European Diary/Jamie Smyth:It has been a busy week for Wouter van Bellingen, the first black alderman elected in Flanders, the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium.
In an extraordinary event that captured the imagination of Belgians, van Bellingen staged a mass wedding ceremony for 626 couples in his home town of Sint-Niklaas last Wednesday.
Dressed in a stunning white suit with a red shirt and tie, van Bellingen declared the loving couples united as a gospel choir sang We shall overcome and onlookers tucked into a buffet of multicultural desserts and joined in a huge wedding dance.
"I am very proud of my city," van Bellingen told The Irish Times. "This event was very important to make a stand, and for public opinion."
For behind all the champagne, kisses and the obligatory Belgian chip vans in the largest market square in Belgium last week was a serious campaign to root out racism in the Flemish town.
The story began last month when three couples in Sint-Niklaas refused to be wed by their new black alderman. They wanted an "all-white" wedding, according to the local media, which quickly seized on the story as another example of entrenched racism in Flanders.
"They didn't want to be married by me. One couple told me directly and the two others cancelled as well," said van Bellingen, who was adopted at birth by his Flemish parents and has never met his real parents, who are from Rwanda.
"So friends of mine and local associations in Sint-Niklaas organised the wedding event on international anti-racism day in the town to send a strong message about the problem of racism."
Couples came from all over Belgium to take part in the anti-racism event. Most of them were already married but chose to renew their vows. Many locals also turned out, according to interviews conducted at the event by Associated Press.
"I felt ashamed in my city when it happened. I do this for a better future," said Katrien Waeckens, who renewed her marriage vows five years after her wedding.
Racism in Sint-Niklaas or in Flanders is not a new phenomenon. A quarter of voters in the town cast their ballot at the recent elections for the anti-immigration party Vlaams Belang. There were also several high-profile racist attacks last year, including the murder of a nanny from Mali, shot in broad daylight in Antwerp by an 18-year-old who is related to a member of the Vlaams Belang party. Political commentators point to fears over immigration as one of the key factors driving support for the radical party, which is due to contest the Belgian general election in June.
"There is a current debate about immigration and citizenship in the run-up to the elections as some parties want to make it more difficult to get Belgian citizenship," says Carl Devos, politics professor at Ghent University. "But it would be wrong to assume that Flemish people are more racist than anywhere else. Polls show racism is as entrenched in Wallonia (Belgium's other region) and elsewhere in Europe."
Van Bellingen agrees Flanders is no different from other EU regions. "I certainly experienced acts of racism. People calling you names and other subtler forms of racism. But racism is not only a problem for one party or one region - it is a problem across the whole of Europe. That is why it was important to act in this case."
Predictably, the leader of the Vlaams Belang group on Sint-Niklaas town council slammed the event as a waste of public money.
"When they want to give a show, an anti-racist show, that's okay when there is a majority on the city council to do so," said Frans Wymeers. "But now it's a bridge too far. It's for the promotion, the political promotion for one man, and that's too far."
The Belgian media is also speculating that van Bellingen will stand in the general election on the back of his "mass wedding" success, which attracted news crews from all over the world. But the Sint-Niklaas alderman is playing his cards close to his chest. "That is not up for discussion at the moment," he said.