<nettime> Reanimation of democracy after the murder on Pim Fortuyn

[Tjebbe van Tijen <t.tijen@chello.nl>]

Reanimation of democracy
after the murder of Pim Fortuyn

is the title of a prose/poem I wrote in the night after the political
murder of this disputed new politician on the 6th of May 2002. The text was
written in Dutch, meant for a Dutch audience that was all too aware of the
circumstances and the subsequent events. Later I noticed that my non Dutch
speaking friends had difficulty in understanding what happened and also I
wanted them to be able to read the poetic text I wrote. So I have made a
rendering of the Dutch poetic text in English, trying to keep some of it's
associations. The new bilingual version of the text has been illustrated
and posted on my website:

http://people.a2000.nl/ttijen/Fortuyn/Fortuna.html

Since the murder of Fortuyn on the 6th of May a deluge of reactions and
commentaries has covered the Netherlands and it would be impossible to
explain all this to a non-Dutch audience. Demonstrations, spontaneous
shrines, accusations of The left being guilty, a stoppage of all political
campaigns a week before national elections and today the absurd situation
that one can vote for a dead man in parliament as Fortuyn, dead as he is,
remains the leader of his own party. All this might have been communicated
by the international press, I felt a need to give a more historical view on
the events as some sort of an overture to set the mood for reading my poem.

Overture

Every few decades Dutch party politics seem to need a shake-up and a
wake-up to re-establish the power balance of the social forces in the
country, be they good or bad. Last century, just before the second World
War, there was a sudden raise of the NSB (Dutch Fascist Party), right after
that War the Communist Party had a very brief period of massive support
which was wiped away by the upcoming Cold War. In the early sixties three
new parties emerged: first the Boerenpartij (protest party of farmers
fighting the rationalization of agricultural production), second the local
Amsterdam Provo Party (an anarchist mocking of the parliamentary system as
such), and third D'66 (Democrats 1966, a party pleading for reform of the
Dutch parliamentary system with among others referenda). Some of these
parties have vanished completely from the political scene (fascist NSB,
Boerenpartij), others fused some of their ideas and membership with what
could be called 'regrouping parties', new entities made up of bits and
pieces of minor older parties, like Groen Links (Green Left, a funny fusion
of former party communists, maoists, pacifists and radical christians). The
last decade a very stabile political alliance between Social Democrats,
free market Liberals and the reform D66 did run the country, leaving the
main Christian Party (CDA) only a minor role in the opposition benches.
This 'troika' is labelled 'Purple' in Dutch, the mix of the three party
colors red, blue and green. This decade of 'purple' politics in the
Netherlands was in itself a break with a much longer tradition of power
sharing, in many cabinets, of the Social Democrats (PvdA) and the Christian
Party (CDA), with one or two smaller parties added to make up a
governmental majority.

The needed shake-up after 'purple rule' stability of the nineties did get
it's expression first at the level of local elections, with many locally
initiated parties often called "Leefbaar" (liveable) and then the name of a
village or town. Depending on region and town the issues raised by these
parties varied, but reoccurring elements were housing, traffic problems,
environmental issues and some times questions about "foreigners", be it the
influx of refugees or lamentations about the lack of integration or
adaption of other nations, religions and cultures in Dutch society. After
the success of such 'Leefbaar' parties in some bigger cities in the mid
nineties, an initiative was made to try to bundle this locally dispersed
force into a national 'Leefbaar Nederland' party.

Bundling of loose parts implies the use of a binding element, and little
coherence could be found in the diverse assembly of many of those local
parties. Also the initiators of the new 'Leefbaar Nederland' party did not
sufficiently manage to formulate a coherent party philosophy or program, so
they started looking for a leader, like in the old days a new nation was
looking for a king to help forcing a diverse population into a unified
state. Soon a king was found and crowned in the person of a columnist and
commentator on Dutch social and economical affairs, a former professor of
sociology at the University of Groningen, an coming out homosexual, and a
provocative public debater: Pim Fortuyn. His reign of the new national
party, which he was supposed to lead to the national elections on the 15th
of May 2002, could be counted in days. Fortuyn's strong statements on
controversial issues, like the lack of integration of Muslims in Dutch
society and a needed full stop on letting in new refugees, lead to his
popularity on the one and strong disapproval on the other hand. Disapproval
also within the 'eclectic' structure of the 'Leefbaar Nederland' party
itself, with it's base in all those local and differing 'one or two issue
parties'. Though some of these local party voters could associate
themselves with Fortuyn's views on 'foreigners' and 'integration', it
certainly was not the highest common factor and a congress of the Leebaar
Nederland party even voted against such ideas and policies.

