Dutch politician’s attack on the Slavs reminiscent of Europe’s darker days
Economic hardship always make these rightwingers come out of the woodwork.
snip
For the past several years, the Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders has been Europe’s ultimate single-issue politician: He likens Muslim immigrants to Nazis, and he wants them to leave. Amid the bitter mood of intolerance that dominated the early years of the economic crisis, this was enough to launch his Party For Freedom (PVV) into third-place status, but now there are signs that Dutch voters are getting tired of the blond-maned firebrand’s distinct flavour of xenophobia.
In an apparent bit to win back lost support, Mr. Wilders has launched himself back onto the front pages this week – and has triggered a major international incident – by abandoning single-issue politics entirely. He has boldly struck out with a website that targets a second immigrant group: the Slavs.
“Reporting Central and Eastern Europeans,” his party’s new site, urges residents of the Netherlands to report their Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovakian and (especially) Polish neighbours to the authorities, and offers forms with which to do so. It accuses these migrants of “many problems, nuisance, pollution, displacement” and the stealing of Dutch jobs, and features headlines claiming that Europe’s Slavs are criminal threats. As with his earlier attacks on Muslims, the site uses images and rhetoric reminiscent of darker periods in Europe’s history.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/dutch-politicians-attack-on-the-slavs-reminiscent-of-europes-darker-days/article2339193/
