Posted on 05/01/2002 2:35:36 PM PDT by knighthawk
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — For the Dutch, it's an election like no other. The dispassionate politicians who have led them for decades are facing an unfamiliar, bare-knuckle fight that is forcing the nation to confront long-hidden demons.
The campaign for the May 15 parliamentary elections has been energized by a flamboyant, shaven-headed former academic and columnist, a man who leads an openly gay lifestyle, supports personal liberties, and has laid claim to leadership of Holland's perennially vacant political right.
Pim Fortuyn has dictated debate with verbal attacks on the country's growing Muslim population and with an indictment of the shortcomings of what many other Europeans see as one of the most successful countries on the continent.
Fortuyn (pronounced fore-TOWN) has opened a closet door, revealing an array of skeletons: latent racism, poor public services, abysmal work ethics, corrupt business practices.
``The most important effect of the Fortuyn phenomenon is that many things have been pushed out into the open and made explicit. What was politically incorrect two years ago is now open for discussion,'' said Peter Groot, an associate professor of linguistics at Utrecht University.
Fortuyn's rise mirrors a right-wing resurgence in several European countries, lately highlighted by the anti-immigrant Jean Marie Le Pen's surprise showing in the first round of French presidential elections.
Yet it seems out of place in the Netherlands, which has a reputation for liberalism. It was the first country to legalize gay marriages, regulate prostitution, approve and control euthanasia, and tolerate the over-the-counter sale of marijuana in hundreds of ``coffee shops.''
Though tolerant of such subcultures, Fortuyn's popularity has exposed a deep vein of suspicion of immigrants in Europe's most densely populated country, about 2 million of whose 16 million people are not native Dutch. About 800,000 are Muslims.
At 54, Fortuyn is one of Holland's oldest front-line politicians and its most colorful. He's a brash contrast in a political culture that has long been bland and stuffy.
By tradition, policy decisions have come from consensus born out of committees, countless studies by government institutes and quiet debate in the back rooms of parliament.
There's nothing quiet about the confrontational Fortuyn.
In TV and newspaper interviews, he slammed the three-party coalition of Prime Minister Wim Kok for allowing public services to decline while the economy grew an average 3 percent annually for five straight years. Price-fixing scandals in government construction projects have underscored a common feeling that something is amiss.
On April 16, Kok's Cabinet resigned over an exhaustive study that partly blamed the government for failing to prevent the murder of 7,500 Muslim men and boys in the Dutch-patrolled U.N. enclave of Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995.
Fortuyn appeared on national television within an hour of the resignation to accuse the Cabinet of ``walking away from responsibilities'' by avoiding a parliamentary debate on the Srebrenica killings, which have nagged the national conscience for seven years.
But it's his scathing campaign against immigrants that has won him the most converts.
``The Netherlands is not an immigration country. The annual stream of tens of thousands of newcomers, who largely end up as illegal aliens, must stop,'' Fortuyn says.
He calls Islam anti-secular and backward, and blames Muslim immigrants for rising crime. ``Islam separates people. They see us as inferior. Moroccan boys never steal from a Moroccan, did you ever notice that?'' he said to the newspaper De Volkskrant earlier this year.
At first, Fortuyn was dismissed as appealing only to the bigoted fringe. Then he stunned the nation March 6 when his makeshift 6-week-old party won 35 percent of the vote for city council seats in Rotterdam, nearly half of whose residents come from immigrant backgrounds.
After his landslide, TV debates suddenly became less civil.
``When you are criticized on your vulnerable points, you make theater and you don't deal with the issues. That's your weakness,'' Green party leader Paul Rosenmoller said to Fortuyn.
Polls suggest Fortuyn's popularity may have peaked. NIPO, a reputable Dutch polling firm, at one point projected 29 seats for Fortuyn's party in the 150-member parliament, but its April 18 sounding lowered it to 24.
It hardly matters. Fortuyn has not only changed the flavor of politics, he has bared the Dutch soul.
``Our tolerance is being put to the test, and it has not come out very well,'' said Rita Schriemer of the Rotterdam Anti-Discrimination Action Committee.
``There has always been an undercurrent of racism,'' said Han van der Horst, a social historian. ``If Muslims wanted to build a mosque, the neighbors would complain about a parking problem. That would never happen if they wanted to build a church.''
Immigrants say discrimination is rampant. Complaints to anti-defamation bureaus nationwide rose last year by 11 percent — nearly double the increase of the previous year.
Schriemer, who compiled the figures, sees a shift in the political environment. ``Tolerance toward Muslims is wearing thin,'' she said.
Immigrants are widely blamed for rising crime rates and hard drug use, but police refuse to release ethnic data to prevent stigmatizing any community.
