| Ashamed Belgian here. I understand this will sound grumpy and humorless. The new passport design seems to be very popular in my home country. Mostly - I can only suppose - to the immense majority of my compatriots who do not travel outside of the occasional guided-tour charter flight to an all-inclusive beach resort. A few counterpoints: - Border agents, like me you could say, are not exactly famous for their sense of humor. I foresee a few unfunny hiccups at the beginning of the transition period. A particular 50-state country immediately comes to mind. - While admittedly most pages' designs are thankfully subdued, the first one features a bright-red-and-white rocket that looks like a childish toy. - The childish toy interpretation is the charitable comparison. In reality, its design was inspired by Werner Von Braun's "V2" rocket. This is the weapon that devastated London during WW2 and would have erased it completely save for some cunning British intelligence. - The rocket drawing comes from the Tintin comic books. The beloved hero, Tintin, is mostly harmless. Except for his extremely racist adventures in Congo (a Belgian colony at the time), his rather racist adventures in China, and his very racist depictions of Jews. The author has been very appreciated in Belgium, to such an extent that he had no issue continuing his work and publishing it, even when the country was not exactly autonomous between 1940 and 1945. - While most of the comic books honored in the passport are respectable, let me just state the following. Other countries put national heroes on their passports. Think Beethoven, Shakespeare, Marie Curie, Gandhi. Or national treasures. Pyramids, parilament houses, symbols of democracy, of peace, or of greatness. In Belgium, besides the Smurfs, we also put Natasha the air hostess, and Largo Winch. Look them up if you don't know them. Their appeal is not only the quality of the scenario. I think there was confusion here, between "humility" and sheer lack of gravitas. Yeah, it's not a big deal. I love my home country. But I can't bring myself to endorse this. |