One wonders, why then Fortuyn was asked to become the leader and most
public figure of this party. The answer can be given by Dutch mass media,
television, radio and the writing press. Fortuyn's own position as a former
columnist for a conservative weekly, his close relations with some Dutch
television figures (especially on the commercial RTL channels) and most of
all the irresistible attraction of his flamboyant figure that was making
the rather dull Dutch political debate palpable again, made that more and
more journalists were eager to have him appear, to get an interview, to
have him join their debating table. Choosing and voting for Fortuyn as
party leader of Leefbaar Nederland meant a secure ticket to a lot of
media-exposure; it was the fastest and cheapest way to reach a mass
audience. He had the charisma that the already infighting founders of this
new party certainly had not. The leadership of the 'Leefbaar Nederland'
party was aware of the soloist tendencies of Fortuyn and the possible
incompatibility of his views with a part of the membership. At the same
time they gambled, as they knew that some of Fortuyn's views could attract
an even bigger electorate, as it voiced wide spread sentiments of the
xenophobic part of Dutch society (it should be noted that the word
'xenophobic' means 'fear' of foreigners and certainly not 'hate' of
foreigners).
It was a double dealing policy trying to reach out to a wide spectrum of
the electorate, both progressive and conservative, with Fortuyn as the
Janus-faced priest. Fortuyn should be allowed to express his radical views
on the position of foreigners and religion , but not too explicit, as it
could alienated a part of the more tolerant potential electorate. But
Fortuyn felt like a king, not like a constitutional monarch and continued
to freely express his ideas, to make provocative statements. An article in
the national daily De Volkskrant, beginning of this year, ended his
leadership of the Leefbaar Nederland party. The article not only carried
strong statements against "backwardness" of Muslim culture, it also
announced that when Fortuyn would get in power he would close Dutch borders
for all refugees. On top of that Fortuyn stated, that the change of the
first article of Dutch fundamental law in 1983 forbidding discrimination
("on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, or sex or on
any other grounds"), should be scrapped, as it contradicted the older and
more fundamental constitutional article protecting 'freedom of expression'
(article 7: "No one shall require prior permission to publish thoughts or
opinions through the press, without prejudice to the responsibility of
every person under the law"). Paradoxical Fortuyn made also reference, in
this contested interview, to the dangers of Muslim fundamentalists in the
Netherlands wanting to deny him free expression of his homosexuality. As
Fortuyn refused to recall his public statements, emphasizing his own need
to speak his mind, to be true to his convictions, he was relieved from his
office by those he was supposed to lead. All this happened in the full
light of the media, making Fortuyn into a champion of free speech, the
"only one" in the nation who dared to speak his mind in public.

Thrown of his throne of the 'Leefbaar Nederland' party, Fortuyn had to make
his own kingdom. He turned his defeat into a victory, waving from his car
at the press after he left the party meeting that had dismissed him,
shouting "Watch me, I will be the next prime minister of this country". He
and a small group of followers founded a new party and miraculously managed
to rise again in the election opinion polls within a few weeks. First
Fortuyn participated in the preceding communal elections which gave him a
landslide victory in his home town Rotterdam, wiping away over half a
century of social democrat rule (though other towns were less or not at all
effected by the 'Fortuyn effect', like the city of Amsterdam). Right after
the municipal elections some opinion polls were suggesting that Fortuyn's
new national party (Lijst Fortuyn) could become the second biggest
political power in the Netherlands. As the established political parties
saw their potential electorate shrink by the day, they needed to target
their adversary and could not escape to direct their arrows at the
charismatic leader of this brand new party, that, for the rest still had a
most indistinctive and unknown list of candidates.

Fortuyn used strong words, in public, and strong words came back to him.
The usual vocabulary, made up of names and notions related to former
dictators and dictatorships, was applied to him. Possible resemblances with
Hitler, Himmler and Mussolini were tested, and the old pair of scissors to
cut the social tissue in two halves could be found in many people's hands:
left and right, right and wrong, depending on one's position in the
political power field. Fortuyn has been placed, from the beginning, at the
right hand side of this imaginary cutting line, originating from the
spacial position of delegates in the English Parliament and the French
Assembly two centuries and more ago. Left being those who want movement and
change, right those who want to fix and preserve. One may ask if society
could ever be represented by such a simplified dichotomy, at best the terms
'left' and 'right' are only markers on a scale to compare opposing
political forces in a particular society at a particular historical moment.
One may say that in the case of the emergence of the new party of Fortuyn
in the Netherlands, the meaning of the terms 'left' and 'right' were
reversed: the 'right' wanting radical change and the 'left' defending their
attainments. Demonic comparisons with actual political and religious
figures from other countries were used by both sides in the election
campaign. Fortuyn made a grotesque comparison between Bin Laden and grey
haired lady Els Borst of the Democrat party who has been minister of health
in the 'purple' coalition cabinets, as she failed to shorten the hospital
waiting lists, which, in the vision of Fortuyn, did cost more human lives
as the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Similar comparisons
bounced back on him labeling Fortuyn as the Dutch Le Pen, Hayder and
Berlusconi. Only the last comparison was not refuted by him, but that may
partly be because both leaders like smart suits. Of course such labels do
not really fit and do little to explain realities of Dutch society. It
would be better to try and explain this society first in it's own terms.

