---

Johan Leman, 13 June 2022

When I walked past the “Picnic the Bridge” and the activists at the Bourse yesterday in Brussels, I was struck by how strongly these actions are supported by a progressive middle class (and there is nothing wrong with that), and how relatively absent the people from the working-class neighbourhoods are. It’s true that the activists are efficient and that the media support them one hundred percent… And fortunately, what they achieve benefits everyone, including people from working-class neighbourhoods.

May I suggest two observations?

1.            It is very difficult to mobilise people from the working-class neighbourhoods for this kind of action; it is as if they do not feel at home among the mobilising activists.

2.            To a large extent, the issues do not present themselves in the same terms for them as for the middle classes. The agendas are different.

An anecdote to illustrate the first observation. A few months ago, at Bernard Foccroule’s suggestion, Foyer invited young people from the climate movement to a discussion with young people at Foyer… Well, a mere two climate young people turned up (from one of the Woluwe neighbourhoods, if I am not mistaken) and, despite the promise of a second discussion, it never happened. The water was apparently too deep.

As for the second observation, I can only make the following. With all due respect for the need for safer cycle paths and fewer cars on the streets right next to the canal, the problems of the people are of a different order in streets that are somewhat further away from the Brussels canal. For example, that cellars flood during heavy rainfall, and that there is a lot of creeping traffic when there is the slightest traffic problem on the main arteries. And as for the population density… it is not by building a few investment towers where less than 10% are flats with at least three rooms that a government offers a solution to the population density in these working-class neighbourhoods… In other words, the agendas are too different between the progressive middle classes and the real life of the people in the working-class neighbourhoods.

I myself belong to the middle class and I take part in actions like the one on Sunday, but I hope above all that a water bomb like the one in the Vesdre valley never will fall on the streets that are a bit further away from the canal… because then we really will experience a catastrophe. By the way, I also hope, of course,  that “picnic the bridge” reaches its goal.

Back