Dreadful days.....

It has certainly been a difficult couple of days for Brussels.

I saw the news about the airport bombings on Tuesday morning, and decided to walk the couple of miles or so to the Press Club, as I do on most days.

It became apparent that this was something major when I saw the stream of emergency vehicles heading out of the city in the direction of Zaventum. There were also a lot of unmarked cars with flashing lights buzzing around.

Only when I arrived did I learn of the carnage at Maelbeek metro station.

Maelbeek is very busy in the mornings, and it is the station used by European Parliament staff as they make their way to work. Its also the station that I used for many years to take my son to school - I lived virtually next door to the station for 9 years.

I am relieved to learn that those of my friends who use the metro are all accounted for, but I am dreading seeing the list of the casualties - the Brussels bubble is actually quite small, and it is inevitable that we will all know somebody involved. There are problems with identifying many of the victims, such was the ferocity of the blast.

The Brussels Press Club is just a minute or so from Maelbeek, and so I was able to talk to a number of police officers throughout the day. It was a nightmare inside the station I was told, and a lot of the emergency workers were clearly distressed.

I walked again yesterday, and took time along the route to talk to people I know, and one or two strangers as well. Everybody is traumatised, and everything looks different now. Its the attack we were waiting for, but I didn't think it would be this close to home.

Following a high profile arrest of a wanted terrorist in the city on Friday, police officers have been abused and attacked in the street by members of the Muslim community, who regard him as a "hero".

Equally sickening was a statement by a UKIP MEP to the effect that the bombings were "the EU's fault."

And so we have yet another 'emergency summit' at the Council. The rule is that there must be one Council meeting each year, with provision for a second if deemed necessary. However, such is the state of affairs that we have an emergency summit almost every week now.

As I write this there are sirens in the background, and another of the unmarked cars has just passed by at speed.

I think we may have a problem....

Ethnic Cleansing in Europe, 2016

A very poignant moment.

My son is simply mad about soccer. He knows every statistic, every name, and he loves every team (except Chelsea).

And so I passed by this expo at Place St Gery in Brussels - which I visited for the first time earlier this week - with him. It is about Ukrainians who have been displaced following the Russian invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea.

Some 10,000 Crimean Tatars have been made to leave their homeland, and many others are forced to take Russian citizenship against their will. Those who were outside the region at the time of annexation are forbidden to return home to their families.


Their mosques are being closed, politicians are persecuted, and the only Tatar language TV station has been closed down on the orders of the Kremlin.

This is ethnic cleansing - not yet on the scale of what the Nazis did, but it is still early days, and the signs are pointing in that direction.

The gentleman featured in this picture, Roman Podenezhny, is a teacher, and like George, is clearly a football fan.

George would even be able to speak with him in his own tongue (George has better language skills than I do, but you might say that about anybody).

We had talked about the invasion, about war, and what it means to the people who have been caught up in it.

George looked at the picture of this chap and said "He's just like me."

That is the whole point. The dispossessed, the refugees, the dead and the wounded victims of war are just like us. The victims of war are us.

A Glimpse Into The Past......

This is an archaeological dig in the centre of Brussels.

We don't know exactly what this is, it was  recently discovered whilst the ground was being prepared for some hideous development which, whatever it is, will certainly offend my eyes.

I spoke at the site today with an expert on medieval masonry who is certain that what we are looking at is a 15th or 16th century brewery. The location is perfect - very close to the river (now the canal) that runs through the city. Also, there were a number of monasteries in the area, and as we all know, monks liked a tipple. It is exactly where the brewing industry on what was then the outskirts of Brussels developed into what it is today.

The brickwork is superbly preserved. It looks as if these bricks were laid yesterday.

George and I were delighted to see what was clearly a toilet, made out of stone, complete with even a drainage pipe. This predates the inginuity of Thomas Crapper by some 400 years.

Sadly, there may only be another week to explore the site, although representations are being made to the City council to grant an extension until May.

But either way, soon this view of the past will be lost forever.

More hypocrisy from Farage

STAY OUT OF IT: Ukip leader Farage warns Obama NOT to wade into EU debate - so the Daily Express reports today (Mar 17).

This is yet another example of Farage's hypocrisy.

Where will Farage be on April 4th?

He will be in Amsterdam, sharing a platform with far-right (and allegedly Kremlin backed) minor politicians, telling the Dutch that they should vote against ratification of the Free Trade Agreement with Ukraine.

Does this man have no shame?
Or is he merely so self-obsessed that he say anything to get himself into the newspapers?

Or is there something more to this than meets the eye?

The chap in the photo alongside Farage is a certain Alexander Yakovenko, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia. The two had appeared together on Russian TV.

Farage has regularly appeared on RT, the Kremlin funded Russian propaganda channel, and questions have been asked about his relationships with Russia's media. 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/31/nigel-farage-relationship-russian-media-scrutiny

https://euobserver.com/political/129071

As others see us

There is an air of panic amongst many of the British staff members and assistants in the EU institutions at the moment, as they prepare themselves for what the press here have dubbed "Brexodus".

