The word Feier-won literally means Fire-Wagon or Chariot of Fire in Luxembourgish. It stands for the first steam locomotive, which was really a Chariot of Fire from the perspective of the people who saw it for the first time. The Feierwon became the title of a song written by Michel Lentz at the occasion of the opening of the Luxembourgish railway station in 1859. The same song also carried the famous sentence "Mir wölle bleiwe wat mir sinn" (We want to stay what we are) in its refrain.
De Feierwon was also a symbol of the heavy steal industry in the south in the so-called Minette region of Luxembourg. It was an important industrial era for Luxembourg. But like in similar regions outside of Luxembourg like Wallonia and the Saar area, the steal industry declined and Luxembourg had to reconvert its economy to other sources of income.
Thanks to a good cooperation between political and economic actors, this succeeded very well. Banking came up and now audio-visual and satellite industry are the activities in which Luxembourg shows its strengths. It proves you don't need to be a large country to be successful. Efficient decision making is more important.
When SES had launched its first satellite, back in 1988, the prince-héritier, now Grand Duke said: "Mir hunn e neie Feierwon!" - We have a new chariot of fire. He made the perfect hit: a seamless link between the old steal industry and the new technology era. At the same time, the image is extremely well-chosen: a satellite launched by a rocket is literally a chariot of fire, certainly no less than a steam engine and probably resembling the very first "chariot of fire" on which the prophet Elia left his earthly existence according to the Old Testament.
You may say that this is nice but economic success remains of course dependent on good financial results. True, but the history of the satellite industry shows that at critical moments, people also needed some kind of belief, a willingness to do the unlikely or the impossible. A good economic vision can be supported by an engagement built on cultural convictions. It determines the identity of a country or a region.
I refer to my earlier blog Luxembourg and Economics of Good and Evil. Picture: Bocman1973 / Shutterstock.com
