By Shada Islam*
Many mainstream politicians have adopted and amplified the language of the far right
Dutch far-right and anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders’ success in this week’s elections in the Netherlands has been widely described as a “shock” result. It is nothing of the sort.
Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), whose manifesto calls for bans on mosques and the wearing of Islamic headscarves in government buildings, won 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament, more than doubling its previous number.
The PVV’s victory on 22 November was efficiently planned. Many of us who write about politics in Europe saw it coming and voiced our fears. But our warnings went unheeded.
Instead, sections of the media described Wilders as “charismatic” and failed to challenge him, even as he called Moroccan migrants “scum” and said Islam is “the ideology of a retarded culture”. He was also courted unashamedly by Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, leader of the liberal VVD party, which has been in power for the past 10 years.
The shock for those of us who have observed the resurgence of far-right politics in Europe is not that Wilders may become Dutch prime minister. It is that today in Europe, for people of colour, there appears to be no hiding place.
Almost all of Europe’s mainstream politicians — in varying degrees — have adopted and amplified the racist, xenophobic, anti-migration and Islamophobic views of Wilders, France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Continue reading “@onlinehyphen: Geert Wilders’ victory points to a surge in anti-Islam populism across Europe”