Geert Wilders

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Geert Wilders is a populist politician and the leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, or PVV) in the Netherlands. Wilders is internationally known for his opposition to Islam, and is also an strong opponent of immigration, a climate denier, and a Eurosceptic. Wilders is the founder and sole member of his party, which currently holds 12 of the 150 seats in the Dutch Lower House, and four in the European Parliament. Opinion polls usually indicate it has 15% to 20% support, ahead of all other parties in fragmented Dutch politics. Wilders is a supporter of the Eurabia conspiracy theory, which claims that European and Arab powers aim to Islamise and Arabise Europe, and a strong supporter of Israel. He is usually considered far-right, but he regards himself as a liberal (a right-wing liberal is not an oxymoron in Europe).

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[edit] Support and funding

Geert Wilders' supporters are typically working-class and lower-middle-class white voters, without a university education. The party has strong support in the southern province of Limburg, where Wilders was born, and more generally in the Catholic south of the Netherlands. Support is lower in the north, but high in the north-east corner, which is the poorest part of the country, and a former stronghold of Dutch communism. In the large cities support for Wilders is also strongest in low-income areas, where he took votes from the Dutch Labour Party.

Freedom Party support

Wilders appeals mainly to 'poor white' voters, who feel betrayed by the mainstream parties, and feel the country is being sold out to immigrants, especially Muslims. Wilders' supporters are very active online, on blogs, news sites, and forums. Their tone is aggressive, and opponents of Wilders are subjected to abuse and death threats. Hardcore supporters have compiled death lists of multiculturalists, including politicians, journalists, and former Queen Beatrix. [1]

Unlike most right-wing populists, Wilders is pro-gay, often more so than mainstream LGBT organisations: if homophobe immigrants harass gays, Wilders want to punish not just the perpetrators, but their entire family. He undoubtedly has support among Dutch gays and lesbians, but there are no poll figures. Although he is an atheist, he has also attracted some evangelical Christian voters, who value his defence of Christian minorities in Muslim countries and support his efforts to marginalize Islam.

The Freedom Party does not disclose its funding, but media reports suggest it comes mainly from the United States, and especially from conservative Jews [2]. Former allies who broke with Wilders speak of 'suitcases with cash' from the US. Wilders was promoted in the US by anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller, and has made several speaking trips to raise funds, including a speech at a Florida synagogue [3] at the invitation of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The neoconservative David Horowitz Freedom Center, raised $75 000 for him [4]. Daniel Pipes has also raised funds for him.

[edit] Ideology and policies

Wilders is a radical opponent of Islam. According to him, it is not a religion, but a fascist ideology of global conquest[5], which means that according to Wilders, it is not protected under the Dutch constitution's freedom of religion. Wilders repeatedly compares the Qur'an to Mein Kampf (see quote box). He does not accept any distinction between Islam and Islamism, and says there is 'no moderate Islam'. [6].

Approximately 1400 years ago war was declared on us by an ideology of hate and violence which arose at the time and was proclaimed by a barbarian who called himself the Prophet Mohammed. I am referring to Islam.

Let me start with the foundation of the Islamic faith, the Koran. The Koran’s core theme is about the duty of all Muslims to fight non-Muslims; an Islamic Mein Kampf, in which fight means war, jihad. The Koran is above all a book of war – a call to butcher non-Muslims (2:191, 3:141, 4:91, 5:3), to roast them (4:56, 69:30-69:32), and to cause bloodbaths amongst them (47:4). Jews are compared to monkeys and pigs (2:65, 5:60, 7:166), while people who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God must according to the Koran be fought (9:30).

The West has no problems with Jews or Christians, but it does have problems with Islam. It is still possible, even today, for Muslims to view the Koran, which they regard as valid for all time, as a licence to kill. And that is exactly what happens.

