Dutch right wing politician Pim Fortuyn has been shot dead yesterday 
night right after being interviewed for Dutch radio.
Mr. Fortuyn moved people, for better and worse. He had many followers 
as his populist views and sloganist ways.
"quote: Islam is a medieval culture" or "muslims can't be trusted".
Certainly he jum,ped the September 11th bandwagon, but just as 
certainly many others detested his dire views. Apparently enough to get 
one crazed guy into action. The shootist has been arrested shortly 
after the attack. Yesterday night the Netherlands were in turmoil, this 
short from national elections for parliament. Riots going on (mostly by 
skin heads =followers). But was Pim Fortuyn a racist? I don't think so.
Was he a right winger? Definitely, and I did not approve of the way he 
debated (no content but merely poorly thought over slogans). The Dutch 
politicians (ever so civilized) didn't seem able to get a grasp on this 
flamboyant man.
I was amazed by the strong reactions people showed.
They made it look like this man was a visionary, a person similar like 
Martin Luther King or John F. Kennedy, whom he admired.
Personally I regard this soiling of the good names and honour of the 
two. Pim Fortuyn did not stand for a just and better society, he stood 
for injustice and destruction of governmental money consumers like 
social care, health care and education.
Concluding: I won't shed a tear for this man, but I will mourn this 
unheard and unique stain on the Dutch democratic system.
I would like to hear your opinion.

68 responses total.

  Well, it's not unusual for a politician's reputation to benefit in the
  period after their death.  When Richard Nixon died a few years ago there
  was much talk of his statesmanship and his diplomatic successes and 
  comparatively little talk about Watergate.  Usually the effect fades 
  after a while, though sometimes it seems to be permanent, as in the
  case of John F. Kennedy, whose public and personal failings were greatly
  overwhelmed in public opinion by the tragic circumstances of his death.

  I'm sorry that the Netherlands have been so abrubptly and unexpectedly
  introduced to the problem of political violence that plagues much of the
  rest of the world.  There seem to be a lot of unpleasant developments in
  European politics lately -- I hope their appearance together is mere
  coincidence and not the first indications of a trend towards increasingly
  polarized politics and resurgent nationalism on the European continent.

I hope not either.
We had enough of that in the 40s and 90s

I agree with your perspective, clees. I often wish the demagogues and
fascists and racists would just go away, and I may fail to be very
upset about their natural demise or even murder, but I decry this
method of resolving political and social policy, and would much prefer
for them just to lose to better and more moral ideas and people. 

        ... but if it's going to happen ...

...it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy...?

Le Pen?

"If it's going to happen to anyone..." How shameful.

(from nationalreview.com)

Murder in Holland 
Pim Fortuyn, martyr.

by Rod Dreher
 
We will not be able to gauge the full impact of Pim Fortuyn's murder on
European politics until we know who killed him, and why. Dutch police
have arrested a Dutch-born white male in connection with the crime, but
he's not talking. Whoever he turns out to be, the fact that a popular
anti-immigration politician was assassinated during a campaign in one of
Europe's most civil and tolerant nations is seismic on its own. 

Fortuyn's legion of enemies denounced him as a fascist and a racist,
partly for his tough-on-crime policies, but mostly for his belief that
immigration should stop, and that immigrants - particularly Muslims, whose
views on women and gays he considered barbaric - should be pressed harder 
to assimilate into Dutch life. Immigration and assimilation of Third World
immigrants: These are and will continue to be tremendously important
issues for Europe, particularly as its population ages with the native
birth rate remaining below replacement level. 

Whether Fortuyn's murderer turns out to have Islamic connections or is
part of the extreme Left, the sobering truth is that Europe - democratic, gun-
controlling Europe - is a place where questioning the immigration status
quo will not only get you branded a fascist by the news media, it will get you
shot dead. It is hard to overestimate the psychological impact the
killing is having in Holland, a bourgeois and orderly country that prides
itself on tolerance. "We were a quiet, normal country, where we never had
any big criminal things happening," says Marnix Kort, 36, of Haarlem.
"This changes everything. We have become a banana republic in an instant." 

"Things like this don't happen in Holland. It's like the 11th of September
for us. Everybody thought this couldn't be, but we see that it is possible. I 
feel very insecure," said Miriam Jeurissen, 34, who lives in a suburb of
Amsterdam. A woman who answered the phone at Fortuyn campaign headquarters 
[http://www.pim-fortuyn.nl] last night said things were too chaotic there,
and that no one would be able to speak to the foreign press until today.
Through her tears, she said, "It's unbelievable that someone gets killed only 
for saying what they believe." 

