Geert Wilders of the Netherlands reveals a resurgent far right in Europe
By _Anthony Faiola_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/anthony-faiola/2011/02/25/ABOKXCJ_page.html) ,
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Washington Post
<
AMSTERDAM — Europe’s most controversial politician lives in a government
safe house fitted with a panic room and guarded round the clock. A
self-avowed foe of Islam who compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf
and
called for a ban on Muslim immigrants, he travels by bulletproof car and
rarely talks with journalists — choosing instead to funnel messages directly
to
supporters via Twitter and a personal blog.
But when Geert Wilders — dubbed “Mozart” for his bleached-blond bouffant
hair – brought down the Dutch government last week in an extraordinary show
of force by Europe’s resurgent far right, it wasn’t over his high-profile
war on Islam. Instead, it was part of his emphasis on another belief he and
his Freedom Party now see as almost equally dangerous: an integrated
Europe.
The rise of Wilders in the Netherlands is a cautionary tale for a continent
in the midst of a _debt crisis_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe-crisis-creeps-back-into-danger-zone/2012/04/20/gIQABIcEWT_story.html)
,
and where painful recessions, soaring unemployment and surging youth apathy
are fueling the strongest swell of support in decades for anti-immigrant
nationalists.
For more than a generation, European political elites have sought to fuse
the region together by adopting the euro and a series of treaties that
virtually erased national borders across a vast swath of the continent. But in
the recent surge of the nationalist far right, and to lesser extent the far
left, European leaders are confronting not only a backlash to a united
Europe but also a troubling new hurdle in their efforts to resolve the 21 /
2-year-old debt crisis.
>From France to Austria, Greece to Finland, the popularity of nationalists
is growing as politicians like Wilders tap into voter rage not only over the
crisis itself, but also over the proposed cure being pushed by mighty
Germany: harsh rounds of government cuts and difficult economic overhauls to
restore investor confidence in Europe’s governments.
That austerity crusade is already in danger of derailing, with even
moderate leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, now saying
deep
cuts are driving Europe’s economies into the ground. Other critics,
meanwhile, are arguing the social pain from austerity is playing into the
hands of
politicians on the far right and left, who are portraying the cuts as part
of a pattern that has seen European integration eat away at living standards
across traditionally affluent Western Europe.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel has softened her rhetoric in recent
days, playing up the need for policies that favor growth, though she
continues to view fiscal discipline as a necessary tonic for Europe’s
troubles.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, also a fiscal hawk, called last
week for a “growth compact,” and European leaders appear likely to work
out a series of modest policy changes in late June.
In the turmoil of the debt crisis, ideas long held by European radicals are
going mainstream as centrist politicians seek to find their way in a sea
of discontent. In France, for instance, Marine Le Pen of the National Front
stunned observers by winning almost one out of every five votes in the
first round of presidential elections a week ago on a platform that would have
seen Paris withdraw from the euro and buck the German-led austerity drive.
Now on the ropes against his Socialist opponent, President Nicolas Sarkozy
is currying the favor of the far-right ahead of the decisive second vote,
vowing to pull France out of the region’s open-borders treaty if
negotiations underway to stem the tide of transplants from poorer quarters of
Europe
do not succeed in the months ahead.
In crisis-devastated Greece, opinion polls ahead of the May 6 elections
show the once-obscure Golden Dawn — which wants to plant landmines on the
country’s borders to protect against illegal immigrants — is on a surprise
track to win seats in parliament. Austria’s far-right Freedom Party is
running strong in opinion polls and last year, Finland’s nationalist True
Finns
Party took a record 19 percent of the vote.
“It is now only a matter of time before one of these parties gets into
power and tries to pull the rug out from under the euro,” said Maurice de
Hond,
a leading Dutch political pollsters. “If it doesn’t happen in the
Netherlands, it will happen somewhere else in Europe. I am sure of it.”
Tried for inciting hate
Here in the Netherlands, Wilders, 48, rose from political obscurity during
the past decade to become one of the most influential far-right politicians
in Europe.
Wilders – who spent time in his youth on an Israeli kibbutz — is
pro-Israel and staunchly anti-Islam. Describing Islam as a religion of
violence and
hate that wants to “enslave” the West, he has called for the closure of
Muslim schools, made a high profile anti-Muslim film and wants forced
registration of all Dutch citizens holding two passports.
In 2010, he was put on trial on charges of inciting hate, though observers
say the perceived liberal bias of judges and his eventual acquittal only
elevated his popularity. It served him well at the ballot box, with his
six-year-old party winning so many seats in elections later that year that the
center-right government required his support to stay in power.
His attempts to portray himself as a victim of the liberal elite has made
him a darling of the right in the United States, where he has secured space
on the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page. Wilders is now set to promote a
new book published in the United States this week, Marked for Death, Islam’s
War Against the West and Me.
Yet he also defies easy political description. Wilders is, for instance, a
strong supporter of same-sex marriage. And he has been nothing if not a
savvy reader of the political winds. Earlier this year, political observers
say he made the calculation to seize on Europe’s debt crisis. The move seemed
politically well timed, as the economically strong and fiscally
conservative Dutch suddenly found themselves in recession and struggling to
enact
budget cuts demanded by European agreements.
“He is master at capitalizing on fear,” said Jozias Van Aarsten, mayor of
The Hague and elder statesmen from the Liberal Party, which Wilders broke
with in 2004.
Targeting Poles
In February, Wilder’s party launched a Web site targeting the Polish
immigrants who had come by the thousands as the Netherlands opened its door to
more workers from poorer parts of the European Union in the mid-2000s. The
site invited Dutch citizens to report Eastern Europeans for doing anything
from “taking your parking spaces” to “taking your jobs.”
Malgorzata Karczewska, who runs a Polish language news site in the
Netherlands, said many Dutch seemed embarrassed by the move, but the Web site
also
brought latent animosity to the surface. One Polish migrant, she said,
repeatedly had her tires slashed. Others were insulted in public for speaking
Polish. A week after the site came out, Karczewska said a waitress accused
her of stealing cutlery while dining at a fine restaurant. “After 9/11, he
made all Muslims the scapegoat in Holland,” she said. “Now, it’s the Poles.”
In March, Wilders accelerated his anti-Europe line, openly calling for the
Netherlands to abandon the euro. Positioning himself as a champion of the
working class, he refused to sign on to budget cuts demanded by European
leaders, causing the government to fall and forcing Prime Minister Mark Rutte
to tender his resignation last week.
Though scrambling Dutch parties reached a key budget deal Thursday,
analysts warned that the nation still faces months of political turmoil and a
possible loss of its cherished AAA credit rating.
Opinion polls suggest that Wilders may have taken at least a temporary hit
by forcing the fall of the government this week, but observers say he is
banking on domestic anxiety over crisis to crest come early Election Day in
September.
“We are against Europe,” Wilders, unbowed, said this week. “We are against
the euro.”
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
