Just had a company event and out of nowhere they all started talking about ma freeze peach and how China is “literally 1984” and how we can see that our main conflicts nowadays are between “evil autocracy” and “democracy with western values where it could never happen that the press is lying”. I had to bite my tongue so hard the entire time, which I think they noticed. In the end I just said that I don’t want to provoke the inevitable world war 3 even more, which killed the mood hard lol.
It’s so frustrating to be alone in a group of “intellectuals”… Especially if you need to stay civil to not get fired.
It’s got a long way to go but healthcare and insurance is really cheap. I pay 14 euro’s a month and basically cover everything I need, from routine checks to hospital visits.
Unions are massive with around 50-60% of all working people as a member of a union, and they are not afraid to take action.
Unemployment care is pretty good and you won’t financially wreck yourself.
You pay insane taxes on your wages but it helps to build a decent safety/health net for everyone. Taxes for rich people and big companies can be better though.
People are born mad at the system it seems, so setting up action is easy.
Public transport is not perfect but pretty cheap. I can travel everywhere for 6 euro’s.
It’s got a long way to go and there’s a lot of things that need to be fixed but it has a very solid base for socialists to build upon. Which our party is now noticing with increased popularity. It is a country where, normally, everyone has a decent chance of living, but you won’t be rich. Comfortable and safe, but there’s not that much room to grow if you don’t already have the money. But there is also a lot of help if you need to prevent getting into poverty. But with the crisis now, things need to change for sure.
How is it in regards to more social issues like racism, lgbtq rights, etc? I might have to check out my neighbour country some time :)
Far right extremism is a big problem, especially in Flanders. There’s problems with racism and segregation still.
LGBTQ+ rights are decent I think. Trans people have no huge problems with transitioning or changing gender as far as I know. Being openly gay or bi, especially in big cities, doesn’t give you much problems. But it needs work still. But in general it’s pretty good, just not perfect yet.
I would like to add to this regarding the far right thing: there’s also a strong left block to counter the far right movements. For example, this far right nutjob is touring the country with a book about the great replacement theory and every school he gets to, there are protests. Today’s protest, for example, consisted of 800 people waiting for him at the entrance. A couple of weeks ago he was in our city where he was met with several hundreds of protesters as well. So they don’t get a free pass to do what they want.