Populist Pim Fortuyn cannibalised the 2002 Dutch general election with flamboyant campaigning and hostility to Islamic immigration. Nine days before the election, he was assassinated by a left-wing animal rights activist. In a country with a political culture as gentle as the Netherlands, Fortuyn’s murder sent shockwaves through the country.
Fortuyn is an important figure because he represents the transition between two political eras; from the immediate post-Cold-War era of prosperity at home and peace abroad, to the post-9/11 politics of the twenty-first century, defined first and foremost by identity, insecurity and polarisation. He was a politician from the future; people just didn’t know it.
My guest for this conversation today is the journalist Guus Valk (@apjvalk), the political editor of Dutch newspaper NRC. Guus recently released a six-part Dutch language podcast about Fortuyn, so it’s great to get his insights on him in English. As well as discussing Pim, Guus and I discussed the surprisingly common political journey from far left to anti-Islam right taken among Fortuyn’s contemporaries, and the shapeshifting nature of the modern European far right.
Populist Pim Fortuyn cannibalised the 2002 Dutch general election with flamboyant campaigning and hostility to Islamic immigration. Nine days before the election, he was assassinated by a left-wing animal rights activist. In a country with a political culture as gentle as the Netherlands, Fortuyn’s murder sent shockwaves through the country.
Fortuyn is an important figure because he represents the transition between two political eras; from the immediate post-Cold-War era of prosperity at home and peace abroad, to the post-9/11 politics of the twenty-first century, defined first and foremost by identity, insecurity and polarisation. He was a politician from the future; people just didn’t know it.
My guest for this conversation today is the journalist Guus Valk (@apjvalk), the political editor of Dutch newspaper NRC. Guus recently released a six-part Dutch language podcast about Fortuyn, so it’s great to get his insights on him in English. As well as discussing Pim, Guus and I discussed the surprisingly common political journey from far left to anti-Islam right taken among Fortuyn’s contemporaries, and the shapeshifting nature of the modern European far right.
Hello and welcome to the hated in the dead with Tom Leeman. Today's episode looks once again at the European turn towards populism by looking at one of the continents most entertaining but divisive politicians of the 21st century so far. Tim for town cannibalised the 2002 Dutch general election with his flamboyant campaign style and hostility to Islamic immigration. Both were highly novel in the Netherlands at the time, however, 14 Star burned brightly and briefly, nine days before the election, he was assassinated by a left wing animal rights activist. In a country with a political culture as gentle as the Netherlands, for tunes murder sent shockwaves through the country. Then 14 is an important figure because he represents the transition between two political eras. From the immediate post cold war era of prosperity at home and peace abroad, to the post 911 politics of the 21st century, defined first and foremost by identity, insecurity, and polarisation. He was in some ways a politician from the future, but people just didn't know it at the time. 14 was undeniably a very skilled debater and campaigner and a funny person. I would encourage you all to watch his English language interview with veteran BBC reporter John Simpson. Even in his broken English, it's easy to see why the mainstream Dutch press and political establishment found him so difficult to grapple with. My guest for this conversation today is the Dutch journalist goose Volk, who is the political editor of the Dutch language newspaper, NRC. Goose recently released a six part Dutch language podcasts about 14. So it's great to get his insights on him in English. The audio quality is a little below the normal standard today, so apologies for that. But it's still possible. As well as discussing pin Gupta and I discussed the surprisingly common political journey from far left to anti Islam right taken among fortunes, contemporaries, and the shape shifting nature of the modern European fall. Right. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce pinfall tune. Hi, Chris, how are you? I'm good. Thank you. How are you? Yeah, well, it's a bit cooler in the UK today than it has been the last couple of days, which is a relief. You broke some records here. We did, in all the wrong ways. Good. We're talking about PIM Fortin today. He's one of the better known Dutch politicians of the sort of post war era. And he's one of the only politicians from your country whose reputation has sort of travelled beyond the borders of the Netherlands, though, I'd say there's a sort of limit on that actually. I've sort of done a poll of people, recently, friends of mine, and they, they didn't know who he was. So it but he was he was born in 1948. In North Holland. What sort of childhood did Fortran have? Well, the interesting thing about pin 14 Is he is well known as kind of a flamboyant kind of character, right? He He's the kind of person who would walk around, side by side with his butler, two little dogs, wearing Italian suits, smoking big cigars. A very flamboyant lifestyle that he that he became famous for, but his background is very humble, so to speak, he grew up in some sort of Catholic, religious, Orthodox Catholic environment. He