Two Faced Belgium
Konrad Neumann
I am frustrated with the Belgians right now. They are nice people overall but I do not think they are entirely honest in their foreign policy and I think they are play us for fools. Looking at their media as well as their actions, I find it extremely troubling and that they are a bit two faced. It is way too convenient for them to always point their fingers at the Netherlands or TEDEN and blame us for their own policy. I will argue that the government is Pro-ONE and they are slowly moving the people towards one by purposely going against TEDEN and the Netherlands to achieve their goals.
eBE ever since the MIttekemuis administration of last year is moving more and more towards ONE. She is not closeted as well and did it very openly. eBE has great ties with the UK and Poland. There were active in fighting for Venezuela against Portugal and Brazil. In the wake of the Commonwealth alliance, France invaded the UK in which Belgium responded by having an unannounced "TW" with France. They justify their actions by " helping TEDEN countries before and that they have MPP's with all alliances, but why interfere in important key battles? They view neutrality as 2-2=0 where 0 is neutrality. However, in foreign relations, 2-2= pissed off alliance.
We can look at the recent Hungarian "training war" of theirs, it is a complete BS story and that there are clear signs that the administration is setting the agenda to target TEDEN as the problem. They moved the country and create a situation in which TEDEN will be pissed and as a result, Mitte and her staff will blame TEDEN as a threat to their neutrality. So much that in her recent article, she said TEDEN is holding Beglium's neutrality by hostage!
"I know this is going to sound boring to you because again I am taking us back to our referendum and the outcome of things.
Neutrality some call us brave some call us stupid other call us chickens. I do not care what people say. What I do care about is that “neutrality” is making our country paralysed.
We are in the centre of an ongoing conflict between the 3 major alliances. Every step we take can be viewed as a bad step by any of those 3 alliances.
But most importantly we have been held hostage on our own by EDEN and TERRA who don’t believe and don’t care about what happens to us. Ever since last month we have been looking for TEDEN MPPs and found ourselves before closed doors.
Mittekemuis set up the agenda by referring the referendum which most people voted to be "neutral." Regardless of what their policies are in reality, everyone what knows Belgium knows that the Belgians wants to be "neutral." Some are more honest in their neutrality than others but most of Belgians are closeted ONE members. Knowing the results to such referendum ahead of time, she knows she can use the results as a claim to neutrality.
She arranges a TW with Hungary knowing full well of their affliction and purpose. She instead of saying it is a land bridge or region swap, she used the language of a training war that has gone wrong so she can claim benefits on both sides and to look that Belgium is a "victim too." She passes all of her responsibility to the Huns knowing that the Huns does not need to maintain their PR for they have military power which eBE does not. For their survival, Belgians need to maintain certain level of public goodwill to survive.
Extremely Convenient like Clockwork
So she set up a perfect condition for which she can provoke TEDEN while she can look innocent to her people. She knows that the Dutch and TEDEN will be pissed and they blame our reactions as TEDEN aggression, holding them hostage and paralyzing their country. I think it worked well for her. The plan worked well as each move complements the next and I think the biggest failure of this move is the extreme success of it. For it is too convenient as it is clockwork. While it can fool the Belgians, but you did not fool the Dutch and others. While this might be her intention to push Belgium more towards ONE and to evoke a reaction, but we too react.
Is one simple apology letter enough? I mean that is an extremely small price to pay. Maybe we can do that in the future too. Have some big power like Russia or something to TW with NL to erase Belgium in the process. We will send one simple "opps sorry" letter and call it a day. Their MoFA on IRC was even more pragmatic and suggest some kind of monetary compensation. Here is X amount of gold or CC, have fun... Is this a real serious attempt to amend relations? I really tried to give this the benefit of the doubt but the actions and reactions of the Belgian admin suggest that this is not an accident but this is planned. There is no attempts to ammend. Is this a good way to earn the trust of TEDEN by blaming them? Where are the self reflection in her article at all? How can you blame TEDEN after you directly caused a wipe out of a member state? instead, Mittekemuis use TEDEN and Dutch frustrations to bash TEDEN itself. If they really seek neutrality, they will not act and behave this way. They really need to look at the mirror.
I think it is for far too long that we should be the ends of their finger pointing. It is their policy and their consistent inconsistency in their neutrality that is pushing us more towards EDEN. It is the Belgian foreign policy that makes the Netherlands less secure. Their constraint attempts to destabilize Western Europe for their ONE friends requires us to rely on TEDEN for security. I think it is time for us to point our fingers at them too. Enough is enough. They portray us as brutes and evil doers while they are purposely trying to make us brutes, pushing us towards EDEN so they can justify their own interest of joining ONE and of Belgian aggression.
