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Johan Leman, 13 September 2021

I am currently reading Tom Naegels’ book, written in Dutch, on Belgium’s migration history between 1944 and 1978. I have arrived at chapter 9 (“Open borders”). The book has 14 chapters and a total of 413 pages.

I intend to spread the review of this book over two contributions. See here my first contribution.

First something about the working method. The author relies heavily on archives. The quality of the findings therefore also depends on the quality of the archives. The impression I get from this is that the author has really put a lot of time and effort into finding the best possible archival material. He combines this with letter material and accounts of conversations with migrants or their children, material that goes back to the same period as the official archive material and material that can be found in archives of associations as well. This provides very interesting insights. Let me put it this way. I myself have taught migration policy at the KU Leuven for many years. I referred to the well-known publications when it came to the past. I must confess that Naegels’ book provides interesting additional information and exposure, well documented. The information I gave to the students during the course was correct, but today I would advise the students to read Naegels’ book at the same time: it makes everything more lively, more fluid… Things like the migrations from Morocco and Turkey did not just follow a treaty concluded by governments. Those government treaties actually regulated processes that had already partly been set in motion by the entrepreneurial world (e.g. Fédéchar).

What is also very interesting about the book is that migrations are contextualised historically. For example, the early migrations from Turkey to Germany, or the reason why Moroccans were given preference over Algerians in Belgium, or … right from the start, the barracks where the first post-war Italians were received, who often took the place of German displaced persons, German prisoners of war at the time of liberation.

So very interesting information is given. What sticks in my mind is the influence of the captains of industry of that period… where politics followed in the footsteps of those decision makers in the labour market in order to put some things right again, albeit always in moderation. Okey, an exception maybe was the impact of Achilles Van Acker’s decision on the coal mine policy. Another important minister was Servais. But very often, in other cases ministers had simply to adjust situations created by the employers.

I am continuing to read chapter 9 with great interest, and am looking forward to Naegels’ next book, which will discuss migrations after 1978. If he succeeds, for example, in finding all the archives on the discussions between representatives of Islam and the Belgian state, a much more nuanced picture will emerge than is sketched in the academic literature today.

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