Who died for the fatherland
Brussels Central’s message to the bona fide traveller
If you’re ever at Brussels Central station, one of the first things you’ll notice upon entering the booking hall—if you trouble to look up from your mobile device, that is—is the war memorial. Brussels Central station was in fact the place where one of the very first Belgian mobile device crimes was committed: a youngster by the name of Joe Van Holsbeeck had his mp3-player stolen from him in that very booking hall, in a crowded rush-hour, and was murdered into the bargain. He had not yet seen his 18th birthday. His assailants are in prison. But there is no memorial to Joe Van Holsbeeck in the station even though there is a street named for him in Haren, where he lived, called Joe Van Holsbeeckpassage.
The war memorial is itself set into the blank wall topped by a balustrade that looks down on you as you descend to the underground platforms. So, seeing it is not too much of a challenge, since you’ll be going down a stairway as you do, and clearly will not be absorbed by mobile devices.
Image: the war memorial at Brussels Central Station. The central figure bears a rifle on his right shoulder and a points lever in his left hand. By Yair Haklai - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136402397.
You may wonder who it is that it commemorates. It commemorates 3,012 railway workers (cheminots or spoorwegmannen—from which you may wonder if any were female) who died for their fatherland during the years stated. You should understand in that that they were workers on Belgium’s railways, that, when it was erected, the difference between a man and a woman when applied to a railway worker was insignificant, and that the patriotism of those who died is either proved or assumed: they were all patriotic, because they died, it says, for their fatherland.
If you know Brussels and its Central Station, therefore, you will know that the war memorial is there. You do know it’s there don’t you? Perhaps you’re not Belgian, so, even if you frequent Brussels Central, why would you have even given it a second glance? There are a number of points to note about this, and they all come over as trifling, as nit-picking and petty-fogging, and yet they turn on what is ultimately a question of life and death: patriotism.
Patriotism is something that we don’t think about every day, and yet it is something with which many of us get confronted every day, whether in the form of political speeches, human rights, flags or national anthems, or the concept of duty—ask not what your country can do for you, make America great again, that sort of thing. As a result, when we get asked about our patriotism or get challenged on its score, it is not a thought-out position with which we answer, but more a stock response.
Our position depends on who has asked us, in what circumstances and in what context. The answer to the question Will you give your life for your country? … depends. I once witnessed a Frenchman of my acquaintance say unequivocally, “Moi ? Donner ma vie pour la France ? Je m’enfuis plutôt.” I would sooner scarper. I was 16 and he was about 19, and I thought he was very unpatriotic. It’s not that I think differently now about what he said. I still think he was unpatriotic. It’s just that my view about what patriotism is has changed.
Being patriotic turns into a default position, and deciding not to be patriotic becomes the thought-out position. Government’s job, at least in part, is to discourage people from thinking about patriotism, because, at best, it moves people off that default position and into a questioning position and, at worst, it tends to make people unpatriotic.
The kind of response we get from the builders of the memorial at Brussels Central station—the dead were all patriotic—should make us stop and consider: were the dead all patriotic? Why, of course they were. We surely don’t need to inquire into that. If you know the memorial and recall seeing it, did it make you think about those 3,012 men? If you didn’t, can you then maintain that you are patriotic? Do you stand up when the national anthem plays? Do you stand up when you’re alone and it plays? What difference does it make whether you’re with people you don’t know, people you do know, or alone? Is patriotism a matter that is dependent on show, on being seen to be patriotic, rather than just being it? The Ukrainian pacifist and philosopher Vlad Beliavsky once said that Putin has to fail in his invasion of Beliavsky’s country because, well, what is Putin going to do: kill 44 million Ukrainians? I think that’s a very good point. But, I wonder, would the last Ukrainian standing still be as patriotic by that stage? As patriotic as they are now? Or as they were on 24 February 2022?
