Parliament urged to get tough on Wilders

Geert Wilders, leader of the populist PVV, uses parliamentary debate to spew out blatant racism, in flagrant defiance of the normal standards in parliament. He has the right to free speech, but the parliamentary chairman has the right to call him to order if he oversteps the mark, says columnist Elsbeth Etty.

Twenty-five years ago, the Dutch journalists union NVJ conducted an internal debate about the way immigrants were portrayed in the media. The most important recommendations made by the union’s working party were that religion, ethnicity, origin and nationality should only be mentioned when relevant and to avoid generalisations.

In 1989, NRC Handelsblad published a justice ministry report which showed that 33 percent of all young Moroccan men had “registered contact with the police”. Moroccan organisations said the article was “sensational” and “discriminatory”.

Now the bad behaviour of a group of Moroccan youths has hit the headlines again, and the question remains: is their background relevant or not. As in 1989, the answer is yes.

The string of incidents involving these young men has an undeniable social and cultural component and shows a pattern of behaviour which needs to be addressed. And the public's right to know is more important than any unintentional stigmatisation or discrimination.

Identifying problems

Journalism is about “identifying problems” and I have no doubts about the importance of that. But if “identifying problems” turns into abuse, and abuse into exclusion, and exclusion to calls for ethnic cleansing and deportations, then we should not be afraid to state that either.

Geert Wilders, leader of the populist PVV, used last week's parliamentary debate on the government's 2009 spending plans to spew out blatant racism, in flagrant defiance of the normal standards in parliament. This generated the publicity he was after, because journalists are looking for the abnormal.

By speaking about “Moroccan scum who go through life swearing, spitting and beating up innocent people”, he was attacking everyone with a Moroccan background.

“They accept only too eagerly our social security, our houses, our doctors, but not our standards and values. The elite gives these Moroccans who are ruining everything the romantic name of 'the new Dutch'. I would rather call them colonisers, Muslim colonisers who have come to the Netherlands not to integrate, but to take the country over and to make us submit.”

Ethnic cleansing

Using the term colonisers, borrowed from the Italian Fascists, led Wilders to call for the army to be used against the “Islamic intifada” and to “clean up” towns and villages – a call for ethnic cleansing that could have come from the mouth of a suspect on trial at the Yugoslavian war crimes tribunal.

As a member of parliament, Wilders enjoys immunity for everything he says in the lower house. However, the parliamentary chairman does have the right to call him to order if he oversteps the mark.

Current chairwoman Gerdi Verbeet probably thinks that is exactly what he wants. Force him into the role of victim and then you will hear him going on about censuring and limits on his freedom of speech.

But such pragmatic reasoning has no place when it comes to the maintenance of order in parliament. The fear of Wilders is undermining the rule of law both within and outside parliament. It is now quite normal to have racist chats and to call for deportations and ethnic cleansing.

UN declaration

The Netherlands is a signatory to the United Nations declaration on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Article 1 states that racial discrimination “shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”.

By signing this treaty, the Netherlands is committed to upholding it. So why did the parliamentary chairwoman not act? Efforts to engage Wilders in debate lead to nothing: you cannot remove a racist convictions with facts.

Free speech

Yes, Wilders does have the right to free speech. But the chairwoman should make sure that what he says does not contravene the rules of parliament – those are the standards and values enshrined in Dutch democracy. And if Wilders does not want to uphold them, he should be removed from the debating chamber.

As Wilders himself has said, “enough is enough” and “it is time to clamp down on the scum who are ruining everything”. Hopefully, Gerdi Verbeet will take these words to heart and put her own house in order.