You might be interested in reading "The Scapegoat" by Rene Girard. Also,
"Violence and the Sacred" by the same.
GN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik" <jehms@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 5:25 AM
Subject: The rat catcher
>
> 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
>
>
"Violence and the Sacred" by the same.
GN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik" <jehms@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 5:25 AM
Subject: The rat catcher
>
> 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
>
>