Is Europe dead or dieing?

Does Fortuyn's anger reflect the mood of the public?

In a comment on Lawrence Austers VFR I wrote about a clip of an angry Pim Fortuyn vowing not to take Islamization anymore:

This clip indicates the mood of a significant part of the European public.

Mr Auster replied:

Snouck says the clip reflects the mood of a significant part of the European public. I sadly disagree. No one EVER sees such ideas and feelings being expressed in public in Europe. If such ideas and feelings were being expressed by a significant part of the European public, Europe would be a different continent from what it now is, and would be on the path to saving itself, instead of being on the path to Islamization and death.

That is a big compliment to Mr. Fortuyn and Mr. Wilders. But is it true that such ideas or feelings are not EVER being expressed in public? Obviously the Islamisation of Europe is advancing in most European countries, including The Netherlands. But in Flanders the Vlaams Belang, in Italy the Lega Nord, in Denmark the People's Party, Switzerland the People's Party and in Germany Denmark's People's Party, Holland's Party for Freedom, Switzerland's People's Party, in Germany Pro-Deutschland are speaking up against Islamization and mass-immigration as VFR commenter Bjorn Larsen also points out.

How must opposition to Multi-culturalism be expressed?

As a proof of his statement Mr. Auster says:

If such ideas and feelings were being expressed by a significant part of the European public, Europe would be a different continent from what it now is, and would be on the path to saving itself, instead of being on the path to Islamization and death.

Is this really so? Would Europe be choosing live if this sentiment was expressed by the public? Firstly, the public is not able to express itself coherently, so it must be leaders who give words to the mood of the public. Secondly, the way to do it must be acceptable to the public. The reason why Fortuyn was acceptable was because he initially expressed himself as a defender of European freedoms and equality. If he had started off as he did in the video he would never have gathered a following. These expressions only became acceptable after he had become a electoral power. I do not even think it is all that important, that this sentiment is expressed in this way at all. It is important that the sentiment exists in the leadership and the public. But opposition must be expressed in a calm and deliberate way in order to not to preclude it from becoming respectable.

There is a decade of struggle ahead

I do not think Europe is as dead as Mr. Auster seems to think. An opposition is being built against Multiculturalism, which has the mainstream. Multiculturalism is losing ground as more and more bad news about immigrant communities is coming out. But it will take at least a decade of hard work before there will be a new consensus in the smaller countries and the bigger countries may even take two decades.

Turkish political language in municipal elections

On 3 March there will be municipal elections in The Netherlands. The PvdA (Labour) party is being embarrassed by Dutch and Turkish members who are campaigning in Turkish. Rotterdam PvdA candidate Fikri Demirtas has a Turkish language poster. Amsterdam PvdA candidate Lodewijk Asscher has a Turkish language poster. Amsterdam candidate Freek Ossel also has a Turkish language poster.

Vunerable right flank of Christian parties

There will be municipal elections on March 3. Two days ago on 15 February there was a political debate on Dutch public TV. Amongst others the PVV (Freedom Party) send Geert Wilders and the coalition party CU (Christian Union) was represented by Arie Slob.

The CU is part of the ruling coalition togehter with CDA (Christian Democrats) and PvdA (Labour). CU is supposed to be a Conservative party, but it moved to the left on many issues and is losing its right-wing profile. This makes the CU vunerable to competition from the right especially from the Geert Wilders' PVV. This became glaringly obvious during the debate. At some point Mr. Wilders launched an attack against CU's Arie Slob asking

Mr. Slob you represent a Christian Party in The Netherlands. Do you think Islamic culture is equal to Christian culture, can be combined with the rule of law in a democratic state, do you see Islam is a totalitarian ideology [more of the same from Wilders].... ?

Arie Slob answers for the CU:

There are a million Muslims in The Netherlands, they cannot be excluded, they have to obey the rules everybody has to obey our rules [waffles on]

Geert Wilders interrupts:

That is no answer to my question, you are not answering my question is Islam equal to Christianity ?

Arie Slob:

Do not turn groups of people against each other

Wilders [mockingly in a falsetto voice]:

He is not answering my question he is not answering my question!

The public laughs. In the studio a political commentators says that the question is clever and is impossible for the Christian Union to answer.

