The "Fascist" and the "Activist"

THE PRESS, Tom Wolfe noted in "The Right Stuff," is a Victorian gentleman. After each event, the Victorian gent struggles to find the correct emotional response. Once the correct emotion has been discerned, it is repeated and recirculated with a pious self-assurance familiar to 19th-century drawing rooms. All data that support the correct emotion are emphasized, while all that do not are ignored.

On May 6, the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated, and an expression of troubled concern came over the press's collective visage. This violence is disturbing, the Victorian gent pronounced, especially in a country as peaceful as the Netherlands (the correct emotion to have toward the Netherlands is that it is liberal and tolerant, if a little drug-addled).

But Mr. Fortuyn wanted to drastically scale back Dutch immigration, and even in the face of his murder, the members of the press would be neglecting their gentlemanly duty if they did not lead their readers to the correct emotional response to this factoid. The Financial Times hence labeled Mr. Fortuyn a "far-right extremist." The New York Times called him a "far right leader" and compared him to France's Jean-Marie Le Pen and Austria's Jorg Haider. (The Times also called Fortuyn's alleged assassin an "environmental activist"--activism perhaps being the term of choice for the action of putting five bullets into far-right extremists.)

The European press, which since World War II has assigned itself the noble mission of suppressing the views of the European masses, was even more aggressive in repeating and enforcing the correct line vis-a-vis the newly dead Dutch pol. Mr. Fortuyn, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo declared, was an "incendiary racist" and a "distant heir" to Hitler. The Irish Times labeled his views "anti-democratic," which was odd since his views were being expressed in the context of an election campaign. Aftonbladet, the most popular Swedish newspaper, likened him to a brownshirt--a fascist. In Germany Der Spiegel called him "the voice of hidden racism."

But there were some facts that didn't fit neatly into the Fortuyn-as-Le Pen stereotype. All the news stories mentioned that Fortuyn was gay, and did treat this as an intriguing wrinkle. However, they did not point out, since it would have been confusing, that Fortuyn was actually a champion of what you might call a radical gay lifestyle. He boasted of his promiscuity, of his nights spent in the back rooms of gay bars, the delight he took in the male prostitutes he kept around the house.

Fortuyn was also an enthusiastic supporter of drug legalization and laxer rules on euthanasia. Unlike Le Pen, he was not an opponent of free trade and globalization. While Le Pen loathes what he calls Anglo-Saxon economic liberalism, Fortuyn admired Margaret Thatcher. Confronted with bloated government, Fortuyn once declared, "I will borrow that handbag from Margaret Thatcher, bang it on the table, and say I want my money back."

In other words, Mr. Fortuyn was something of a libertarian, which puts him in an entirely different camp from Le Pen, Haider, and the others. But Fortuyn was not simply a libertarian, he was a nationalist libertarian. Mr. Fortuyn was proud of his country as a haven for liberty, gender equality, acceptance of homosexuals, soft drugs, and alternative lifestyles.

But he perceived that most Muslim immigrants to Holland did not share these views. Muslims now make up one-eighth of the Dutch population, and in many cities over half of the young people under 12 are Muslim. "In Holland," Fortuyn asked, "homosexuality is treated the same way as heterosexuality. In what Islamic country does that happen?" Speaking of Islam, he declared: "How can you respect a culture if the woman has to walk several steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen and keep her mouth shut?"

Fortuyn wrote a book called "Against the Islamicization of Our Culture," defending Dutch liberty against what he saw as Muslims who don't seek to assimilate and share the tolerant attitudes. Fortuyn summarized his argument in an interview shortly before his death: "Christianity and Judaism have gone through the process of enlightenment, making them creative and constructive elements in society. That didn't happen in Islam. There is a tension between the values of modern society and the principles of Islam." Fortuyn wrote another book called "Fifty Years Israel, But For How Long?" defending Israel against Islamic extremism. Israel, he argued, is an open, tolerant democracy under threat from closed, intolerant dictatorships.

What confusion for the Victorian gent! In the parlors of polite society, social tolerance sits side by side with multiculturalism. They are two pastries on the platter of polite opinion. But Fortuyn was socially tolerant, even libertine, and it was for that reason he felt he could not be a multiculturalist.

The Victorian gent does have a strategy when confronted with this clash of Good Opinions. Insulation. Retreat to the high-minded tolerance of your suburb and social circle, and leave it to other poor buggers to actually live with the intolerant extremists. That is to say, champion multiculturalism from the enlightened venue of leafy London or Cambridge, and force the bastards in Israel or the neighborhoods to actually confront the practical consequences of your ideas.

But Fortuyn was a nationalist. The Victorian gent disapproves of nationalism, since it is a primitive passion, like excessive religious belief. But nationalism is actually a form of unselfishness, which takes one out of one's immediate circle and induces one to love and care about one's countrymen. In America, a nation of immigrants, nationalism takes one form. In France, the land of the blood and soil patrie, nationalism takes another form. In Holland, the land of pot bars, nationalism takes another form yet, Mr. Fortuyn's.

