TALÁLKOZÓ A BRÜSSZELI “LOUIS-PAUL BOONKRING”
SZOCIO-KULTURÁLIS EGYESÜLET TAGJAIVAL
Április 4-8 között Budapestre látogat a belga-flamand Louis Paul Boon szocio-kulturális egyesület (rövid leírásuk e meghívó alatt található). Mielőtt eljönnek, Brüsszelben találkoznak Jávor Benedekkel és Niedermüller Péterrel. Budapesti látogatásuk során több gyalogtúrát, két autóbuszos túrát, egy biciklis túrát szervezünk számukra és találkoznak Szelényi Zsuzsával a Parlamentben és Karácsony Gergellyel Zuglóban.
Április 6-án lesz a közös esti beszélgetés és vacsora a Budapest Körrel. Ennek során ők áttekintést adnak munkájukról (amely a szokásos havi találkozókon túlmenően több helyszíni, aktivista elemet is tartalmaz), és mi is beszélünk a Budapest Körről. A legérdekesebb talán az lesz, amikor elmondják benyomásaikat Magyarországról és Budapestről, és ezekre reagálhatunk.
A találkozó angolul lesz, akinek szükséges, fülbesúgásos magyar fordítással segítünk.
A belga csoport 31 taggal érkezik. Nagyon fontos lenne, hogy a Budapest Kör is legalább ekkora létszámmal legyen jelen, ezért a szokásoktól eltérően kérem, hogy aki el tud jönni, küldjön nekem egy emailt legkésőbb március 31-ig!
„Chatham House” rule applies
Presentation “Circle Louis Paul Boon” (Louis Paul Boonkring)
The Circle Louis Paul Boon is an association of volunteers, active in Brussels, in the socio-cultural field. We have about 150 members. Louis-Paul Boon, one of the greatest Flemish writers who mainly wrote about the working conditions and social struggles at the beginning of the 20th century. He died 25 years ago in the same period that our association was founded (his widow gave us permission to use his name). His books have been translated into dozens of languages (some in Hungarian, f.ex.: “A kiskápolna utca: regény”) and he was also nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The aspirations of LP Boon are also hidden behind the name of the association. With his books Boon wanted “to kick his readers a conscience” (we took up this idea in our logo, see above). Our activities parts from this same principle: watch critically what is happening in the world and, where it is necessary, act and intervene in order to change things and remove inequalities. We try to accomplish this on our level of the Brussels Capital Region.
Our activities are very diverse :
- Debates and conferences on social and political issues, Brussels as metropolitan entity, environmental challenges and solutions, the European institutions and their policies…
- Cultural activities : meetings with artists, concerts, exhibitions, presentation of new books connected to our interest spheres …
- Site-visits of interesting urban and neighbourhood developments in Brussels and other Belgian cities
- An annual (5 day) thematic visit to a European city;
- Actions : f.ex. Last year: the actions against the Transatlantic Treat and Investment Partnership with the US; In the nineties: the action ‘extreme right, no thanks’ after the electoral success of the extreme right party “Flemish Block”.
Although we are an independent association and no political label can be put on us, it is no secret that we are ideologically at the left side. I myself am deputy mayor in Etterbeek (Brussels) for the socialist party, but we have also members of the green party and most are politically independent.
About 30 people participate at the annual city-trip: they represent a lot of professions (nurses, teachers, social workers, professors and researchers at university, EU officials, etc). A considerable part of the group have already retired but most are still active with social, cultural and urban activities.
Our yearly European city trips are not the usual touristic ones, we also want to see “the other side of the city”. Last year in Athens we visited social projects for the poor, an alternative theatre, neighbourhood-walks, meeting people from Syriza (a local Mayor) but also the former parliamentary president who finds that Tsipras has betrayed the Syriza programme. We are interested in all opinions. The programme for our visit to Budapest that we are preparing with Iván Tosics goes in the same direction.
More information you’ll find on our website, but this is unfortunately only in Dutch: http://www.lpboonkring.be/
Rik Baeten, 6th of January 2017