A society that has a tradition, over centuries, in hiding and covering up
social differences and problems: with elaborate charity distribution
systems within it's own borders and ruthless slave trade and exploitation
of people in far away colonies; a country that has successfully been able
to link freedom of trade with freedom of expression (in that order!); that
accepted religious refugees while at the same time selling weapons or war
services to the same nations people were fleeing from; a country where
opposing Christian churches learned to compromise, no massive killings of
Catholics once the Protestants got in power; a country that has been a
republic with a prince and became a kingdom with monarchistic socialists; a
country that has been unable to protect it's Jewish minority against the
Nazis; that fought a nasty colonial war half a century ago in Indonesia and
still did not come to terms with it (officially it is called "police
actions"); a country were homosexuals could emancipate and women
emancipation, in economical sense, is lagging behind; where the defeat of
the proletariat by consumerism has been declared 35 years ago; where the
art of repressive tolerance as a policy instrument has been flowering for
decades; where the dense structure of volunteer civil organizations in all
fields of life is outnumbering any political organization in it's
membership; a country that tries, centuries later, to accommodate the
reversed slave trade with it's thriving Surinam and Antillean communities;
an over-developed country that offers great mobility to it's own citizens,
who can travel wherever they fancy, but denies similar mobility to
under-developed tourists; a country where many were opposing South African
apartheid and the horrors of the Balkanian war, but very few would oppose
the less spectacular process, just around the corner, of economical
cleansing, the unsafe heavens of Dutch welfare society, the ghetto's in the
making...

I catch myself making crude simplifications also, while trying to explain
and summarize the complexities of Dutch society. My aim was to play a sort
of overture, to create a sketchy backdrop for non-Dutch people to get some
understanding of the drama of the murder of the Dutch politicians Pim
Fortuyn, an extraordinary event in Dutch history that has shaken this
society. As we Dutch tend often to be well informed about the fate of other
nations, it does not work the other way around, because of language
problems and the disinterest of many Dutch to communicate their own society
to outsiders. It is a very personal interpretation of the events, no claims
of objectivity, but I have tried to approach all players in this drama,
alive and dead, with dignity.

Tjebbe van Tijen
Amsterdam 15 May 2002
an hour before the voting will start

------
start of English text on the web page
http://people.a2000.nl/ttijen/Fortuyn/Fortuna.html
-----------

May 6th 2002, eleven days before national elections, the Dutch politician
Pim Fortuyn was shot dead right after he left an interview session in
national radio studios in Hilversum. The man suspected to be his murderer
was caught a few minutes after and is known to be an environmental
activist. Fortuyn (54 years) was a newcomer on the Dutch political scene
with his own personal party. He promised to be one of the winners of the
elections. One of Fortuyn's main political targets was the management of
'multi-cultural society' in the Netherlands. He wanted more adaption to
Dutch standards and a severe limit of the influx of refugees. [


The Dutch name 'Fortuyn' comes from the allegorical female figure of
'Fortuna' who leads the blind, being blind herself, blown by changing winds
on a pitfall road.

Reanimation of democracy
after the murder on Pim Fortuyn

Democracy
is a game for power
polling prejudices
voting
counting;
the weakest link in the chain
out it goes!
The one
who plays this game
plays with the life of others
regardless
of the issues raised:
conservative or for change.
Running from quiz to quiz:
"candidate you have only
so many seconds
to give the right
political answer";without panting.
Does the TV-watcher
listen at all
has he anything to say
or does he stay...
silent?
But there is a listener,
an idiot
who is silent and kills
and right after that,
is robbed
of the meaning of his deed,
while the blood
is still warm on the street,
'the news' runs,
passing him and itself.
Leave the messengers out
they only bring 'the news'
by raising their voice
somewhat rough
what has thus been raised
can not stay above...
forever.
"Politics is performed
with words"
is politicians' first response
trying to prove
their innocence;
as if words cannot murder
as if politicians politics
is only put forth
by words.
One may guess the answer
on this question raised:
"do we choose words
or deeds?"
Which words?
Which deeds?
Again and again
we need to ask
not just once in a thousand and more days.
We are not to blame,
there is no collective guilt
for political murder
not society is nuts,
one single person
carries the burden.
Then, there is that idiot
whose voice was not heard
but as it occurred
no one could miss his deed
leaving all of us
with a stained street.
Nevertheless,
after this terrible accident,
let us go into the streets
and play again:
Democracy as a game
just for the fun of it
polling pleasure
voting
counting
and see to it
that the weakest links
in the chain
still can participate
Whoever plays this game
shares life with others.


Tjebbe van Tijen
7/5/2002






Tjebbe van Tijen

Imaginary Museum Projects (IMP), Amsterdam

Background information on:
http://people.a2000.nl/ttijen/Index.html



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