Meanwhile, Over in Europe

The situation with the Dutch Government sank below my horizon after the June elections, but it was just that I wasn't paying much attention.  Here is The International Herald Tribune on the formation of a new government.

Note that the elections were in June and this is August.  Here is the gist of the outcome from those elections:

They follow elections in June in which Mr. Wilders’s Freedom Party increased its number of seats in the 150-seat Parliament to 24, from 9.  The center-right Liberal Party, led by Mark Rutte, which emerged as the largest party in Parliament, hopes to enter a coalition with the Christian Democrats, who led the last government.

But the two parties would have to rely on Mr. Wilders to get important legislation through, including austerity cuts expected to total about $24 billion.  If the deal comes to fruition, Mr. Wilders will follow in the footsteps of Denmark’s populist, anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, which has stayed out of government but supported a minority center-right administration.

Ah, Mr Wilders and his Freedom Party.  That is where the headline, "Dutch Opponent of Muslims Gains Ground", might appear to be trying to defame Mr Wilders.  Is it that Mr Wilders is an opponent of Muslims or is it that Mr Wilders is an opponent of new immigrants who are not assimilating into the Dutch culture?  Reporter Stephen Castle, or perhaps the IHT seems to have a strong view on this.  The lead paragraph goes with "bigot against Muslims" rather than a patriot trying to maintain the tolerance and accommodating approach of the Dutch over the past decades.

Geert Wilders, the anti-Muslim politician who has campaigned for a tax on head scarves and a ban on the Koran, seemed poised Thursday to emerge as a prominent player in a new minority government in the Netherlands.

The Dutch have a reputation for being accepting of minorities and not only accommodating them, but protecting them.  Unlike, say, Belgium or France, the Netherlands was a land, like Denmark, where protection of Jews was a notable factor in the early 1940s occupation by Germany.  On the other hand, Mr Wilders has been quoted as saying "We [in the West] are all Israel".  So, perhaps he is anti-Muslim.  Either way, he is now a power broker.

Yes, Mr Wilders does have sort of "destroy the village in order to save it" reputation.  And, he will not be without power:

While the outspoken and populist Mr. Wilders would not gain a ministerial appointment, the proposed deal to form the government would make him one of the most influential politicians in the Netherlands.

The future developments in this situation will be interesting to follow.

I hope that this will be a signal for increased tolerance on all sides within the Netherlands.  Things like the murder, in plain view of many, of artist Theo van Gogh, are the things that need to go away.  And, Muslim immigrants are not the first to cause trouble in Post-War Holland.  There were a series of incidents in the mid-late 1970s, perpetrated by the South-Mollucans, including a plot to kidnap the queen and a couple of train hostage incidents.  On the other hand, a sharp turn toward oppression of any immigrant group would be very bad for all concerned and for democracy in Europe.

The Netherlands will surely be a laboratory for observing how a very open society, like the Netherlands, can live while accommodating a very traditional oriented group, one that is not very tolerant of things like an open accommodation of homosexuality.

Regards  —  Cliff