QueenZone discussion #1162308

ThomasQuinn wrote: He is still in parliament, leading a 9-seat party called PVV (Partij Voor de Vrijheid [Party For Freedom]) in the Lower House, which was elected on a platform consisting solely of anti-immigration, anti-Islamic and anti-European Union rhetoric. Like most countries, The Netherlands have always had a marginal group of the population that is fanatically racist and anti-immigrant. In the 1980s and 1990s there was an unsuccesful far-right party representing them (called the "Center Party" and later, when that party was forbidden, the "Center Democrats"), which only ever got one or two seats in the Lower House, but when Pim Fortuyn launched a populist movement making Islam and immigration a hot topic again, the stage was set for more parties to embrace this concept. The Dutch 'liberal' party (what's called 'liberal' in Holland refers to classical economic liberalism, not progressive liberalism) VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie [People's Party for Freedom and Democracy]) has since abandoned liberal views on immigration and adopted anti-immigrant populist rhetoric as soon as they noticed the support Wilders seemed to be getting, only to find itself decimated in the last elections, which much of its conservative electorate gone to Wilders' far-right party. In general, anti-immigrant and anti-Islamist sentiments seem to have spread somewhat (the 9 seats for the PVV are partly to be explained by new converts to racist ideology, but largely due to the fact that far-right Dutchmen did not previously tend to vote in elections), but the main problem is that this minority group has become very vocal, and thus receive a lot of media attention, which makes the problem seem larger. Holland is more racist than I remember it to be before the 2001 WTC attacks, but I largely blame that on political opportunism rather than changing views (polls indicate that the percentage of negative views on immigrants has not risen, and anti-Islamist views have gained only slightly). Wilders does not seem to care about the effects of his rhetoric and his campaigning. He is consciously trying to attract support for his party from all sections of the far-right (though he is a vocal opponent of anti-Jewish groups, who *did* raise part of the signatures he needed to allow his party to participate in the elections) at pretty much any price, and does not seem to care about his electorate's well-being, considering the fact that they are mostly from the poorer sections of the population, while Wilders supports economic measures favoring the elite.

AspiringPhilosophe wrote: Calling people "Street Terrorists" in a televised Parliamentary debate?  Are we sure that this guy has a working brain?  Sounds like this guy is just a chaos-sower.  You know the type: people who like to see chaos in everything around them, and if it's not present they'll actively work to cause it.  Let's hope that this guy's influence, on all sides, goes down the tubes.  Safest way to deal with people like this is to just ignore them.