(50, 60, 75, 100 Years) ANNIVERSARYA VC 

Flemish Club for the Arts, Sciences and Letters

 

a Flemish club ...in the spirit of Vermeylen 

 

jeroom f. j. depraetere

Chairman of the Flemish Club for Arts, Sciences and Letters

In the light of history, 50 years are of little significance; In a time like ours full of evolution, 50 years is already a whole era.
And we could easily tell a lyrical story here about 50 years of the Flemish Club in Brussels; about the exceptionally rich past of the Club, about the great achievements that were made, about this stage that has become an indispensable part of the capital, where all those involved in the cultural and scientific life of the Netherlands could see, hear and experience. had something to say. And it would be a true story.

 

But we want to stay down to earth. We only want to reflect on what the Flemish Club is now, and, by remembering our founder and first chairman, pay tribute to those who, in more difficult circumstances than now, gave birth to Flemish friendship in a spirit of tolerance and shaped it. given to the cultural presence of the Flemish community in this capital. When August Vermeylen founded the Club in 1923, together with other Flemish prominent figures of various political and philosophical persuasions, this was completely in line with his personal attitude, namely his ineradicable desire. To make people friends and, by rediscovering the glory and splendor of Flanders' past, to raise the new Flanders to greatness again in a national and European context. European avant la lettre, Vermeylen was a bridge builder, not only among his own people but in a European dimension.

 

Socially minded, he wanted to stand among his people and talk, laugh and cry with them. He was concerned to restore Flanders to an honorable place in the Western cultural community. Himself a bearer of a high culture, he wanted to open Flanders' windows to the world.

 

Although the idea of a Flemish Club came from Professor Hegenscheidt, born in the most working-class district of Molenbeek but of Austrian descent, it was August Vermeylen who gave this idea shape, a concrete form.

 

The basic principles laid down by Vermeylen were not touched for 50 years. And people call this conservatism or an easy solution, for us it is loyalty to the source, to the basis.
The Flemish Club for Arts, Sciences and Letters wants to retain its own identity.

We are a CLUB and that means people who meet each other in an atmosphere of friendship and tolerance in Vermeylen's spirit. We want to affirm that life is not a symbol of loneliness, but above all an integration imbued with love and tolerance.

We are a FLEMISH club, and that means that we continue to believe in the splendor and fame of the culture of the Netherlands; and that we want to commit ourselves to completing the honorable mission of the Flemish community, today in our own country, tomorrow in the unified Europe.

 

We are the Flemish Club BRUSSELS, and we trust that Brussels will soon also be the “< will want to show the modern face of Flanders, a face of now and forever, a face to love."

And however ambitious it may seem, our entire program is contained in that one sentence that August Vermeylen wrote in 1896: “My Friend, we will make this country cleaner. >>