What Fortuyn said and believed rocked the normally staid world of Dutch 
politics, which has for many decades been built around coalitions of
parties representing traditional Dutch constituencies - Catholics, Protestants,
 Socialists, and smaller parties. In practice, this has resulted in an
increasingly ossified statist government overseen by elitist political class
which, as in France and other European democracies, a growing number of voters
see as unresponsive to its desires. "Pim Fortuyn was reacting strongly against
a highly organized communal politics," says Erik Jones, a Netherlands expert at
the University of Nottingham. "What he was arguing for was more of a sense of
individualism, but within the context of a strong monoculturalism. He argued
that the Dutch needed to do away with all this consensus, and just voice their
opinions - but to do so within the general framework of Dutch culture." 

To do that, Fortuyn challenged one of the fundamental principles of
liberal Dutch culture: Thou shalt not be seen as intolerant. Immigration and 
immigration-related crime are not new problems in the Netherlands, but the 
ability to speak openly about it is. For years, the ruling elite, which
includes the media, has made discussion of the growing immigration
problem taboo, on pain of being branded a crypto-Nazi. 

As recently as last week, Fortuyn denounced this paralyzing political 
correctness, telling an interviewer that "everywhere in Europe, socialists
and the extreme left have forbidden the discussion of the problems of
multicultural society." "Professor Pim," a 54-year-old, openly gay,
ex-Marxist professor turned newspaper columnist, emerged as an unlikely
spokesman for anti-immigration sentiment in the Netherlands, where immigrants,
many of them Muslims from Turkey and North Africa, make up 10 percent of
the densely populated nation of 16 million. 

Unlike France's Jean-Marie Le Pen, to whom he was often unfairly likened, 
Fortuyn was a free-marketeer who preached lower taxes and deregulation. He 
promised to get tough on crime, return the police to local control, and
impose stricter standards on the educational system. Fortuyn, who frequented
gay bars in his hometown of Rotterdam, was an unapologetic libertine who stood 
firmly behind Dutch beliefs in a liberal, tolerant society, but he maintained
that Muslims and other immigrants who refused to accommodate themselves to 
Dutch values were a threat to liberty. Kicked out of his original party for
anti-Islamic statements - he once called Islam a "backward religion" for its
treatment of women and gays, and authored a best-seller, "Against the
Islamicization of our Culture - Fortuyn founded his own political party, List
Pim Fortuyn, and shocked political observers by taking a third of the seats in
Rotterdam municipal elections - this in a city where 45 percent of the
electorate are not ethnically Dutch. 

"If you look at his electoral list [of candidates], it was a case study in
ethnic diversity," Jones says. "He sounded right-wing, but at the end of the
day he was more about individual responsibility versus collective
responsibility, as opposed to 'we hate foreigners.'" 

Indeed, Fortuyn polled surprisingly well among ethnic voters, particularly
small businessmen worried about crime brought by newer immigrants. Twenty
percent of the votes at one Rotterdam mosque that served as a polling place
went for Fortuyn. Said Kort, "We had black people on TV saying they will vote
for him because he's doing something for black people who work for a living. He
was against freeloaders." "If anything, he was a libertarian, and that flew in
the face of 50 years of collectivist tradition in the Netherlands," says
analyst John Huslman of the Heritage Foundation.

The telegenic Fortuyn's media skills ("Imagine a gay Pat Buchanan," says
Jones) sometimes slipped into demagogy, but were effective. In a recent 
televised debate with an imam, Fortuyn baited the Muslim cleric by
flaunting his homosexuality. Finally the imam exploded, denouncing Fortuyn in 
strongly anti-homosexual terms. Fortuyn calmly turned to the camera and,
addressing viewers directly, told them that this is the kind of Trojan
horse of intolerance the Dutch are inviting into their society in the name
of multiculturalism. "They effect was galvanizing," says Jones. The September 
11 attacks in America also made voters more open to Fortuyn's warning
about the danger Islam poses to the open society. 

"I'm not anti-Muslim, I'm not anti-immigration; I'm saying we've got big 
problems in our cities," Fortuyn said last month. "It's not very smart to
make the problem bigger by letting in millions more immigrants from rural 
Muslim cultures that don't assimilate." Though Muslim extremists seem the 
natural suspects in the killing, Fortuyn had many enemies. The Dutch press
demonized him as "the Dutch Haider," even though Fortuyn distanced himself 
from the controversial Austrian rightist, denouncing anti-Semitism and vowing
strong support for Israel. 

