Harbingers of Spring 2

While hammering out a plan

The negotiations to form a new Dutch government are getting ahead. The right-liberal VVD and the Christian Democrats (CDA) are still seeking to form a minority cabinet with the support of Geert Wilder's Freedom Party (PVV). The PVV is sitting at the negotiating table. Although a 78 percent majority of the CDA voters favour a rightwing cabinet with PVV support, such a coalition is more controversial amongst CDA party members. With full media support a anti PVV group managed to gather 1,000 signatures of CDA members who oppose forming a coalition even with mere tacit support from the PVV.

Support for co-operation

On the other hand a quickly raised group favouring a right-wing minority cabinet also managed to get the signatures of 1,000 members of the CDA. This group is represented by a John Kuijt. Mr. Kuijt said he expected his party not to support any changes to the constitution, which is what the PVV wants, notably in the area of hate speech codes.

Standing out

It is quite amazing that 1,000 members of the CDA are going on the record to show their willingness to co-operate with a party that is the biggest enemy of Multiculturalism. That takes some moral courage.

Christian democrats dragged along kicking and screaming

No to Wilders

According to Esther at IslaminEurope a group of Christian Democrats (CDA) is opposing the deal with the Anti-Islamic Freedom Party (PVV). As a part of their efforts they are collecting signatures of CDA-members on a website (Dutch).

The big picture

However, a poll taken by Maurice de Hond shows that 78 percent of those who voted CDA support a deal with the PVV. Out of 65,000 members 330 signed the petition of the hardcore multiculturalists. The results become more relevant if we assume that only active members voted for the petition. Active members are 10 percent of party members generally in The Netherlands. 330 out of 6,500 active members is roughly five percent.

The rotten party system

Before this blog featured a post on our rotten party system in The Netherlands. Members are active in parties because they want jobs in the party or in the administration. There are 12,000 political offices in the administration and 15,000 paid party slots to divvy up between the active party members of whom there are in total about 300,000. Ten percent or 30,000 of them are active members so there is a job for nearly everyone. But the only way for a party to be able to reward its active core with an paid appointment is by being part of a government. So the CDA has little choice, now that there is a possibility of a rightwing government. They have to be in this government, or the main reason why they are able to recruit members wil fall away.

Doomed anyway

The hardcore multiculturalist five percent may kick and scream but most of them will go along. That is until the CDA has been made irrelevant by the Scylla of secularisation and the Charybdis of the rise of the PVV.

Dechristianizing the Christian Party

Multiculturalism does not sell well

In an article on this blog last week I stated that the:

.. PVV .. is becoming the premier rightwing party.

At this point in time one of the rightwing electoral rivals of the Freedom Party (PVV), the Christian Democrats (CDA) are reconsidering their strategy recommendation with a view to winning back a voting base that will ensure their power. The problem for the Christian Democrats is that they received 21 seats in the 150 parliament in the latest election, while they are used to receiving a bit less than a third of the votes, with around 45 seats. The voting base of the Christian Democrats has been diminishing since the 1960ies, due to secularisation. And this is made more acute by the appearing of a rightwing competitior, the PVV in a time of doubts over the viability of the multicultural society that has beeen foisted on the unexpecting electorate by the political elite.

Inclusiveness is the answer

The answer according to CDA prominent Mr. Bert Ramakers is to broaden their ideological foundation. That means stopping to be a typical Christian-Democratic party (Dutch) and to appeal to adherents of other religions, primerily Muslims. It is not surprising that Mr. Ramakers takes this view. Inclusiveness is the only option permitted in the multicultural society. And on a first glance it makes sense too. Immigrants are a growing portion of the population, so if the Christian-Democrats appeal to this base they can win votes there.

The fruits of inclusiveness

However, the question is, is it really all that easy. Labour (PvdA) has appealled succesfully to immigrant voters for a long time. They have a headstart on the Christian Democrats. And attracting immigrants is a mixed blessing. The PvdA is shedding ethnic Dutch voters faster than they can win immigrants. The voter base of the CDA is more averse to a pro-muslim program than the Labour base and they will desert the party to rally to the PVV. So the Christian Democrats are damned if the do and damned if they don't.

The Rest

And this is half of the reason why the PVV has the potential to become the premier rightwing party in The Netherlands. The other half concerns the other rightwing competitior of the PVV, the right-liberal VVD.

Vunerable right flank of Christian parties

There will be municipal elections on March 3. Two days ago on 15 February there was a political debate on Dutch public TV. Amongst others the PVV (Freedom Party) send Geert Wilders and the coalition party CU (Christian Union) was represented by Arie Slob.

The CU is part of the ruling coalition togehter with CDA (Christian Democrats) and PvdA (Labour). CU is supposed to be a Conservative party, but it moved to the left on many issues and is losing its right-wing profile. This makes the CU vunerable to competition from the right especially from the Geert Wilders' PVV. This became glaringly obvious during the debate. At some point Mr. Wilders launched an attack against CU's Arie Slob asking

Mr. Slob you represent a Christian Party in The Netherlands. Do you think Islamic culture is equal to Christian culture, can be combined with the rule of law in a democratic state, do you see Islam is a totalitarian ideology [more of the same from Wilders].... ?