Fortuyn forcefully confronted the great contradiction in enlightened opinion. He argued that given the realities of the situation, one had to build a wall around one's tolerance, and restrict the flow of people who refused to join the culture of openness. He proposed reducing immigration flows and stepping up assimilation programs.

One can argue about the merits of his platform. One can argue whether Islam is really as intolerant as Fortuyn made it out to be or even whether this intolerance toward homosexuality and euthanasia is a good thing. But what is interesting from our point of view is that the Victorian gent that is the Western press corps could not even allow Pim Fortuyn to exist.

With the unselfconscious instinct for self-preservation that has always been the great strength of Victorianism, whether in its original form or today, the gent had to depict Fortuyn as something other than what he was. The gent had to depict him as a cliche, a far-right bogeyman. To acknowledge the existence of the real Fortuyn would be to acknowledge the rift between tolerance and multiculturalism. To do that would be to explore what this rift means--what it means in the Middle East and at home.

That exploration is impermissible. It is beyond the bounds of polite discussion. Hence, it does not exist.

Pim Fortuyn is dead. In fact, he never existed.

I guess we had all better watch our backs against visits by "activists."

I posted the following in response to a similar thread, on yesterday. Comments are invited.

The fat is really in the fire. We need to take up the gauntlet while the Left is convulsed with hysteria, because then they are most vulnerable.

I am working on a piece that incorporates this story--because it is for the moment the most compelling example of what the battle in the West today is really all about. The first draft contains these paragraphs:

You are merely beginning to see method in the madness of our enemies.

The next example was highlighted on May 6th, when Pim Fortuyn, a 53 year old Maverick who had become a major force on the Dutch political scene, was shot dead as he left a broadcast studio in a small city near Amsterdam, by a Dutch Leftist. Fortuyn, himself a reformed Leftist, had become something of a classic Liberal; but had come to see the huge and growing immigrant population of the Netherlands as incongruous to the preservation of the extremely tolerant Dutch Society in which he believed. (He was actually an acknowledged Homosexual.) Raising a cry to do something with the social rot that he saw in his home city, Rotterdam, he organized his own political party, and captured the largest share of the Municipal vote. He died as he was leading his new party towards an expectedly strong showing in the coming Dutch National election, May 15th.

Although part of Fortuyn's motivation was a desire to preserve some of the most liberal values that have evolved in modern Dutch society, he was subjected to the same hysterical labels of vilification as Le Pen. When you sift through the various issues, what emerges is that the mechanism that triggers such frenzy on the Left is for one to challenge permissive immigration policies. The one thing they cannot abide, is for a political group to recognize the fact that who settles in a country will determine the type of society that that country will have. It is this common sense differentiation that apparently threatens the entire Socialist world view. And well it might. For in that realization is the ultimate truth, that we are all different; that there is nothing wrong with people acting to preserve those characteristics that make their particular group, unique; that there is nothing wrong with people preferring their own way, rather than the Left's way.

The hideous murder of one for simply challenging the true bigots of our time--the advocates of a forced egalitarianism, that denies human reality, and stultifies the creativity that comes from the very diversity they would destroy--should prove an eye opener for the bemused spectators of the West's decline, all over the world. Will it make that much of a difference? Only time will tell. While most Conservatives will condemn Pim Fortuyn's personal living habits, he did not deserve to die in this manner. And it would be wrong not to seek to vindicate the good that was apparently still within him, by using the resulting lesson from his brief emergence on the previously pitiful Dutch political landscape, to the end that he not have died in vain.

[Please note, that we are not suggesting that how the Dutch vote is any business of anyone not subject to the Dutch Monarchy. But debates in one country, naturally stir interest in the same issues, among kindred peoples. And intellectual lessons in the pursuit of truth, know no borders.]

It was announced that Volkert van der Graaf wanted to kill Fortuyn in Breda, but didn't do it because there was much security arranged by the newspaper Fortuyn was appearing for. Volkert van der Graaf was also seen by withnesses (and on camera which tapes are handed over to the police) together with two men.

A few minutes ago the rumors about the identity of those two man were circulating:

-Pepijn B. from Amsterdam (internationale socialisten)
-Rene D. from Amsterdam (animal liberation front)

If it is true, this will remove all doubt that exrteme left was involved in planning an assassination.

Also Peter R. de Vries, crime-reporter, aksed the Dutch police to allow 3rd party people to watch over the police investigation to remove any doubt that police is covering things up.

He did this because he recieved hundereds of emails from people asking him also to do investigation.

There is a lot of talk about a complot on Dutch forums, and people find it all to convenient for Fortuyns opponents he is dead now. The public, nationel press is constantly calling people not to make 'an emotional' vote, that the List Pim Fortuyn is a bad list and so on.

I can only conclude the Netherlands are the bananarepublic of Europe.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.