Everything about Pim Fortuyn totally explained
Wilhelmus Simon Petrus (Pim) Fortuyn ((
February 19,
1948 –
May 6,
2002), was a controversial, openly gay,
charismatic politician in the
Netherlands who formed his own party,
Lijst Pim Fortuyn (List Pim Fortuyn or LPF). He was assassinated during the
2002 Dutch national election campaign by a militant animal rights activist
Volkert van der Graaf, who claimed in court to murdering Fortuyn to stop him exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the weak parts of society to score points" in seeking political power.
The official spelling of his family name is "Fortuijn"; later in life he used the spelling "Fortuyn".
Fortuyn was the centre of several controversies for his views positions about immigrants and islam. He called Islam "a backward culture" and said that if it were legally possible he'd close the borders for Muslim immigrants. He was labelled a
far-right populist by his opponents and in the media, but he fiercely rejected this label and explicitly distanced himself from far-right politicians such as the
Belgian Filip Dewinter, the
Austrian
Jörg Haider or
Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Pen whenever compared to them. While Fortuyn compared his own politics to centre-right politicians such as
Silvio Berlusconi of
Italy, he also admired former Dutch
Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, a
socialist.
Biography
Fortuyn was born on
February 19,
1948 in
Driehuis, to a
Catholic family. He studied
sociology in
Amsterdam and later worked as a
lecturer at the
Nyenrode Institute and as an associate professor at the
University of Groningen. In 1988, he moved to
Rotterdam, and became the director of a government organisation administering student transport cards. From
1991 to
1995, he was an extraordinary professor at the
Erasmus University, appointed to the Albeda-chair in 'employment conditions in public service'. When his contract was discontinued, he made a career of public speaking and writing books and press columns, gradually becoming involved in
politics.
A one-time
communist and former member of the
social-democratic PvdA, on
November 26 2001 he was elected by a large majority as
lijsttrekker of the newly formed
Leefbaar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands) party to participate in the May 2002 Dutch parliamentary elections.
Fortuyn was openly gay which, however, hardly made him controversial in the Netherlands. In an interview in 2002 he described himself as a Catholic.
On
February 9,
2002, he was interviewed by the
Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper (see below). The statements he made were considered so controversial that he was dismissed as lijsttrekker the next day. In the interview Fortuyn said, among other things, that he favoured putting an end to
Muslim immigration, if that were possible. Having been rejected by Leefbaar Nederland, Fortuyn founded his own party
LPF (
Lijst Pim Fortuyn) on
February 11,
2002. Many Leefbaar Nederland supporters transferred their support to the new party.
As lijsttrekker for the
Leefbaar Rotterdam party, a local issues party, he achieved a major victory in the
Rotterdam district council elections in early March 2002. The new party won about 36% of the seats, making it the largest faction in the council. For the first time since the Second World War, the
Labour Party found itself out of power in Rotterdam.
On
May 6,
2002, at age 54, he was
assassinated in
Hilversum,
North Holland by
Volkert van der Graaf. The attack took place in a parking lot outside a radio studio in
Hilversum, where Fortuyn had just given an interview. This was nine days before the elections for the lower house of Parliament, for which he was running. The attacker was pursued by Hans Smolders, the driver of Pim Fortuyn, and was arrested by the police shortly afterwards, still in possession of a
gun.
Months later,
Volkert van der Graaf confessed in court to the Netherlands' first modern age political assassination (excluding WW II events), possibly the first since the lynching of the
De Witt brothers in
The Hague in 1672. Van der Graaf was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The assassination shocked the Netherlands and made the cultural clashes within the country apparent. Politicians from all political parties suspended campaigning. After consultation with LPF, it was decided not to postpone the elections. However, under Dutch law, it wasn't possible to modify the ballots, so Fortuyn became a posthumous candidate. The LPF went on to win an unprecedented debut in the lower house of parliament, winning 26 seats (17% of the 150 seats in the house). However, after the elections the following year, this figure dropped to eight seats, and after the 2006 elections the party had no seats left in the parliament.
Fortuyn was initially buried in The Netherlands. He was re-interred on
July 20,
2002, at
San Giorgio della Richinvelda, in the
province of Pordenone in
Italy, where he'd owned a house.
