Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan has published an analysis of recent political events in the Netherlands at FrontPage Mag. Some excerpts are below:
On March 19, 2014, local elections were held in the Netherlands. On the eve of the election, party leaders celebrated their victories (or losses, as it were, for most parties). During the festivities Dutch politician Geert Wilders appeared in the Hague, one of the two cities in which Wilders’ party, the PVV (Party for Freedom), participated in this election. In a rousing speech before enthusiastic party supporters, Wilders asked the audience if they wanted a bit less local taxation and fewer Moroccans. The audience shouted, “Less! Less! Less!” This created a storm of protest from just about everyone in the country. Wilders’ remark was taken out of context and is being used to vilify him once more.
The political climate in the Netherlands surrounding Wilders now resembles the demonization of Pym Fortuyn in the months leading up to his assassination almost twelve years ago.
Last Sunday the IKON and EO TV stations broadcast a special interreligious Dutch Reformed service denouncing Wilders. The theme was based on Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. The Sunday service theme was a copycat variation: “We are all Moroccans.” Dutch people present literally embraced Moroccans to show their support for this poor, vilified minority. People wore T-shirts with the text “Wij zijn Marokkanen!” (“We are Moroccans!”).
The message of the fanfare was: We abhor the outright racist remarks of Geert Wilders last Wednesday. We strive towards an all-inclusive society, in which people of all races, cultures, religions and sexual preferences live together in peace. We believe that God/Allah wants it to be that way.
All political parties left, right and center denounced Wilders and demanded his apology. Wilders, nonetheless, is standing by his words.
The VVD (conservative party) Prime Minister has joined the chorus of critics, which now includes all major parties. His party was the last to join.
The PvdA (Labor) party is going even further. They announced that no parliamentary motion presented by the PVV will be supported by the PvdA. No matter what, the PvdA say they will vote against any PVV measure. Once a motion fails, the PvdA will propose it again and this time support it as their own party motion.
[…]
In contrast, another news item in which fifteen “lightly tinted” juveniles (the politically correct term for Moroccan hoodlums) entered a house, seriously mistreated the three inhabitants, ransacked the premises and got away before the police arrived on Friday does not warrant any attention anymore. If only because it would firmly underline the words of Wilders.
[…]
PVV parliamentarians on various political levels are walking out in droves. This includes two members of the PVV faction in parliament, together with most members of the newly-elected city councils in the Hague and Almere.
What Wilders said was taken out of context and was blown out of all proportions, simply to divert attention. He didn’t say anything he hadn’t said before, or what Labor politicians said a couple of years ago themselves. He probably didn’t realize that his words would be given so much attention. But since they were, Wilders has taken the opportunity to make a defiant stand on principles he has long championed.
There is a very good reason for Wilders’ opponents to gin up this controversy and distract the Dutch public.
[…]
However, this political calculation may not be as sound as it may seem. Politicians may be leaving the PVV, but the electorate is not. 85% of present PVV voters will vote the same way again. They have full confidence in Wilders. And after all, it’s not the first time such an all-out attack has been made on the PVV leader. Every time he emerges stronger from it. Also, most people don’t like it very much if politicians change their opinions quicker than the weather. Or talk in vague, opaque terms. Sir Humphrey Appleby was by far the funniest character in “Yes Minister”; in real life people don’t like politicians like him.
Wilders always looks for long-term solutions; he doesn’t go for short-term victories as all other politicians do. This is the second local election he basically ignored. The party doesn’t have enough qualified members to be able to govern effectively, so they prefer not to govern. The pragmatic maneuvering has seemed to have paid off politically. But now Wilders is finding, once again, that with a rising political star comes retribution.
Read the rest at FrontPage Mag.
It’s not unreasonable to expect people engaging in controversial politics to have a high degree of political nous, and in the current political and cultural climates it is the mark of a political naif to make such explicit reference to a partricular ethnic group. One cannot but wonder if Mr Wilders is competent. The same observation applies to ‘Tommy Robinson’, a man who seems to be completely incapable of keeping himself out of trouble.
The dreadful consequences of immigration cannot be dealt with until discussing the problem is no longer considered a serious criminal offence and efforts to create popular demand for the repeal of pernicious and restrictive legislation will be more useful than what are effectively nothing more than half-witted publicity stunts.
It was a stupid thing to say and the net result is a decline in support for the PVV, which is not what Mr Wilders wants, is it?
It was only a stupid thing to say if he did not want the fallout. More and more I’m considering the PVV to be ‘controlled opposition’, a deflector of anger to allow the established ‘elite’ to continue on their course. It’s not the first time Wilders does not pull through when he’s gained the momentum.
He’s smart enough to know what the effects of these statements are, and kept digging after finding himself in a hole. I can only see that as deliberate. It ensures that whatever the growth of the PVV it will never have to take responsibility and can stay an opposition party, which is always favorable for growth.
