Wilders’ Best Friends Forever
Hey! Your posters have really extremist and shitty citations!
That’s right. We also think these are shitty and extreme Right citations, and we have printed them with a heavy heart. But the cited texts are not ours. The new European friends of Geert Wilders made these statements. And Wilders thinks all of his new friends are wonderful. Just so you know it.
| The original text in Dutch Translated into Engish by Jet |
But Wilders never wanted to collaborate with the extreme Right, correct?
Until a few years ago Wilders indeed did not want to openly collaborate with racist and anti-Semitic parties. But now that Wilders wants to have more money, power and speaking time in the European Parliament he has chosen to collaborate with parties such as the Front National, the Vlaams Belang, Lega Nord and FPO. This would have been a bridge too far even for Pim Fortuyn, one of the great role models of Wilders. In fact Fortuyn distanced himself from these parties repeatedly. He called Jean-Marie le Pen of the Front National “a fascist” for example, and called Filip Dewinter of the Vaams Belang “a racist”. Wilders however has no problem at all with these parties. And this, once and for all, places the PVV in the European extreme Right family of racists and Holocaust deniers.
In some ways the Vlaams Belang and Front National for example are more extremist than Wilders, especially where it concerns their hatred of Jews. On the other hand the PVV is more extremist regarding Muslims. Wilders has stated that tens of millions of Muslims should be deported from Europe and he made ridiculous proposals to “tax the head rags” (= headscarfs) and to ban the Koran. His new friends do not support these proposals. Even those right-wing extremists consider Wilders to be too extreme in these areas.
But surely Wilders only wants the best for the elderly and for social security? Then he cannot be such an extremist?
As far as social security is concerned Wilders is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In order to get extra votes he churns out proposals on social issues without standing up for these. He spoke out sharply against raising of the pensionable age (the so-called AOW age) for example, but as soon as he wanted to join the Rutte government he simply abandoned this ‘demand’ only a few hours after the elections. The PVV also claimed to oppose any reduction in the unemployment benefits (the so-called WW) and the deterioration of the law on redundancy. But as soon as the party was involved in government all of a sudden these claims turned out to be completely empty and the PVV was “willing to discuss” additional cuts in social security. In addition, if it were up to Wilders the so-called ‘allochtonen’ (people with for instance Turkish and Moroccan background) will be more and more excluded from social security benefits in the Netherlands, even though they have paid for these for dozens of years through the taxes and social security contributions. It is obvious that this particular ‘friend of the people’ will not get us anywhere.
Wilders may pretend he is an outsider, but in reality he is a former member of the liberal conservative party VVD who now has his own party, and he is one of the longest serving members of Parliament with a lot of experience in backroom deals. It is understandable that people want a vote of protest. But why give this to a racist? An agitator who drily claims that the Poles and the Dutch Moroccans are to blame for the crisis? Not the bankers and CEOs with their fat bonuses, or the politicians who gave them a free hand to concoct financial constructions to become rich fast.
So should we vote for other parties?
Most parties nowadays generally want the same: budget cuts, privatisation and migration control. They pamper banks, businesses and the rich, and to do so they take the money they need from the man and woman in the street. That is why many people no longer have any confidence in “politics”, and rightly so. Most progressive and Christian parties do not defend our interests, and you just don’t vote for the VVD: they clearly are the party of the elite. Wilders’ trick for years now has been to get the votes from those dissatisfied voters and then use these votes to fully support the neo-liberal policies. First by ‘condoning’ a government of the Christian Democrats (CDA) and Liberal Conservatives (VVD), and now by generally voting for the policy of budget cuts of the current government. The government of this same Rutte who claimed the PVV to be a “perfectly normal party” in spite of all the extreme Right statements of Wilders and his unsavoury friends. Most of the other parties do not really stand up to Wilders either, unless now and then hesitantly when the Dutch image abroad is threatened and this might harm ‘our’ trade interests. You decide yourself what party to vote for, if indeed you are going to vote. We do not give any advice on how to vote. But we do want to appeal to you to make your voice heard between elections. We think it is important for us to organise ourselves, to participate in movements and unions, to become active, to take to the streets and to fight to achieve a better world with more solidarity.