On Monday evening, racist texts such as ‘Keep Lampegat blank’ and ‘Alaaf on behalf of the white Netherlands’ were projected on the town hall in Eindhoven. Willemijn Kadijk conducts research into radical groups for research agency NTA. She answers five questions about the how and why of these racist slogans.
Where do these texts come from?
“It seems to come from someone with an extreme right-wing world view. From a we group who feels threatened. In this case, the ‘we’ is the ‘white people’. The group behind these texts thinks that the ‘white people’ are threatened by immigration and multicultural miscegenation. According to them, diversity causes their own group to die out. These people want to counter that.”
Seems like it’s happening more and more. How did that happen?
“This form of action reaches many people and is therefore effective. So far it has had few negative consequences. Right-wing extremist activists notice this and then choose this way of campaigning again.”
What is the purpose of these types of groups?
“The extreme right-wing movement wants to change the world to their ideal image. This can be done in various ways: through violence and threats or by provoking a war. But it can also be done by convincing large groups of their ideas. They hope that people become curious, start looking for what a projected text means and also get convinced.”
It seems that few people are frightened by these kinds of texts. How did that happen?
“People may think that activism is ‘pro-white’ and therefore not negative. There is nothing wrong with being white or proud of Dutch heritage, but with extreme right-wing groups that pride goes hand in hand with fighting the other. words change meaning.
That also happens here. Because people do not know the background of this action, they do not see that these texts are extreme right. They don’t see people advocating racial politics, discrimination or even deportation. Unfortunately, there are Dutch people who want that. You can worry about that.”
How dangerous is this development?
“The danger of the extreme right is in extremism. The danger that it leads to violence is obvious. But if we start to accept hate speech as normal, it will also lead to discrimination or even deportation.
The group that projected racist texts in Rotterdam wants the Netherlands to become 99 percent white. This is incompatible with our democratic constitutional state and Dutch society. So it is a threat that we have to defend ourselves against.”
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Racist texts projected on city hall: ‘Keep Lampegat Blank’