SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Dutch politician Geert Wilders may be many things, but he is not the right-wing populist he is accused of being. What the debate over his film "Fitna" reveals most clearly is the West's cowardice toward Islam.
There's a key for every lock, just as there's a perfectly fitting label for everyone who refuses to fit in. At the moment, the term "right-wing populist" is hot. Everyone and his brother is calling Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders by that name at the moment, but hardly any commentators or reporters have taken the time to explain what a "right-wing populist" actually is. And what distinguishes it from other political standpoints like, for instance, "left-wing populists."
Geert Wilders may be many things -- he is self-confident to the point of vanity and stubborn to the point of sacrificing himself. But he's not a right-wing populist.
For one thing, he's a radical liberal. For another, what he's doing at the moment is extremely unpopular. Six years ago, Pim Fortuyn, who was murdered by an animal rights fanatic, was also called a "right-wing populist." He was indeed very popular -- not because he was "right-wing" but because he insisted on drawing attention to things that the traditional elites of Dutch society had steadfastly ignored.
The label "right-wing populist" resonates negatively today the same way that "communist" did in the '50s and '60s, "fascist" did in the '70s and '80s and "climate change denier" does today. It saves the speaker from having to engage with the actual content of the argument and makes the bearer of the term solely responsible for the consequences of his or her actions.
If fanatical Muslims do, in fact, go ballistic over Wilder's film "Fitna," it's not because they have a flawed relationship to freedom of speech and religion, but because they've been insulted and provoked by Wilders -- or so the reasoning goes. Geert Wilders Is No Right-Wing Populist >>> By Henryk M. Broder
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL:
’Osama bin Laden Is Planning Something for the US Election'
Mark Alexander
