Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 Long Live the Republic!: 1798: The Constitution
- 2 A New Society is Being Created Here: 1813: The Nation State
- 3 Everything is a Motley: 1848: Parliamentary Democracy
- 4 Following the American Example: 1879: The Political Party
- 5 Justice and Love: Fin de siècle: Ideology
- 6 The Nation is Divided into Parties: 1930: The Pillarized-Corporate Order
- 7 Fundamental Changes in Mentality: 1966: The Cultural Revolution
- 8 That's Not Politics!: 2002: Populism
- 9 A Tiny Spot: Political culture
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of persons
8 - That's Not Politics!: 2002: Populism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 Long Live the Republic!: 1798: The Constitution
- 2 A New Society is Being Created Here: 1813: The Nation State
- 3 Everything is a Motley: 1848: Parliamentary Democracy
- 4 Following the American Example: 1879: The Political Party
- 5 Justice and Love: Fin de siècle: Ideology
- 6 The Nation is Divided into Parties: 1930: The Pillarized-Corporate Order
- 7 Fundamental Changes in Mentality: 1966: The Cultural Revolution
- 8 That's Not Politics!: 2002: Populism
- 9 A Tiny Spot: Political culture
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of persons
Summary
On Saturday 9 February 2002 an interview appeared in de Volkskrant with Pim Fortuyn, the leader of the new political party Liveable Netherlands (Leefbaar Nederland). In the interview he described Islam as a ‘backward culture’. If it were up to him, no more Muslims would enter the country: ‘It is a full country’. And if one were not allowed to say such things, then Article 1 of the constitution should be amended: the right to freedom of speech was more important than combating discrimination. That same evening, the party executive gathered to inform him that this was so much in conflict with the programme that their ways would have to part. When this became clear, Fortuyn burst into a furious tirade:
But folks, we’re on the brink, not in the Netherlands, but in Europe. Is that what you want? I support this country! What we’ve built here over five, six centuries! And we’ve got a goddamned fifth column here… Let me say everything now… A fifth column, eh, of people who want to bring the country to damnation. And I won't accept that. […] But you are letting yourselves be walked all over! And I won't do it any more! And that's why I’ll win those parliamentary seats, because this country has had enough. C’est ça! That's what I stand for. And if I have to put it differently: fine! But it's about your children, your grandchildren. What else could it be about? Do I have to explain further here? I can't do it differently and I won't do it differently. Destroy it then. Okay, fine.
But the problem, sir, remains. People have had more than enough of it. God damn it, in my city, Moroccan youths, Turkish youths, who don't rob the Turks and the Moroccans, but you and me, old ladies. And the police, what do they do? God damn it: nothing! They say: ‘If you say that, that’s discrimination’. So then I’ll say it for the Dutch people – that's what I stand for. It's not allowed? Okay. I respect you. C’est ça.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tiny Spot on the EarthThe Political Culture of the Netherlands in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, pp. 265 - 288Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2015