In the aftermath of Paris events, on the 13^th of November, the “blame game” finally arose. Authorities, professionals, journalists and the public opinion is anxiously looking for those responsible of not having avoided 130 victims, killed by a jihadist commando composed by French and Belgian fighters.

At a first glance, the lack of communication and cooperation between the Belgian and French Intelligence Agencies, who had already recognized some of the fighters as dangerous terrorists, has been immediately considered one of the most important aspects of this “European Security’s defeat”. The hardest attack against these intelligence procedures came from French journalists, while the political world expressed much more moderate words. French journalists, especially, blamed Belgium becoming the new “clearinghouse of jihadism” – a strong way to remember the inefficiency, unreadiness and lack of coordination among the Belgian police forces.

In a second stance, the American online newspaper POLITICO Europe, new-landed in Brussels, defined Belgium as a “failed State”, on the same level of Somalia or Kosovo. In facts, POLITICO listed the recent scandals, which have marked the last decades, trying to get the whole (brief) history of Belgium. Every story shares lots of aspects in common with others: police and justice’s inefficiency due to the politicization and fragmentation of the police and judiciary, depending also on cultural and social differences existing in Belgium.

Of course, Belgium did not accept those critics, even if well justified and documented, especially those coming from France – as it can be read by the words of the director of La Libre Belgique, Francis Van Woestyne, underlying the existence of a true relationship between these two countries, a two-way relationship dangling between love and hate.

Just the simple idea that Belgium became a jihadists’ lair, for some inquisitors/observers it is turning into a real trial against a “failing country”.

Aware that all eyes are pointed on it, and trying to avoid the possibility to be described in future as the weak ling of the antiterrorism, the Belgian Government locked down the Brussels city-center during four days of red alert. Unfortunately, the lockdown of the Belgian capital has been concluded without catching those most wanted after the Paris events: Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini. The terrible communication by the Government on both conditions and duration of the lockdown, gave a boost to the general distrust of Belgian people in its institutions.

In this context of incredible confusion, those who come out strengthened are the Belgians. They responded with impressive courage and serendipity to the disturbing choices taken by the Government. Belgians who, once, put aside their eternal linguistic and regional divisions, to take over with their natural aptitude to accept peacefully quite everything (and a piece of surrealism – it was actually invented in Belgium) on one of the most dire moments of the recent Belgian history.