Snouck's Commentary: as the right-wing parties are moving to the left they become more and more vunerable to competition from the PVV. The PVV stands to make a lot of hay during the national elections from the failure from CDA and CU to champion the Duch Christian heritage. Polls show all parties a vunerable to competition for votes from the PVV, but the Christian parties more than the Leftist parties. In the municipal elections the effect will not be significant as the PVV is only participating in four municipalities.

The whole fragment of the debate can be viewed here (Dutch).

Pim Fortuyn shows his true colours

The night of Fortuyn

Two counter-jihadists who go by the nom de guerres of Vlad Tepes and VH have translated and subtitled many Dutch videos which have been given wider circulation on the GoV blog. One that really needed to be subtitled is a part from a documentary "The night of Fortuyn". This documentary shows the night of the coup against Pim Fortuyn on 10 February 2002. Fortuyn had been a leader and spokesman of the Leefbaar Nederland party. The party board had appointed Fortuyn in order to challenge the cartel of political parties that run the Netherlands. When Fortuyn during a Volkskrant interview showed himself hostile to mass immigration of Muslims the leadership demanded that he either resign or promise not to make any anti-immigration and anti-islamic remarks anymore. Fortuyn refused to shut up and at some point late at night he gave his motives for doing so in an tirade which was filmed. In this he gave vent not only to his own rage but to the rage of many Dutchmen and it explains the popularity of his platform and Geert Wilders' platform. If you are not Dutch and you wonder where the support for Geert Wilders and the PVV (Freedom Party) is coming from here is part of the answer.

Appeasement in Gouda

Gouda has a history of violence by Muslim youth

The Dutch town of Gouda has been plagued by violence by Muslim youth for a long time. Usually the violence is committed by groups of youngsters of Moroccan origin, as featured in posts on this blog in November 2008. Today De Telegraaf featured an article which showed how the Gouda authorities are dealing with troublemakers. They give the trouble makers money to organize a party on New Years Eve in order to avoid Muslim rioting. The De Telegraaf article revealed that the municipality had given 2,250 Euro to the rioters to hire a DJ and cater a party.

Moral Hazard

This a move is a moral hazard. It is an incentive to rioters and criminals. In another Dutch provincial town there were race riots on New Years Eve between Moluccan and Moroccan Muslim youth, which featured in the news prominently. Obviously reality diverges from the Multi-Cultural idyll. With the Wilders trial in the background news such as this provide a constant source of illustration of Geert Wilders and other opponents of the Multi-Cultural society.

Liberal Lying about benefits of immigration

Are immigrants public charges?

In July last year PVV (Freedom Party) MP Sietse Fritsma asked the Dutch Government by way of Integration Minister Eberhart van der Laan what the cost of immigration was to the Dutch taxpayer. Mr. Van der Laan refused to answer, which increases the suspicion many Dutchmen have that immigration is only a boon to the immigrants and not to the Dutch. Minister Van der Laan motivated the refusal by saying that it is wrong for the state to calculate the costs of immigrants broken down by country of origin. A parlementarian majority supported him.

Or are they an economic benefit?

Minister van der Laan visited Morocco from 7 to 11 February. During the visit he stated to newspaper "Le Matin" that

immigrants from Morocco are an economic benefit to The Netherlands.

In a reaction PVV leader Geert Wilders and MP Sietse Fritsma asked the Minister how he could know that, as he had refused to calculate it in July 2009.

Liberalism and equality

In conclusion: to the Liberal mind that everybody worldwide is equal and all cultures are equal is a foregone conclusion. So it does not have to be researched. When a Liberal is confronted with the question whether non-western immigrants he realizes that non-western immigrants cost more than they bring in material advantage. In order to remain liberal Liberals will the knowledge away. And soon they will revert to the belief that all people and cultures are equal.

The Wilders trial will not commence until July

At VFR Lawrence Auster wrote:

Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any news on any proceedings in the Geert Wilders trial for today, February 4, neither at Gates of Vienna, nor at the Wilders on Trial website. Stunning development: the Wilders trial has been adjourned for four months--correction: for up to nine months.

Snouck: I mailed Mr. Auster as follows:

The court has requested Mr. Geert Wilders to provide verhinderdata (can't-make-it-dates) from the three witnesses whom he's been permitted to call. The trial will resume in June if I am not mistaken. My notes say three to four months from now.

See how considerate and reasonable those who-have-been-appointed-over-us are, you cowboys?

