Real freedom for all turtles in Sugarscape? - Presses universitaires ...

204A r g u i n g a b o u t j u s t i c eaptly summarized this ‘Laponce mechanism’ as: “The nicer people are withone another, the nastier languages are with each other” (2000: 219). This lawhelps to explain the radical transformation of Brussels from a predominantlyDutch speaking city at the end of the 19 th century to a predominantly Frenchspeaking city today. The rationale behind the ROB model, then, is that it willseriously constrain the spontaneous process of language contact andlanguage shift, and thereby protect the territorially privileged language: thelanguage status of the territory is fixed, and the official institutionsmassively encourage and coerce people into speaking the language of theterritory, even if a more powerful language would without such massiveencouragement of the territorial language tend to encroach upon it. AsPhilippe puts it: “To protect vulnerable languages, there is, undercircumstances of high mobility, at best one effective strategy, the firmapplication of the linguistic territoriality principle: Cuius regio, eius lingua”(2000: 219).This argument calls for a reaction from defenders of the Brussels model. Isit not a problem that equal intra-territorial status for languages may lead tothe effective domination of one language over the other? Not necessarily. Itis important to see that the Brussels model is not a ‘laissez-faire’ solution.Equally recognizing two languages, say Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia,French and Dutch in Brussels, or Russian and Ukrainian in Ukraine, confersactive protection on those language groups, which will help guard themagainst massive linguistic assimilation pressure. Given the fact that the twolanguages in such cases receive active state support and symbolic benefits,equal language protection will help forging future people’s (and people’sfuture) language identities, which are more likely to be beneficial to theprotected language groups than to others outside of the territory. But thismodel does not just provide protection for the official languages of theterritory vis-a-vis other languages outside the territory. The Brussels modelalso protects the languages internally vis-a-vis each other. Whatever the lureof French may be, Dutch is actively protected: hospital, city council andpolice services will continue to benefit the Dutch minority in Brussels.Of course evolutions are possible here, and the group of French speakersmay grow while the number of Dutch speakers may decline. But even if thathappens, the Brussels defenders should bite the bullet. Even if, under suchan equal status language policy, the mechanism of free language contactsstarted to work toward the gradual erosion of one language group and thegrowing strength of another, then some members may regret this, but noinjustice is committed. For, the switches made by those who ‘leave’ theweaker group and join the stronger one are choices made against thebackground of government-supported linguistic liberty and equality. On the