The demonization of Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch up and coming politician

Last week there were local elections in the Netherlands. In Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn took part with his party 'Livable Rotterdam'. Pim Fortuyn has also formed a new national party, 'List Fortuyn'. He quickly became known in the international as 'the Dutch Haider', calling him 'far right' and comparing his politics to that of Haider and some people in the Netherlands call him fascist or nazi'.

Wim Kok called Fortuyn an evil man and he was using the hate against immigrants, the BBC and Time compared him to Haider, Marcel van Dam (ex-PvdA, currently has a political 'discussion' program on national TV with the VARA, the PvdA broadcaster) openly described Fortuyn as a nazi.

In last weeks local elections the PvdA and VVD lost big in Rotterdam to Fortuyn. Livable Rotterdam became the biggest party and the PvdA called it a landslide. Of course, Fortuyn was only winning because he used 'popular ideas' to win votes, and when he comes to power, the immigrants will become targets of hate. But what the national media was not telling, the newspaper on the Rotterdam area (also available nationwide), Algemeen Dagblad, was that 1 of every 5 voters in one of the Turkish quarters voted for Fortuyn (Algemeen Dagblad, edition March 9). They voted Fortuyn because they blame the bankruptcy of 300 to 400 Turkish shopkeepers to the PvdA and the other parties. "They have done nothing to help us", say a man about the PvdA.

It is true Fortuyn wants to lessen the number of refugees coming to the Netherlands, and he said 'Islam is a backward religion'. These sayings are used to compare him to Haider. And Fortuyn also wants to tackle the enormous share in crime of the Moroccan and Antillian immigrants (and their children) in the Netherlands. But just how honest is the media?

Fortuyn does not want to stop refugees coming to the Netherlands completely, he wants to make certain only political refugees come here, not the 'calculating' economical ones, that make up 80% of the refugees, according to Fortuyn, and even people working at the Dutch immigration authorities. He want to make sure refugees who throw away their passports or lie about their status are no longer allowed to stay, and send the criminal refugees back with the same plane. And note that the VVD shouted these things 8 years ago, gaining a lot of voters and get in power together with the PvdA (socialists, their leader Wim Kok, is prime-minister). Back then the VVD was awarded into the government. And even the PvdA, the party that accuses Fortuyn of fascism, now all of the sudden also says thing like this! They only negative thing is that Fortuyn said he wanted to stop Muslims from entering the Netherlands.

Fortuyn referred to Islam as being 'a backward religion'. He made that statement in one of his books, title 'Against the islamization of our culture'. Fortuyn accuses fundamentalistic Muslims of aiming to destroy the Western societies to replace them with Islamic republics with their sharia laws. "For Muslims, as a homosexual, I am less than a pig. I am proud that in the Netherlands I can come out for my homosexuality, and I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much." This explain a lot about the way Fortuyn thinks about Islam. This was illustrated by an Imam, El Moumni, who said on national TV that "all homosexuals should be killed". Later an Islamic scholar Hasselhoef said El Moumni didn't mean it that way, according to him he ment to say "that homosexuals should be killed where law permitted i!."

Another answer lies in something the media does not want to mention: the passionate way he defends the state of Israel and the Jews. In another book, titled '50 years Israel, but for how long?' he makes a 'crusade' against the up and coming Islamic fundamentalism. The books subtitle is 'Against the tolerance of fundamentalism'. He compares Islam to Western values and concludes that Islam comes nowhere near the things accomplished in the West. Also he concludes that Christianity and Jews have almost no more fundamentalists and that socialism and communism have come to an end.

In this book he sees the state of Israel as 'the roadmap for a trip to paradise on earth, that nowhere on this planet is being found but is being pursued by many with only their words.' Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, democracy, equality of men and woman, separation of power, police and justice and so on he names as things that Israel did accomplish, while it's neighbors almost stood still in time. And he wishes al least another 50 years to be added to the last 50.

Also in one of his columns, he attacks Wim Kok and the way he welcomed Arafat to the Netherlands:

Our minister-president, Wim Kok (PvdA), was allowed to quickly shake the hand of Yasser Arafat and thereby giving the world the impression that the Netherlands are running along in the world of the big states. Of course, the last thing is not the case.

Tony Blair is busy with his, by the free West to imposed, new world order. A dangerous project and no civilian, not even the ones in their own countries, has asked for and will come at a great prize. In this daylight we can view the advances towards Arafat. He is from today on a poor darling that we should respect and deserves to be helped in his fight against the 'oppression' by the state of Israel from Sharon.

Now one cannot say the Jews are the nicest of people. If they were than they would have never accomplish this much in 50 years, they build a fantastic country with a profitable economy, mostly on rough terrain and the lack of useful raw materials. A presentation of epic porportions, that no other nation has accomplished in such a short time. No, would they have been the nicest people, they would have been swimming in the sea because of the Arabic nations and mostly by the terror of the Palestinians.

The memory is short, even with the politicians/worldimprovers like Tony Blair (Labour). It is about a year ago that Clinton, Barak and Arafat (yes, yes) agreed to a peace-treaty between the Jews and Palestinians. But after some consideration Arafat decided he made to many concessions in Camp David, with points like Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees to Jewish land. The Jews did not want to give up Jerusalem, but they wanted to give a part of it to the Palestinians, a shared Jerusalem.