was he grew up really, really, really believing in God, Jesus, and and also, his mission was to become a pope one day, so he spent weren't that rich? I would say so. So I would say that his background is very humble, very conservative. Something that's quite intriguing about the young Fortin is that to the extent that there was politics in his young adulthood, it was politics of the left. Can you just go into his his sort of early politics a bit and do we know where his sort of leftism came from? Sure. And for Tom had the ambition to to to become a politician very, very early on, and always had this idea that he wanted to change the world. And he saw himself as being a leader. He didn't know what direction exactly, but he knew he was going to be a leader. For turn, I think was always has always had an instinct for the mood of the nation, I would say. So the moment he started going to university, in first in Amsterdam, and later on, he started to work in cloning a small town in the north of the Netherlands, were actually also went to the University, he immediately adopted the Marxist orthodoxy that was at that moment, very, very fashionable in the academia. So he became a very fanatical Marxist. And the interesting thing about the protagonist that he always knew from what direction the wind was blowing, but always was one step ahead of the curve, so to speak. So his Marxism was much more radical than the Marxism of his fellow students. And I've been working on a podcast series in an analytical pin. It's a six part series in which we investigate, he is his background and the way he will be he became the person he was at the end of his life. And one thing that really struck me was that in all ideologies that he adopted from Marxism to right wing nationalism, that, you know, that was the core of his belief at the end of his life, he was always more radical than people around him. But he also was very had a very keen eye on what the people around him and what the public opinion was shifting to. That's an interesting idea. I mean, he was a sociologist, I think, by training, that's what he studied at university. He was also gay. I don't know when he came out publicly, but did his sexuality from the research that you've done for your podcast? Do you think that his sexuality had much of an impact on his kind of early left politics? Obviously, he went to politics at the end of the 60s, this was the sort of post 68 area was the kind of birth of modern identity politics and modern LGBT politics. Really, do you think that his own identity played much of a role in his kind of analysis of politics and of the left? I'm not directly I think, it is actually actually the case that he came out at a very young age, he told this, his father that he was gay, and I think it was around his 18th birthday. And his father said, you do two things, you can go see a psychiatrist, or you can just leave the house today. That was the way it was perceived in his conservative environment. He broke with with the Catholic orthodoxy, although he stayed religious for the rest of his life. But he broke with the Catholic orthodoxy and found Welcome home, in the academia, where we're people were much more liberal when it came to, to who you are and who you want to be. But I think much more important is that it shaped his worldview. And it shaped his way of looking at mankind. And what I'm what I mean by that is that he had this idea that he adopted very early on, that he was some kind of other, and this otherness has always been his driving force. So he never felt at home, in, in a political party, in his family, in, in, friends circles in, in the academia, he never found his home, he never found his place, and II. And that, you know, was was actually this sort, of course, a very sad story. But it also was, in a way inspiring for him. It made him believe that he knew when he was some kind of special person who had a special, special kind of role in the world. That's quite, quite a quite an interesting thing to set up this idea that he sort of was always more radical than the people around him that he's kind of, if you like, his kind of political pendulum swung much more to much greater extremes than other people, and also that he was a kind of outsider because he ended up I think, as a civil servant in the sort of 1980s in the civil service, at least in the UK, and obviously, I don't want to sort of impose what this the Civil Services is like, here to what it is in the Netherlands, but it's not seen as a place for kind of Mavericks. Really, it's seen as quite a conventional, you know, to be to be a civil servant is to be kind of conventional to be inherently quite conservative, quite cautious. That doesn't sound like Alton, no, but he was no, he was not a classical civil servant. So what he did was he, he was hired by the government to, to come up with some sort of government agency to, to do a project that was very, very difficult at the time, a very tough job he had to do. And it had to do with public transport for students. The government wants to make it free for all students. And proton has to do that job. And the way he did it, he was not a classical civil servants, knee, he had always been much more like a businessman kind of person who hired and fired people as much as he liked. So he was very unconventional. He had conflicts with basically everybody, including his friends. But he got the job done in a way. And actually, the student card that we're still using today, is an invention by him for time, and is widely seen