Geert Wilders's Call for a Ban on the Qur'an · 9 August 2007, 19:19 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Last Saturday Ehsan Jami, an Iran born (Mashad, 20 april 1985) Dutch PvdA politician and founder of the (Dutch) Central Comitee for Ex-Muslims, was molested by three men, probably because of his qualification of some statements of the prophet Muhammad as backward. Seemingly as a response on the assault on Jami populist frontman of the PVV (Party for Freedom) and MP Geert Wilders wrote an op-ed, which was published in yesterday’s edition of Dutch daily de Volkskrant. In this op-ed, entitled ‘Genoeg is genoeg: verbied de Koran’ (‘Enough is Enough: Ban the Qur’an’), Wilders compares the Qur’an with Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and incites (I assume his fellow MP’s and / or the Government) to ban the Qur’an. By this Wilders harms the interests of the country he says he’s vindicating. He’s pouring oil on the flames and, as such, is forcing the Netherlands to use its resources for a fight that shouldn’t be fought. It could use its resources in a far better way.
Let there be no mistake about it: there’s no place in the Netherlands for people who think they have the right to use violence against people who don’t share their (religious) beliefs. People who think otherwise and act correspondingly or threaten to do so, should be dealt with by the law. Furthermore, (potential) victims, like Ehsan Jami or Geert Wilders, should be protected against them at any cost. However, by constantly proclaiming that the existence of a moderate Islam is an illusion Wilders strains reality and offends the large majority of Dutch muslims who live normal and peaceful lives. Demanding a ban on the Qur’an can only be intepreted as an attempt to change this reality and to force the moderates to choose between apostacy and extremism. As such Wilders’s way of thinking closely resembles the obtuse, primitive black-and-white way of thinking of the ones he says he’s fighting.
But also out of sheer realpolitik a less hysteric and more considered response would be welcome. The exact outcome of a ban on the Qur’an in the Netherlands will be unsure. No doubt, however, it will result in unprecedented, societal instability, no doubt Dutch (economic) interests abroad will be seriously violated and no doubt it will put Dutch lives at risk. There’s no way the Netherlands could profit from such a measure. On the contrary, it will only harm the country. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the United States decided to invade Iraq. This was a rash, badly considered decision as a result of which the country’s military capability and economy are dangerously strained, just at a time that ambitious countries as Russia, China and Iran are challenging its world-dominion. By this the Americans set a bad example. The lesson to be learned from it, however, seems to be wasted on Wilders. But as the Dutch live in the same, changing world as the Americans, they can’t afford to be dragged into a conflict that will drain all of their resources either. By renouncing Wilders’s statements, therefore, the Dutch government did the only right thing.
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Rita Verdonk Fair and Square · 18 February 2007, 12:11 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In last Friday’s telecast of Dutch current affairs program NOVA Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk was offered the opportunity to prove her straightforwardness once more. This week some tumult ensued after new MP Sietse Fritsma of the party of Geert Wilders, the PVV, had tried to prevent the appointment of Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak (both PvdA, the Dutch Labour Party) as respectively Minister of Social Affairs and Justice State Secretary because of their double nationality. (Aboutaleb is of Moroccan and Albayak of Turkish descent.) During the telecast it appeared, not supprisingly, that the Minister agreed with the view of Fritsma. Because of this NOVA Interviewer Twan Huys asked the Minister if she thought it desirable that the very popular, blond Princess Maxima should end her dual nationality and give up her Argentine passport too. At first it seemed that she was ready to take on a tough stance once more as she replied: "I have the same opinion about her as I have Members of Parliament and Members of Government. I deem it important for everyone to give th[e] sign[: I’m in the Netherlands, Member of Parliament or Member of Government, and I possess that Dutch nationality and I’m proud of it]." She thought it ‘a chutzpah’ to have two passports. But after Huys tried to summarize her view as ‘Minister Rita Verdonk is of the opinion that crown-princess Maxima should surrender her Argentinian Passport’ she subtly took a safer stance. On a tone by which she seemed to express her approval of his summary she replied in a way by she in fact distanced herself from it as her words read as follows: "You know that Minister Rita Verdonk holds the view that laws apply for everyone in the same way in this country and that everyone should make his own judgement".
