Lobbying: a game, or democracy distorted?
Izegem and the Tour: an example hors cause; a principle à propos
Image: flat is a relative term on a country cobbled road in Flanders; a dismissive term when applied to beer; and a characteristic of landscapes that, while boring, are indisputably fair.
“Het moet dan ook een totaalspektakel worden waarbij we de plaatselijke horeca betrekken.” Thus Bert Maertens, the mayor of Izegem, awarded the accolade in 2023 of being Dorp van de Ronde: Village of the Tour, one might say, featuring this year, as it does, as a route highlight in a number of the ever-popular bicycle races in, over, across and around Belgium: “It must be a sight to be seen, in which we involve local food and drink establishments.”
The phrase figures towards the end of this VRT news report, which in the main comprises quotations of Mr Maertens’ own words, a short reading of which, in fairness, already induced me to conjure the thought: “Won’t do the cafés any harm.” Indeed, the institution of the café (to which the British would more liken the pub) can strike the casual observer, in Belgium at least, as being the prime purpose of cycling at all. Since the cycling tour (though, despite the name, not always the Ronde van Vlaanderen) ends, by definition, where it begins, the half-way mark is usually plotted as being at such a café, where careful planning and meticulous coordination are deployed to ensure the beer is fresh, the coffee hot and the tables ready and waiting for the descent of a horde of two-wheelers with limited time to spare; of a summer weekend, they’re to be spotted the length and breadth of the nation. You may be surprised at such widespread consumption of beer during an exercise intended in conception as an exercise in … exercise. No matter, I’m sure those flouting the law are made to pay the penalty, be it only a bent front wheel.
Izegem may be an unfamiliar name to many. The name could be a “Knock, knock” joke: “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Izegem” — complete as appropriate. It lies in the country’s far west, surrounded by such locations as Zwevegem, Avelgem, Anzegem, Waregem, Kachtem, Emelgem and … the city of Courtrai. And, like those places, its principal topographical feature is: it is flat. It lies nestled in the flat lands of Flanders, whose southern boundary is demarcated, if nothing else is, by the famed “linguistic frontier” that spells Nederlands, up to same, and français, thereafter. Wallonia is hillier than the more northerly Flanders and, with that, to my mind, is a tad more attractive. As England’s for the most part do, Wallonia’s hills, they do roll: rarely threatening, but inciting, instead, curiosity — about that what lies, precisely, around the next bend. Of bends, there are, in Izegem, as few as there are hills: as straight as plumb lines, the municipality is in short distance pierced, crossed and exited by both a trunk road and a canal.
Izegem’s, and Mr Maertens’, joy at the Village of the Tour laureate conferred upon it is understandable; one nods in approval at the honour done it by the Tour’s organisers, for the first time in ten years. The countryside may be flat, but its beer will not be. Mr Maertens offers no explanations to VRT of how Izegem comes to form a point of focus for the 2023 Ronde: perhaps it’s a spontaneous gesture by the organisers; maybe it comes as the outcome of fretted lobbying by the town council; perchance, like Bay City for its Rollers, it was elected by throwing a dart at a map. Which to go for, of the three?
To be honest, I don’t even believe the third of these, the tale told by the Bay City Rollers of how they came to honour a city none of them had hitherto heard of, let alone been to. But it’s a good tale, even if the mode of choice tends to the indiscriminate (unless you happened to be Jocky Wilson). As to the first possibility, if Izegem was chosen by chance, au hasard (or, in Izegem, per toeval), then Mr Maertens will be very much counting his chickens, for, to his good fortune at his town’s choice now comes his fancy at lucrative endeavour in the beer-selling stakes. It is considerate of him, therefore, to already be thinking of “involving the town’s cafés” among the panoply of considerations of how and where all of this might prove of benefit to the townspeople. To be frank, I can’t actually think of another …
It is the second possibility, however, that, cynic and all as I tend to be, beckons me most alluringly. While it might be argued that, within reason, a “Tour of Flanders” can go anywhere, this is conditioned upon that being anywhere in Flanders, for, unlike many other cycling competitions, whose location belies the fact their routes extend beyond the location with which they’re associated (such as the Tour de France), the Tour of Flanders is a one-day race contained, in conception and practice, within the four walls of those five provinces (there have been occasional excursions into the French-speaking province of Hainaut, but essentially the race is restricted even to Flanders proper, being the provinces of East and West Flanders). The race was first run in 1913 and is the only classic cycling race to have continued unperturbed through both war and pestilence. It has courted controversy: the race’s perseverance when Belgium was occupied by Germany, whose troops policed the event, saw its organisers charged with, and indeed convicted of, collaboration. As a standard-bearer event for Flanders, it has at times been dragged, willingly or unwillingly, into the mire of internal Belgian politics, whose characterising feature, if naught else, is language.
