‘Who called me a coward?’ Courtesy in the Belgian House of Representatives (1888–1910)

Abstract

ABSTRACT On the increasingly heterogeneous yet still all-male debating scene of the Belgian House of Representatives around the turn of the twentieth century, language was not merely a practical tool for getting a point across or putting a topic on the agenda. The use of French as the standard debating language, along with specific parliamentary speech modes, which initially seemed tacitly agreed upon in the Belgian Chamber, gradually became highly symbolical instruments in negotiations about ‘proper’ representation and parliamentary conduct. This article investigates what courtesy meant, exactly, for the different Belgian députés around that time. How did their views on representation, dignity, and parliamentary courtesy change after the integration of Socialist and monolingual Dutch-speaking deputies into the not only French-inspired but also initially francophone Belgian assembly? How did these newcomers negotiate the parliamentary procedures in an attempt to mould them according to the changed practices of the House? Via a case-study of meta-debates on courtesy following the early use of Dutch in the Chamber between 1888 and 1910, this article sheds light on some important Belgian parliamentary tensions of that time concerning the deputies’ legitimacy claims. In their struggle to combine legitimacy towards their peers with legitimacy towards their electorate, the late-nineteenth-century newcomers in parliament (Socialists as well as Dutch-speaking Daensists) used similar strategies, making sure that the conventional orator(s) of their respective parties almost immediately counterbalanced or contextualized the language and actions of the more rebellious member(s).