Views on Islam and immigration
In August
2001, Fortuyn was quoted in the
Rotterdams Dagblad newspaper, saying, among other things, "I am also in favour of a
cold war with Islam. I see Islam as an extraordinary threat, as a hostile religion."
In the TV program
Business class Fortuyn said that Muslims in Netherlands didn't accept Dutch society.
Fortuyn appeared several times in the TV program
Business class, moderated by his friend Harry Mens. In this program it has been suggested that his words were interpreted rather harshly, if not wrongly. For instance, he said that Muslims in the Netherlands needed to accept living
together with the Dutch, and that if this was unacceptable for them, then they were free to leave. His concluding words in the TV program were [...]
I want to live together with the Muslim people, but it takes two to tango.[...]
On February 9, 2002, he made further controversial statements in a Dutch newspaper, this time the
Volkskrant.). He claimed that if he became part of the next government, he'd pursue a restrictive immigration policy while also granting citizenship to a large group of illegal immigrants. Remarkably, he said that he didn't intend to "unload our Moroccan hooligans" onto the Moroccan
king Hassan . This king had died three years earlier. Furthermore, he considered Article 7 of the constitution, which asserts
freedom of speech, of more importance than Article 1, which forbids
discrimination on the basis of religion, life principles, political inclination, race, or sexual preference. However, he distanced himself from
Hans Janmaat of the
Centrum Democraten, who in the 1980s wanted to remove all foreigners from the country and was repeatedly convicted for discrimination and hate speech.
Fortuyn proposed that all people who already resided in the Netherlands would be able to stay, but he emphasized the need of the immigrants to adopt the Dutch society's consensus on human rights as their own. He said "If it were legally possible, I'd say no more Muslims will get in here", claiming that the influx of Muslims would threaten freedoms in the liberal Dutch society. He thought Muslim culture had never undergone a process of
modernisation and therefore still lacked acceptance of democracy and women's, gays', lesbians' and minorities' rights, and feared it would dismiss the Dutch legal system in favour of the
shari'a law.
One of Fortuyn's fears was of pervasive intolerance in the Muslim community. In a televised debate in 2002, "
Fortuyn baited the Muslim cleric by flaunting his homosexuality. Finally the imam exploded, denouncing Fortuyn in strongly anti-homosexual terms. Fortuyn calmly turned to the camera and, addressing viewers directly, told them that this is the kind of Trojan horse of intolerance the Dutch are inviting into their society in the name of multiculturalism".
When asked by the Dutch newspaper
Volkskrant whether he hated Islam, he replied: "I don't hate Islam. I consider it a backward culture. I've travelled much in the world. And wherever Islam rules, it's just terrible. All the hypocrisy. It's a bit like those old
Reformed Protestants. The Reformed lie all the time. And why is that? Because they've norms and values that are so high that you can't humanly maintain them. You also see that in that Muslim culture. Then look at the Netherlands. In what country could an electoral leader of such a large movement as mine be openly homosexual? How wonderful that that's possible. That's something that one can be proud of. And I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much."
Fortuyn was author of the book
Tegen de islamisering van onze cultuur: Nederlandse identiteit als fundament
(Against the Islamicization of Our Culture). (A.W. Bruna, 1997). (ISBN 9-0229-8338-2)
Other views
Pim Fortuyn claimed to be neither right wing nor left wing, asked for more openness in politics, and expressed his distaste for what he called "subsidy socialism". He furthermore criticised the media as a
Siamese twin of the government.
He wanted smaller-scale organization of public services such as health, education, and the police, making extensive use of the possibilities of information technology (for example, a surgeon conducting an operation remotely at a local hospital). Critics said his plans would require building hundreds or thousands of new institutions at enormous expense, but Fortuyn said no extra funds would be allocated until inefficiencies had been removed.
He also held liberal views, favouring the
drug policy of the Netherlands,
same-sex marriage,
euthanasia, and related positions.
He wanted to unite the army and air force to save money, retaining only a navy, but also favoured re-instating compulsory military service, giving youngsters the choice between military service and a new form of social services (in which they'd help in hospitals or retirement homes, for example). It is often said that he wanted to disband the army and the air force; however, Fortuyn denied this on 24 March 2002 in a business TV programme.
