BY: W. Shadid, 22-3-2008

If the so-called ‘Wilder’s affair’ based on the anti-Islam film of the Dutch MP Wilders has any positive contribution, then it was in the exposition of the reality of the Dutch political landscape. Due to this affair, four ideological trends became clearly distinguishable in the last few months: the moderate, the realistic, the political fundamentalist and the ‘modern-racists’. The last mentioned differs from the classic racism, in that modern racism defines superiority and inferiority of people by their cultures in stead of their racial characteristics. In relation to the Wilders affair, representatives of the Dutch government can be classified as ‘political realists’. In their reaction to the Wilders’ film, they gave priority to the country’s interest and requested the MP Wilders restrain from broadcasting his anti-Islam film. In their request, they avoided violating the principle ‘freedom of expression’ by not taking any action to forbid shwoing of the film. The MP Marijnissen of the Socialist Party is the only MP who can be classified as political realist by adopting a clear view and by qualifying Wilders as extremist and dangerous. The anti-Islam statements of the latter might set up groups in the society against each other.

Mrs. Femke Halsema, leader of the GreenLeft party is the only MP who deserves the doubtful honour of being the ‘political fundamentalist’. A fundamentalist may be defined as a person who is not only strongly convinced of his religious or ideological principles, but who also wishes to implement these principles, irrespective of the possible costs. Such is the case with Femke Halsema. Because she highly values the principle of freedom of expression, she offers Wilders political support in case he would not succeed in presenting his film in the Press Center ‘Nieuwspoort’. Her political fundamentalism was clearly exposed when she offered her support even without seeing the film, not knowing anything about its contents, and without taking possible consequences into consideration. She did not consider for example the possibility that the film might be in violation with article in Dutch law which forbids discrimination, racism and hatred. That is precisely what characterises the behaviour of a political, or a religious, fundamentalist. According to her, the principle of freedom of speech must be defended, to what ever the costs may be, and irrespective of one’s opinion about the contents of the film. “The Islam debate will profit from the provided information”. Apparently, Halsema believed the news in the media that the Dutch are well informed about islam as such and therefore able to participate in the debate. The parliamentary debates clearly show however that knowledge of Islam even among MP’s does not exceed the level of repeating demagogic terms such as terrorism, ‘women circumcision’ and the ‘committee for ex-Muslims’. In debating with Wilders in Parliament she mainly repeats slogans such as ‘you should not generalise’ and ‘your tone concerning Islam is to gain a maximum electoral profit”. Apparently she doesn’t believe that he is a racist, a right-extremist and abusing the principle of freedom of expression.
As stated above, the only politician and Member of Parliament in the Netherlands who avowedly acknowledges Wilder’s right extremism is Marijnissen of the SP. The tragedy of the Netherlands does not lie in the existence of Wilders’ ideas, but in the fact that these ideas are generally not classified as extremist. This is in contrast with the situation in Belgium and Austria. In these countries the ideologies and statements of DeWinter and Heider, leaders of right-wing extremist parties, are considered to be racist. The Dutch hypocrisy lies in the fact that by doing so the outside world is getting the impression that the Netherlands are the only European country without racist parties in the Parliament. Mrs. Halsema is well aware of the fact that the ideas and statements of Wilders are extreme. She does not dare however to publicly acknowledge these facts, or to acknowledge the existence of such parties. On the one hand in order to avoid being qualified as an exponent of the ‘old politics’ and on the other hand trying to profit politically from the increasing islamophobia in the country. The voter might sooner or later unmask that behaviour and might conclude that there is nothing more dangerous than a captain who has lost his compass, while sailing in a very rough political sea.

Prof.dr. W. Shadid is professor of intercultural communication. For more info: see page “About”