LA replies:

Thanks for this information, which is entirely unexpected. I had no idea that the trial, which began less than two days ago, was about to adjourn for four months. I thought that the January 20 session had been a preliminary, procedural session, and that the trial proper had begun on February 3, as various sites including VFR reported on February 3. Everyone was geared up for the big event, which now we learn won't take place until the summer, if then. I can't imagine why this basic information was not reported or mentioned at any of the interested websites. And, by the way, what basis do we have for criticizing the American media's non-coverage of the trial, when the trial won't begin until June?

If there had to be a delay of four months in order to schedule the testimony of three witnesses, then it would not be unreasonable to suppose that if all of Wilders's eighteen proposed witnesses had been accepted, there would have been a delay of twenty-four months. A distant observer may be forgiven for thinking that the Wilders trial is shaping up to be the Dutch equivalent of the interminable case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, in Charles Dickens's Bleak House.

LA continues:

I've asked Snouck where he got the information that the trial had been adjourned until June, since I see no hint of that at any of the sites that are linked here.

Snouck writes:

This information was provided in the hearing. The full hearing in Dutch was put on the internet by the NOS (Dutch State Broadcasting) here at the end. I have not seen a full transcript in Dutch or English.

However, I made a mistake. Apologies. I listened to the last part of the hearing again and the trial will take place between 1st of June and 31 October. Not in June. The exact date will depend on the availability of the witnesses.

LA replies:

Unbelievable. So it will take place in June at the earliest.

Did the court give a reason for this enormous delay? Since when does it take up to nine months (from February 3 to October 31) to schedule the appearance of a a couple of witnesses at a trial? And if it takes this long to find a time when three witnesses can appear together, then a trial with 20 or 30 witnesses would take years.

And were the parties to the trial surprised by this announcement of the judges? Didn't they think that the trial had begun and was not about to be adjourned for between four and nine months?

And why do you think that neither the news services nor the Wilders website reported this information?

Also, when did the judges make this announcement? On Wednesday the third, or on Thursday the fourth?

Snouck replies:

The announcement was made in the hearing on Wednesday the third. It was published on TV by the NOS and on the NOS website.

Snouck continues:

I am embarrassing myself. It is NOT in June the earliest. It is between 1st of July and 31 October.

The reason given is that one of the scientists (Wafa Sultan) has to come from a foreign country.

Mr. Wilders was angry about something. I do not think it is the delay though. He mentioned to the press his anger over the turning down of his requests for witnesses and experts. He said the Court does not want to hear the truth.

Other facts. The court says the trial will take five days when it will be held. Mr. Wilders may request more time. The Court might grant the request. Some part of it will be heard by a Rechter-Commissaris, a Court functionary. I do not fully grasp why or what that implies. Also the Court has yet to take decision on the status of the experts Mrs. Sultan, Mr. Jansen and Mr. Admiraal. Right now they call the experts "scientists."

I do not know why the website of Mr. Wilders did not post the information. They seem to be posting mostly video. The PVV (Freedom Party) organisation is quite small and underfunded. I can speculate they are hard pressed to provide transcripts and translations.

LA replies:

Today is the fifth. The trial began on the third. I am dumbfounded that none of the reports about the first day of the trial--which were posted on the third--mentioned the adjournment.

In any case, now we now why, as I pointed out in an earlier entry, there was no news about the second day of the trial. There WAS no second day of the trial. But, notwithstanding all the attention that was focused on the trial, no one had told us that.

Paul Belien writes:

As I said in my previous email: court cases being adjourned for several months (sometimes years) is not unusual in Europe.

Europeans have waiting lists when they want to see the doctor, and they have to wait when they want to see a judge.

My guess is that in order to avoid Wilders electorally benefiting from a conviction, the Dutch establishment will try to delay the verdict until after the next general elections. The elections are due in June 2011 at the latest, but the general expectation is that they will take place this Fall.

LA replies:

Ok, but this still doesn't explain why this information was not reported anywhere. Not at Wilders's site. Not at GoV. Not in any news media source. It's surreal.

And then the news only comes from a Dutch blogger who saw the Dutch TV broadcast of the trial and wrote to me about it, a day and a half after the various reports on the first day of the trial had been posted.

We were all treating with great importance, and got into a pitch of intensity about, this historic and fateful trial that was starting. And now it turns out that it's not starting at all, and may not start for another nine months.

Paul Belien replies:

It was not reported because Europeans consider this to be normal. That is how courts work over here: as soon as it suits the court, they will send Wilders a message telling him when to come to court again. It may be next June, It may be next October, who knows.