The treaty meant that there was an agreement with far-reaching concessions on Israel's side. When Arafat came home, he came to the conclusion that he could reach for more when he did throw in a intifada. This would prove to be a miscalculation: in the next elections Barak was abandoned by voters and they voted Sharon, ex-general, for prime-minister. I can understand this after the way Barak got Arafats reaction. The general did not give in to terror of the intifada, instead he fought it.

Blair and Kok seem to have forgotten it and now say Israel and their leader Sharon is the parasite of the world and the aggressor. They do not welcome Sharon and in the foolish state of Belgium Sharon maybe will be arrested. Sharon is accused by our Southern neighbors of crimes of war and crimes against humanity and therefor has to appear in a Belgium, sic!, court.

Arafat has got nothing to fear, he has got clean hands, al his terroristic acts against innocent civilians in Israel are forgiven by the Belgians!

It is time that Sharon is invited here to visit our country and to strengthen our friendship. Also it's time to say to the Palestinians to do something useful on their land with the millions of aid they recieve. Instead of tunneling the money to Swiss bank-accounts from corrupt PA elitist, they need to invest it in a state. Justice, democracy and the economy. The situation was for the Jews not much different back in 1948. I would say: go Yasser, show the world and the Jews that you can do it too! Suppress the stone-throwers and give them a shovel and start to make something of your land. That will make a much bigger impression than this intifada you started and who know even a Palestinian state may appear where Jews and Palestines can live next to eachother in peace.
If that ever could be!

According to Fortuyn we owe it to support Israel fully. "We in Europe," he states, "need to consider two things. First, that the Jews now live more than 50 years in modernity, like our culture, and defend it with all they are worth. Second, the state of Israel was founded because of a black page on the history of mankind, the Holocaust.

It is time Wim Kok (PvdA) invites Sharon to the Netherlands like he welcomed Arafat at the Catshuis, to underline the friendship of the Netherlands and Israel. In times of need one learns who his real friends are! (referring to 9/11).

Also when asked about the situation in Israel: "The Palestines are gangmembers, and Arafat is their gangleader.

Are these the words from a nazi? Or a fascist? No, these are the words from a man that defends Israel with all his heart!

Marcel van Dam used to be a politician during the Van den Uyl cabinet for the PvdA. After his term, during which he was arrested for drunk-driving, but let off the hook after a phone-call from PvdA leader and prime-minister Van den Uyl (of course, no class-justice in their eyes), he became the facade of the VARA, the TV/radio broadcaster form the PvdA.

He called Fortuyn a nazi in his 'discussion' program 'Lagerhuis'. Last year during the same show, he said that the Palestines had the right to kill Israelis for their occupations of their land!

Today it was announced that Fortuyn will get 27 of the 150 seats in the next national elections, surpassing the VVD and nearing the CDA and PvdA in the polls. Last week he got 18 seats in the polls, but his this week published book 'the scrapheaps of 8 years of Purple' (Purple is the coalition government of PvdA/VVD/D'66) made him jump 9 seats. Although the book officialy came out today, it was sold in bookstores on monday and sold out the 10,000 books in one day.

Allthough not a topic of the Middle East, I used this list because a lot of people on it are Jewish. There have been articles calling Fortuyn a nazi and there was mention of the rise of the 'far right' in the Netherlands. This will set the record straight.

Wow--I think I like this guy:

Very good new. Very good that he says he is gay now so it cannot be used against him. Interesting man there. Send it Andrew Sullivan. He would like this one!

He always said he was gay, but it does not stop the real lefties from trying. Two months ago a extreme-leftwing organization rewarded money to the people who could reveal 'unpleasent' things about his sexual past!

It's the complete opposite of the pro-terrorist left! And it's time the public starts to learn the truth about Israel and stops to think Arafat and his terrorbuddies are the ones being oppressed.

And who's calling who a "Nazi?"

Tactics from the Larry Flynt playbook. Sheesh.

In Holland the people rely on the government to keep them safe.
Here we feel the need for guns to be safe from our government and to keep them honest.

What a great post, KnightHawk! Thank you so much for this education; without your help, where would I get this knowledge?

I, as many others here on FR, do care for what is happenning in Holland, so thanks for keeping us updated.

Thanks, TQ. I post this because I am afraid people will see Fortuyn as a nazi. But the truth is he is backing Israel and the Jewish people, like no other politicians do in Holland. Here so many people are anti-Israel. It's time Europe turned around and stopped backing Arafat and his killers! He is the man who can do it over here, so I support him. But I do not agree with everything he says.

The people who call him a nazi are the same people who kissed Arafat when he visited Holland!

This development can help solve our French problem. The Netherlands can take over France and make them all Walloons or Flemish, and they can help with all those dykes over there.

The people who call him a nazi are the same people who kissed Arafat when he visited Holland! I an no longer shocked by this: I still remember the same people saying, even before the 1980 election, that "Regan wanted to start the nuclear war."

They will never admit they were wrong; rather, they would find a new target to attack and a new "victim" to empathize with. Facts don't matter to them.

BUt you are absolutely correct: these people are very loud, and once they start calling someone "nazi" and "racist," we are in danger of forming a biased opinion. So, again, thanks for keeping us straight.

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