22 Mar 2014, 5:14 am
22 Mar 2014, 7:13 am
Bit of political context is perhaps needed here. Wilders has, in the past 4 years or so, not been much of an important figure in Dutch politics. He typicially makes the news only when he's engaging in some form of provocation. In recent times, virtually none of his actions have had any bearing on important political issues in the Netherlands.
His PVV party was electable only in two out of the 400 Dutch municipalities. This year's Dutch municipality elections were mostly concerned with different issues than the ones Wilders often likes to speak about. It's been much more about local issues, about trying to create job opportunities in smaller towns, about managing care for old people and other vulnerable groups on the local level, about managing the distribution of agrarian land vs. maintaining nature reserves, etc.
Ever since Wilders made his followers chant 'Fewer, fewer (Moroccans)' 2 days ago, Dutch public figures in and outside of politics have been speaking about it. For the first time since assuming office, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (from the party VVD) has openly expressed his disapproval of Wilders' statements, and has taken his distance from him.
Moreover, Wilders' actions seem to be causing a schism within his own party even as I'm typing this right now; two PVV members of parliament, Roland van Vliet and Joram van Klaveren, have left the PVV fraction out of disagreement with Wilders. A PVV city council member in The Hague, Chris van der Helm, has likewise left the party.
Note also that, as soon as Wilders was called on his 'fewer Moroccans' diatribe, he told the media that perhaps he didn't mean it that strongly, 
nuancing his own statements by saying that he was really only talking about the criminal segment of the Dutch Moroccan demographic (whom he still hopes to deport somehow, which is a tenuous ambition, considering they're Dutch citizens), while maintaining his conviction that no immigrants from Islamic countries should be allowed to settle in the country.
Now, does it mean anything that Wilders manages to provoke the chanting of 'Fewer, fewer', and won a great number of votes in both The Hague and Almere based on a campaign that has anti-Islamic undertones? Yes, it does. And as far as I'm concerned, it's unsettling that so many people would share Wilders views on the issue; but at the same time, I think that it indicates that if certain groups in the Netherlands, not limited to Moroccans but also including Surinamese and Antillians (which also applies to me, since I'm also of Antillian descent), face problems of unemployment, criminal behaviour, etc., then those problems should not be ignored but addressed.
The thing that got me about the whole issue of Wilders statements, is that the reaction to it yanks it all the way in the opposite direction. Wilders getting compared to Adolf Hitler, a daily newspaper urging its readers to send in stories of 'exemplary Moroccans' in their social circle (which is horribly patronizing), and everyone just condemning Wilders outright, and by implication, everyone who voted for him- and forgetting that, while there are definite touches of xenophobia, intolerance, and racism, there is also a certain amount of legitimacy at the core of the anger and discontent that make people choose to support the PVV in the first place. In other words, acting like the entire Moroccan population is completely without fault, is as bad as acting like the entire Moroccan population are extremists or dole-seekers. There's a reason people vote PVV, and sticking one's head in the sand does not make that reason go away. But then again, neither would anything that Wilders himself has proposed so far.
