girl wears on her head? What matters is what’s inside,” the socialist Steve Stevaert retorted.
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© Pol De Wilde/Het Nieuwsblad
Erkenningsnummer P708816
Free ly! week
Last week saw the start of a period of “regularisation” in which illegal immigrants would be able to put their affairs in order, subject to strict conditions. But the anticipated flood of applicants failed to materialise. In Ghent, a tent to provide shelter for waiting applicants and barriers to hold them in line were eerily deserted. In Antwerp, 20 specially detailed municipal workers were idle. “People are coming in the first instance for information before they submit a dossier,” said Antwerp’s alderwoman for social policy, Monica De Coninck. “In any case they have three months to do so.” In Antwerp, only six applications had been handed by noon on the first day, but 300 or so people had come by to pick up a form to be filled in later, and others had called in with questions. In Ghent, 40 applications
Alan Hope
were submitted, and 100 people came in for information. The new measures concern migrants who have lived in Belgium continuously for five years, or who lived here legally before 18 March 2008, or who have been here continuously since March 2007 and have a work contract. The regularisation also covers asylum seekers whose procedure has already lasted longer than “a reasonable time” – a term which is not strictly defined.
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