Belgium Has Every Right To Exist

If nothing else, it got us In Bruges, Poirot, and my all-time favourite Tintin…

Belgium gave us Tintin. Photo by author with a bit of background help from Gemini.

Bruxelles as a city has very little to offer. Everyone who went, came back unimpressed. So that can’t be it. The Trappist beers aren’t as great as some might claim — I should know, I tried over 800 of them by now — and Belgian waffles really aren’t much to write home about either. Neither is the chocolate, especially if you’ve been to Switzerland and tried them all, like I did. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t made an impact as a country, despite Belgium’s own Prime Minister claiming Belgium should not exist, or famous political figure Nigel Farage in the UK claiming Belgium isn’t a nation. I, for one, think Tintin alone proves otherwise.

My Tintin DVD Box-set. Photo by author.

But Tintin isn’t alone. There’s one of my all-time favourite movies — and I know I’m not alone — the famous “In Bruges”, and then there’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Sure, the latter two are Belgian-inspired rather than pure Belgian. Nonetheless, I see being the source of inspiration just as valuable as Tintin being created by an actual Belgian artist. And now it has been turned into LEGO.