as one of his biggest successes, although it was in a very unconventional style. Do you think that his time as a civil servant, changed his view of politics very much? You know, I've read that some people have alleged that perhaps it he became less identifiably left wing over the period as a civil servant, certainly on kind of economic issues. Obviously, the cultural stuff kind of comes a bit later. But on the economic issues, perhaps it made him moderate some of his former views. Yeah, absolutely. He saw how, you know, it was one of his, one of his big annoyances that, you know, the government is, is, is by nature, a slow working environment where it's very hard to get things done, and his view on the business world and on the academia, and, you know, the way the Federal National Government is working, have been shifted in that, in that sense, absolutely. He also, you know, started to change the way he looked so, so he caught up his long hair, he went on wearing suits, and was sort of like reinvent a reinvention of himself. That also had to do with much, much more other things. By the way, not only this, the student card project, but also the fact that he moved to rock them. You know, the second largest city of the Netherlands support city with a lot of problems when it comes to crime, prostitution, unemployment, people fear of feeling unsafe, and so on. It made him already much more, right. But I was I would put in them in that, that particular timeframe, not in any way, in a sort of far right place, but much more in some sort of, you know, like, conservative, maybe conservative liberal place. So he really believed in the way like businessman can do, you know, can make smart decisions, you know, things that you hear Donald Trump say sometimes, you know, that's really important. Also, if we keep moving forward with his sort of political transformation, then I think that there's a came a point and I'm not exactly sure when this was, but it seems as if there was a point when and you've already sort of alluded to it, that economic issues as sort of salience and the importance of these issues began to sort of recede in his mind and cultural issues started to come to the fore and I think there was a the influence particularly of one man, HJ shoe, as a thinker on him, Can you can you explain a bit about what shoe the the sort of the mark of that shoe left on Fortin as a thinker? Well, it's a complex story, but but but let me put it very simple. When when people have moved to Rotterdam, he started seeing things in in another light. And he although he became some sort of like, Neo, of maybe sort of Neo liberal in the in the early 90s. You know, really much of a believer in you know, in progress, also economic progress, but in a very liberal way. Maybe he was some sort of right wing third wave believer in that in that sense. A libertarian possibly in Yeah, but never he's never been a full blown libertarian or because he always Believe in cooperation between governments and companies. So that has always been some sort of a core belief of him. But something's changed in his life. And I think that those events have really shifted the way he looked at the world. So from a Marxist, and then a neoliberal, he became some sort of a conservative Christian Democrats. So what happened was that he, he saw in Rotterdam, the rise of immigrants, neighbourhoods, he saw, you know, crime ridden communities. And also he started to be in touch with, indeed, with Henrik Gosho, who was at the time working for Elsevier, still is, by the way, a magazine that I would really put on the, on the right, you know, it's pretty much aligned to the paper day to the, to the ruling, right wing conservative party in the Netherlands. And he started to write columns for for Elsevier, every week, he had a column. And those ideas and so has been held, always seen as a very conservative political commentator, have really changed the way he looks at things. He starts to become more interested in in Islam, for example, and in the way that immigration also changes the social fabric of society. So he changed in that regard. And some friends that we interviewed for the podcast also pointed out that he made a very important trip to Indonesia, as you might know, former colony of the Netherlands where he had some sort of a holiday, and it struck him and he never thought of this before. But it struck him that Indonesia had become a much more conservative Islamic society in his in his view. And he started to really focus much more on on the cultural side of politics and less on the economic side, although he he had his core beliefs about the economy. How long has Islam actually been in the Netherlands? You know, you've mentioned obviously, the fact that indeed, had Indonesia as its kind of, you know, Jewel in its empire, a bit like India, in the British Empire. But at this sort of time, was Islam still a fairly new religious phenomenon. In, in, in the Netherlands? Well, it has been present in the Netherlands for centuries. But what really changed was, in post World War Two, there was a big influx of immigrant workers from mainly Morocco and Turkey. And they brought, of course, their, their religious beliefs with them. And that was actually the first time that you saw in that society, masks being erected or neighbourhoods that were predominantly Islamic. Before, that wasn't really the case in the Netherlands, so. So it was a fairly new phenomenon. And it also has been very restricted to certain cities. Rotterdam has a fairly high percentage of, of