a€?The largest issue in the Netherlandsa€?: Understanding the Group for Freedoma€™s politicization of Islam

This working newspaper is part of a multi-year Brookings projecta€””The main Percent nightmare: Muslims when you look at the western together with the Rise regarding the brand new Populists.” Different records within the television series are accessible in this article.

When Geert Wilders, president and prominent person for the function for Freedom (PVV), clarified his own a€?Plan when it comes to Netherlandsa€? during the build up into Dutch general election of 2017, this individual reported that a€?the big condition in this country is definitely Islamization.a€? Doing this, Wilders said, indicates an a€?existential threata€? to a€?our identity, the independence. Just who we have been. Almost everything.a€? 1 For near observers of Dutch politics, comparable reports, produced by the first choice with the then third-largest group of the nation (second-largest following your elections), happened to be stalea€”over the preceding decade they’d produced accustomed to Wildersa€™ Islam-alarmist communications. His or her boasts may seem relatively radical, but to mysterious ears. Of course, nearly all of Wildersa€™ political relatives in European Parliament please do not denounce Islam as straight or expressly; 2 nor may be the problem as salient to them like it is for PVV frontrunner. Besides, didna€™t Wilders may and work in the Netherlands, a nation containing for ages been prided for its cultural openness and religious tolerance?

Koen Damhuis

Associate Prof – Utrecht University

This newspaper is designed to provide toward an improved comprehension of the ways wherein immigration by and large, and Islam for example, are generally politicized through the Netherlandsa€”a historical past in which Wilders takes on an important factor role, though he is definitely not truly the only protagonist. I am going to do it by concentrating, earliest, regarding societal background against which these issues emerged on constitutional agenda during the past many years. I will consequently evaluate the way the troubles of immigration and Islam tends to be represented by Wildersa€™ PVV and how these representations progressed over the years. The very last point will situate this politicization from inside the modern Dutch governmental landscaping and talk about the societal effects.

Novices in a a€?guiding natioNa€?

From the time of the a€?Dutch gold agea€?a€”spanning approximately the 17th hundred yearsa€”the Holland is a beautiful place for migrants. In those times, a lot of desired protection through the comparatively understanding and profitable republic for politico religious or economical rationale. In numerical conditions, this period of a€?mass-migrationa€? was just matched up following the Secondly World Today War, if consecutive swells of immigration considerably increasing how big the Dutch population. 3 These waves of immigration sprang from three major sources: the post-colonial situation in Indonesia, Suriname in addition to the Antilles; a€?guest professionals,a€? employed through the 60s, notably from chicken and Morocco, who does be long lasting homeowners anda€”together their familiesa€”represent 4.7 percent of the Dutch group today; 4 and, asylum hunters, chemistry review whose numbers peaked in the early 1990’s (a result of battle in Yugoslavia) plus just recently amid the migrant emergency trigger through the Syrian city warfare. 5

Although there a variety of different (shorter) migrant communities into the Holland, 6 open question around immigration and multiculturalism typically targeted on non-Western migrants, particularly those of Turkish and Moroccan origina€”due partially to the fact that these groups largely account fully for the growth of Islam within an increasingly secularized country. About six per cent with the recent residents within the Netherlands is predicted are Muslim, 7 in comparison with around one percent in the early 1970s. 8 it absolutely was during exactly these four many years that large elements of the Dutch group reduced his or her faith. 9 From a spiritual society which was segregated along different socio-cultural pillarsa€”mainly Roman Chatolic, Protestant and socialista€”the Holland turned into probably the most secularized countries in European countries, described as progressive erectile morality, which enabled for all the worlda€™s initial legalization of same-sex nuptials in 2001. Close progressive success contributed to a Dutch self image as a a€?guiding nationa€? (gidsland).

The ethical vista that hence become popular inside last half of 20 th 100 years, particularly with regards to feminine emancipation and gay rights, pushed actually careful people in politics to incorporate and add advanced values. Because could be mentioned further down, this improvement is crucial to comprehending the funny ways that Islam is politicized by Dutch sweeping proper politicians. 10