Posted on 05/13/2002 12:44:45 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
The assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and the hysteria that surrounded the recent French elections are illuminating with regards to the current state of European politics. The myth of the EU's dedication to democracy has again been exploded, and the left has once more shown its ugly, murderous face – this time, interestingly enough, from one of its hitherto more innocuous aspects.
In Europe, as in America, the media has contorted the terms of the political spectrum and rendered them almost entirely useless. As in America, there is no hard left or extreme left in sight, although there are open communists, Trotskyites, Socialists and a panoply of other collectivists who would regard Sen. Ted Kennedy to be a reactionary of the same ideological stripe as Sen. Jesse Helms. Meanwhile, a homosexual man with generally moderate positions is demonized as being of the "far-right," as is Mr. LePen, whose ideology is actually more collectivist, more truly left-wing, than the majority of the American Democratic Party.
Of course, the entire dichotomy between both media's left and right is a false one. The difference separating a socialist and national socialist is no greater than the distinction between a Leninist communist and a Stalinist communist; in fact, the primary differences are precisely the same. Whereas the Leninist communist is focused on global revolution, the Stalinist, or national communist, believes that the world must be conquered one nation at a time, just as the national socialist attempts to build state socialism around nationalist forces instead of trusting in the blind hand of history and the enmity of the social classes.
This is why Benito Mussolini was not only able to leave the Italian communist party and form his fascist movement without seriously altering his philosophy, but also to bring a great number of "ex-communists" with him. One cannot, on the other hand, think of a single anti-collectivist or champion of individual freedom who has embraced either communism or facism, because, far from being opposites, they are ideological brethren. They are parallel lanes on the road to serfdom.
The European situation is useful to us here in America because lacking our historical foundation in individual rights, Europe's ideological battles are delineated in stark outlines which make them easier to see clearly.
Whereas the American left is forced to lie about its intentions if it is to have any hope of winning elections, its European counterparts know no such restrictions. Thus American greens must conceal their inherent leftism (though what could be more collectivist than turning over huge tracts of land to the central government), while European environmentalists feel free to go so far as to extend the logic of leftism to its inevitable and ultimate conclusion – a bullet in the head for those who refuse to submit to the will of the collective.
Which makes sense; if the right of the collective always trumps that of the individual, then even one's life cannot be considered sacrosanct. After all, "political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible slavery," in the words of Friedrich Engels. And if Marxian criticism is a weapon, whose object it wishes "not to refute, but to destroy," then the correct response to an enemy's wrong-minded exercise of his presumed freedom of speech might well come out of the barrel of a gun.
Fortuyn's murder, and the despicable reaction of Europe's political elites to it, should cause the European people to rethink their willingness to be led by the nose into the EU's Fourth Reich, but that is unlikely. In Austria, France and now the Netherlands, it has been demonstrated that democracy and freedom of speech do not entail the right to speak out against the left and its union.
How greatly does the left fear freedom, that it attempts to tar even its feeblest advocates with the dread fascist brush? Not that there is a true "right wing" in power anywhere in the world; nowhere is there a nation dedicated to the supremacy of individual freedom and liberty that does not make major concessions to the collective. Sadly, the American Constitution is the closest thing to such a mythical beast, and it has been under assault from those sworn to defend it for most of its two centuries.
The recent events in Europe should remind us why our Constitution is worth defending, and why we cannot afford to be pragmatic, tolerant or less than vigilant in its defense.
IN MEMORIAM
PIM FORTUYN
1948 - 2002
ONE of the most entertaining exercises last week was scanning the Guardian letters pages and seeing the confusion amongst its readers over the assassination of Pim Fortuyn.
"Should we be celebrating this as an anti-racist act or condeming it as an anti-gay one?" wrote one. Only in The Guardian would anyone ask that about a political murder. One reader insisted that Fortuyn had "reaped as he had sown": he had probably been assassinated by a Muslim unhappy at his plan to restrict Muslim immigration into Holland.