To some on the left, the rise of Fortuyn in the polls - some analysts
expected him to emerge from the May 15 elections as a major player in the next
coalition government - signaled the advent of fascism. To understand how 
hysterical this view is in an American context, you have to realize that
Fortuyn is to the left of most Democrats here. In his obituaries, Fortuyn
is being described as a "far right" or "hard right" politician, which is 
nonsense. Fortuyn routinely made the point that it was inaccurate and
foolish to put all anti-establishment politicians in Europe into the same
"far-right" camp. 

He was right, but it's in the interest of the political establishment in
Europe to demonize challengers like Fortuyn as neo-fascist, thus delegitimating
their ideas without having to engage these ideas democratically. A Belgian 
government official reacted to the Fortuyn murder by cautioning politicians to
be more careful about how they campaign - implicitly blaming Fortuyn for
his own assassination. This will not last, particularly when the average voters
believe people like Fortuyn are a liberating presence in the stultified,
statist world of European politics. 

"I wouldn't have voted for him, but he was a fresh breeze through the
whole political scene," says Jeurissen, a stay-at-home mom. "If somebody has a 
different view, and makes people aware that there's a different way to
think about things, that's okay." 

The fact that that anodyne opinion - that freedom of speech is an
acceptable part of democratic society - is enough to get a man killed in
today's Europe should shock the conscience of the continent. Fortuyn may or may
not be a martyr in the war against fundamentalist Islam, but he is almost
certainly a martyr in the war on political correctness. European populations
are aging, and cannot maintain their welfare states without massive
immigration; immigration from Islamic countries threatens to change European
values  inalterably.Fortuyn said Europe cannot avoid confronting these
realities. He may be a more powerful force for change by the way he died than
he would have been had he lived. "The clock is ticking in Europe, and is
ticking in a democratic way," says Hulsman. "Maybe now is the time to begin
real  dialogue about immigration, crime and culture, because if a real one
isn't  begun, these impulses that can't be processed through democratic
institutions are going to have ugly manifestations. This is the problem in
Europe: nothing of real significance is ever discussed by the political elites.

*That's* a right-winger?  Somehow, I don't think conservatives in the US
and holland will find much common ground.

That's a Dutch right-winger as eulogized by the National Review.  Look at the
way he's written up by The Guardian for an alternate viewpoint.

I agree that it is a proper subject to discuss immigration policies and
social assimilation of immigrants. 

I think it's also proper to discuss the potential civil liberties effects of
importing conservative Islamic voters into your electorate.

Re #8: Yeah, that's surprised me about the reports, too.  "Openly gay" and
"right wing" are not descriptions you see attached to the same person
in the U.S.  For one thing, the Republicans would never let such a person
anywhere near the media.

Someone should tell the Republicans that, because at the last convention
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), who is gay, gave an address in the middle of prime
time. 

Well, according to US standards Pim Fortuyn was not right wing, but he 
was in the netherlands.
My major objection to him were his populist way of debating.
He was called  the king of one liners, very much like the way he 
argumented in his books. But I never was able to notice any well 
thought over solution to the problems. It's easy to stipulate the flaws 
in a society, but for heaven's sake, if you aspire to become prime 
minister, please  come up with a sound program.
Yet, his one liners drew many followers, among them - much to his 
dismay, I must admit - many neo nazis, racists and such. Those were the 
people setting off riots following his death and the are the ones 
threatening to murder and socialist in the aftermath.
Still most would be voters of this new comers failed to see the harsh 
society he promoted. For example: somebody developing cancer can forget 
about medical treatment if they aren't properly insured. This is 
unheeard in Dutch society. He objected to the deterioration of 
educational system (one of the causes is the poor salaries for 
teachers) but refused to come up with extra funds. I can go on for 
hours. O yes, in my views he was a rightwinger indeed.

He was vindictive too, and easy to explode in the face of others if 
they proved capable of winning the debate on auguments, like Paul 
Rosenmueller, the left wing party leader, or Jan Marijnissen, the very 
left party leader.
This does not give anybody the right to kill somebody who spoke his 
mind. 

The murderer was caught right after the shooting.
So the guy described in the article above is the one.
I wouldn't say 'smoking guns' but he had the same caliber bullets 
stored in his home (gun possession is still pretty rare - and illegal - 
in the Netherlands). 
The muslim society uttered a sigh of relief as the killer was not a 
muslim.
The lefties however... apparently the murderer belonged to a very small 
faction (consisting of five people, or so) of extremist 
environmentalists. I am certain us lefties will be brandished for this.