Islamic community, but but there are also places in the Netherlands where it's hard for you to, you know, a thing. So it really depends on where you are, basically. And what around this sort of time did Fortin start saying about Islam? What was he sort of advocating? For in the kind of political sphere? It wasn't really clear in the beginning when he actually wanted so. So if he was talking about problems, but he wasn't really giving any solutions whatsoever. But what you did see was that he changed the way he wrote about Islam, and he wrote hundreds of columns, you can still read them, and you can still easily see how he shifted to, to the right. I mean, although he wrote a book, it's called faith. Islam is healing from UNCITRAL beer, literally, and it means against the Islamization of our culture. He wrote it in 1997. And that was the time that he became really politically active. But he was really focused on the Syria on the Christian Democratic Party, because he felt and also in his books and his columns in his thinking. He really started to express feelings of regret about the way traditions were disappearing, how the family was disappearing, how churches were, you know, and intere in emptier, he wanted some some sort of social fabric back in society. So he started to become a Christian Democrat basically. And in 1997, when he wrote this book, he, he took really stand against religion, which is very uncommon among Christian Democrats, of course, he basically expressed feelings of, well, I wouldn't say hatred, but it was much, much more radical than what he wrote before. And the emotions weren't really there at the time. He's never been very, you know, Keynote solutions. The only time he really came up with, with solutions against what he called the Islamization of the Dutch culture was when he gave an interview when he was already very politically active in early 2002. In the last year of his life. At that time, he he said, There is no he literally said a convenience leave me a bayonet, which means there is not a single Muslim ever coming. Coming to the Netherlands, again. I'm not sure if that was the policy view, or whatever it was. But but that was one of the one of the rare times that we really have a plan instead of just, you know, talk. I'm interested to see how his sort of political career took off, because obviously, what we've discussed so far is a series of sort of pronouncements and changes of political opinion, which are not always its own. It's not always entirely clear why they've happened, right. But it's not really a sort of political career. But he did end up becoming an actual politician rather than just a sort of sideline, commentator and armchair commentator on on various issues in touch politics. When did he sort of first dip his toe into politics? And and when do you think he sort of became a kind of household name? Well, you probably many times, he started with the Social Democrats in the in the early 80s, was rejected there. They hated him actually over there. Then he moved over to the Christian Democrats, he started with, with liberal conservatives, but he never found his home. And in all, it was, it was basically just getting to know each other and then finding out that it was impossible to have been photonic your party. Remember, these are all very old, very classically organised political parties where basically have to use your elbows for 20 years, if you want to make and they don't like people like paying for time who just come in and want to change things the way they want to see you. That's very uncommon in Dutch politics. So he had a lot of fun, basically full of failed romances with with the, with the political parties that were already there. And it was only in 2001, after 911, that he really started to tip his toe into politics. He actually announced just before 911, I think was August 2001, on national television that he was going to run for office and to, to come up with a political party. But that was seen as a joke. At the time, people weren't really taking that seriously. After 911. He used his podium, for example, his column in Elsevier, but also his he also was a household name on television, to basically work on his political platform and to to show what he was actually trying to do. So after 2001 after 911, it went really, really fast. So what he did was he announced his candidacy. But he had no party he was basically a loner with with an admission. At the time, there was a new political party coming up in the Netherlands that were high expectations called labour nylons, I think, if you translate literally would mean, livable Netherlands. And that was a party without a leader. So it was a very well organised group of people that wanted to change the way that politics work. It was populace more, a little bit more to the left and to the right, I would say, but definitely a populist party. And they were looking for a leader, somebody who could you know, who could be the face of this new movement that came from all kinds of local parties everywhere in the Netherlands. Over local parties who were very, you know, who represented very dissatisfied voters who had no way to go to because remember, we have never had a traditional far riots or populist parties in the Netherlands. So there has always been a black hole, if you will. So what happened was that time for time and this, this party, livable Netherlands found each other and thing for time became the head of this party. And they knew next year is going to be an election year, we have our