Introduction to this site

Looking at the world of today from a little country like Flanders (Belgium) can be a scary experience. Like everybody else, I suppose, I feel that we live in a world that is daily becoming more unstable. The frightening part is the vague sense of impending doom and the realisation that there is not much that one person or one nation or even a so-called superpower can do to fend off the looming danger. The only thing I can do is offer my two eurocents worth on the State of the Planet.

As my views on world politics are of necessity very personal, I think I owe it to the reader to introduce myself at least in a general way.

I live in Flanders, the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. The capital of Belgium, Brussels, is also the seat of the European Union and NATO. I live, contrary to what the title of this site would suggest, not exactly in Flanders fields but in Antwerp, its major port.

I am in my mid-fifties and have always been interested in politics and even more in history. I totally agree with George Santayana when he says that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I consider myself belonging to the political left, though certainly not to the far left. I am an agnostic and I consider religion to be strictly and exclusively a part of the private life of those who wish to engage in it.