Belgium fracturing along linguistic lines

Van Asbroeck, 50, is Flemish, born here into a Dutch-speaking family. Brassine is the same age and was raised only knowing French. They are a rare intermarriage in this country disintegrating along linguistic lines. But they now know each other's language and their children move easily between both, even though Sophie, 11, goes to a Dutch school and Caroline, 16, to a French one.

"I like the fact that we are different together, and I'd like to keep it that way," Van Asbroeck says, but adds with a sigh, "even if I know it's a utopia."

As a Fleming, wife and mother, Van Asbroeck has done more accommodating than her Francophone husband. But she harbors no anger, recognizes no divide and easily melds their cultures.

Still, he rarely speaks his wife's native language, and when her 89-year-old mother visits, she speaks to her son-in-law in French. When Van Asbroeck wants the Flemish point of view, she retreats to the kitchen to watch TV.

"When I was a child, Belgium was Belgium and we had news from everywhere," she said. "Now we are so divided that we don't know each other anymore. Our politicians don't know each other."

That is not as true in Brussels, she says. Capital of Belgium, Flanders and the EU and home to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Brussels is a global city where people born in different places mostly happily coexist. In fact, for now the strongest force keeping Belgium together might just be Brussels. Neither Flanders nor Wallonia wants to give it up, and the regional politicians of Brussels want the country kept intact.

Sophie Brassine, who lives on the linguistic fault line, offers a window into the Brussels soul. When her mother, still dreaming of utopia, asked Sophie what it meant to her to be Belgian, she answered: "Mom and Dad, French fries, chocolate, French and Dutch together and Brussels."

geraldine.baum@latimes.com