However, the Freedom Party has to operate within Dutch law, which bans incitement to discrimination and religious hatred. For that reason, his party's policies are not necessarily the whole truth about his views. Wilders did let slip (in an interview in Denmark) [7] that he wants to deport millions of Muslims from Europe. However, he can not legally advocate that policy in the Netherlands. His main policies are:

  • stop Muslim immigration by an immediate ban on all migrants from Muslim countries (advocating a ban on individual Muslim migrants would be illegal).
  • restrict the practice of Islam in the Netherlands, by banning the Koran, and closing (& banning) all Islamic schools ("fascist institutions."[5]), and mosques[8]. The party also wants a ban on Sharia law.
  • limit immigration from other European Union states - especially Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. The Freedom Party launched a website to collect complaints about Central and Eastern European immigrants. [9] (Most online complaints from Wilders' supporters are not about them taking jobs, but about their behavior).
  • withdraw the Netherlands from the European Union, abolish the Euro, and reintroduce the Guilder if possible.
  • block future Turkish membership of the EU, and expel Romania and Bulgaria. (Turkish EU membership was the issue that led Geert Wilders to found his own party).

As you would expect, Wilders and his party hate and despise multiculturalism. The party is also officially climate sceptic, and opposes wind energy projects.

Despite its name, the Freedom Party has also proposed all kinds of prohibitions and restrictions:

  • ban the burqa and niqaab, but tax Islamic headscarves
  • ban the feeding of seagulls
  • ban flatscreen TV's for people on benefit (welfare) [10]
  • ban the psychoactive herb Salvia divinorum
  • ban hallucinogenic mushrooms
  • let criminals serve their sentence in Siberia
  • shoot with live ammo at football hooligans or other rioters (“scum”), and exempt the police from any prosecution on the matter[12] (but a warning must be given fist, so that makes it okay, right?)
  • ban hymen reconstruction surgery (hymenoplasty)

Sometimes, as with the prohibition of ritual slaughter in 2011, those proposals backfire. The ban affected both Jewish kosher and Muslim halal slaughter, and brought him into conflict with his Jewish supporters. [13] Nevertheless, Wilders is not an antisemite and his pro-Israel credentials are undisputed.

[edit] Early years and career

Geert Wilders was raised as a Catholic, but he later abandoned the Church. This coincided with a stint of frequent trips to the Middle East, especially to Israel. He was inspired by the contrast posed by Israel's representative democracy and the neighboring Arab countries' lack thereof. He later claimed that his travels convinced him that Islam undermined democratic development and threatened the civilized world. Since then, the Arab Spring has shown that democracy usually leads to Islamist regimes, and Wilders has backtracked on his support for democratization in the region.

In the late 1980's, Wilders joined the conservative free-market People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie, or VVD). He was a typical career politician at first, and was mentored by Frits Bolkestein, an early critic of multiculturalism. (Outside the Netherlands Bolkestein is best known for his neoliberal policies in the EU, critiqued by among others Noam Chomsky). [14] After the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, Wilders himself became a prominent opponent of multiculturalism, and later worked with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had also joined the VVD. That led him to to oppose Turkish EU membership, against the party line. The VVD is pro-American, and Washington wanted Turkey in the EU, to consolidate its support for the War on Terror. Wilders was forced out, and founded a one-man party. It still has no other membership, which gives Wilders total control over its activities.

Following the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, Geert Wilders aggressively seized on the resulting anti-Muslim sentiment. His party displaced all other right-wing populist parties, leaving him as undisputed leader of the Dutch right. In 2010-2011, he faced a potential one-year prison sentence on five charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims with his rhetoric. However, he was acquitted by an Amsterdam court on the grounds that his inflammatory comments about Muslims were protected free speech.[15]

In the 2010 election the PVV party won 24 seats, and backed the formation of a new centre-right administration. In return, the new government adopted some of his demands, but that was the closest Wilders got to government office. In 2012 he withdrew his support, and his party lost much support, dropping to 15 seats. Opinion polls indicate it has now recovered, and should be the largest party at the next elections.

