| Political death Today Holland laid to rest it’s political virginity. Today this nation stood together and reflected on it’s “safe-haven” image that for years had been the cornerstone of this liberal society. A society that would offer asylum to political and financial refugees, a society that passed unprecedented laws (gay marriages, euthenasia, open drug culture etc…) a society which thought that it provided freedom of speech in the most literal sense of the word. Today Holland burried Pim Fortuyn. The international press marked mr. Fortuyn as being a rightwing extremist who aspired political greatness while lobying on an anti immigrant platform. Oh yeah, and he was gay too. Fortuyn, who was a freshman on the political scene, won the local elections in the city of Rotterdam with a landslide victory, and he was heading towards winning one to many seats in our national elections next week. I say one to many because all votes he got meant that the existing political parties (Holland counts 5 major parties and about 10 minor ones) would all have to hand several seats. Needless to say he was a thorn in the side of the political establishment. So the question is why would this unknown all of a sudden be able to cause such a stir? He did what most aspiring politicians will do, and that is to point out the ineptitudes of the current government. As a matter of fact mr. Fortuyn had been doing this for the past many years in the weekly columns he wrote. He would harp on the current social situation in this country, he would expose financial wrongdoings of the government, he basically created new debates on the functioning of the government we have had. Does this merrit being shot? No. Did the things he say/stood for merrit him being labeled a rightwing extremist? No. That people like Haider in Austria, or De Winter in Belgium, or Le Penn in France, gained much notoriaty (however we spell it) these past months/years based on their anti immigrant rethoric and their return this country to it’s citizens does not mean that each politician who stands up and says enough is enough will automatically follow in their goosesteps. If anything Fortuyn was extreme in his flamboyance. Driving around in a chauffeured Jaguar, wearing Italian suits with big colorfull ties and British loafers. But rightwing extremist he was not. It is understandable that a person who doesn’t know what goes on in Holland reads about a Fortuyn and quickly draws a conclusion that will associate the man with a Le Penn. A person yes, but not a journalist. So why label someone something he is not? Cause it is easier then finding out what is going on somewhere. The dutch government did it, the dutch media did it, so why shouldn’t the international equivalents do it either? Fortuyn (meaning fortune in english) was unfortunate in the fact that words can so easily be missconstrued. He had made comments on the Islamic faith, saying that is was backwards as it did not allow for people to become modern hence intigrating in a western culture. Indirectly he had been labelled no better then a dog by a local iman who said that homosexuals were no better then dogs and vermin and should be treated as such. Also mr. Fortuyn had suggested that instead of keeping our borders open for refugees, taking these people in, offering them shelter, food, clothes and money, we should be heading to the regions where they hail from and invest in the local infrastructure, ergo solving the source of the problem. His plans on social reforms in Holland dealing with education, healthcare, transportation etc were never delved into by the international press… you do not sell regular news about a politician trying to change things. No sir. We want skinheads, we want racism, we want to simplify the answer instead of delving into research and seeing if someone might have a point. Speculation is great in this country at the moment. As i mentioned before, we are holding national elections next week and at this moment the outcome is more uncertain then the pseudo stalemate of election2000. There is a good chance that Fortuyn’s party will landslide, something that before his cowardly murder (here they are already calling it a terroristic act, something that sickens me) would not have happend though opinion was high for him. Will his party be able to push through the changes he had in mind? Don’t know, probably not as the man made the party. But i do hope that the press, both national and international, can stop screaming wolf each time someone comes along and tries to push forth reforms. Maybe in the future senseless deaths can thus be avoided. … |