I'm not sure if the story of the rat catcher exists in other European
countries, but is rather well known in Holland. It's about a flute
player who can enchant the rats, which follow him when he plays. He
leads the rats out of town to some place far away whence they never return.
I gave this title to this e-mail but it's uncertain whether this title
is appropriate. I want to tell you about a which hunt which is taking
place in the Netherlands now and which turns the country upside down and
in utter confusion. I've only begun to understand some of the dynamics,
but it's fascinating stuff for anthropologists and sociologists.
It all began about a year ago, when a political columnist named Pim
Fortuyn announced that he was going into politics. A month or so later
he gave an interview and said he was going to become president of the
Netherlands. He was an interesting speaker and got a lot of media
attention.
Then the Moroccan muslim imam El Mumni said in a speech that homosexuals
were a danger for the future of mankind because of procreational limits
and lower then pigs and dogs in the animal kingdom, because there are no
homosexual pigs and dogs (in less ironic words). Pim was a very
flamboyant homosexual and he reacted furiously. He announced that he
wanted to close the borders for muslims if he came in power and that the
islam was a backward culture. Moreover, the country was full, no
immigrants should be allowed anyway. On other subjects he sort of wanted
to reorganize the country into a businesslike structure, where all
sitting politicians would loose their jobs. About two months ago he
published a booklet with his ideas. In the meantime a group of
successful local parties had formed a national combination. They wanted
to give the man in the street more political influence. They choose Pim
as their leader. The booklet was a commercial success, but a political
failure. Once printed it was easy to show how unrealistic Pim's ideas
were. Pim never had the patience to calculate the consequences of his
intuitions. He hoped to get someone else to do it, once he had power.
After a week the booklet was nothing but a collectors item. Recently an
investigation of the Economist proved that the main thesis of the
booklet was totally wrong: the Netherlands are not in a desperate
situation, on the contrary its doing quite well.
Then Pim said in an interview that he wanted to alleviate the
constitutional laws against discrimination. Consternation: the party who
had chosen him as their leader threw him out. Some comparisons were made
with the rising of Hitler in Germany, after all it was only a month or
so before war memorial day. A few weeks later Pim founded his own party
and won with a local party who also had chosen him as their leader, the
local elections in Rotterdam. In the national polls his became the third
party, about 20% of the voters were at his side. He was in the media
everywhere, especially since he seemed to have great tactics in debates:
by rising his voice, ad hominem jokes, radical statements and irrelevant
sidelines he could create confusion, prevent his opponents to make their
point and let his charming smile do the rest. The old bureaucrats were
not used to this political street fighting, they wanted to be serious,
throw with figures and statistics. Pim didn't bother. He was going to
become the queen. Still some leftist politicians were quick learners
however and Pim lost face and the debate quite a few times, which made
him very angry. Like most narcissistic personalities he was very
reluctant to comment on his own words, and that was precisely what his
opponents did or made him do. He threw many a journalist out of his
house, who confronted him with his own statements, even John Simmons
from the BBC. During this interview he showed his inability to speak
decent English, which is very revealing as to his scientific
background. A right wing politician, who knew him personally quite well,
said that Pim would be ridiculed in international political circles. Pim
was not very pleased with all the attacks and complained he was being
demonized, made into a devil.
May 6th, at 6 o'clock: Pim is shot to death after a radio interview. The
killer is apprehended within the hour, arrested, but refuses to comment.
He's a environmental lawyer. Confusion everywhere. People show all kinds
of mourning. The members of his party, personally elected by Pim
himself, looked like the seven dwarfs after the death of Snow-white: 'he
taught us every week and gave us homework, we just finished our homework
and now he's gone', they said. During the days after his death more 7000
people signed the mourning registers and many thousands took part in
silent marches, in tears. Many who said not to have bothered about
politics before suddenly became interested. People say they feel
something precious has been taken away from them. The party goes on in
the spirit of Pim to preserve the ideas of Pim. Pim is more popular then
Santa Claus, Pim is the messiah of xenophobia.
Tomorrow there will be national elections. The Dutch government has
developed into a karteldemocracy, and was a coalition with capitalists
and socialists during the past 8 years. It 's against this kartel form,
which makes a very slow, but stable kind of government and where the
influence of the political parties has spread through all governmental
institutions, that Pim's attacks were made. Now Pim's mourning has been
another media hype and Pim's followers are looking for revenge. The
National Security Office taps the phones of everybody who has any
connections with environmental movements. Politicians, especially left
wingers, have been accused of being coresponsable for the murder and
fear for their safety. Two lawyers are preparing a complaint against
those politicians for spreading hatred. Journalists are afraid to write
objectively. And Pim's party, a fan club of uneducated inexperienced
people will probably become the biggest party. This means a lot of
trouble. This means that the bureaucrats will take over, because the
government will be powerless.
What me strikes me as very interesting is that the myth of Pim the
saviour is not evident from the facts, but apparently there has been a
myth of a saviour sleeping in the minds of the uneducated man in the
street and the businessmen (which are most of Pim followers). It
accommodates the spirit of revenge (resentment) against left wing
politics and against intellectuals. It destroys in one blow the Dutch
'polder model' of compromise politics. Looking at remarkable changes in
elections all over the world, I suppose there will be much to study
about the social dynamics.
have fun, otherwise sorry for the long e-mail
regards
erik