[edit] International breakthrough

Wilder came into the international spotlight with the release of his short documentary Fitna in 2008. The amateuristic video juxtaposed images of the Qur'an with reports and images of the 9/11 attacks, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2005 London transit attacks, and other atrocities. It sparked strong political reactions in Europe, and Muslim outrage. Wilders attracted neoconservative and some atheist support.[16] It was intended to be inflammatory: Wilders claims that he made the film to show that "Islam and the Qur'an are part of a fascist ideology that wants to kill everything we stand for in a modern Western democracy."[17] However, the original version would have been worse: Wilders had bought a Koran (in East Jerusalem) and planned to tear it up on-camera. He abandoned that idea during production.

In response to the outrage, Wilders was detained by immigration officials at Heathrow Airport in London on February 12th, 2009, after he had been invited to a screening of his film at the House of Lords.[18] He was banned from entering Britain due to fears that his anti-Islamic speech would cause violence there, though a court later overturned the ban.

On September 11th, 2010, the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Wilders joined forces with Newt Gingrich and gave a speech at Ground Zero in New York City to protest the building of Park51[19] In the speech, he decried the "forces of jihad" that were imposing themselves on New York by daring to perform construction on a building they legally own,[20] and one that is protected by the First Amendment.

In 2012 Wilders published Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me, in English for an international audience. In it, he calls for the Qur'an to be banned, implores Muslims to renounce their religion, and advocates cutting all foreign aid to Muslim countries. More disturbingly, he goes on to give a fuller picture of his so-called (ahem) solution, the details of which involve halting all Muslim immigration, paying settled Muslim immigrants to leave, banning the building of mosques, and taxing Muslim religious practices (such as hijab specifically). He also endorses "administrative detention," or indefinite internment without trial on security grounds in Europe as part of criminal operations in Muslim communities, as well as the forcible deportation of Muslims from Europe for the thoughtcrime of thinking about Sharia law.[21]

[edit] Criticism of Wilders

Inside the Netherlands, Wilders views have been heavily criticised for years, without any visible effect on his support. He is also criticised for his refusal to make compromises, although he did support a coalition in 2010. Nevertheless although only a minority in the national parliament, Wilders and his party have had an enormous impact. He has made immigration and Islam central issues in Dutch politics, to the point where they often overshadow the economy. Although other parties generally show distaste for his views, they have been forced to make concessions for fear of losing voter support to the Party for Freedom. The chance that he will ever run the country is however very small, as it is unlikely that the Party for Freedom would be able to find willing coalition partners after having instigated the fall of the first Rutte cabinet.

A frequent charge in this regard is that Geert Wilders' understanding of freedom doesn't include the freedom of everyone to live their lives the way that they want to (a frequent justification for multiculturalism), but his freedom from dissidents and minorities.[22] Wilders has been named as an example of a champion of Islamophobia by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[5]

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, has said that Wilders is "arguably the world's worst Islamophobe, but [...] truly scary [due to] his acceptance in the mainstream." He has also accused him of "exploit[ing] deep-rooted fears about citizenship and security," relying on "reprehensible, bigoted stereotyping of Islam [to] completely mischaracterize the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslim adherents." Levin went on to say that "his totalitarian proposals are not only practically preposterous, but the most morally reprehensible that one could conceive of next to murder or forced conversion."[5]

The New York Times reported that "[t]he success of Mr. Wilders highlights the difficulties faced by mainstream politicians across Europe in dealing with the rise of populists and extremists: Include them and you have to take on board their unsavory policies; exclude them and end up increasing their appeal to protest voters."[23]

Commentators such as Maryam Namazie and Bahram Soroush have accused Wilders of lumping all immigrants from Muslim countries together as potential Islamists, even those who in fact left their countries to escape Islamism.[24]

The equally controversial demented Lebanese-Australian Muslim preacher Sheik Feiz Muhammad advocated the beheading of Wilders over his Islamophobic remarks, but then later admitted that he only meant it in a "metaphorical sense."

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

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