Bush compared to a chimp by the Belgium government in a

[texanwitch]

Powerpoint presentation about body language in conflict management.


lvb.net/english.php

The link above will take you to the entire website, the article about Bush with pictures are about half way down.



Belgium
Belgian government "involuntarily" compares Bush with monkey

Scoop on front page of HLNFootball hooliganism, or "soccer violence" as Americans would call it, is a problem throughout the world. The Belgian city of Bruges, where football club "Club Brugge" is highly popular, has developed a strategy against this violence. One of the elements is that special attendants will be present on buses that football supporters use to travel to and from the statium. These attendants are volunteers who are given a training course in conflict management and communication by the city. This training course is of such high quality that Patrick Dewael, vice prime minister and minister of the interior in the Belgian federal government, wrote a letter to all mayors and police chiefs of the country, recommending the training course and offering the Powerpoint presentation on request. Security in soccer stadiums is one of Dewael's responsibilities.

What Dewael did not know, however, was that the Powerpoint presentation contains a slide comparing president Bush with a chimpansee. The slide is used to illustrate the importance of body language in conflict management. "Fifty five percent of human communication occurs trough nonverbal language, thirty eight percent through the sound and inflexion of our voice, and only eight percent through the meaning of the words we speak", it says on a slide, immediately followed by another slide, showing pictures of president Bush and a chimpansee, where both are showing the same postures and the same facial expressions.


(click here for more and larger pictures)


Patrick Dewael"Bad taste", Dewael admitted when Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) confronted him with the pictures:
I hadn't seen the pictures. The slide presentation was not made by the ministry. But the comparison does not belong in that presentation. The city of Bruges should have avoided that.

Yves Buysse, who is a citizen of Bruges and a senator for Vlaams Belang, the largest opposition party in Belgium, has formally summoned Dewael to explain the incident in the Belgian Senate. He adds:
After the incident during president Bush's visit to Brussels, when a cabinet member of another vice prime minister had produced toilet stickers to start a campaign against the American president, the distribution of pictures comparing Bush with an ape in an official message from the minister of the interior, is not very clever.

The pictures comparing Bush to a chimp are not new, and can be found on a dedicated website, BushOrChimp.com. Oh, and this is not an April Fool's joke. The documents are real, and all this appeared in the newspaper on this last day of March.

UPDATE 19:38 CEST VRT TV news reports that the ministry has officially apologized to the U.S. Embassy in Brussels for the Bush-monkey comparison. Patrick Dewael is on a skiing holiday in Austria, but his cabinet has sent written apologies to the U.S. Embassy, Heidi Deridder from the Ministry of the Interior said on television.

UPDATE APRIL 1, 02:02 CEST Flemish newspaper "De Standaard" writes: Minister of the Interior Patrick Dewael mistakenly promoted a photo series that compared president George W. Bush with a chimpansee. <...> Dewael, who was unaware of any evil, immediately ordered the pictures to be removed from the presentation. He also offered his apologies to the American embassy. There's also an article in French in La Libre Belgique.

This incident in the press:
Calcutta Telegraph, India: Aping Bush
Expatica, Brussels: Bush chimp photos embarass Dewael
ABC News, Australia: Belgian minister regrets Bush-chimp comparison
Mail & Guardian, South Africa: Belgium red-faced over pics of Bush and chimps
Reuters: Official Calls Bush-Chimp Comparison Bad Taste
Obvious News, Canada: Belgians rapped over Bush-chimp comparison
AZ Central, Phoenix, Arizona: Bush-chimp comparison said to be in bad taste
Gulf Faily News, Bahrain: Manual likens Bush to a chimpanzee
China Economic Net, Beijing: Belgium red-faced over Bush chimpanzee photos

Thursday 31 March 2005 @ 17:40 CET - 19 comments - 3 Trackbacks- Permalink World
Reaganomics, a success story

[mcg]

1. Indeed, it was in bad taste and an apology was in order ...

... because it's an insult to chimps.

Seriously, it is, and everyone here who has compared chimps to Bush should reflect about that unfair comparison. What did any chimp do to you?

[babylonsister]

2. Add another reason to be just so proud of

our leadership! :sarcasm:

[NMDemDist2]

3. link bad? n/t

[texanwitch]

5. sorry this one should work

http://lvb.net/english.php

[yella_dawg]

4. Chimp, Moron, Idiot...

These kind of descriptions (from official sources around the world) abound in regards to Bunnypants.

I can't remember a single incident like this regarding any other US president, or other world leader, other than whispered warnings to go easy on the senile Reagan.

Political blindness on my part, or do R's elect defectives these days.