leader, so infertile at the time, all of a sudden, got this great, you know, this, this, this this great gift, because he got this wonderfully organised party, just throw it in his lap, basically. I want to discuss a bit more closely the Dutch politics of that period, especially with regards to Islam, was four turns analysis at this stage, about especially about Islam. Was it sort of commensurate with the politics of that time already? You know, that's to say, do you think Islam was already a large political issue before him? Or was this something that you can sort of attribute definitely to him that he sort of put this on the map? It sounds as if, from what you've said a second ago that the September 11 attacks was had a very big impact on on Dutch politics, especially in this regard? Well, yeah, before that Islam was not an issue at all. Actually, it was seen as, as racist, and, and fascist to even be willing to discuss the downside of mass emigration from from people from Islamic countries, for example. So that was absolutely a big taboo. And also, frankly, it was not an issue at all. So there was a small and extremely small, far right party at the time that they called to tell the Centre Party, but we're actually to the far right. And the Centre Party addressed these issues, but was seen as very fringe and had very uncharismatic leader, the other party's have no interest in in discussing this at all. And the government at the time. They called it themselves, the purple government. They were it was a very unusual combination of liberal to liberal parties and one social democrat party. And they found each other in a very neoliberal technocratic way of governing, which meant that the state was a company, basically, that ran the country as a company, and make made a big profit at the time because the economy was doing very well. So everything that that was about cultural issues that was about people not being pleased about the way things were were going. That was basically not an issue at all in the Netherlands. So although the overall satisfaction rates were were pretty high, and crime rates were pretty low at the time, there was a growing sense of discomfort in the nation, and the traditional political parties were not able to address this. Also, because there was no real opposition. Basically, everybody agreed at the time. Remember that this is the post cold war era. And basically, most political parties thought that all ideologies had gone. Yeah, yeah. People thought the righted sort of triumphed on the economy and the left had triumphed on social issues. If we just sort of want to think about Fulton's analysis on Islamophobia, obviously, we've we've covered his sort of political transformation from Marxist to sort of Islamist, sceptic, hard, right, politician. That's actually in European politics. It's a more well trodden path than some people might realise. And you know, if you in Italy you have, you had people like Oriana falacci, who had been a sort of Anti Fascist under Mussolini, and then wrote this very famous polemical essay about Islam, after 911 called the rage and the pride, which caused a lot of controversy in Italy. In Britain, you have people like Christopher Hitchens, who like for turn was a Marxist in his youth and then became very hostile towards Islam in his later life. How do you explain this journey that lots of post 68 leftists underwent where they ended up being so anti Islam and not just anti Islam? That it was kind of one issue among many for them, it actually became the kind of driving issue for them. Because many of those have this six year A generation that infantile was also part of belief in extreme tolerance. And tolerance was the way that fascism, Neo fascism would be defeated. And especially the Social Democrats have believed for a long time, that the right thing to do was to tolerate intolerance elements in society. So Islam criticism was just not a thing. And somebody like, like, there are many people who are who became disappointed in the way that the political parties of the time where we're dealing with this issue, because, for example, the Social Democrats who had who had strong roots in immigrant society, by the way, used, for example, mosques and and the religious infrastructure of these these immigrant communities to to get a foothold in those communities. And the effect of that, was that, that they actually promoted some sort of conservatism, not, not not not necessarily, that they wanted it. But with just that just happened, right. And I think some of the more the more disappointed in the 60s generation have have made maybe maybe they lost their their hope, when they saw that happen. I'm not sure if this is really counselling for time, but it's definitely something that I see happen a lot in the in the 68 years. If we move to the 2002 election, this was four turns election was you know, he was a politician by this stage. What sort of a campaigner was he? How would you describe his you know, political style when he was sort of up on the soapbox as well, I'm always tempted to compare him in my mind anyway, to Faraj Nigel Farage, the British politician, mostly because of the kind of suits he wore, there's a sense of flamboyance kind of tongue in cheek element to a lot of the campaigning and speech checking that they did. Yeah, yeah. He, his campaign was extremely short. But he came in like, like, like, like some sort of a comic from from from from outer space. With with great sense of humour. He's very eloquent. He was extremely outspoken on issues. He