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Saudi Students in the Land of Flowers · 29 January 2007, 21:32 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today Dutch public television news show NOS Journaal reported about more than 560 students from Saudi Arabia who arrived in the Netherlands for a seven years stay during which they will be trained for physician. Later that night I sat on the couch to zap for a while and while doing so I ran into a show hosted by Dutch tv celebrities Patty Brard and Gerard Joling. Instantly my thoughts wandered to the Saudi students. What would they think of Patty Brard and Gerard Joling? Not very much right now, but they will be taught Dutch and then inevitably Dutch popular culture will penetrate their minds. This means that they will learn about Dutch minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk, about Geert Wilders who once said he eats headscarves for breakfast, about drunk, trashing hooligans flooding the streets after a soccer game. I could not help wondering what their final impression would be after seven years in the Netherlands? Will their stay bring the West and the Middle East together or will it fuel occidentalist sentiments? One student told the NOS Journaal reporter that she preferred a stay in the Netherlands to Australia, because, among other things, it was ‘lovely and quiet’. She wanted to stay in ‘the land of flowers’. I honestly hope she won’t be disappointed.
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A Company Which Is Affraid to Lose Market Share · 3 January 2007, 21:42 CET by Charles Vermeulen
The biggest loser of the Dutch General Election of 2006 no doubt is the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy). This party lost 6 seats in the Dutch Lower House and ended up with 22 seats. According to Patrick van Schie, director of the Telders Foundation, a think-thank affiliated with the VVD, the party has tried to much to attract voters from the political middle. This wasn’t a smart thing to do, the director says in today’s edition of NRC Handelsblad (page 3), because already too many other parties aim at the political middle. From the election-results, furthermore, it appeared that Dutch voters were attracted by parties who ‘dared to distinguish themselves’ from other parties. Van Schie, therefore, urges the VVD to embark on a more radical course and, in doing so, to borrow some ideas from the PVV (Party of Freedom), the far-right party of the VVD’s prodigal son Geert Wilders. Off course Van Schie would defend any change of course of the VVD as necessary to keep in touch with its voters, but somehow the impression arises of a company which is losing market share and which decides to sell different products in an attempt to regain its costumers. Whatever happened to parties which are dedicated to ideals and ideas and which try to win supporters over to those ideals and ideas?
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The Netherlands Towards Violent Escalation? · 1 January 2007, 21:51 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad columnist H.J.A. Hofland looks back upon 2006 as far as the Netherlands are concerned (page 10-11). According Hofland three dangerous, entangled tendencies are discernable. First of all, an ongoing socio-economic marginalization of migrants of Turkish and Moroccan descent, which constitute the main muslim minority groups in the Netherlands. Secondly, the rise of an anti-immigrant or sometimes even all-out racist attitude among native Dutchmen. Thirdly, the waning of the political middle and the rise of radicalism, a tendency which was clearly visible during the 2006 General Election, which was in fact won by the far-left (Socialist Party) and the far-right (Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom). These three tendencies combined constitute a dangerous explosive mixture, which, as Hofland fears, might one day escalate violently. Far-fetched? I’m not so sure of that. Today Dutch national news agency ANP reports that at the turning of the year lots of policemen, ambulancemen and firemen in the Netherlands had to endure violence of drunk and riotous mobs who throw stones and fire heavy skyrockets at them. If Hofland’s doom scenario comes true one day, it won’t be difficult for some demagogue to raise a brownshirt army.
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No Moderate Islam Possible in the Netherlands (2) · 22 December 2006, 11:16 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Yesterday night Dutch current affairs programme NOVA had an item about the founding of Marhaba, a debating center dedicated to Islamic art and culture, sponsored by the municipality of Amsterdam. The intention of the initiators of the project is to build bridges between muslim culture and Dutch culture. There’s a lot criticism on initiative, among others by Geert Wilders, Member of Parliament and leading man of Dutch right-wing party ‘Partij voor de Vrijheid’ (‘Party for Freedom’). According to Wilders Amsterdam’s subsidy of € 400,000 is a waste of tax money, for Marhaba ‘pursues something that doesn’t exist, that is a moderate islam’.
