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Belgian Split No Laughing Matter
Belgium was struck with an Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" panic last night when state broadcaster RTBF announced that the northern, Dutch speaking part of the country had declared independence.
Distressed viewers called the television offices and politicians as the broadcast showed groups of merrymakers waving the Flemish flag outside government offices, spliced with library footage of traffic jams cramming routes to Belgians airports. King Albert and Queen Paola were reported to have fled the country in a military jet.
Only later was it revealed that he show was a spoof.
Even some embassies were taken in, the BBC reports. Several offices made urgent calls to home governments when the news broke.
However, the greatest outrage came from Belgium's political classes.
Senate Chair Anne-Marie Lizin said "This fiction... created a catastrophic image of the country."
PM Guy Verhofstadt described the stunt as "in very bad taste", adding, "In the current context, it's irresponsible for a public television channel to announce the end of Belgium as a reality presented by genuine journalists."
By "current context" he means the rise of nationalist sentiment in Dutch-speaking Flanders, where many believe that their prosperity pays for socialist projects in the less successful French-speaking south - a largesse that is rarely met with gratitude from the Francophones.
This ill-will has led to regional success for the north's Vlaams Belang party, which started life as Vlaams Blok until Belgium's government banned it as its success peaked. Both Vlaams Belang and Blok are advocates of independence for the Dutch north.
Belgians have avoided making independence a major issue by delicately carving up political influence and linguistic demands - though giving French speaking Walloons 50 percent of the power while they make up less than 43 percent of the population inflames Flemish nationalists even more.
While some newspapers - like the IHT - say that independence is not a "burning political issue", the programme makers say they wanted to make viewers understand that Belgium's current status might not be permanent.
Predictably, the greatest outrage was in the French-speaking south.
Belgium's finance minister Didier Reynders said the show "totally discredits an institution that the French community has put a lot of investment into" - meaning the state-funded news broadcaster: Many French speakers claim added shock because the spoof appeared on public TV.
The Francophone media minister thundered that she had demanded meetings with station officials and promised to question the ethics of the journalists participating in the broadcast. The Socialist premier of Wallonia described the broadcast as "unacceptable" and added,
"At a time when our country is rocked by separatist leanings, it is irresponsible and anti-social to make people believe that the Flemish have voted for independence."
The following morning, French-language newspaper Le Soir carried the headline "Belgium Died Last Night."
A poll suggested that 89 percent of viewers were fooled by the broadcast at the outside, even though a warning was carried that the report might not be wholly true. By the end, only 6 percent still thought their country was splitting - perhaps those were the politicians.
The channel's boss claimed that Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds was the model for the show. Popular legend has it that on hearing news that Martians were invading earth, listeners fled their homes in panic.