Obviously you-uns needs more gun control laws, huh.

One-liners?  Sounds like many american politicians.  Actually, in some
ways, he sounds like Reagan.

Except Reagan's drug policy, for example, was not "You're an addict? Have
all you want!" - an actual Foruyn quote by the way.

Its a bloody shame something like this happened. An dI *did* shed a tear for
him. And with me many others who did the same. I am/was absolutely devastated
that he was murdered. If you look at the news now and the reports coming out
just about everything he says seems to be right. A few examples. He warned
that there would be a shortage in cashs for the next government. A new report
issued just a few weeks ago underlined this situation. Fortuyn warned about
the problems in the health and care - that people died while waiting for
suitable organs (on waiting lists) - this was DENIED all along by aeveryone.
When you said this was the case, you were told you were exagerating. Now
everyone seems to agree that this is a bad thing and it shouldnt have
happened. Even the minister who deals with these issues admitted a few days
ago that Fortuyn was actually right and people ARE dieing on waiting lists.
Another thing: Fortuyn warned about the islam extremistst in our country. The
consequence: people called him a racist! Just a few days ago on the news:
islamc imams are preaching hatred. These people are willingly telling other
islas people that it is OK to beat your wife if she doesnt have sex with you
when  you wish. They put women in absolute low positions and take away all
their rights; exactly something that Holland should be proud of that we
developed that. Fortuyn warned for this behaviour, this is WHY he called ths
islamic culture a 'backward' one. It's time to wake up and see what is going
on all around us. Fortuyn was called a racist, a populist and many more
rediculous things. They called him a right wing politician, well - he was
RIGHT for sure, more than any of these other 'so-called' experts. Fortuyn's
death is a great loss for Holland I am mourn about it.

Isn't that so typical, that the truth of what the man said couldn't be
admitted until he'd been martyred for it?  I recall reading that his
party was set to do well in the elections despite (or perhaps because
of) his murder, but I haven't seen anything beyond that.  I think it's
good that events called attention to the facts, however inconvenient
the facts might be for some people's preconceptions.

Fortuyn's comments about Islam sound a lot like Sylvio Berlusconi's
little talk about the superiority of Western culture, which was also
roundly condemned by the Politically Correct.  Of course, sooner or
later the public (if not the ivory-tower academics) are going to
realize that all of it is essentially true despite how much it makes
the cultural relativists squirm in their seats, and the west will
actually have the courage to fight for its values and proclaim them the
best.  After 11-Sep-2001, that can't come too soon.

(I'd much rather have the Dutch leading the fight for human rights and
secularism than having George Bush implicitly leading it for Pentecostals
and other Christian fundamentalists of the USA; the latter are almost
a mirror-image of the very thing they claim to oppose. :p )

All of it isn't essentially true, any more than it's true that all feminists
hate men.  Fortuyn was describing Moslem extremists, and trying to extend that
position to all Moslems -- that is inaccurate.  Moderate Moslems are no more
of a threat to us than anyone else, and liberal Moslems aren't a threat to
anybody.

You know I *despise* fundamentalist religion of any type, but I promise you
that not all Moslems are fundamentalists.

But the fundamentalits are in control nearly everywhere. That is why
the generalization is made.

they're not in control in holland.

Or a lot of other places.

I am speaking of dominantly Muslim nations in #21. I think Turkey is
the only nation put forward as being fully democratic.

Oppressive governments in predominantly Moslem nations aren't necessarily
fundamentalist.  In fact, most of them aren't, and are having problems with
a fundamentalist opposition that would likely take over should the current
government fail.  Iraq, Egypt, and Algeria, for example, but there are a bunch
of them.  In fact, the only governments that are actually fundamentalist are
those of Iran and the Gulf states.  Pakistan really isn't, though they're too
close for me to be willing to live there.

Re #18: I'm not sure people dying while on organ waiting lists is
particularly noteworthy.  It happens in the U.S., too.  There just aren't
enough usable organs available, and there isn't really anything the
government can do about it.  (At least, not yet.  I suppose stem cell
research might have some promise, but the fundamentalists here in the U.S.
are well on their way to making sure we'll never find out.)

Re: #21  Making such a generalization is incredibly lazy and often 
deliberate.  If folks out there kept in mind that these were just that, 
generalizations, and not the rule, then they wouldn't always just 
blindly conceed to policies that those in power wish to set into place.

re:  (gull)  "(I suppose stem cell  research might have some promise, but the
fundamentalists here in the U.S.  are well on their way to making sure we'll
never find out.)"

