Leading philosopher and Brusseler Philippe Van Parijs brings to the stage a concrete case of effectively shaping the future with our very city as protagonist. With about two hundred nationalities and even more native languages, Brussels is a true cosmopolitan city with an exceptionally diverse and fluid population. It will be no different tomorrow. So how will we live together?
The current institutional framework assumes that the population of Brussels consists of two mutually excusive and jointly exhaustive communities living side by side: the Flemings and the Francophones. This institutional bipartition of Brussels is increasingly disconnected from reality on the ground. What is the alternative?
Philippe makes the case for a People of Brussels. He shows how we have become a political community, with the capacity and responsibility to shape its future. He will discuss what, if anything, unites us and what institutional reforms are essential or currently underway to build and rebuild the People of Brussels, towards a future of tolerance, mutual understanding and respect.

WEEKEND Pass or Day Pass available
*This talk is part of Full Circle Ideas Festival *

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ABOUT The Speaker

philippe Van Parijs is a leading Belgian philosopher, a political economist and a Brusseler. He teaches at the Universities of Louvain and Leuven, directs the Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics at the uc Louvain and is a Robert Schuman Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He is one of the founders of the Basic Income Earth Network. In Philippe was awarded the Ark Prize of the Free Word for actively promoting the freedom of expression, and in the Francqui Prize, Belgium’s most generous scientific prize.