Legacy
Fortuyn can be credited with changing the Dutch political landscape and political culture. The 2002 elections, only weeks after Fortuyn's death, were marked by large losses for the
liberalist VVD and especially the Social Democratic Party
PvdA (which was even halved in size); both parties replaced their unpopular leaders shortly after. The election winners were Fortuyn's party
LPF, and the Christian Democratic Party
CDA, which, according to pundits, was seen as a "safe haven" by those who planned to vote for Fortuyn but were wary of voting for a party without his leadership. On the other hand, others speculate that Fortuyn's perceived martyrdom may have played into the hands of the LPF.
All major parties have adopted tougher immigration and integration viewpoints after the rise of Fortuyn. The immigration policy of the Netherlands is now one of the strictest in the
EU. In addition, debates on these topics, in politics, but also in everyday life, have become more prevalent and are no longer taboo as many claim they were in the years before Fortuyn. However, while some applaud these developments as a release from
political correctness, others have objected to the harsher political and social climate, especially towards immigrants and Muslims.
Contemporary Dutch politics is more polarized than it has been in recent years, especially on the issues that Fortuyn was best known for. There is a deep division on whether to consider the
multicultural society a failure, and to what extent
assimilation by newcomers is needed. The decision by the government to expel a large number of asylum seekers whose application had failed was met with praise but also with fierce criticism. Incidentally, Fortuyn advocated an amnesty for asylum seekers already residing in the Netherlands.
Many politicians stress the importance of learning from the reasons behind the failure of the traditional parties. Listening to voters, transparent government, more dualism and speaking plainly are mentioned as some of the lessons learned from Fortuyn's success, although some complain that there have been no substantial changes, or that common courtesy in politics has been replaced by blatant populism.
The coalition cabinet of
CDA,
LPF and
VVD fell within three months, largely due to infighting within the LPF. In the following elections the LPF was diminished to only 8 seats in parliament (out of 150) and wasn't included in the new government; however, political commentators speculated that there was still a sizeable number of discontented voters who might vote for a non-traditional party, if a viable alternative was at hand. In recent times the right-wing
Party for Freedom, which has a strong stance on immigration and integration, has won 9 (out of 150) seats in the 2006 elections. This also contributed to the LPF losing its remaining seats in parliament, and the subsequent disbandment of the party.
In 2004, in a TV show, Fortuyn was chosen as
De Grootste Nederlander ("Greatest Dutchman of all-time"), followed closely by
William of Orange, the leader of the independence war that established the precursor to the present-day Netherlands. However, the election was widely regarded as not being representative as it was held through the internet and by phoning in, and so easily hijacked and possibly influenced by Fortuyn’s supporters, who had his violent death still fresh on their minds. Also, the murder of the equally controversial film director
Theo van Gogh by a Muslim for comments critical of Islam had occurred a few days before the election and undoubtedly moved many voters to bring Fortuyn higher in the ranking. It later turned out that William of Orange had in fact received more votes, although they couldn't be counted until after the official closing time of the poll (and the proclamation of the winner), due to technical problems. The result has therefore remained uncorrected, but is still valid.
Fortuyn's sudden and short political career and popularity may point to a shift in the opinion the Dutch have about themselves as a tolerant society with integrated multiple cultures. "First of all, one can conclude that criticism on political correctness and on the ideal of the multicultural society has broken through for real relatively late.[...] In the end it were Pim Fortuyn, the electoral success of the LPF and namely the murder on Fortuyn which led to the definitive breakthrough." Although he didn't advocate segregation, he made political establishment aware of their failure to recognise it as a disputable issue.
Sexual misconduct accusations
In 2005, Dutch journalist
Peter R. de Vries obtained a secret report of the intelligence department of the Rotterdam police. It became clear from this report that Fortuyn, along with several other members from his party, had been the subject of investigation by the intelligence services. An anonymous informant claimed that Fortuyn had engaged in sex with Moroccan youths aged between 16 and 21; this would have been legal under Dutch law. However, the report contained factual inaccuracies, and the trustworthiness of the original source couldn't be verified.
Fortuynism in Flanders
In
Belgium, several minor political parties adopted the same
liberal conservative principles as Pim Fortuyn did in the
Netherlands, especially his combination of "tough-on-crime" and "anti-immigrant" stands with his ethical progressive and economical
libertarian viewpoints. In
Flanders, analysts and observers tend to call
VLOTT a fortuynist party, as well as
List Dedecker and the
Liberal Appeal. These three "liberal" parties don't officially call themselves fortuynist.
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