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Dutch General Election, 2006 - Some Facts · 23 November 2006, 20:18 CET by Charles Vermeulen
The left – Although the main left party of the Netherlands, the PvdA of Wouter Bos loses 10 Lower House seats, all left parties together (PvdA, Socialist Party, GreenLeft) win 6 seats. (The Lower House comprises altogether 150 seats in the Netherlands.) 24% Of the voters of the Socialist Party, once founded in October 1971 as a Maoist party, voted on the center-left PvdA during the elections of 2002. 31% of its voters didn’t vote at all in 2002.
Populist / Anti-immigrant right – The main scions on the Pim Fortuyn tree, Marco Pastors’s EénNL 1, successor of the Pim Fortuyn’s LPF List Five Fortuyn (Lijst Vijf Fortuyn) and Hilbrand Nawijn’s Party for the Netherlands (Partij voor Nederland) get no seat at all. Geert Wilders’s anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (Partij van de Vrijheid) gets nine seats, but isn’t a scion of the Pim Fortuyn tree although 24% of his voters voted on the LPF in 2002. 43% Of Wilders’s voters didn’t vote at all during the elections of 2002.
Rotterdam – In port city Rotterdam, which happens to be the home base of this blogger, the PvdA remains more than twice as big as the CDA of Jan Peter Balkenende (29.2% of the city’s votes against 14.4%). EénNL of Marco Pastors, once protégé of Pim Fortuyn and like Fortuyn based in Rotterdam too, got only 3.2% of the votes.
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Dutch General Election - Anti-Islam Party 9 Seats · 22 November 2006, 23:22 CET by Charles Vermeulen
83.1% Of the votes is counted and the election-results are assuming a definitive shape. Balkenende’s CDA gets 41 seats (loses 3), the social democrats of the PvdA lose 9 seats and ends up with 9 seats. Current partner of the CDA in Balkenende’s government VVD of Mark Rutte loses 6 seats. Big winners are likely Jan Marijnissen’s SP (Socialist Party) (wins 16 seats, gets 25 seats) and Geert Wilders’s PvdV (Party for Freedom) (1 seat now, wins 8). Especially the success of the latter is remarkable, because public opinion poll’s didn’t predict it. It shows that anti-immigrant sentiment, especially anti-muslim sentiment, is still alive in the Netherlands.
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Dutch General Election - CDA Likely the Biggest · 22 November 2006, 21:06 CET by Charles Vermeulen
All polling-stations in the Netherlands just closed and public broadcaster NOS and ANP, leading news agency of the Netherlands, presents a prognosis of the results of the Dutch General Election, 2006: CDA 43 (of 150) seats, PvdA seats 35, SP 24, VVD 21, GroenLinks 8, D66 2, Christen Unie 5, SGP 2, Geert Wilders’s Partij voor de Vrijheid 6, Marco Pastors’s EénNL 1 and the Partij voor de Dieren 3.
Update – According to the above mentioned prognosis Jan Peter Balkenende’s Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) will lose one seat and as result the party likely remains the biggest party in the Dutch Lower House (Tweede Kamer). The PvdA, the social democrats of Wouter Bos, will lose 7 seats, probably most of them to the SP, the Socialist Party of Jan Marijnissen, the big winner of this election. The SP wins no fewer than 15 seats. Also Geert Wilders’s right-wing Party for Freedom (PvdV, ‘Partij van de Vrijheid’) seems to be a relatively big winner. Wilders will be joined by five new political associates in the Dutch Lower House. The latter showing that anti-immigrant sentiment, though relatively modest, is still alive. Also former Pim Fortuyn’s protégé Marco Pastors and his EénNL will enter the Dutch Lower House, be it alone. On the other hand, the List Five Fortuyn (Lijst Vijf Fortuyn), successor of the Pim Fortuyn’s LPF and big winner of the General Elections of 2002, seems to be wiped out completely (zero seats). Dutch animals seem to get their own representatives in Dutch parliament, as the Party for Animals (Partij voor de Dieren) probably wins three seats out of nothing.
Dutch General Election, CDA, PvdA, Geert Wilders, SP, Pim Fortuyn
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