Jef Elbers

Jef Elbers (born 19 September 1947) is a Flemish singer, script writer, and political activist. Jef Elbers’ was born in Brussels, the son of a Ukrainian mother. His father, a Brussels citizen, worked as head of department at the national telegraph and telephone company (RTT) and his mother was a housewife. His parents survived the Nazi concentration camps: his father ended up there as a prisoner of war, while his Ukrainian mother, as Untermensch, was a victim of the racial policy of Nazi Germany. This makes him a so-called victim of the second generation. Jef Elbers attended the Jesuit College, studying Latin and Sciences. He was married, but is now divorced. He has 5 children. In 1973 he won a talent competition, hosted by radio station Omroep Brabant from the broadcasting network of the Belgian Radio and Television. This is the beginning of a career as a singer, which leads to the production, between 1973 and 1984, of 6 long players. Elbers' involvement in politics was shaped in reaction to the attitudes of Brussels' francophone upper classes, who tended to perceive the Flemish as the equivalent of foreign workers. In this, he followed in the path of his ancestor Ferdinand Elbers, secretary of the Brussels federation of the Belgian Labour Party (POB-BWP) who, due to the language problems within the federation, asked in 1901: "Comrades, don't you think a Flemish Member of Parliament becomes necessary in our district, composed of 125 municipalities of which 112 are exclusively Dutch. We do our duty by pointing out that, outside the capital, we are asked to designate a Flemish representative, and that the Federation would act very judiciously in the future by designating a representative able to speak and to write the language of the people outside of the Brussels district." At the age of 16, Elbers, who, in his songs, appears to be a bohemian and anti-bourgeois, became a member of the Order of Flemish militants (VMO), an activist group, to participate in a more structured way to the Flemish resistance. At the age of 19, he went to Canada to harvest tobacco. Upon his return, with his brother Wim he brought new life to the inactive department of the People's Union (Volksunie) in Schaerbeek. In 1969, an activist of the so-called Democratic Front of Francophones (FDF) with a not very good health suffers from a heart attack during an action of the VMO. After this incident, the VU seems to dissociate from its activists. Disappointed, Elbers then withdraws from active political life. In 1973 he won a talent competition, hosted by radio station Omroep Brabant from the broadcasting network of the Belgian Radio and Television. This began his career as a singer, which led to the production, between 1973 and 1984, of 6 long players. From 1974 onwards, Elbers starts to be appreciated as a singer with a repertoire in the Brussels dialect. Recurring themes in his texts become the destruction of Brussels and Elbers’ sympathy for the Flemish proletarian. His most famous song is Leopold II, a song in which he treats these two subjects. On the one hand, it is a song about a homeless tramp, wandering around in Brussels, who physically resembles the second Belgian king; on the other hand, the singer took the opportunity to deplore the "decline" of his hometown. In the meantime, the Egmont Pact of 1977, which was a political pact between the majority parties under the government of prime minister Leo Tindemans, further strengthens his aversion to the VU as he considered the concessions this party was prepared to make to obtain the transformation of Belgium into a federal state, unacceptable. Elbers went over to Lode Claes’ Flemish People's Party, then operative especially in the Brussels region. For the Vlaams Blok, the successor of the Flemish People's Party (and of Karel Dillen’s Flemish National Party, which bundled forces on a kartel-list with the first), he became a candidate for the municipal elections of 1988 in Schaerbeek. In the meantime, in 1978, the singer had moved from the Brussels’ dialect to Dutch. In 1983, he launched his vinyl long player In 't midden van' t gewoel (In the middle of the hustle and bustle). "Very strong, if not virulent in his Flemish protest, was Brussels singer Jef Elbers, who always profiled himself as an illustrious opponent of Belgium", as Peter Notte writes in his (except for Internet) unpublished thesis, while noting that, of all the singers dedicated to the Flemish cause, he probably was the most committed Fleming, while singers such as Wannes Van de Velde stood rather for a more lenient inclination, whereas a group of singers like De Elegasten embodied the superlative that provided Elbers the opportunity to raise the bid. The same year, Jef Elbers wrote a poem in tribute to the leader of the VMO, Bert Eriksson. From the eighties onwards, Jef Elbers had also been working for the Dutch broadcastings of the Belgian Radio and Television (BRT). Under the nom de plume Dick Durver, Elbers wrote scripts for television programs for the youngsters, such as Merlina, Postbus X and Interflix. Merlina is a detective series for children. Initially, the intention was not to make twenty episodes, but finally 95 of them were created. Elbers worked on the program In 't lieg plafon, for the radio, which was broadcast in the Brussels dialect. In the mid-eighties, Elbers abandoned his career as a singer. Elbers was a board member of his former employer, BRTN, from April 1992 onwards. He was the first representative of the Vlaams Blok, the party for which he was a candidate in municipal elections of 1988 in Schaerbeek. After having been designated as their representative on the board of directors, the Vlaams Blok, stated in February 1992 that it wanted to contribute constructively to the management of the BRTN: ”an institution that has been in the past one of the sharpest opponents of the Vlaams Blok.” The party will ensure that the BRTN won't take up more misinformation, manipulation or interpretation, wishes to promote Flemish citizenship and puts the emphasis on Flemish culture. Jef Elbers states that he wants to work for "a public radio and television nearer to the people, that merits respect, expresses joy to work and gives priority to the own Dutch culture." Elbers is one of the few artists that the party has drawn so far. Elbers also criticized what he called 'the agency of emancipation' of the BRTN: "This service was established to please Miet Smet and handles so-called 'affirmative action' for women in the House." (Note: BRTN) "This agency of emancipation would do better to investigate why the women of the BRTN are, on average, ill four days longer as their male colleagues, rather than studying with Paula D'Hondt how a foreigner could get a job at the BRTN.” Having lived many years in Schaerbeek, Jef Elbers moved to and settled in the coastal town Knokke-Heist in 1993, and in December of that year, he became (temporarily) Chairman of the Knokke-Heist Department of the VB. In 1994, BRTN launches a new series for youngsters, Interflix; a BRTN production made with a small budget and much enthusiasm, according to an article in the newspaper Het Belang van Limburg (The Interest of Limburg). Like Postbus X, Interflix is a mild, both relaxing and exciting soap for young people between 10 and 14 years. The stories, written by Dick Durver/Jef Elbers, are as simple and highly structured as those of popular comics. "Some heroes, of which one is a little bit cleverer than the other, are faced with a situation that causes some small problems. At the end of the episode, the problems are solved: the heroes are the winners and possible culprits bow their head in remorse.” ”If in Merlina, it was still a real detective agency and in Postbus X the office of a newspaper, Interflix is the story of an agency that is organized in a somewhat chaotic way and which attracts a lot of trouble in different ways.” Elbers, when taking the decision to refocus his