A young man in a djellaba relaxedly holds his suitcase and Moroccan passport in his hand while standing and watching Geert Wilders on his television. “Waiting for the Exit Poll,” is the comment above the photo. The Moroccan Dutchman Ilyasse El Boujadayni went viral on the evening of the House of Representatives elections. “It was actually only intended for my cousins in the group app,” he said later in the talk show On 1.
In a TikTok video you see a group of boys with a migration background calmly sailing away on a boat under the full moon – with the text “bye the Netherlands” above their heads. In the comments below the video, others joke that they would like to go along and teenage girls regret that they now have to miss the boy they like.
In another internet joke about the PVV’s victory, boys with a Turkish and Moroccan migration background wait quietly at Schiphol for their flight abroad.
Only conditionally
Geert Wilders and other PVV politicians have been repeating for years that Muslims and people with a migration background are only welcome in the Netherlands conditionally. This year’s party program states: “The Netherlands is not an Islamic country. Our own culture and secular laws always take precedence and if you don’t like it, just leave.” The PVV wants to forcibly deport criminal Dutch people with a migration background “if necessary after denaturalization”. The party also calls for a ban on the Quran, mosques and Islamic schools should all be closed.
In addition to jokes with a serious undertone, many Dutch Muslims also share their concerns about the way in which Geert Wilders and PVV have spoken about them in the past. So it becomes the tweet by the Turkish-Dutch columnist and social service provider Emine Ugur has been widely shared on both X and Instagram. In it, Ugur writes: “It is not about whether people like me are actually deported or whether it is legally feasible or not. The point is that a quarter of the population would not object if it were possible. That they hope it works. That they are fine with headscarves being banned in government buildings, which would prevent me from doing my job, for example. That they hope that mosques will be closed or the Koran will be banned. It is not about whether Wilders succeeds in achieving all this. The point is that Wilders has managed to dehumanize Muslims, Moroccans and people of color to such an extent that a quarter of the population has no problem with being treated as second-class citizens.”
Different sound
Another sound can also be heard. Amid all the jokes about leaving the Netherlands, there is a response on the youth channel Cestmocro a message about Wilders’ victory many likes: “He is much smarter than people think. He wants the best for all Dutch people, regardless of origin. He only wants to keep out new fortune seekers who only want to profit here and break the rules: fine. In addition, stop this climate madness and send more money to healthcare.”
Photographer and sociologist Ebru Aydin shared on the day after the election photos on Instagram from a mosque in Corum, Turkey: “If I have to return to my own country, this will be my destination (jokingI’m not going anywhere. Utrecht forever).” But before those words you can read about her concerns as a Muslim woman with a hijab: “The PVV, which has been very clearly against Islam for 15 years and is also racist, is now the largest party in the Netherlands. I felt a lot after the exit poll: disbelief, surprise, sadness, anger, frustration, hopelessness and alienation towards the Netherlands.”
Emotionally, she continues that the results evening was the moment she felt that she did not belong in the Netherlands, according to the many people who voted for PVV. “I don’t notice it much in my own bubble, but after every election result I am confronted with the facts again.”
In a private message she says that she has received many expressions of support and kind words from colleagues and friends in response to her message. “That helps put things into perspective – Wilders does not represent the entire country. This gives me more fighting spirit. And the need to claim more space as a Muslim.”