Geert Wilders: Charlatan or Maverick Politician: The Rising Star of Today’s European Politics?

Mr. Wilders’ anti-Islam and someway racist political statements (yes, he is even in the Netherlands labeled as racist)  have been widely  covered in media all over the world recent years: Demanding to ban Koran, comparing Koran to the Hitler’s Mein Kampf, his proposal that those Muslim women who choose to wear a headscarf should have to pay 1,000 Euros “tax,” massive deportation of Muslims in Europe, releasing rather controversial short film “Fitna” (Sedition), the anti-immigration political stands. Thanks to all these unusual and publicly-distorting political maneuvers, Mr. Wilders has become the champion of Anti-Islam politics in Western Europe. It is not surprising with the help of media attention that he benefits of  the most politically correct law: ends justify means. If politics is considered to take all available votes in election in the way to power this law once again proves itself,  without any hesitation, in the  European Parliament election last spring.

Although these statements are not new in political agenda of Europe what makes Mr. Wildres so popular not only in his home country but also in whole world is  that his Freedom Party is on the leading position in the latest polls in the Netherlands? To some experts who follow the political agenda in the Western Europe explain it in a very simple but convincing way: He is not afraid to address issues that other politicians do not want to talk in public. Quite unsurprisingly, if you are familiar with Dutch politics, anti-Islam sayings by high profile political figures are not uncommon (of course not mentioning other far-right politician Ms. Rita Verdonk, whose once “anti-everything” statements were politically stolen by Mr. Wilders). It would be good to recall that Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot said Muslims lack a tolerance “gene,” in an interview with the Brazilian daily Correio Braziliense in 2007 (it is worth to note that Mr. Bot made a statement that what he had said was misunderstood. The cheapest way for any politician to rescue his “understandings” about everything if the things go unexpectedly wrong way). So that Mr. Wilders has no difficulty to find some comrades in his race against Islam.

What is important from the perspective of European voters, especially Dutch ones, is that they have been cheated by established parities (Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and Liberals) about Muslims in European societies and Islam in Europe and immigrants. What makes Mr. Wilders so valuable in today’s European politics is his political genius to manipulate ordinary people who have lost their beliefs in governing “establishment” whatever their “promised” ideologies had been failed since the early ’60s. Dutch people feels they are upset by the establishment by supporting it.  It is evidence that voters reward populists Mr.Wilders, who are not afraid to address issues that other parties don’t want to touch the politically sensitive issues: Muslims in European societies and Islam in Europe. Most of the mainstream parties in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands,  deliberately try not to involve debates which are considered as  very dangerous political black holes. But Mr. Wilders with his outmost political enthusiasm and prejudice of Islam, along with his political talent, thinks that with frontal attacks to these very touchy matters his party gains enormous popularity  in political arena.

In one way of course, it is too early to reach any conclusion that anti-Islam has spread as an epidemic in political circles of Western politics. But on the other hand it is not an exaggeration to indicate that using harsh anti-Islam language is the best way to “collect” votes in elections even though in reality everyone realizes the fact of when a political party claims the power it comes up with the reality of politics.

The real danger does not lie in Mr. Wilders’ political posture. Clear and present danger is what has not been vocalized by main stream political figures and parties about Islam and Muslims in Europe. And the remarkable silence of main stream parties about these highly sensitive and troublesome “hot” issues is indicating no affirmative solutions, if any, in foreseeable future. Western politics is for the time being following Alice’s mind: As long as it gets somewhere if it is guarantee the power. We can advise to those who are occupying responsible positions in Western European politics in their decisions to remember always a Dutch saying: decide with “cool head and warm heart.”