Deconstructing Geert Wilders’s hate

Before France, the Netherlands was the focus of the TLP’s protests. An infamous racist politician, Geert Wilders, had announced an Islamophobic competition under the garb of a caricature contest. Those familiar with Geert Wilders know that this was not the first time he embroiled himself in such a controversy. He has in the past produced one shoddy anti-Muslim propaganda film (IMDB.com labels it as a documentary). I am sure that when he won no Oscars, acquired no accolades, and gained a mere 4.3/10 on IMDB’s user ratings, Wilders must have been very disappointed.

Wilders has proven himself rather shameless when it comes to his own interests and will act in the most unexpected manner. For instance, on April 16, Wilders tweeted to Prime Minister Imran Khan to complain about the TLP chief. Firstly, this was quite surprising as Pakistan is a Muslim country and he detests Muslim countries, and secondly, despite lambasting Muslims and Islam continuously, he has no issues asking the Prime Minister of an Islamic republic for help

When it comes to his political agenda Wilders is fond of distortion. In his infamous Islamophobic film he distorts Islamic teachings to paint a negative picture of Islam. He then rather idiotically attempts to link Islam and terrorism with each other. This is just one example of many of how he uses distortion to demonize Islam. Any fair individual would not present an easily falsifiable perspective in a documentary. But this isn’t the first time that he has used flawed logic to propagate his abhorrent views about Islam and Muslims. Like many other Islamophobic leaders he has attempted to associate Islam with political philosophies that have no association with Islam.

Take fascism, a purely European political philosophy that has caused much pain and destruction in Europe and has never been remotely popular in contemporary Islamic countries. Moreover, there is no historic linkage of Islam with such a racist movement. However, people such as Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Pipes and Wilders have wrongly associated it with Islam, whereas serious scholars such as Tony Judt have criticized its association with Islam and Muslims as being “ahistorical” and “simplistic”.

But unlike other Islamophobic leaders Wilders is not an equal opportunity hater when it comes to other ethnic groups and religions. His hatred is reserved for a few and not all and sundry. And this is where the paradox lies. Classical European racism includes a strong component of antisemitism. Wilders, however, is not antisemitic. But at the same time according to holocaust and genocide studies scholar Evelin Gans he isn’t philosemetic -a lover of the Jews- either and only flirts with this image. Gans justified her position by arguing that Wilders only liked rightwing Jews and didn’t consider leftwing Jews to be truly Jewish. Furthermore, she argued that Wilders takes a stand against one form of antisemitism, and that is antisemitism when it is expressed by some Muslims, and not other groups (except for a 2011 club Ajax football match incident), hence she concludes that this is because of his anti-Muslim political agenda.

In addition, she argued that Wilders party has been associated with leaders who have expressed antisemitic opinions. For example, Wilders is associated with other parties who have had a leader mired in antisemitic controversies such as Austrian FPÖ leader Strache. Hence, Wilders’s affinity for Jews is conditional at best.

Moreover, Wilders claims he is a defender of freedom and of the Judeo-Christian civilization. He seems to conveniently look over his own country’s sordid past of failing to protect the Dutch Jews during Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Three out of every four Jews in the Netherlands during World War II were killed by the Germans. That is the highest proportion of Jews per country killed in Europe during that time. Although there were some protests in the Netherlands, the Nazis quickly suppressed them. On the other hand, take the Moroccans, a group he frequently targets with his hate and has called to have less of them in the Netherlands. The Nazis did not send even one Moroccan Jew to the concentration camps during World War II. No this was not by accident, the Moroccan king Mohammed V told the representatives of Nazi authorities and their French allies that there were no Muslims and no Jews in his country, but only Moroccans. To keep the Moroccans’ achievement in perspective one needs to realize that the Jewish population of Morocco was greater than the Jewish population of the Netherlands at that time. To be precise there were roughly twice as many Jews in Morocco as there were in the Netherlands at the time of the occupation by the Nazis. Surely, Wilders must realize the Moroccans deserve praise for this feat.  Alas, it is too much to expect Wilders to engage in an honest discourse about this topic.