Arie Slob answers for the CU:

There are a million Muslims in The Netherlands, they cannot be excluded, they have to obey the rules everybody has to obey our rules [waffles on]

Geert Wilders interrupts:

That is no answer to my question, you are not answering my question is Islam equal to Christianity ?

Arie Slob:

Do not turn groups of people against each other

Wilders [mockingly in a falsetto voice]:

He is not answering my question he is not answering my question!

The public laughs. In the studio a political commentators says that the question is clever and is impossible for the Christian Union to answer.

Snouck's Commentary: as the right-wing parties are moving to the left they become more and more vunerable to competition from the PVV. The PVV stands to make a lot of hay during the national elections from the failure from CDA and CU to champion the Duch Christian heritage. Polls show all parties a vunerable to competition for votes from the PVV, but the Christian parties more than the Leftist parties. In the municipal elections the effect will not be significant as the PVV is only participating in four municipalities.

The whole fragment of the debate can be viewed here (Dutch).

Dutch elite loses confidence

The ruling government

The Dutch Christian Union (CU) is the junior partner of the three party Dutch government coalition of Christian Democrats (CDA) and Labour (PvdA).

All established Dutch political parties have a think tank. The Christian Union have appointed a expert on the Islami world as the director of their think tank. He studied Islam and Christian - Muslim relations in Egypt for seven years. His name is Gert-Jan Segers.

Mutual suspicion

Last Wednesday the Volkskrant, a left wing newspaper published an interview stating that:

the general population had lost faith in the Multicultural ideology. It turns out that the sentiment behind Wilders (Dutch) has deep currents. There is so much suspicion. The Muslims are bad people. They do not want to assimilate. The sentiment is broadly shared. It exists within our Protestant group (Dutch) and also within other social groups where I attended meetings. Bad stories abound.

A Dutch glasnost

Mr. Segers expresses a wider and wider shared feeling of despair at the state of the multicultural society anongst the political class in The Netherlands. Multiculturalism is a Marxist creed, with the belief in equality as the most basic political belief. And the dominance of economic relations as the foundation of societal relations. The current state of the debate is comparable to the Glasnost enabled debates in the Soviet Union about Marxism-Leninism between 1985 and its demise in 1989.

Don't built those mosques in Holland

An established Christian Party against Islamization

An Orthodox Calvinist Political Party in The Netherlands, the SGP, remains opposed to the building of mosques (Dutch), stated SGP chairman of the SGP Youth organisation Jan Kloosterman.

The Bible as their foundation

Mr. Kloosterman founded his party's opposition to mosque construction on the Holy Bible. The SGP sees the Scripture as it has been seen in the last 1,900 years, as stating a belief in human difference. The SGP has been out of step on this issue with most the rest of Dutch society for 30 years, without making a fuss about it. Due to the problems with Islam in Europe the party's ideas are gaining more attention than before. On the other hand the Calvinist churches which have many voters for the SGP are sometimes compared to Islam, because their ideas can be seen as Theocratic.

Should the State support the Church?

This can be illustrated by something Mr. Kloosterman said about closing the roughly 500 mosques in The Netherlands: "He thought the State should assist Churches to proselitize in areas that contain mosques".

Christian Labour Union withdraws proposal to make Eid a Holiday

Christian Labour Union CNV has withdrawn a plan to exchange a banking holiday for Eid, the Muslim (Dutch) feast ending the Ramadan fast.

The idea was to exchange the day after Easter, which is a banking holiday in The Netherlands, for a banking holiday on Eid.

The offices of the Christian Labour Union were overwhelmed by hundreds of phonecalls from irate members, who were often "in an highly emotional state" (Dutch).

Christian suspended from job for the wearing of the Cross

Nadia Aweida, a Coptic Christian employee of British Airways, has been suspended from her job of the wearing of the Christian Cross.

"Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida was sent home after refusing to remove the crucifix which breached BA's dress code"

The BA dress code does not object to Muslems interrupting work to pray or even Sihks wearing their Turban.

"Under rules drawn up by BA's 'diversity team' and 'uniform committee', Sikh employees can even wear the traditional iron bangle - even though this would usually be classed as jewellery - while Muslim workers are also allowed prayer breaks during work time"

BA has a tradition of silly pc adherence: "A decade ago it attempted to ditch its traditional Union Flag tailfin in favour of an ethnic design - which provoked the anger of Baroness Thatcher."

The management of BA is a bunch of spineless, atheist sons of Onan. They despise their own religious and national heritage. That is their choice. I understand that BA is a privately owned firm, and as far as I am concerned private firms should be able to hire and fire at their own discretion. If BA's management wishes its entire workforce to consist of Turban'd Sihks and Hijab'd Muslimas it could not please me more.

I would look forward to see competition against BA from White Christian Male Airlines (WCMA). "The airline you can trust".

We all know such an airline would never be allowed to exist.

The bonds of trust, so essential for the functioning of society are being undermined by Multiculturalism and PC. Society is already fraying at the edges. Once trust has been sufficiently undermined, anarchy will tear apart the state, whether it is at the national level or at the supranational level (EU).

Trust having been undermined, society will be severly hamstrung by cynism. That is our future.