This is Europe: dreams and deprivation

In Brussels, otherwise known as “the capital of Europe,” the destitution I see on a daily basis is unlike that I have seen anywhere else in the world. I’ve been to “Africa” and visited many parts of Europe and America but Brussels is the world in microcosm with all its associated poverty. In it, the complex convergence of people and politics, of individual hopes and communal dreams has created a city in which the recession’s collateral damage is concentrated in one, miniature place. With Europe’s combined wealth, even in these hard times, there is no excuse for the kind of poverty that has become an all too familiar sight on Brussels’ well-trodden streets.

In 2012 I bear witness to people who could have come straight out of a Walker Evans photograph. Four characters, in particular, stay in my mind:

• The kneeling youth: a man in his mid-twenties, tall and thin, genuflects in the middle of the busy Boulevard Anspach holding a sign that simply says: J’ai faim. He is jostled by shoppers and their overstuffed bags, overlooked as if he is not there, but he is. Every day the same man in the same street with the same troubles. Still, dignified, desperate for help.
• The polio-ravaged woman: she hobbles agonisingly down the length of the street dragging one leg in front of the other in a spectacle of suffering. She is stooped and without a cane. She relies on her arm held against her good leg for support. Mothers steer their children away from the old woman as she approaches passers-by, cup in free hand, soliciting financial aid.
• The horrifically burnt wheelchair-bound man: the grotesqueness of his injuries frightens small children who can’t help but stare at his disfigured visage. He is curiously bewitching. He is a vivid personality, animated and smiling, his face taut with deep scarring. He has a regular spot opposite the kebab shop, which does brisk trade but he doesn’t. People would rather give to the man with the cute dogs in sunglasses begging down the road.
• The human-shaped blanket heap beneath the post office awnings: it varies in size and shape but the form is always human. They take turns in securing the coveted spot between the post office and the bus station. It is dry and private compared to the place around the corner, where a group of roughsleepers reside, conducting their ablutions in full view of passing traffic.

Some will scoff at my characterisation of poverty in Brussels but I walk around with my eyes open. You need only stroll through Gare Centrale or around Anspach to see the levels of deprivation. The wilful blindness that many of us have adopted does not make the problem disappear; it is still there, we just choose not to see it. 

Could it possibly be worse than that of a megacity like London? The answer is one of scale. Because of its size, everything is concentrated in a small space making things more exaggerated, less subtle and more in-your-face than in the expansiveness of London. I’m particularly talking about homelessness and, in this context, roughsleepers and beggars. Brussels has a seething undercurrent, one that threatens to short-circuit at any moment.

In Brussels circles I hear Africa derided with stunning regularity. I have even heard it said that Europe’s problems are down to “Africans” not servicing “their debts.” I will point out that:

• In “Africa” there is no social security but there is family.
• In “Africa” there is unemployment but there is community.
• In “Africa” there is material poverty but there is hope and it springs eternal.
• In “Africa” there are myriad problems but there is faith in the ability to overcome them.

In Europe, we have all the opportunities but none of the corresponding responsibilities. Which of these – family, community, hope and faith - can Europe claim to have at this critical moment in our history?

Brussels, like Europe, is coming apart at the seams. The fabric of a patchwork society is under intense strain, not just from the economic crisis but from a fundamental crisis of belief in politics to change things, and in self. The sooner we own up to this and do something about it, the better for everyone, especially the most poor.