Wilders also claims he is a staunch ally of Israel. But he is only supported by the right wing in Israel, by parties such as Likud. However, the Israeli right wing seems to be avoiding making the kind of sweeping generalizations about Muslims as Wilder’s makes. Indeed, the right wing in Israel is embracing the wider Middle East through peace deals. Hence, the Israeli right wing has no problems with Islam, and their peace deals with Sudan, Bahrain, UAE and support for Azerbaijan is a testament to that. Albeit they do have a conflict with the Palestinians. Wilders on the other hand is an equal opportunity hater when it comes to Muslims.

It would be simple if only Muslims were the object of Wilders’s vilification. However, that is not the case. Some years ago he started to target central and eastern European workers in the Netherlands and opened a website to report nuisance, pollution, labour market competition, and integration and housing problems. This is despite the fact that the Polish army liberated parts of the Netherlands in World War II. No, Wilders doesn’t care that the Poles risked their lives to liberate his country. The irony is that his own wife is central European. Like US President Trump, he hates immigrants from poorer countries than his but seems to have no problem marrying them.

Wilders also speaks of humanistic Dutch values. But he never publicly contemplates the abnormal wealth and prosperity his country historically gained through exploiting others. For example, take the institution of slavery on a racial basis that was a great source of wealth for his nation. There was no mercy in their trade, men, women, children, old, sick, middle aged and the young were all traded. His country was one of the last countries to abolish slavery.

To keep slaves in line they would be handed exemplary punishments. One example of this was the slow burning alive of slaves who attempted to escape or revolt. In one instance in the year 1763, 24 slaves were slowly burned alive for attempting to gain freedom. There are more instances like this in Dutch history. Surely, Wilders must not think that this is the act of a morally superior civilization? Or how a morally superior civilization is built? We will never know as these are topics he fails to address. Wilders needs to read a history book and he will see plenty more that would bring him shame. His professed beliefs of his nation’s historical superiority to others is at best a veneer.

Likewise, for a civilized democratic leader he has organized his party like a dictator. There is only one official member of his party and that is himself. This in essence means he runs everything and has no one who can take over his party. Hero Brinkman, a one-time MP from Wilders’s party, eventually quit it because of its lack of democratic structure. As his brother Paul Wilders said about Geert to RTL news, he rules his empire like an emperor. Anyone who seriously contradicts him is done. Family or not.

Speaking of his brother, apparently the whole Wilders clan is not rightwing. Paul Wilders has tried to distance himself from Geert’s politics and has faced abuse from Geert’s party and immigrants because of his biological association with Geert. It seems as if Geert cultivated his beliefs by himself and was not the result of being brought up in a racist household.

Today, Wilders is facing increasing competition in the Netherlands from other rightwing parties. But he won’t be going out of business soon as his core voter base has very few issues they really care about. This is evident from his short one-page 2017 election manifesto. Some researchers at the London School of Economics say that if he was to expand his party's core issues of interest, he would even poll better.

But he might surprise many by his actions if he comes into power. He might embrace multiculturism and diversity through doublespeak if he were ever to become Prime Minister. Why? Because Wilders has proven himself rather shameless when it comes to his own interests and will act in the most unexpected manner. For instance, on April 16, Wilders tweeted to Prime Minister Imran Khan to complain about the TLP chief. Firstly, this was quite surprising as Pakistan is a Muslim country and he detests Muslim countries, and secondly, despite lambasting Muslims and Islam continuously, he has no issues asking the Prime Minister of an Islamic republic for help!

Wilders is wrong about many things bhe is correct about one thing, the Netherlands has produced many great people. Anne Frank, Armin van Buuren, Fadil El Ghoul, Lou Ottens, Job Cohen, Johannes Vermeer, Robin van Percy, Rembrandt H. van Rijn and many more. What is conspicuously missing from this list is the name of Geert Wilders. And hopefully history will relegate Geert’s name to the trashcan of racist leaders who are better forgotten than remembered.