GEERT WILDERS - THE DUTCH POLITICIAN LEADING EUROPE BACK TO NAZISM
The far right has risen. Let there be no doubt about it.
Before the progressive Left in Greece were able to respond, the neo-Nazi white supremacist party, Golden Dawn, swept to power following a period of terrible discontent fuelled by joblessness, austerity and a breakdown of basic amenities, as Germany and the EU placed an economic choke hold on working class Greek citizens. The country lurched right. Hard. Far right. People were jobless. Poor. Angry. Immigrants and refugees were beaten on the streets and Greece stared into the darkness.
Across Europe, openly and behind closed doors, people cheered-on the increasimg divisions and the slide into racist hysteria. The anti-multiculturalists who had been patiently waiting on the sidelines saw their opportunity. And they took it. For such things are the natural amd entirely expected consequence of austerity - it fuels the politics of hate. Tis odd, is it not, how when people face hardships, they turn on each other? So frail is the balance of humanity.
Geert Wilders has been leading a revolution in Europe. His Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands has been building alliances across the globe in an effort to drive forward the agenda of an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant alliance of parties. With supporters like banned US hate-preachers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, the group associated with Jo Cox’s killer Britain First, Pegida, the EDL, UKIP, Front National, Lega Nord in Italy, Austria’s FPÖ and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang. You can now count Trump amongst those. It’s not an exhaustive list - but you get the picture.
In March 2017, Wilders, as one of Europe’s leading neo-Nazi fascist leaders may take a majority stake in the Dutch Parliament which runs on a proportionate representation model. The PVV are currently neck-and-neck (if not better) against Rutter and whilst coalition politics plays a major role in the Dutch parliamant with some 15 parties currently represented, Wilders has a real chance of taking the major balance of power.
You can watch my interview on Geert Wilders with the English far right, here
Wilders considers Islam to not be a religion of peace but an ideology of fascism; that Europe’s mosques should be closed; the Quran should be banned; that white identity is being destroyed by multi-culturalism; for free movement and civil rights in Europe to be curtailed; that refugees and migrants should be left to die - there no room for them and no responsibility towards them. With Trump in the White House, Europe now stands on the precipice of a return to real fascism. What that means for religious minorities is a lesson history told us to #NeverForget.
Forget we did. It's time for humanity and to rebuild our alliances - across the divides of race, belief and identity. The greatest blessing is to not be consigned to repeating the mistakes of history. Every day is a chance to set things right.
Wilders may be appealing his recent criminal conviction for an incitement to discrimination against racial minorities but the growth in his popularity continues. It is a perfect PR storm wherein he can claim to be a martyr for his cause. One thing it isn’t, is a free speech issue. Hate speech and rhetoric which foments 1930s-style pre-genocide conditions in Europe, are no small thing. We need limits. Removal of those limits in a climate of hysteria is to throw a spark into the powder keg. It can only end with the skies of Europe ablaze from our very own civil rights burning in furnaces of hatred and fear.
Good people have been disconnected from politics for too long - it’s understandable. The claims are that our political classes are corrupt, elite and do not represent true democracy. That politics has failed. Whilst Europe is an aged empire in the throes of decline and renewal, change and transition, the answer must never be to place our trust into the hands of the far right and by doing so, to turn against religious minorities and ethnic groups for our economic and social identity woes.
One way or another, Europeans will have to let their walls down, let people in and get on with making it work. Peace in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and fair economic trade relationships, is the way to a settled and prosperous future. Mixed and multi-cultural communities where we learn and grow, together. Of course, that model for humanity hurts certain interests. Certain pockets. And the people wearing those trousers aren’t going quietly. That’s a big part of the problem.
Thankfully, it's very solvable - there are more of us. We just have to make ourselves heard.
First published 13 December 2016: Medium