Answer

At the outset the Flemish Movement was a Belgian-patriotic movement; its supporters believed that an official recognition of Belgium´s cultural duality and raising the position of the Flemish language would help strengthen the identity of the Belgian nation. Until 1914 a majority of Flemish activists continued to combine their Flemish consciousness with Belgian patriotism. Only a few individuals advocated self-government for Flanders. The great majority remained loyal to the Belgian state which it intended to transform via parliamentary means into a bi-cultural nation, a nation composed of two peoples, the Flemings and the Walloons, who were bound together by political, social and economic ties. For them, recognizing Belgium´s cultural duality would promote ´true patriotism´, a more authentic Belgian national consciousness. However, it is also true to say that defending the Belgian unitary state became increasingly a matter of political convenience rather than sentiment, all the more so because the turn of the century witnessed the rise of a new, anti-Flamingant Belgian nationalism which rejected offhand the proposition of a monolingual, exclusively Dutch-speaking Flanders and continued to defend the idea of French as the common language of all Belgians.

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