FW: Biedermann und die Brandstifter

[Eduard Berentzen]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Ha Bart,

Hopelijk loopt het met een sisser af en keert de wal het stuurloze schip van
fortuyn. Het de massale volks beweging blijft toch een griezelige en
onberekenbare ontwikkeling. Hopelijk heeft men na dit weekend voldoende an
rouw verwerking gedaan en komt men weer tot rede, ik vrees het ergste.

Aardig in dit verband is ook een artikel in de laatste Econonmist. Het staat
op een afgeschremde site ik plak het daarom integraal hier onder ipv de
link:


THE Netherlands has long seemed to combine the best of many worlds: a
booming economy along with a generous welfare state; a keen attitude to
Europe's integration combined with a strong sense of national identity; a
multiracial society that seemed at peace with itself. Pim Fortuyn challenged
this comfortable picture. His murder, allegedly by an animal-rights
extremist, may challenge it further.

In his brief political career, Mr Fortuyn, a flamboyantly gay sociology
professor, had shown that there were many Dutch people ready to vote—which
probably implied many others ready at least to see his point—for a
politician who rejected multiculturalism, called for an end to immigration
and excoriated Islam as a “backward culture” for its intolerance of
homosexuals, attitude to women and more. His followers, under the name of
Liveable Rotterdam, sprang to prominence by coming first in local elections
in that city, his home, in March. At the head of a national Pim Fortuyn
List, he was running strongly in the campaign for the Dutch general election
on May 15th. Already this had called into question the Netherlands' fabled
moderation; but his murder on May 6th was an even deeper shock. Commentators
noted that this was the first political murder in the country since the 17th
century.

After a few hours of agonised reflection, the government decided that the
election would go ahead. But there should be no further campaigning. It is
unclear what impact the murder of Mr Fortuyn will have on the voting. On the
one hand the Pim Fortuyn List, as its name implies, was the quintessence of
a one-man band. Without its leader, the party is bereft of recognisable or
credible names, and might well ultimately fall apart. Yet it remains on the
ballot paper and many voters may back it, as a gesture of sympathy. One
leading Liberal politician worries that “the whole election could turn into
a giant condolence book for Fortuyn”, a reference to the thousands of people
who have queued up outside Rotterdam town hall to sign one there.

If the Fortuyn party does well (and some think it might even come first),
Dutch politics will be in turmoil. None of its candidates has ever sat in
parliament. The second name on the list, after that of Mr Fortuyn, is that
of Joao Varela, a 27-year-old black entrepreneur of Cape Verde origin, with
no political experience. Leading a memorial march in Rotterdam on the night
of May 7th, he seemed out of his depth, blinking back tears whenever
applause rolled through the crowd and barely able to muster a thumbs-up. He
seems completely unready to play a leading part in political life. The rest
of the list are no more impressive.

So even if the Fortuynists get a big vote, they will probably be shut out of
government. That, however, might merely sharpen a trend that Mr Fortuyn had
exposed: a growing dissatisfaction with the political establishment and the
politics of consensus that the mainstream parties embody. Immigration and
crime are now also indelibly on the political agenda.

Commentators outside the Netherlands have tended to see Mr Fortuyn's rise as
part of a growth of far-right politics across Western Europe, likening him
to Jörg Haider in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France. The Dutch
resented those comparisons. Mr Fortuyn preferred to liken himself to
Margaret Thatcher or Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Certainly it is untypical of
far-right politics to be exuberantly gay, to complain about Islam mainly
because of its social illiberalism, and to worry about immigration for fear
that it would make Dutch society less tolerant. The manner of his murder,
apparently by a militant vegan enraged by Mr Fortuyn's willingness to
legalise mink-farming, also had an unusual, if chilling, quality to it.

Yet much of Mr Fortuyn's appeal, like that of Mr Le Pen, was indeed built on
hostility to immigrants. Among the thousands of mourners who gathered to lay
flowers outside Rotterdam town hall, there was much talk of his willingness
to break taboos and “say what he thought”. Few doubted that his major
contribution had been to raise the issue of immigration and to proclaim that
“the Netherlands is full”. It is certainly true that the Netherlands is a
densely-populated country, and that the ethnic-minority population is rising
fast from 1.1m and 7% of the total in 1995 to 1.5m and 9% in 2001. By 2010
it is forecast that ethnic minorities will make up 12% of the population,
and will be in a majority in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Mainstream politicians will now feel compelled to respond to these concerns.
The famously relaxed Dutch police are likely to be urged towards “zero
tolerance” policies and efforts may be made to tighten immigration laws,
even though only 2% of the workforce are unemployed.

Dutch politicians might also profitably learn another lesson from the
Fortuyn phenomenon: a little populism can go a long way. Mr Fortuyn may have
appealed to some unpleasant feelings about immigrants, but he also
introduced a form of high-camp, sharp-tongued theatricality to Dutch
politics that made the country's political leaders seem dull. In the last
television debate before his murder, 40% of viewers reckoned that he had
done best; 26% were most impressed by the Green candidate; and just 8% went
for Ad Melkert, leader of the Labour Party, the dominant force in the
current coalition.



(Ps Ik hoop dat een reply niet verminkt overkomt)


Bart schreef:
Maar ik niet zo bang, optimistisch eerder. Net zoals ze nu in Frankrijk
wel zullen gaan nadenken over hun kies-systeem, is het hier ook wel eens
nuttig als het een beetje mis gaat.

We willen een betere democratie, en niets is beter om wat beweging te
krijgen dan een duidelijke demonstratie van de gebreken.

Ook als iedereen van de Lijst LPF verkozen wordt is een coalitie nodig,
en een partij zonder leider kan onmogelijk veel schade aanrichten.
Misschien komen er hier en daar ook wel aardige ideeen uit. Verder
hebben we ook nog tal van andere lichamen zoals de eerste kamer.

Als de deze verkiezingen echte legitimiteit missen dan zullen nieuwe
niet lang op zich laten wachten.

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