After a month on a trip back in the Netherlands, it is just a little breathing. And not only because all columnists (forced) have started to write about the rule of law. Thanks to the recent Malie field stroke in which around 1,200 Nazis, hooligans and other right-wing-radical militants tried to storm the Binnenhof, attacked a party office, gave seven journalists and the police (almost) overwhelmed. At least one expert, emeritus professor Bob Hoogenboom, compared this With the black shirts of Mussolini, his violent political arm. He also saw evidence for (digitally) organized incitement and suspension in the resulting “tangling” (Dixit the police judge). But not (yet) for coordination on the spot. This seemed like a loose coalition of citizens, hooligans and extreme right -wing networks that call ‘sieg salvation’, waving with NSB flags, opportunistically deposited on their own goals.
I knew that the Netherlands knows fascist groups, but they dared to manifest themselves so openly and aggressively in the center of power is new. This seemed to me, at my hotel TV elsewhere, their coming-out By analogy the crowd that stormed the American congress. There was better agreed what the intention was. That can still come here.
NCTV analyst and professor of investigative journalism Nikki Sterkenburg Ordered on LinkedIn her dissertation from 2021. Stretching: this was coming. “Where radical and extreme right-wing activists were confronted with stigmatization twenty years ago, they now have an environment that at least tolerates them and even encourages them rather than discourages.” Cause: “As a society, we have become more used to radical and extreme right-wing views because the rhetoric has invaded our lives on a daily basis for the past twenty years.”
Was the Malieveld demo therefore a turning point? The harvest of two decades of hateful PVV rhetoric, copied by FVD, JA21, BBB and socially acceptable by SGP and VVD? The black groups will have felt encouraged. Politically, the aftermath was disturbing-a brand new VVD justice minister that could be shot to give political interpretation. Not even in the terms that the AIVD gave him on a note. With which the fastest reduction ever of a new minister was a fact. On his heels, his VVD colleague of Finance was angry with the vandals, but found “political” of it “fierce and unnecessary.” He rejected a connection with radical political statements from his own or related circle. Instead, all protesters received a tap – he was “Was that every demonstration starts to turn into the chopping on the police.” Okay, this VVD line is therefore not based on facts. 97 percent of all demonstrations are without incident, the police know. And of the 3 percent where something goes wrong, the police have to intervene in 1 in 5, as investigated The democracy monitor. More than one incident occurs in 0.75 percent of the demonstrations. In short, perception is king here. And politics.
That certainly applies the motion that argued “Antifa” as “terror movement”. Or the attempt by BBB party leader Van der Plas to commit the Cabinet to deploy StaSnoodrecht. Please immediately an asylum stop, awaiting stricter policy. Which was just about the purpose of the Malieveldmeute. So Kassa.
Let this sink in: a party leader asks a outgoing cabinet that is only based on 31 seats to put the room offside. Then there is little democratic awareness left. What was also confirmed in a study into the “autocratic sentiment” in the Netherlands. The conclusion came from that there is significant support in the middle class for the ‘own people first’ idea. Almost half prefer to see an “decisive leader” than a government that makes compromises.
I found something else in the stack of ‘overdue’-the NSC idea to introduce constitutional testing and to set up a separate court for it. Omtzigts Kroonjuweel once: Better legal protection of the citizen against a government that created allowance affairs. The budget comes according to Fidelity Now for the benefit of the construction of extra cells. Burgers, well, you must also be able to lock them up. Also a good cause!
When this rule of law started it was a corner for readers with interest in the courtroom. Because with our constitutional state itself, wasn’t there any wrong? Not in a country that drew all human rights treaties, ran in the EU pass and cherished a compromise culture politically? So that turned out differently.
Folkert Jensma is a lawyer and journalist and writes every other week on Wednesday.
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