Where do you get your information about this??  It's not what I read.

What part of it isn't what you read?

*sigh* W is dead wrong on stem cell research.  Wouldn't it be lovely 
if the GOP took Orrin Hatch's statement more to heart, but heh, right.

Re #28: Could you be more specific?

Re #30: No kidding.  I gained a little respect for Orrin Hatch when he said
he'd changed his mind on that issue after studying it.  That's not something
you usually hear from someone on the far right.  They aren't generally
supposed to admit their opinions are open for debate.

*chuckle*  He's not all that on the far right as you'd think; he's 
probably closer to being moderate.  Not all GOPs are conservative-- 
some are moderate, and a few are even liberal, believe it or not.

The core ideology of Republicanism today is conservative, hence the 
bias.  In very recent years, it's grown even more conservative.

I will admit that the Democrats have recently shifted a bit more to 
the center with fiscal conservatism (hence the term "New Democrat"), 
most notably with Bill Clinton.  I remember reading an article that 
seemed to suggest Gore and Bradley were trying to pull the party back 
to the left (this was during the party nomination).

In Washington State, political commentators have noticed that moderate 
is no longer a 4-letter word among activists.  Most Democrats here are 
New Democrats, although Republican skepticism is high.  The center is 
no longer to be avoided; many WA politicans are warning repercussions 
otherwise (Sam Reed, for example).

I don't have precise cites right now, but most folks here will note 
that Washington has managed to hang on to its blanket primary for 
right now, and it's one of the few states that has managed to do so; 
the concept has largely been banished effectively by the parties 
elsewhere.

I was favorably impressed by Hatch's stance, too, and that's rare for me.

It's rather courageous, given the climate of the Republican party these 
days.  I can still remember the awful convention when Pat Robertson took 
center stage.  Boy, that was awful.

Re #32: From what I've heard, the Washington State Republicans are
unusually far to the right, to the point that they have trouble
nominating electable candidates.  Didn't they nominate some right-wing
talk show host for governor last time?

And yes, I agree with you -- everyone has shifted to the right in the
last several years.

Re #18:
Give me a break!
quote: 'They put women in absolute low positions' I can recall Mr. 
Fortuyn saying 'get cooking' to a female journalists when she pursuied 
him. He wanted to play dire 'in your face' politician making remarks to 
set people into reaction. When people used the same mechanics to 
confront him he, without exception, reacted angry.
All of which you remark can be heard coming from any bar stool.

You may mourn him, but he by no means can be compared with somebody 
like Martin Luther King who fought for a better world. Fortuyn fought 
for the priciple of all for one's own and if you cannot keep up, though.
I hope you are well insured, for if you - heaven forbid - ever develop 
cancer, you are on your own.
It's pretty easy to get rid of waiting lists when you make health 
insurance unaffordable to the masses, for that's what's going to 
happen: many, many people ininsured, making no appeal to health care 
whatsoever. In the worst case just lie down and perish.
I will not, and never, stand for such a society and I will fervently 
fight the ideas of Fortuyn. 
I believe in a society that takes care of its people.
I believe in the priciple of solidarity.

I won't call him a racist, for I don't believe he was a racist, but he 
certainly drew racists. Re-check the footage right after his killing at 
the Hague parliament. Those guys were neos for sure.

quote 2: 'this is WHY he called the islamic culture a 'backward' one'
Examples of backward cultures:
Fundamentalist christians? everone not belonging to their flock is 
unsalvished (to say the least)
Amish? no technologies
Hindus? (they believe in 50,000 deities)

I can go on for hours.

Besides, Islam is no culture, it's a religion.
And it sis not backward.
Without Arabic culture western society wouldn't know math, astronomy, 
our current numbers etc.

OK; getting back to the imams mentioned: there are always rotten aplles 
to be found in any basket. They are only a few. OK, get rid of them. 
Anyone proclaiming violence/hatred should be persecuted. Like mr. 
Spong, the barrister as he proclaims (files law suits) hatred against 
almost everybody not belonging to the Fortuyn flock. He's pathetic.

"Re #28: Could you be more specific?"

OK.  From what I read, "fundamentalists" oppose fetal stem cell research, not
all stem cell research.

re:  "I gained a little respect for Orrin Hatch when he said he'd changed his
mind on that issue after studying it.  That's not something you usually hear
from someone on the far right."

Or from any Democrat, either.

The problem is that fetal stem cells can do things other stem cells can't.

Are you sure about that?  And what does that have to do with
my correction of the previous error?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss