Flemish leader sparks row over Belgium's Nazi past

"It is better to shed light on a society's past without hiding reality," De Wever wrote in a column in De Standaard daily entitled "Flemish Nazis." He accused Walloons of "judging by virtue of a moral superiority that is out of place and based on collective ignorance."

BRUSSELS (AFP)---The leader of the Flemish nationalist party opened a wartime wound in an already divided Belgium on Wednesday, accusing French-speaking Belgians of historical amnesia over collaboration with Nazis.

Smack in the middle of tense coalition talks with French-speaking parties, Bart De Wever sparked a row by charging in a Flemish newspaper column that research on francophone collaboration during World War II was "particularly brief."

Contrary to French-speaking Wallonia, he wrote, Flanders had owned up to its collaborationist past, making it impossible for the Flemish region to "sweep under the rug the 'New Order' temptation as if it had just been a fling."

The head of the N-VA party even used one of Belgium's cultural legacies, comic books, to drive home his point by drawing a parallel between the wartime activities of two iconic artists, one francophone, the other Flemish. Little attention has been paid to the fascist leanings of "Tintin" creator Hergé, he argued, while the family of Flemish comic book writer Willy Vandersteen admitted last week that he made anti-Semitic drawings in 1942.

"It is better to shed light on a society's past without hiding reality," De Wever wrote in a column in De Standaard daily entitled "Flemish Nazis." He accused Walloons of "judging by virtue of a moral superiority that is out of place and based on collective ignorance." [...]