It turned out that it was not an angry Muslim, but a human-hating animal-lover who had shot Fortuyn - apparently because of his views on the sexual quality of horses' buttocks. Even so, said another letter-writer, Fortuyn was a bigot who deserved to die - and "being gay is no excuse".
Pim Fortuyn managed to combine the virtues which Guardian readers love to love and the vices they love to hate. He was openly gay - which is terrific: homosexuals are an oppressed minority. Unfortunately, he was also anti-immigration - which is terrible, because to be against the free movement of people is certainly racist (although to be against the free movement of goods and services is to be properly anti-capitalist).
Again, Fortuyn was in favour of women's rights, the legalisation of hard drugs and prostitution - which are all modern and progressive causes. As one reader insisted, far from being a fascist, "Fortuyn wanted to set the Dutch people free . . . he could have rescued Holland. His assassination has taken from us a first-class leader."
But then again, he attacked Islam - which is very, very bad: Muslims are an oppressed people. Attacking them is racist - and you can't get much worse than that.
What caused particular contortions amongst the Guardian-reading classes were Fortuyn's reasons for attacking Islam. He pointed out that, in its fundamentalist form, Islam is against the very progressive causes dear to every Guardian-reader's heart (and to a few other people too): for it quite explicitly denies that women have equal rights to men, it asserts that homosexuality is a crime which should be punished, and its laws stipulate that thieves should have their hands chopped off and that adulterers should be stoned.
Hence the readers' quandary: should one mourn Fortuyn for his defence of liberalism, his attachment to not stoning adulterers and allowing women equal rights - or should one celebrate his demise for putting an end to his "racist" dissing of Islam?
One faction - lead by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association - shared "Fortuyn's concerns about Islam and its antipathy to liberalism. Islamic leaders in the UK have called for the death penalty for gays . . . we have to confront Islam's attitudes to women, democracy, and human rights in general." Another faction, however, felt that all Fortuyn had done was to "incite racial and religious hatred which could have dire consequences for one of the most progressive countries in Europe."
It is an article of faith, especially amongst Guardian-readers, that there are no cultural or religious differences which cannot be overcome within a liberal, democratic society. This has the effect of reducing cultural differences to the difference between flavours of ice cream: which one you choose is simply up to you, and they can all be combined together if that's what you want.
The former Marxist Fortuyn denied that article of faith with all the passion of a heretic. He noted that Islam, in its fundamentalist version, is incompatible with liberal democracy. He suggested that we consider the sort of society the fundamentalists say that God requires.
Can anyone steeped in liberal values honestly deny that he had a point? The point is not, however, one which can easily be accepted by adherents of the multi-cultural myth. For Fortuyn rudely insisted that its logical corollary is that in order to preserve liberal democracy, we have to turn immigrants into people who share our values, and accept our secular, democratic procedures for resolving disputes.
The paradox is that the preservation of a liberal society is, of course, precisely the result which Guardian-readers want: they want immigrants to end up with the views and values which are reflected of the comment pages of the Guardian. But to admit it would be "culturally imperialist" and "racist" - the ultimate sins in the Guardian-reader's lexicon of vices. Hence last week's contortions.
Fortuyn was not a very likeable human being, and may have been a deeply unpleasant politician, but he wasn't a racist. He was a hard-core liberal who showed that cultural imperialism is essential to preserving liberalism. No wonder he caused so much anxiety.
From the Daily Telegraph
The more I think of it, the more it seems to me that Fortuyn was the perfect symbol of our times. He was demonized as being hard right- but properly he was a mixture of right and left- or perhaps better, he was Liberal in the classic sense. He was a product of our culture. And he was the one who stood up and said the "Emperor is naked" (refering to the fact that we might tolerate Islam but it certainly doesn't tolerate us). I think for the thinking man in Western culture he will become a symbol for times to come. So much in his death and the surrounding political and social events is indicative of the core questions we, as a culture, face.
I didn't know who Fortuyn was last week, but now I mourn this man's death because he may have been Dutch but we have all lost something now that he has been silenced.
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