10/05/2011

Foreign reporters discover that Geert Wilders only proclaims freedom for himself..... not for the nation

The last months we have witnessed a couple of incidents here in the Netherlands, where a whole bunch of writers, cartoonists and invited speakers are being 'asked', 'convinced' or otherwise bullied in order to refrain from the quite logical comparison of the developments with respect to Wilders Freedom Party with those of the German/Dutch pre-second world-war years. I won't bore you with the details, but the examples are really numerous (see over on the Dutch blog). And this phenomenon now has also hit the international radar, due to this article by a Canadian journalist. For those readers who think that this case is an incident: it isn't. It's a feature of the double-speak that Geert Wilders uses.

Where Geert Wilders is 'fighting' for freedom of speach. He essentially means: freedom of speech for himself alone. For example, he proclaims the right to compare the Quran with Mein Kampf and to suggest that the Quran should be forbidden. And a number more of such comparisons have given rise to a court case against Wilders. Which leads to an interesting paradox. In the court case Wilders claims to be the agent for freedom of speech. Meanwhile Geert Wilders and his followers are insisting that people stop comparing them to the other populist movements and politicians that are around, such as Hitler, Mussolini.. etc.

As for my personal opinion, I happily exercise my freedom of speech by outlining to you foreigners that, having monitored a lot of his appearances and the trial as well, I am pretty confident that Geert Wilders is a narcist, whose opinions should not be read as a vision for the country or the people, but as a reflection of an otherwise distorted mind. Geert Wilders is himself a son of a immigrants from the former Dutch colony (Indonesia). Whereas his parents (and he himself) strongly assimilated and adapted to the Netherlands, he feels that all other immigrants should be forced to undergo the same treatment. So it is the regular tragic of the one being bullied that now bullies the others, as he wishes to do unto them the same pain as was inflicted on himself. Essentially his is quite a sad story, but here in the Netherlands we are merely unfortunate that he is projecting it upon the state of the Netherlands.