As the Dutch election campaign centres on the economy, the populist Islam-basher Geert Wilders has lost momentum.
Geert Wilders makes clear choices about which media he talks to. He refuses to be interviewed by NRC Handelsblad, for example, and to give reasons for his refusal. Interviews with media that are, apparently, unacceptable to him don’t seem to fit into his campaign strategy. He also denied daily Trouw an interview and generally avoids public television, though he participates in their prime ministerial debates in the run-up to the June 9 election.
The Dutch Jewish community is divided over Geert Wilders, the controversial populist politician. He is a staunch supporter of Israel, but many feel his treatment of Muslims brings back unpleasant memories.
Geert Wilders’ populist-right PVV party has left the Netherlands divided, but in one Jewish family in Amsterdam, the rift runs right across the dinner table. The family's youngest son (17) is sympathetic towards Wilders, in part because of his unwavering loyalty to Israel. In his mother, Annette Atiya, the PVV evokes feelings of discomfort. “I feel many of Wilders' remarks, such as the one regarding head scarves, [Wilders has described them in derogatory terms and called for a tax on them] are part of a witch hunt against a specific segment of the population. That reminds me of the anti-Semitic rabble-rousing that went on before the war,” Atiya said.
Insult after insult is hurled at Dutch Muslims by a member of parliament . Why aren't they standing up against him?
Day in and day out, Dutch Muslims are told their religion is “a fascist ideology” and “a threat to Dutch society”. They hear their “so-called prophet Muhammad” is “a barbarian, a mass murderer and a paedophile”, or words to that effect. The indignities come from a member of parliament: Geert Wilders.
After leaving the right-wing liberal VVD party in 2006 and setting up his own Party for Freedom (PVV), Wilders has made criticism of Islam his one main issue. He is being heard by native Dutch people who fear the country of 16 million is suffering under the burden of its estimated one million Muslim citizens. Wilders obtained 5 of the 25 Dutch seats in European parliament last year. His PVV did very well in the two municipalities in which it participated in recent local elections. Some polls have predicted his party could become the biggest in parliament after the upcoming national election.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has returned to the Netherlands with the same message as when she left: Islam needs its own period of ‘Enlightenment’. Ms Hirsi Ali is back for one week to promote her most recent book, Nomad. It’s her first substantial visit since leaving the Dutch parliament four years ago to live in the United States.
Her main point still is that Muslim integration into Dutch society can only succeed if Muslim immigrants fully embrace Dutch values and leave their own values behind. The two systems of thought cannot be combined.
“The idea that the two can be combined is why the problem has lasted so long, and become so entrenched as to be nearly intractable: people have contradictory expectations.”
The Netherlands is a fragmented country – neither a liberal paradise nor swept up in mass far-right fervour
The media have recycled the same headlines following Dutch elections for about a decade now, and similar observations are regularly trumpeted in international newspapers. Part of me thinks they actually just run the same articles, updating the picture, changing a few names, and maybe touching up a few percentage points. The political landscape is changing in the Netherlands, it is true. “How could this happen in this bastion of a liberal democracy?” commentators ask in an accusing tone.
I shall go against the international headlines and some of the Dutch media when I say to you, please remain calm. This sudden explosion of intolerance and fragmented politics is nothing new; we have been reading about it for decades. The myth maintained by international media outlets and perhaps the Dutch bureau of tourism, which parrots the Netherlands as an open-minded leftwing paradise, has long kept a smoke screen over the well-established and not always tolerant tradition of smaller parties, extremist or moderate, left or right, which rise up suddenly, gain power and occasionally disappear into obscurity as fast as they came.
Dutch anti-Islam maverick Geert Wilders took his cinematic assault on the Quran to Britain’s House of Lords on Friday, sparking heated debate inside the building and angry protests outside.
The invitation to Parliament, and Wilders’ stunning political gains in the Netherlands this week, highlight a growing dichotomy in Europe: concern at the increasing number of Muslims who reject long-cherished liberal values, against the liberal tradition of welcoming the world’s unfortunates and embracing multiculturalism.
Wilders screened his 15-minute film “Fitna” to about 60 people, including a half-dozen peers, in a wood-paneled committee room in Parliament. The film associates the Quran with terrorism, homophobia and repression of women.
Geert Wilders and his anti-Islam Freedom Party party did well in Dutch municipal elections on Wednesday. Still, despite the attention the populist party attracts, it still has a long way to go if it wants power on the national stage, say German commentators.
A ban on headscarves for city council workers and in all institutions and clubs which get local authority money will be the most important point in the PVV´s negotiations to join governing coalitions in Almere and the Hague, says party leader Geert Wilders.
Speaking to RTL news, Wilders said the ban would be central to talks to form new local authority executives in the only two cities where the party is contesting the March 3 local elections.
The ban will apply to ‘all council offices and all other institutions and clubs which get even one cent of council money,’ he said.
The PVV is tipped to emerge as the biggest party in Almere and second biggest in the Hague.
he trial of MP Geert Wilders on inciting hatred and discrimination charges will resume on February 3, judges in Amsterdam said on Wednesday.
Following yesterday’s initial hearing, judges will now decide who will be called as witnesses and on other procedural motions from both the prosecution and defence.
he trial of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, began this Wednesday.
The lead judge of the court started off by addressing Geert Wilders, leader of the populist PVV party, directly. The judge said that while the media might have portrayed his case as foregone, his court “would not cast judgment before the last word has been spoken”.
eert Wilders’ inflammatory anti-Muslim statements are well known. Are they illegal?
Rumour has it that Geert Wilders, the leader of the populist PVV party, hopes to call Mohamed B., the man who killed Theo van Gogh, as a witness in his up-coming trialm which starts this Wednesday. Probably to establish the connection between the Koran and violence that Wilders assumes. The prosecution, however, will focus on the Dutch criminal code, particularly the two articles the politician is alleged to have violated: 137 c and d. Wilders is charged with slandering a group and sowing hate, and discrimination on the basis of race or religion. He has targeted muslims on the basis of their religion, the prosecution will argue, and non-western migrants or Moroccans on the basis of their race. The trial is expected to last months.
he Turkish government fears a visit by Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders will have negative consequences for its relations with the Netherlands and Europe. But both secular and religious Turks say they welcome a debate with him.
eert Wilders, a Dutch right wing parliamentarian, released a long expected and much debated movie on the internet. Wilders, a controversial politician, attacks in the movie the Islam as violent and claims that the Islam has to be seen as a political ideology. The Dutch Prime Minister condemned the movie as an unnecessary provocation. The main TV channels refused to air his film, so Wilders released it by Internet.