was exactly what the ruling political leaders of the time were not. They were all used to to their own technocratic lingo. And what you do in Dutch politics is create coalition's always because you need each other, right. There's no political party with, with big majority and whatsoever. So you need each other. So what what you do when you campaign is always, of course, you point out a few differences, but you always make make sure that the voter understands that we're all in this together, we're, you know, we're coalition makers. And we believe in the power model, as we call it, right? The model where you where everybody gets, gets their seat on the table, everybody gets to talk. And, you know, in the end, we work out some sort of great compromise for time was exactly not to that he was very confrontational. He was extremely funny. There is a debate television debate that has, that is historical. You can find it on YouTube. On March 6 2002, after the new municipality elections in Rotterdam that he won by a landslide, I think he got 14 33% of the votes. And he had at the end of the night, I think it was already after midnight, he had this television debate with the other political leaders, and they were all completely worn out. They were they were completely disillusioned. And they were sitting in their seats, grumpy old grey, and he was having a blast. So he started to insult everybody, but in a very funny way. And you know, he said, like, for example, Kira, people, you know, these kinds of things. They that was he, he disqualified the whole ruling political class at the time, because he was, you know, whatever you think of his ideas. He was a fresh new car. And he had a great time. And he is when he was a very, very good communicator, he was really able to communicate emotions. So he got upset. He walks away from interviews from, from from debates, TV debates, things that politicians never do. But he showed his emotions, talks openly about his sex life during during the campaign and was very comfortable the debt and the other politicians all of a sudden, didn't play a part anymore. It seemed They just didn't know how to deal with them. No, and nobody was listening to them anymore. So it was it was for them very hard to because they don't need language. This Folk was the language of the 90s. Where, where, where the government wasn't some sort of place where you debate ideas, it was a place where you run a country. And they were not prepared for for the post 911 era where all of a sudden, it was all about ideas, because Western society was under attack and and Western society had to deal with the disillusionment of the end of history, because the end of history turned out not to be a dead end. Did he sort of catch on, particularly during this election campaign? Early on, obviously, would talk to me in a second about the event that, that for which that election is known. But was he sort of rising in the polls, while he was rising very steadily. But he got a I mean, obviously, he got a lot of criticism. So his opponents were waiting for a chance to, to bash him. So for example, when when he gave an interview with the books, Trump's National Newspaper, where he said that he had he wants to close the border for Muslims. That was the moment that political parties understood like, Okay, now we have to now we can act. Now we can show that he is, in fact, some sort of, you know, fascist or racist. So one of the leaders of the 66, social Liberal Party started to read from the Diary of Anne Frank, for example, another one said, Holland, wake up these kinds of these kinds of words, this is extreme writes that one, this is not far out anymore. After his accuracy assassination, of course, a big debate started about, you know, is he supposed to be demonised? There's a lot to say about that. But But first of all, I want to say that the debate from both sides was very started to become very heated. So but he wanted to post every week. Remember, I was a very young political journalist at the time, every week, he started to win one or two seats in the polls. And that was a very, very steady rise. And you could see that he was actually on his path to become the biggest party or maybe the second largest, but to become a big success. And then, of course, comes the events of the sector. Can you explain what happened? So he, it was, I think it was nine days before the national election. And he, he gave an interview to that public radio. And after that interview in Hilversum, where the studios are walked out of the studio, walked through his car with his, with his driver, and all of a sudden, there was a man standing there, an animal activist, actually, who shot him six times, and the guy ran away, but was caught and paid for time was almost immediately killed on the spot. That moment has become one of I think, one of the biggest political traumas that the Netherlands have ever experienced, because political violence has always been an absolute no go in, in the Netherlands, and all of a sudden it was there. It was very much there. What made it extremely tense at the at the time was that, that it became very late in the evening clear who the who the assassin was. So there were all kinds of theories like uh, what what if it's an immigrant, you know, who was fed up with all the anti immigrant rhetoric, or, you know, what will happen to the nation if something like that happens? Almost suddenly. It turned out to be basically a loner himself, focus on the craft, who had just one cause and it was animal activism. Was