I understand that there were economic influences behind Belgian independence, but it seems weird to me that, given the societal trends of the time, the Flemish would have preferred to share their future with the Walloons, rather than with the Dutch. I'm not enormously familiar with the way different cultures interact in that part of the world, but the way I see it, to give a contemporary analogy, it would be like Northumbrians deciding to join the Scottish independence movement, or West Papuans declaring allegiance to Timor-Leste.