Pieter Dorsman wrote a great article about Dutch martyrs Theo van Gogh and especially Pim Fortuyn.
Today, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is taking America by storm and many commentators are struggling to explain her instant success following the publication of her recent biography. As they do they reconstruct her creative partnership with Dutch moviemaker Theo van Gogh, something that directly caused the latter’s death and eventually forced Hirsi Ali to pursue a new career on this side of the ocean. Yet it would not be a stretch to argue that if it hadn’t been for Pim Fortuyn – murdered five years ago today – that Van Gogh would still be alive and that Hirsi Ali’s would still be producing dull policy papers for the Dutch Labour party. Instead they both an uncharted course.
Every political rupture, every shift needs a change agent, a person brave enough to defy conventional thinking and embark on a mission that — even if it fails — will stand as a beacon for future disciples. In America Barry Goldwater rolled the dice and didn’t quite make it, but Reagan in the end benefited from his trailblazing effort.
So it was in the placid, structured and overly politically correct Dutch world where concepts such as success, ambition and renewal were relative unknowns or if they emerged, were met with deep resistance. And although Pim Fortuyn was to some extent part of the Dutch establishment, his ideas, style and tastes were a tad too rich and unconventional for the famed Dutch consensus. Fortuyn was rebuked by all parties – from left to right – and he consequently started his own party, without any constraints, something which probably suited him best. His struggle as a gay man that grew up in a Catholic household in the 1950s had probably given him the courage and raw individualism required to pull off a mission of this nature.
As Fortuyn saw it, provocation and a resulting ‘hefty debate’ were the essential tools to disrupt complacency and find alternative solutions to the challenges of a global and rudderless new century. Books like “Without Public Sector Employees†in a nation governed by pampered and firmly ensconced public servants and “Against the Islamization of our Culture†(in 1997, no less) in a country deeply committed to political correctness, were the opening shots of a much broader campaign.
While Fortuyn’s key strengths were arguing about less government with more room for the private sector and curbing immigration into a nation that was “fullâ€, Fortuyn’s passion and sharp debating skills were above all fueled by an intense dislike of the vested order. The establishment was his real target. Not only had it rebuffed him more than once, he was on an intellectual level able to demonstrate how vacuous it had become. This solidified his passion and support and it enabled him to draw followers from all layers of society.
There were quite some issues on which I disagreed with Fortuyn, I would not have voted for him, if for nothing else then because he was too divisive, but he did something that had to be done: the Netherlands had to get rid of political correctness, the Netherlands had to break with the notion that to criticize immigrants / immigration is (acting) racist, etc.
Cross posted at my own blog
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