Why, then, for a cycle race crowned with such glory, enduring so unremittingly, and worthy of such erudite discussion, should it not have a role to play in the region’s commerce? And, with that, its commercial practices?
Lobbying is the legitimate means by which those with an interest vaunt that interest to the end of ensuring its due consideration when matters of weight are decided. It is a potent application of the freedom of speech: the fundamental right accorded, even to the criminally guilty, to state a case (up to such point, that is, as their guilt be proven). It is the freedom to vaunt an opinion, to present an argument, to ask to be counted. And it is a prerogative, like the wartime Tours of Flanders, the bounds on whose exercise require careful policing, for abuse of the right to lobby can amount to government by proxy, in the interests of some, but never of all. Indeed, lobbying can be a means to convolute the very freedoms that it vaunts in defence of its exercise.
If, as Mr Putin and Mr Xi have brought us to realise, autocracy is a form of government that, in its very essence, knows no limits, then we may recognise that democracy is a form of government, while founded in the notions of equality before the law and freedom within the law’s bounds, that knows, and, for its very continued existence, must know, naught but limits: the checks and balances placed on it to ensure adherence to a maxim that one might sum up, in response to Russia’s and China’s stance, as “So far, but no farther.”
Mr Maertens’ joy at Izegem’s elevation to Village of the Tour is understandable, and he and Izegem are to be congratulated. I am aware of no foul play in Izegem’s appointment, no dent in its honour; but the fact is, simply, that the involvement of Izegem’s hostelries, seemingly side-lined to a mention in the article’s last paragraph, can hardly have been a minor consideration in the appointment, regardless of who it was that tabled the proposition.
Whether a bell is necessary on a bike (to recall another of Knock-knock’s eminently groanable moments) and whatever the reader might conjure as appropriate to the question of “Is a game …?”, the fact remains ever-present in our modern times that lobbying is commonly perceived as being precisely that — a game — but is an activity whose brief is to win; to win, seemingly, at all costs, perhaps amounting to seven-and-more figures, and that frequently does win. But at the neglect of what boundaries, flouting what checks and balances, or buying a way around them, in so doing?
If Mr Maertens lobbied for Izegem, he only did his duty as mayor; if he fought a good fight for the cafés of the town, then he may be, should be, proud of his achievement. I think that he and his council may even announce it as a victory, over all the other -ems that surround th-em — I only wonder why he does not. Modesty, probably. Fact is, lobbying, at a general level, doesn’t always come out the victor of a fair race. Choices and decisions get influenced, and are easily influenced by the decision-taker asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Lobbying should be a game, but rarely is these days. It’s a bid for success, which the lobbyist would sooner deploy as a guarantee of success; lobbyists wish to offer assurance of their effectiveness, grounded in the success of their ministrations. While it can be safely posited that 50% of lawyers lose their case (and, in contested proceedings, 50% win), where are the 50% of lobbyists who lose their campaigns? I’d be interested.
Lobbying should be a game, in which the best man wins. With the best arguments. With the best case. Because they’re the best choice, and not the choice with the best budget behind them. The paths of commerce, like the pathways that are the Tour of Flanders, are beset, with setts; to negotiate them is the game, and not heave them as missiles.