I greatly annoyed my brother during a recent visit to his home in England. He supports Leeds United Football Club and they were playing on the Tuesday night of my stay against South Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday (they were named after the day of the week when they played at the time they were founded, as a team of steelworker apprentices). Leeds is a good team and Wednesday linger somewhat in the second division. So I backed Wednesday of course. They ended up winning on spot kicks after extra time. Leeds United 2, Sheffield Wednesday 3. My brother asked me at one point during my sideline commentary whether there is ever a moment at which I shut up. That was the moment at which I shut up.
On the Wednesday (the day, not the team), Grimsby Town had a match in the same competition (Carabao Cup) against the indomitable Manchester United, which also went to spot kicks and which Grimsby Town, an insignificant team compared to the giants of Manchester, won 12 goals to 11. It’s not often you see goalkeepers taking spot kicks, and then the whole procedure starting again. I was in seventh heaven, because I was backing Grimsby. The fishermen, like Andrew and Simon-Peter.
So, what will I do on 16th September, when Sheffield Wednesday play against Grimsby Town (yes, unbelievably, that was the draw!)? Where will my allegiance, my affliation, my patriotism lie? Which team will I be egging on, and rooting for? Who do I want to win?
You will answer, it makes no difference, it’s just a football game. I sometimes wonder: why are we so upset about losers and winners in other fields? It’s just a commercial battle for the market. It’s only money. It’s just another war. It’s just another man dead. It’s just another crime. How do we decide who ought to win and who ought to lose? And how do we decide who was on what side of what fight? Because of where we were born—Leeds or Sheffield, Manchester or Grimsby, Britain or Germany, Palestine or Israel? Or do we decide by simply proclaiming it to the world and hoping they believe us? What we do when we proclaim the patriotism of those who fall in war is simply proclaim our own patriotism. But—it means nothing. It’s a badge like a cheap, tawdry holiday souvenir. When we proclaim our patriotism, we make no promises that, next time around, we won’t also flee, just like that French kid did. Because patriotism is not about what we do; it’s about what we want others to do, for us.
If you were ever at Brussels Central and saw the war memorial, and it did make you think of the 3,012 dead, for how long did it make you think of them? The time to get to your train? Too long? Okay, then, the time to get to the foot of the stairs? The time to take the next step? Now that I’m asking you, can you answer this: for how long do you think a war memorial ought to make you think about the war it memorialises? Do you think a war memorial is something we should just think about on Armistice Day, or more often? Every day? Or just on those days when we take a train at Central (arriving passengers don’t even see the war memorial unless they make the effort to turn around). You see, my point is this: in the moment when you stop thinking about what the war memorial is memorialising, the war memorial doesn’t just disappear; it’s your thoughts that change, but the war memorial is still there. Maybe to remind you to think about the war the next time you pass. How often do you think the families of those 3,012 men thought about their lost relatives in the wars’ aftermaths? Only when they were at Brussels Central, or more often? And the big question: why are you reminded of the war when you take a train at Brussels Central? And why is there no war memorial at my local station?
The design of Brussels Central station is enormously complex given its hillside situation and multilevel accesses to only three underground platforms serving six tracks (there used be a seventh bay platform for airport trains, accessible only from the offices of Sabena, the now-defunct Belgian flag-carrier airline). The architectural work was started even before the First World War, by Victor Horta. He died in 1947, when the plans were taken on by a new architect, Maxime Brunfaut, whose father had also been an architect and under whom Horta himself had studied. The station was inaugurated by King Baudouin in 1952, when the line linking the two older stations of Brussels, North and South, became linked by the underground line that Central serves.
In a way, it’s hard to see the reasoning for the prominent display of such national remembrance in a public building of such a forward-looking nature, even if the opening took place only seven years after the Second World War. The memorial cries out to every boarding passenger We will never forget those whose lives are lost in times of the wars that afflict our nation. It is a noble statement. So noble that it invites you to question why it’s being made. To question its motives. And, if its motives strike a chord with you, to ask yourself why that is.
Do you have a local railway station? If so, does it feature a similar war memorial? And does thinking about those who died in past wars make you want to avoid any future wars, or does it make you want to fight? In wars. Like they did. To attain glory, if need be, in death. Pour la Patrie. Voor het Vaderland. Hein?