2,000 people attend radical Flemish nationalist IJzerwake event
About 2,000 people took part in the 23rd IJzerwake, an annual gathering of radical Flemish nationalists, in Ypres on Sunday. While in the peak years of the event more than 5,000 participants gathered at the Monument to the Van Raemdonck brothers, the number of visitors is going down year after year.
The annual event originated about 25 years ago. It began as a protest against the IJzerbedevaart, a yearly pilgrimage to commemorate the fallen Flemish soldiers of the First World War, after it changed its message from "Never Again War, Self-Government and God's Peace" to "Peace, Freedom and Tolerance".
It brings together the radical wing of the Flemish nationalist movement, with an extensive delegation from Flanders' far-right Vlaams Belang party.
The organisation’s president, Wim De Wit, warned during his speech that the “new government with N-VA at the wheel” would not be able to take quick action to turn Belgium into a confederation. Flemish nationalists believe that Belgium is not working and should at least be transformed into a confederation. For De Wit, it is illogical for the Flemish nationalist N-VA to participate in a government without a concrete plan for that transformation.
He said the discussions around confederalism would be referred to a working group, which will lead to stagnation. “Because we know those Belgian working groups, study centres or whatever they are called: they are pretexts for referring thorny issues to the Greek calendar,” he said. “Nothing indicates that this time it will be different.”
De Wit added that “a confederal transformation is totally insufficient to give Flanders what it is entitled to".
#FlandersNewsService | Participants of the IJzerwake radical Flemish far-right gathering in Ypres, 25 August 2024 © BELGA PHOTO NICOLAS MAETERLINCK
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