I think I have enough. I can take only so much bull. I recommend that we really cannot consider eBE to be neutral. I do not think we should even view eBE as Pro-ONE. We really should treat Belgium as a full ONE country as they acted in the worst possible way that is imaginable. They were whining about betrayal before but they will not even look at the mirror themselves. What confused me the most is that they keep saying TEDEN is a threat to their security and cites French and Dutch aggression towards it, but neither the case was a real war bent on conquest. Despite what they claim, they were never in serious threat or danger. They sided with ONE and yet, ONE posed a huge threat for Belgium in the form of G50. While TEDEN might blocked a congress election, ONE could of killed the congress and government as a whole. But I think as Dutchmen or citizens of TEDEN, we really should not care about the Belgians anymore. Let them self-destruct and let them join ONE. At least we do not have to guess when they are honest and when they are not.
Konrad Neumann
-German President 3x
-Officer of Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw (Political dedication and service)
-Knight of Orde van Oranje Nassau (Societal dedication and service)
-Party President of Iron and Wine
-21x Congressman
-Advisor to the Raidoh Administration
-Former Minister of Interior of Netherlands
-Former Minister Foreign Affairs of Netherlands
-Former Party President of Green Liberal Democrats [GLD]
-Former Party President of Open Minded Germany [OMG]
-Retired Emeritus of the now defunct Phoenix
-Co-Author of the Frankfurt Treaty
-One of the negotiator, author of the Phoenix alliance under then President Donnie Bronco
-Vice/MoFA of eGermany from August to January
-Former eGerman ambassador to eAustralia, eUK, and UNL
Comments
i disagree
ONE or TERRA
I don't care, i'm belgian and proud to be from wallonia.
I play my game like i want. You can put your criticism here. We have a mentality and it's hard for you to see that : we are in the unity.
We agree or not decision of government, we are all on the same way : together we are stronger.
I sew a lot of insults on several comments, but i just keep the respect.
also i herd konrad neumann is a male prostitute
+1 Elynea
also tl;dr
TL😉R
but : 3
Propaganda from
Konrad Neumann
-German President 3x
-Officer of Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw (Political dedication and service)
-Knight of Orde van Oranje Nassau (Societal dedication and service)
-Party President of Iron and Wine
-21x Congressman
... NO place for the next...
"They portray us as brutes and evil doers while they are purposely trying to make us brutes, pushing us towards EDEN so they can justify their own interest of joining ONE and of Belgian aggression."
This one I really lolled. Who is pushing eNL to EDEN?
eNL is doing it by themselves. Their governments wants to become full member of EDEN.
What about the eNL war to the eUK?
What about their attempts to occupy eBE?
eNL is a long time friend of eUSA. No need for pushing. 😉
oh wow I am quite the mastermind in this 🙂
Thank you Konrad for giving me so much credit.
You are also extremely good with turning facts around. We did not invade eNL but you did invade eBe.
I said all I had to say : http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-gov-time-is-running-out-2037548/1/20
in the comments.
If you wish we can do a full history lesson from say my eBirthday and after that we talk again. Pure facts not politics . What do you think?
Voted, could not have said it better, maybe only shorter.
Pure facts? There is no pure facts, only many interpretation of evidence. Base on the comments, the Belgians do not like my interpretation but that does not mean it is wrong or not legit. The Belgians do like to deal with the absolutes. It is interesting to see that they dismiss something the do not like and nothing more. To blame NL or TEDEN for everything is silly and lame.
I dont really see a problem with Belgians being against NL,
but at least be openly against us,
dont do those sneak-peak stuff since its more appropriate doing for a cigarette smuggler than for a sovereign eRepublik country.
No need for articles 🙂
Finally more and more we are facing the belgiums and we have good reasons to NE them again when we have our country back.
Voted, I am still angry at the Belgians because of the Hungarian exodus. Even after we've helped them with their PTO. How could you be so ignorant and dumb?
@ joep O , thats just being belgium lol
Ofcourse I'm angry too about eBe giving free pasage to the HUns. This is not something one can compare to the war of the Beers. Huns want to stay here, while the eNL left after a few weeks. So it does make me sad that some eBelgians see this Hun occupation, and eNL being totally wiped as some sick kind of revenge. That's really out of proportion. But times will be changing, as eBe gets more and more players as well, many of thoose won't be pro One.
And, as in RL thoose new eBelgians want their country to be a part of an alliance that upholds the better values in this game.
So it could be an interesting experiance, eBelgium joining Epic/One. I for one really don't think it'll last. Just look how One HQ treaths it's members; having them serve the needs of Poland and or Serbija.
Still I'm against such a move, don't get me wrong.
Konrad, my opinion is not going to be news to you, but I really think you are only looking at one side of this picture - just as I acknowledge that many eBelgians are only looking at the other side. No matter how much rhetoric you throw at the question, you cannot deny that eBelgian has undergone unprovoked attacks from TEDEN neighbors repeatedly in the last year plus, and then TEDEN complained when we took ONE MPPs to protect ourselves.