(And GoV did not report it because they translate info which they get from Europe.)

You get annoyed and frustrated, but that is what the authorities hope to achieve: they want to get you so annoyed and frustrated that you just give up.

LA replies:

Yes, your explanation of the authorities' modus operandi makes sense.

But that still doesn't explain why Wilders's site did not report this. Wilders's supporters in America and England and elsewhere were closely following the trial. Didn't Wilders's staff think that this was slightly important information to tell us?

Paul Belien writes:

You say this is surreal. Of course it is surreal. The whole Wilders trial is surreal.

Want to live the surreal? Come and live in Europe.

Seen this?

"German homeschoolers get political asylum in the U.S."

Wilders, too, will have to apply for asylum in the U.S. one day.

Paul Belien writes:

One more thing: the court also said that the witnesses will be heard behind closed doors.

LA replies:

Did they give a reason for this?

Paul Belien replies:

No.

Snouck adds:

Something I noticed watching and listening to the judge is that he appears scared or intimidated. He pays attention to the non-verbal reactions of Geert Wilders. I think he is part intimidated by Mr. Wilders and perhaps partly does not agree with some decisions he reads out.

And I agree with Mr. Paul Belien. Europeans see nothing unusual in the long wait, because we are used to them. That is one of the reasons why the wait was not reported.

Police protection for threatened aeldermen

Multiculturalism and its champions

Most Western countries are under the spell of the multicultural ideology. Particularly the left-wing parties push this ideology. Critics of multicultural society and its ideology are attacked and pictured as the cause of any conflicts between minorities and Westerners.

The champion of multiculturalism splinter

It is therefore particularly interesting to see an organisation which is a champion of multiculturalism become a victim of ethnic conflict. In the Rotterdam borough of Feijenoord the multiculturalist idyll is in deep trouble. The local (PvdA) Labour faction in the borough council is splitting along ethnic lines. Violence is in the air.

The setting: Feijenoord

The Feijenoord neighbourhood has 70,000 inhabitants with a high percentage of those of immigrant origin. In the 2006 municipal election the Labour Party recovered a lot of the seats that had been lost to the local Fortuynist Party Leefbaar Rotterdam (LR). They got 14 of 21 seats in the borough council. Six of the fourteen are of Turkish origin.

Dutchmen in charge of Labour or not?

The executive of the Feijenoord Labour party went to three Dutchmen. On 4 May 2006 a former Labour party executive, Mr. Johan Henderson, insisted that there were constant conflicts within the Labour party and that the conflict had an ethnic dimension. He suggested that the conflict could be solved if the Turks in Feijenoord would be represented by a Labour Party Turk in the borough council. And indeed, a Gülami Yesildal was appointed as a fourth member of the executive of the Feijenoord council. In October 2007 a new scuffle broke out when a Dutch council member insisted that the Turkish councillors should speak Dutch amongst each other rather than Turkish.

Conflicts persist

In 2008 two of the Labour executives had to step down as a result of conflicts, one Dutch and the other the Turkish aelderman Yesildal. In interviews with local press they spoke darkly of "nepotism" and "a sickness in the Labour Party in Feijenoord".

The current troubles

In December 2009 the simmering conflicts exploded. Usually party meetings are decided by a few core members, who turn up at all the meetings. Eighty to ninety percent of the party members are dormant. A Labour Party meeting was stacked with lots of Turkish Labour members who had never before attended any meetings. Seven Turkish and a Dutch member were promoted to the top of the list. The Dutch member, René Kronenberg, became the new local Labour leader.

Several of the demoted party members and their supporters were furious. A demoted Labour Party cadre said:

This was like a CPN - Dutch Communist Party - take over.

A Labour Party member, Jo den Haan, said

I do not want to be a part of this anymore. It is not about the public interest anymore. When I see stuff like this I think Wilders is right after all

Mr. Den Haan left the Labour Party. Many other members of the Feijenoord Labour Party have ended their membership.

Violence in the air

On 30 January tensions had run up so high that three former aeldermen felt compelled to request police protection. They feared for a threat against their safety from the Turkish Labour members. They mention intimidating looks and e-mails. The customs of Anatolia have settled in The Netherlands. This was reported by the Algemeen Dagblad (AD), a Rotterdam newspaper.

Source:

* This article was based on two articles by Carel Brendel, a former Labour Party member, author and blogger. Here and here.