he we often end up talking in the aftermath of so terrorist attacks and school shootings in the USA now about mental illness. Do we know whether the graph was was mentally unwell or sort of unhinged? Yeah. I know that it was investigated at the time. But that has never been really clear. He didn't really feel sorry for what he did. He, he thought that it had to be done basically. But very, he has never really given he's never really given an explanation of why this actually happened. This was obviously very close to the election. I think In a matter of days, what happened to fortunes party? How did it do it end up doing in the elections? Well, yeah. To catch up with with this story, he was the leader of a of a very well functioning political party, livable Netherlands. But after this in famous folks of interview, he was kicked out. And he has only a few weeks to come up with his own party. And he did. He started his own party called the lesbian paternalistically, infertile. And he found some people that he put on the list. Some, some of them were good friends, some he didn't really know. The number two just rang his doorbell one day and and he kind of liked the guy and said, Hey, do you want to be my running mate? So it was it was, it was clear that after the assassination, this party was going nowhere. But they did win a respectable number of seats at the time, so they became the second largest party, the Christian Democrats won. Probably because people were very dissatisfied with the way the purple government was dealing with this whole issue. So the Christian Democrats won, but the last big time became the second largest party and was actually able to form a government with the conservatives, conservatives and the Christian Democrats. That only lasted for 87 days, because it has become the most burlesque period in Dutch politics. I think, all of a sudden, we had I think, was 24, members of Parliament's who had no clue what was going with what's going on. Really. They were fighting each other. They were they making all the rookie mistakes that people just make when they you know, and nobody helped them. So this party was was going nowhere. That was clear. So in the elections, a year later, they lost almost all their seats and the election after that they just disappeared. So did it do better as a result of fourteens assassination better than it was expected it would do? Well, posts were were not clear. I think, I suppose because it was such a new party. It was it was different. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And the common common opinion was that it was probably an underpowered party, because people were kind of like, ashamed of admitting that they were voting for them for time. After the assassination, there were a lot of sympathy votes for time. So so they would probably if if time was still alive, most most polls are saying that he also would have probably around 25 seats, but it's just a wild guess. Nobody really knows. But he was clearly on a, he clearly had momentum. And if he wouldn't have won, he would have become the second largest. That's for sure. It's a lot of this stuff that you've mentioned today, the sort of flamboyance, the populism, the jokey nature, to 14 as a as a character. Instinctively, that sounds much more like the politics of 2022 than it does 2002. You indeed, actually have a sort of an anti Islam populist politician in the Netherlands. Now, builders, the heads the Party for Freedom, also came second in the general election in 2017. Fulton in that sense, clearly struck a chord and was kind of ahead of his time. Are you living in pin for tonight's Netherlands cruise in 2022? In a way, yes. I think you can still I work in the Hague, as I'm now the bureau chief of the political desk of my newspaper and our say, and I think you can definitely see that many politicians have adopted or the thinking of her town or the flamboyant style of town, think about Goodwill, which maybe not even so much, because he has become very predictable in a way but think of cheerio Baudin, for example, who is leading the far right party Forum for Democracy in his in his flamboyant lifestyle, he really looks a lot like for time, and voters were not so into it before for time, but have become used to politicians who have this larger than life kind of charisma. And that is, of course, a very international thing, and I don't really need to explain it to us To you and people from the UK who are listening, but that has that is, of course, an international phenomenon. He was not ahead of the curve when it comes to Islam criticism, I think we were just very late in the Netherlands, because Austria, France, Italy, they all have their populace already who were extremely successful. And Belgium also in the Netherlands, there, there was this like, kind of like this this blanket of in weight medical correctness. I don't mean that word, ironically, it was political correctness, of not mentioning cultural issues, let alone Islam migration, for example. anti Islam politics is very significant in Europe today. Do you have much as as somebody who comes from the Netherlands lives in the Netherlands, but sort of has a wider knowledge and now assume, as visited quite a lot of Europe, do you do you have as much sense of the quality of relations between Muslims and non Muslims in your country, compared to such, you know, equivalent relationships in other countries? How hostile is the relationship between these groups in relation to your neighbours, you know, France, Belgium, Germany, UK. top