Fortuyn advocates abandoning the treaty that eased cross-border movement among many European countries. ``The Netherlands is full,'' he says. He also wants to weaken the constitutional guarantee against discrimination.
He would slash generous disability and illness benefits, which some blame for hobbling an economy where close to 20 percent of the work force is on short- or long-term sick leave. And he would freeze spending on health and education, arguing there is plenty of bureaucratic waste that can be cut.
Although it has not suffered the same severe economic downturn as other European countries, the Dutch inflation last year was Europe's highest at 5.1 percent, and there's a constant murmur of discontent over long waiting lines for medical care, overcrowded schools and persistent problems with the trains.
``My mother has Alzheimer's,'' said van der Horst, the historian. ``It took me two years to get her into a home — and all the while sitting in late trains.''
Fortuyn becamse famous when he went into debate on tv with Imam Haselhoef. Haselhoef claimed that homosexuals should be executed (he later said he was not talking about Holland, but in coutries where it is law, like Saudi Arabia). As Fortuyn is gay, I can imagine why he dislikes islam. Also Fortuyn's party (List Pim Fortuyn) is just one of the two parties (Livable Netherlands, the former party of Fortuyn) that supports Israel 100% (Fortuyn wrote in 1997 a book about Israel).
In Rotterdam, the city where his local party won the elections, a shocking crime figure was presented: after a report of the police, it became apperent that 99% of all street-robberies were being committed by immigrants (31% Moroccans, 45% Antillian, the rest by Turks or Easter-Europeans). Maybe that gives you people a clue why so many people voted Fortuyn.
The demonization of Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch up and coming politician
Also the Green party mentioned is Green Left. A few weeks after the debate where Rosenmoller made that remark about Fortuyn could not take critisizm, Rosenmoller made the same mistake. He was interviewed and he was asked what he and his party has done for the Dutch people, he answered with things like educational projects for criminal immigrants, integration projects and so on. The interviewer then asked him again, but he also added "no I did ask you what have you done for Dutch people". Rosenmoller was silent and began to stutter. He left and forbid broadcast of this interview. He later said that the interview could be broadcasted.
More on Green Left (and the PvdA, socialists) in Amsterdam and what they have done for us Dutch people:
Group-rape of girl cover up attempt uncovered in Holland
Group-rape of girl cover up in Holland - an update
AP thinks a truly TOLERANT people should overlook such a minor detail. Its gotta be the latent racism.
His site www.pim-fortuyn.nl has "fotos", but can't be hyperlinked. Here's one from another site:
F.V. - shades of Karzai???
To make up for it his poster:
If my choice was between the dubious Dutchman, and the murdering Musli, I'll take the Dutchman every time.
His points are right on target: Holland isn't an immigrant country (tiny, most densely populated in Europe). Musli don't follow long-held western values, do crimes.
Voters across Europe will be sending messages of (non)appreciation, to their governments.
Hmmm, I think muesli is a type of breakfast cereal.
Would our esteemed "social historian" care to project what the result would be, should a Christian choose to construct a church in Saudi Arabia?
Yet, the Dutch are expected to be tolerant of these invaders, who would show them zero tolerance whatsoever in their own Turd World hellhole homelands.
The history of Holland, a tiny nation which rose to greatness on the world stage (a greatness in vast disproportion to its size), proves that the nation did just fine without Islam. If and when it becomes Islamic, will it still be the same nation it was? Will it do just fine with Islam? Somehow I doubt it, and I have a sick feeling we are going to find out.
For a good laugh, by the way, go the Guardian talk boards and watch how self-hating, constipated, idiots perceive Fortuyn. One would think that these clowns would at least cut him some slack because he is an "oppressed person" himself, but one would be wrong. I suppose the ethnic/racial aspect trumps all others.
What do you think ?
The only remedy is to cull out those illegally there, and then for the Dutch to have more babies.Having babies?
While agree whole heartedly that all Europeans need to REPRODUCE. It is easier to get outsiders to do your dirty work. The mind-set that has immigrants doing the dirty work needs to be changed. Let in only the people who can make a contribution. If they stay 6 months without finding their place -- KICK-EM OUT!!
Nasty things have to be done to make society run and it is clear immigrants can be good or bad depending on the immigrants mind set. The Dutch have found out real quick that letting people in your country without skills doesn't work well most of the time.
In the US we have millions who stream across the border in the south without skills and their backlash hasn't been felt yet!!
This sounds interesting what are the URLs?
Go to the Talk forums, then to the International Boards.
The boards have a few conservatives there, and although they are outnumbered, they generally are more intelligent than the Marxists, and make their points better.
What's Pim's stance on the issue of recreational narcotics?
One thing you can be certain of the use of "musli" for more than one muslim: I DO mean for it to be disrespectful!!
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