During the past few years the PVV has distinctively moved towards he left and can be considered to be yet another collectivist, socialist party, and on top of that in favor of a police state. While it focuses on the symptom of growing islamic fundamentalism in The Netherlands, it refuses to focus on the root cause of that growth: favoritism by the state, who actively imports that fundamentalism.
The problems addressed by Wilders would not have been problems at all if the state would have fulfilled its primary obligation: keeping it’s citizens safe. But that is not the objective, and that’s not what’s being addressed by the PVV.
The severe Progressive-Liberal dementia that, as I pointed out several times, fits every clinical and colloquial definition of insanity, is such that no message from Reality can reach it until the house has caved in upon itself. This case with Wilders is eerily similar to a much earlier one, with Enoch Powel. He, a great man, saw the truth and put it out simply in his 1968 Rivers of Blood speech. That he was excoriated for it then, including uniformly by his own Conservative Party, I can let pass. But that the Rivers of Blood prophecy has come true since it was made 46 years ago, and is evident in Britain’s streets and parks and public transit every day, and Powell is still untouchable to any but the reviled and maligned “extreme right wingers” is another — and in it is the proof of insanity and the subtext of the Dark Albion syndrome Dymphna writes about below.
Holland, like most of the West, will go down celebrating its multiculti, “inclusive” goodness. Then, when it has crashed, and the wailing, gasping and gnashing of the teeth are the music of the day, people will wake up to the idea that perhaps they were wrong, and Geert Wilders was right.
Yes but then it will be too late ! I hope Wilders has something up his sleeve. A lot of uncomfortable facts were presented at his last trial.
He might want to make another example of this.
A lot of lefty’s were even horrified at that case and saw the light ( for a while). There was a lot of hysteria about his ” Fitna” but nobody not even Muslims could disagree the quotes he used were simply quotes from the Quran.
This is not the first time he has caused a controversy and many have wondered why. But he has lost support before, he then won more votes than ever.
There are some who believe he is ” controlled opposition”
And I admit I sometimes wonder myself for various reasons, but i hope not and that he is cleverer than most think he is at the moment. As I said he has been here before.
I think the dreadful consequences of immigration can be dealt with only by discussing the dreadful consequences of immigration.
A friendly comment.
Unfortunately, one of the dreadful consequences of immigration is that we cannot discuss the dreadful consequences of immigration any longer unless we are heroic as is Geert Wilders and swim against the nauseating effluent of the herd.
Not many Geert Wilders, Michael Stürzenbergers and their ilk about…:(
If the Dutch would get a vote in the US elections 90% would vote demo(c)ratic. No matter who the candidate is. There never has been any conservative party in the Netherlands until mr. Fortuyn started one. The PVV is the successor of that “movement”.
When mr Frits Bolkestein – once the leader of this so called right wing party VVD-started speaking about immigration he was a racist and a nazi.
Same thing when mr Fortuyn got demonized and murdered. And now mr. Wilders.
Last monday i was reading a news article about the current situation in Venezuela. Same lingo coming from the comrades in Venezuela. The socialistic Bolivarian revolution must be protected against the fascists from the right.
Socialists and there supporters don’t only use violent terms for everyone who dont agree with them. They are more then willing to use that violence if there idea’s don’t stand the test in society.
I no longer see any basis for debate with 90% of the Dutch population. I sure as hell dont believe in their “representative democracy”. I want the Swiss model or if thats not possible? A anti-socialist revolution is another option.
I think that Moroccans belong in Morocco with their fellow Moroccans.
Discussing requires something impossible: all parties left and right would have to admit their policy was wrong over a period of more than 30 years. That’s not going to happen.
A demand for analytical symmetry would require that it be criminal to advocate for the replacement of locals with Moroccans. What a great debate can be had when all sides have no choice but silence?
The problem of debating this issue is that all parties must accept at least for this debate that migration on a massive scale was wrong. CDA and VVD were in favor because it kept wages nicely low. That was good for export. Left wing parties loved it, because they suddenly found a whole new group of poor desillusioned people voting for them.
I don’t see that happening in a hurry. If they could ignore what had happened, yes. Perhaps.
This “We believe” being more persuasive than visible facts has pushed the world into one human disaster after another. It is even worse than one group being led by their scripture to hold everyone not subscribing to the same creed as enemy who ought to be eradicated. This group at least still has a sense for self-preservation, while the incorrigible addicts of the multiculti drug can’t see the hand before their eyes, let alone what’s coming their way and what is said about them in the mosques. We would abandon them if we didn’t know we’d be going down with the ship. What a feeling, to be dependent on people who happily sacrifice their next of kin to some distant idol.