I do understand that the TEDEN attacks may not have been intended for long-term occupation. I also understand the anger of eNL about the recent attack by Hungary, although I will also point out that you were going to be occupied by ONE regardless of anything we did. I will say many of us were taken by surprise when what was proposed to us as a training war turned bad for you. We were, perhaps, naive, but our intentions were not malignant.
I can only speak for myself, but I assure you that, if our people say they want neutrality, which they have done repeatedly, I consider it my responsibility as a member of Congress and sometimes of the government to try to achieve that for them, no matter what my personal opinions may be about the viability of that choice. I can only reiterate to you that the attacks and subsequent blacklisting by TEDEN make it more and more unlikely that we will ever choose your side.
MQ, it's bullocks to call those TEDEN attacks. eNL was no where near membership, and the French where'nt ordered by Terra HQ too. PLease, let's stay oblective.
Lol, you are way off here.
where is Netherlands?
Some sidenotes that aren't unimportant:
eBelgian government is not the same as eBelgium. They may be elected by the majority and they are our legal representatives, but you can hardly expect that every single action will be approved by every single eBelgian (same in RL). So when I read comments above, I can understand the grievance which the eDutch seem to have with the actions of our governement, but I can't understand the animosity some of you seem to have towards the eBelgians as a nation.
Also, we might not always succeed to maintain perfect neutrality, but that doesn't make us pro- or anti- anything right away. We have the intention to stay as neutral as possible, but mistakes are always possible, and given certain objective circumstances we have to live in, it's not made easy for us to pursue our ideal. Still, this is not reason enough to put us in one camp or the other - not everything is simply black or white.
Further, there are indeed certain individuals in eBe who are pro-ONE (either openly or on an almost unconscious level), and their number might be significant, but the majority of the active population does want to pursue neutrality, as our latest referndum has shown. You may not think much of that, but ignoring this would be ignoring an important aspect of eBelgium and only seeing what you want to see - eBe as an enemy. I for one would strongly consider leaving eBelgium if it would ever turn ONE
Finally, you may try to convince us that eRep is nothing else than a military game, but for most eBelgians it is more than that, and the military is just one of the aspects of it. That's one of the reasons we want to stay as uninvolved as possible in the ongoing battles of the major world alliances. You may say that we play the game wrong, but it's not up to anyone to decide how another person should or shouldn't play his game.
If there are conflicts, things can be worked out in a constructive way, without hostile rhetorics where you lable the other one as the enemy, which I think is going on in here: instead of criticizing our actions and possibly demanding apologies (which in my eyes would be fair, given the situation), you're focusing on demonizing eBelgium as a community, which is far from being constructive. Agreed, this might sound as eBelgian "hugs&kisses" rhetorics to you, but I don't care. The Meek has spoken.
@Niemand
There has never been an aggressive war between UK and NL. Get your facts straight. UK moved to Germany through NL around Sep/Oct '10 and we sought refuge by swapping into UK in Aug/Sep '11
Hail Aldous the Meek! As always, Aldous is a voice of reason, and I feel his words are a fair representation of the majority of eBelgians.
Konrads word once again show us the truth 🙂
@Garmr: That eNL seeking refuge in eUK was not seen that nice for the eUK. It made us in the eUK clear what kind of nation eNL is.
More important is that is ignored what I sai😛 No need for pushing eNL towards EDEN. eNL wants to be in EDEN no matter what eBE (or eUK) does. These kind of articles by Konrad Neumann will not make eNL a better neighboor for eBE I think. Not my problem. XD
Im from the Netherlands and I mean even I can see why they would....didnt we just finish invading them a little while ago...might be a reason for this?????
Invade Belgium!
voted
konrad, I could also interprete this as warmongering and wanting to get to war asap, so that when south eNL gets liberated one day you can instantly launch an invasion of eBelgium and get the resources there that you don't have.
point is: both eNL and eBE have made mistakes and we are atm being pushed to ONE despite our wish for neutrality in this entire conflict. You can say what you want about our 2-2=0 policy, but ... it has worked in keeping us out of a side for more then 2 years!!!
Aldous +(why won't you run for CP?) , and Sammy, I'm afraid those days ly forver in the past now.
What if eNL started by removing the blacklisting they asked for in their alliance two months ago. It's far too easy for the eDutch to claim that eBe is against them. All I can see now is a bunch of eDutch liars and cheats trying to achieve their agenda of pushing eBe into ONE so that they can instigate a lasting conflict between our two nations.
Don't blame the Belgian people... blame the Belgian GOV.
generalisation, nationalism, warmongering. how progressive
If i'm right, eNL was already completely wiped before the BE/HU TW... Anyway, the idea of a Non Agression Pact have been proposed to the eNL CP, with help in South NL RW. It have of course to be debated by our both Congress but it could be a good way to regain trust and to improve our relations. No answers yet from the eNL CP but i guess it will arrived soon... : - )