one, I think hit builders is addressing this issue of, you know, anti anti Muslim rhetoric. But I think, you know, it comes in waves, right. So in politics, but also in society? I don't I don't, I don't see it right now as the number one cultural issue on the rise at all. I think the focus has really shifted from Islam to to what I would say like the political elites or other enemies who are there. So, Islam is still religious thing and in some communities in in India, for example, Rotterdam, there is also clearly still going on, but anti Muslim hatred is is very rare in the Netherlands, I would say if I can generalise. So and also even even other far right parties, like for example, Jericho get hardly ever mentioned Islam. It's very interesting. You mentioned the World Economic Forum, or Klaus Schwab much more than they mentioned Islam. Actually put that stated once that Islam is not our enemy. So it's hard to say that that anti Islamism is still the the the oil that keeps the engine running on the far right. I don't think that's really the case. There's certainly been a proliferation of issues in the UK. And I wouldn't say I wouldn't say Islam is particularly, it's not really a topical issue in politics here either. I'd say on the in the leadership election that we have now I'd say the lockdowns and probably transgender rights have been have been much more significant as kind of culture war issues. There's a feeling that much of this sort of right wing populist politics that we have in Europe today kind of arose as a result of the financial crisis in oh eight. The UK that is quite a recent phenomenon. But actually, do you think that that's erroneous this idea of it being recent because obviously, you know, for turn, John Marine LePen in France, the Freedom Party in Austria, these were all things that predated 2008. These are actually quite old political phenomenons. And I guess this idea of far right politics having a resurgence for it to have had a resurgence since 2008. It requires it to have gone away at some point right for you for something to research to have a resurgence it needs to have gone away first. Do you think the far right politics ever actually went away in Europe? No, they didn't. They they can care agenda but they didn't go away. And they were in the post, oh eight era very smart in adopting left wing ideas into far out ideology. So for example, being against the banks being against Wall Street being against elitism globalism, there was a pretty much a left wing thing to do and to say, that wasn't a really a far right thing at all. But they have become very smart in rebranding themselves. Islam was really the main issue between 2001 and 2008. I would say. I think the financial crisis has has shifted that a little bit and now speak only for the Netherlands and has has made it much more about elitism and much less Islam. But that's interesting thing to study. What what, what was that shift? Exactly? It's also guests. For me, it's something that I see happen, but it's something that I have like clear answers that I suppose the follow up from that question is, do you think that far right, politics is getting worse, you know, when you look at sort of 20 or 30 years into the future, and you can set your answer on your own terms, whether it's just for the Netherlands or for Europe as a sort of hole? Are you optimistic about a sort of more conciliatory politics and a more conciliatory relationship between the sort of white Christian population of your country? Or of mine? Or if Europe in general and and, and Muslims that live here? And that, you know, that Absolutely, there's all sides of that, that that has become, you know, no, no reasonable human being wants to excel hundreds of 1000s of people who who are actually, you know, here are Dutch are making a living here are going to school here. That is not an issue at all, I would say, only for a very, very small fringe, but I'm not optimistic about the far right itself, because the far right has been an you know, the roots of that I saw in the US where I was a correspondent for seven years, until mid 2018. So I saw the rise of Trumpism over there, and, and waves of that, you know, landing in Europe. But total rejection of democratic institutions and the Democratic rules of play, are extremely worrying, I think, and pin proton in his in his way was, was maybe far i politician, but he never rejected you know, the way democracy works, for example, you know, that was that was just not not at all his, his message. So I see the far right shifting to basically breaking off from from from, from the rest of the pack. And that's extremely worrying to me. Goose, thank you very much. That was great. If people want to find more of the stuff that you've written or said about Fortran, or just read you on a sort of a regular basis, obviously, you work for a Dutch language, newspaper. Do you do much in English? Well, I know I mainly write in Dutch, to be honest, when I was a correspondent, I have my articles translated sometimes. And it was always fun because all sudden you get like, you know, Americans reading what I will you know what I was writing about America. But that has become very, very rare. And I'm sorry, but my six part podcasts been that anybody can find on Spotify or other platforms is also very much in Dutch. So I'm sorry. Well, this is a maybe the maybe this is the start of something. Because Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the hated in the dead. 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