BCITORGB wrote:

i was reluctant to bring up the "immigration" issue because, too often
in europe, right-wing rather equates to foreigner hate as opposed to
conservative economics.

this relates, i fear to my earlier post about fundamentalist nutbars of
all stripes. in the cases of denmark and in the netherlands, very
progrssive and tolerant people have been driven into the arms of the
right-wing hate mongers because islamic fundamentalists have abused the
ever-so tolerant welcomes (i'd welcome wilko's perspective on this).

The way I see it, very few Dutch people are actually moving over to the
political right because of the murder of Theo van Gogh. What has been
happening shortly after the murder was that some right wing groups, and
a couple of numb-brained individuals from both muslim and christian
sides tried to ride on the train of dissent by setting fire to a couple
of schools, mosques and churches. That lasted for a couple of days after
the murder, and it stopped completely after those first couple of days,
in part because the Dutch media stopped the media hysteria.

What has become very clear after the murder, which IMHO is more
disturbing than the so called anti-islamic violence rising, is that the
openness of our society has changed. People like Theo van Gogh, who used
very openly hostile remarks towards muslims, like calling them
"goat-****ers" among other things, were slowly considered a normal
phenomenae. As a result, a lot of denegrating things were said about
muslims, and public sentiment towards being permitted to insult
minorities changed.

It's almost as if a magnifying glass has been placed over the muslim
minorities, filtering out what seems worth targeting and ignoring what
is positive.

A good developemnt of all of this has been that no longer the fake veil
of integration is covering all kinds of minority problems, but that they
are now openly discussed.

The negative side is that the government has tried the U.S. scare tactic
and it is now trying to limit the population's freedom with the excuse
of fighting terrorism.

Considering how much support the current government is losing in polls,
I think that their military support of the Iraq occupation and their
willingness to kiss U.S. butt despite the obvious lies and deception
just to stay trade partners with the U.S. will make them lose the next
election.

as i see it, denmark and holland are current manifestations of every
small="L" liberal's dilemma -- we can tolerate just about anything
expect intolerance.

Denmark is actually rather intolerant, with a considerable list of
minority unfriendly and minority intolerant laws and regulations. Think
about regulations not allowing more than a certain amount of minorities
in a certain area, people from minorities without a job being prohibited
to live in certain areas and so on...

Austrian right wing politician Joerg Haider actually tried to shape his
province Kaernten after the Danish model.

as i see the dutch situation (the recent killings of right-wing
politician and playwright) the dutch, with their multi-pillar approach
to society were fairly tolerant of islamic refugees/immigrants...
however, it was when the islamics decided that the system was too
tolerant for their religious belief and started agitating for change
that the dutch populace turned...

That's another side to the story. Because muslims are tolerated and left
to do what they as long as they bother no-one, we expect them to respect
others and not try to force their beliefs onto others as well. Alas, a
few of them fail to understand that. Mind you, that also goes for the
rather irritating U.S. Jehova's witnesses that go from door to door
trying to bring most people something they don't want or need either.

i liken it to someone coming into the usa and trying to change the
constitution (outside of the normal amendment process). this tolerance
was a cornerstone of what defined the netherlands: it was not
negotiable.

Yup, you've got a point there.

my view (and i stand to be corrected) was that the upsurge of the
right-wing can be attributed to pig-headed fundamentalism (in this case
islamic).

There is very little upsurge of the right wing, although I'm positive
that they will gain a couple of seats. A single politician in the
currently right-most party (which are called the "Liberals" here :-) )
has found them not to be anti-minorities enough, and he started his own
faction. Just after the murder he was estimated in the polls at
seventeen seats. That's now down to just a few, several of which are now
more because of him going in against the ruling Liberals than because of
how much he appeals to anti-minorities groups within our society.

Seeing how we have roughly a dozen parties in parliament, and maybe
double that waiting to enter the elections every time, the coalition
that is in the government better be really aware of the sentiments of
the population and not do too many things that are opposing the popular
political opinion (like the invasion of Iraq) or they will lose the next
election to a newcomer to the political arena (which is what happened
here right after the murder of Pim Fortuyn by a crazy environmentalist).

again, i'm of the impression that the danish situation is a parallel.

I think that the difference is a bit more nuanced, but I didn't follow
Danish developments in detail recently. From what I understand the
sitting government gained seats in the recent election, for the most
part because they actually did quite a bit to deal with immigrant
problems in Danmark.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/