There is also a certain amount of hostility from staffers from other EU member states who realise that without UK money, there own lucrative 'jobs for life' may not be as secure as they had assumed.

One Hungarian friend recently (he was well into the 3rd hour of his lunchbreak, and was somewhat the worse for it) told me that they want us to go. They are fed up with us Brits spoiling everything.

The French are also less than happy with us. How many times we are expected to go to Europe to get the French out of trouble I don't know?

It's vital that we have this debate, and that it is settled once and for all by public referendum. I strongly suspect that the vote will be to leave the EU.

The Eurozone crisis, the migrant crisis, and the rise of populism almost certainly herald the end of the EU as we currently know it. It has proven itself to be fractured, inconsistent, lost, and downright inept in the face of challenge.

If one example throws light onto the level of incompetence in the EU, it is the formation of the External Action Service.

When work on the new lavish headquarters began, and staff were being recruited, it emerged that there was no budget line to cover it. It simply never occurred to them that it had to be paid for.

Boris Mikhailov in Antwerp

Boris Mikhailov, from Kharkiv in Ukraine, is regarded as the most important fine art photographer to have emerged from the Soviet era.

He began exhibiting in the 1960, and quickly fell foul of the KGB, losing his job as an engineer when it was found that he had taken nude photographs of his wife.

Subsequent series of his works are considered as criticisms of the Soviet system through the sheer

frankness with which he shows life as it really was.

He is currently being exhibited at FOMU, the photographic museum in Antwerp.

His early work in the 60s involved layering colour transparencies, and many of these are shown by means of a slide show, lasting several minutes, to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd. 

When these images were first shown, it had to be done secretly in private homes.

But to see how far Eastern Europe has come since the collapse of the evil empire, it is his Red Series and Salt Lake that show life as it really was. It is hard now for us to imagine that Europeans really lived like that, although in many parts of Russia, and possibly Moldova, little, if anything, has changed. 

The Red series portrays the social system that emerged out of the October Revolution, whilst the somewhat grim Case History shows the homeless and dispossessed who were left behind after the fall of the Soviet Union.

I found the latter to be somewhat 'staged', and so for me as an attempt at social documentary it didn't really work. 

We were very lucky to attend a Vernissage in advance of the official opening. Mikhailov himself was present at what was a superb event. 

The Ukrainian community in Antwerp is very lively, and the turn out at such cultural events is always high.

The exhibition far exceeded my expectations, and is well worth visiting.

The exhibition runs until June 5th, details can be found here:
http://www.fotomuseum.be/en.html

Randall Calvin

My very good friend Randall Calvin passed away just some days ago.

We arrived in Brussels around the same time - he just some months after me - and we quickly became good mates. He  worked with the Socialists teaching languages, I worked with the Eurosceptics.

Later he was to concentrate on citizen journalism, an activity which he based on social media, and which he was very good at.

From his apartment he once filmed the brutal beating of a young Arabic guy by a group of Brussels police officers. I won't go into details, but it was horrific. The resulting video went viral, and is now used as a training aid by Belgian police to illustrate how quickly things can go wrong.

He once interviewed me in the middle of a riot outside the European Parliament. To a backdrop of riot police, teargas, and sirens, I stood alongside a pyre of burning tractor tyres speculating about the future of European democracy. It was great fun!

But my favourite memory (although I probably shouldn't admit this) was inside the parliament, just before Christmas 2012.

An elderly priest from Rome was leading a group of Italian MEPs in prayer, when Randall made what I can best describe as an 'intervention'. He was a committed atheist, and was never shy about sharing his views in public. The resulting chaos is talked about fondly to this day.

As a result of another interesting discussion on religion, with a Sikh, he was to become, in his 30s, the first man I know to be banned from his local sweet shop. As a result he had to lurk on the corner, like a guilty schoolboy, asking people to go in and buy him cigarettes, which I found hilarious.

The last time I saw Randall, about 3 weeks ago, he was enthusiastic about a new role he had found, visiting an elderly British WW2 veteran who is now in a Brussels nursing home. I know the chap in question, Eric, as he was for many years the standard bearer for the local branch of the Royal British Legion.

Actually, our conversation took place on the exact spot where the picture of us at the beginning of this post was taken on November 11th 2013. The chap in photo on the wall behind us is our dear friend Glynne Davis, another WW2 veteran, who passed away a few years ago at the grand age of 99.

On the right is Randall in the Lebanon in 1989.

Randall could be a difficult person sometimes, and could become very emotional very quickly. But he was very much a part of my life for most of my time in Brussels so far.

I spent many hours with him, and his lovely wife Raquel, over the years.

Randall's funeral will be held at St. Patrick's Garrison, Galway, today. He will be missed.

Rest in Peace.