Belgium on sale – ebay
Sep 18th, 2007 by sheetal
Here’s something which I couldn’t stop laughing at. I mean its little weird and same time makes U laugh.
Gerrit Six, a teacher and former journalist posted an ad on ebay.be selling a very unusal item: ‘For Sale: Belgium, a Kingdom in three parts … free premium: the king and his court (costs not included).’ The ad was posted in protest at his country’s political crisis.
‘I wanted to attract attention,’ ‘You almost have to throw a rock through a window to get attention for Belgium.’ said Gerrit Six,
Gerrit, placed the advertisement on Saturday, offering free delivery, but pointing out that the country was coming second-hand and that potential buyers would have to take on over £153 billion (€220 billion) in national debt.
Like many of Belgium’s 10 million citizens, Six is exasperated that the power struggle between the country’s French-speaking and Dutch-speaking political parties has left Belgium in political limbo since June 10 elections. Demands for more autonomy from the Dutch-speaking Flemish are resisted by the French-speaking Walloons, making it impossible to form a government coalition and triggering concern the kingdom is on the verge of a break-up.
Six decided to vent his frustration through the Internet ad.
‘My proposal was to make it clear that Belgium was valuable, it’s a masterpiece and we have to keep it,’ he told Associated Press Television News.
‘It’s my country and I’m taking care of it, and with me are millions of Belgians.’
EBay was happy to take Gerrit’s advertisement.
‘It was a really fun listing made by a Belgian,’ Peter Burin, PR manager of eBay Belgium said. ‘This person, in a very funny way, reminded the Belgians what a great country Belgium actually is and it would be a shame to sell it.’
However, the company decided to pull the ad Tuesday after receiving a bid of €10 million (£6.9 million)
‘We decided to take it down, just to avoid confusion,’ he told APTN.