A political ‘alchemist’?
by
Marcel Van Silfhout |
Wilders’ popularity will be on test at the coming provincial polls
Some people perfectly know how to play semantic tricks, especially when it’s about politics. I tried to avoid writing about the controversial right-wing anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders for a while, but it’s impossible to ignore the present worrisome political phenomenon as the campaign for the Dutch provincial elections will begin on March 2. Wilders is a sort of political alchemist, in another sense, who can turn trust into distrust and freedom of expression into a boycott of free media. Perhaps he will be able to turn gold into mud. The question is will he be successful in the upcoming elections again?
In the last few weeks, some bizarre proposals have been heard. The strange thing is nobody seems to take notice of them anymore when awful lines are spoken. In a popular Dutch talk show, one of the prominent politicians from Wilders’ Party of Freedom – please take note of the mismatch of the word ‘freedom’ – said he wants to ban woman’s headscarf in provincial offices. A few days later, another PVV candidate went even further. He wanted to ban the headscarves in public busses. It’s all said live on the TV in the Netherlands.
The presenter of the talk show asked: “So you even want the Dutch police to stop a bus when someone is wearing a headscarf and then take that woman out?” The PVV candidate answered straight, “yes,” leaving the presenter aghast. But, in a riposte, he asked, “That’s even worse than what happened once in the United States, when you we’re a nigger you perhaps weren’t allowed to sit, but they at least were allowed on the bus!”
Of course, there was a moment of uneasy silence at the talk show table. Other guests looked as if they saw water burning. But still, in a few minutes, the incident seemed to have been forgotten. The other day, some political parties made a lot of buzz about what the PVV member said, but within days the racist-like ‘incident’ wasn’t discussed any more.
Perhaps the alchemist tricks of Wilders and his ‘freedom party’ have a lot to do with the art of being utterly brutal. Before the headscarf ban issue, supported by the Wilders party, died down, another provocative one-liner was heard.
The Netherlands need to build ‘tuigdorpen’ meaning ‘villages for scum’, the populist Wilders was quoted as saying in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. The idea behind this plan is to put all the trouble-makers in fenced villages, owned and guarded by government. Indeed, how perverse can one be?
It’s this kind of ‘brutal semantic alchemy’ which is vitiating the Dutch society. A large group of right-wing electorate seems to enjoy this sort of provocative language as a counter-approach to presumed soft left-wing politics, while the leftist and centrist electorate shiver over such horrifying and de-humanising ideas like a ban on headscarves and ‘scum villages.’
It’s an amazing and surrealistic experience to see how Egypt seems to move in the direction of more democracy, while a popular party in the Netherlands is openly excluding Muslims and other groups from society under the flag of a ‘freedom party.’ Of course, Wilders PVV still isn’t the one and only political party in the Netherlands with its 15.5 per cent of the Dutch vote. But now since he is supporting and tolerating a right-wing minority coalition government, his power is immense.
The coming provincial elections are the first ‘referendum’ for the Netherlands in saying yes or no to the current minority government. It’s a matter of consolidating Wilders and his PVV in the Dutch society against a ‘No’ to him and the cabinet he is supporting.
The reason for this is that the provinces will elect the ‘First Chamber,’ the senate in Holland. If Wilders and the Liberals and Christian Democrats won’t get a majority in the senate, they can’t rule the country anymore.
Last week Wilders proved again to be a turnaround alchemist. In a cartoon on a website of a progressive public broadcast company his proposal for special villages was satirically presented as a Nazi-camp lookalike. Wilders, who recently defended the ‘freedom of speech’ for anti-Islam cartoonists, said he would boycott the broadcast company if it would not pull back the cartoon.
Wilders was confronted with the fact that he has always seen himself as a martyr of ‘freedom of expression.’ So, why did he bother this time now? Was it because he was a ‘victim of freedom of expression’? Can’t he deal with criticism directed at him?
The outcome of the next provincial elections is unclear. Opinion polls aren’t worth much. The fact is the political landscape in the Netherlands is definitively out of synch.
At the same time the word ‘freedom’ is severely abused by Wilders. The utilitarian liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill once wrote a famous book ‘On Liberty’. And although Mill isn’t my favourite as a founding father of liberalism, Wilders should take his lines seriously with his presumed ‘liberal roots.’ For Mill the most important basis of liberty is the ‘sovereign individual.’
The opposite of that is the ‘tyranny of the majority’ wherein through control of etiquette and morality society can do horrific things. Mill’s liberal ‘harm principle’ is apparently unknown to Wilders: “People can do anything they like as long as it does not harm others.”
(Marcel van Silfhout is an investigative reporter working for public Dutch Television)
Oman Tribune
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