As a well-intentioned person you have to assume that: conversions, including political conversions, are possible until the last moment. Nothing of the dead… et cetera, but it was still good that Michel Krielaars recalled his first memory in this newspaper of his meeting with Alexei Navalny on November 4, 2007. Navalny was still unknown at the time, especially abroad, and he was still searching at home to its political form – I say it now very Hague and formation-like. Krielaars met the young Navalny on National Unity Day, during the so-called ‘Russian March’. “Everything that called itself right and far right in Russia” had gathered there, and there was Navalny too, to voice their protest against “those illegals from the Caucasus.” Russia had to be for the Russians and migrants were “cockroaches,” he repeatedly shouted.
It was certainly a different Navalny than the man who ‘died’ in a Siberian prison camp last Friday; that was indeed a democrat who fought against the dictatorship of Putin and his associates, against the missing rule of law and against Russia itself, which is still waging an archaic, colonial war in Ukraine. Navalny has turned himself politically inside out in seventeen years. It is inevitable that the persistent Russian state terror has reinforced his political leap from ultranationalist to democrat. That jump eventually became a somersault.
Back to our own country, to the idea that all the talk about fundamental rights and the rule of law during the previous formation round was a lot of nonsense. It takes courage to speak so disparagingly about it, especially after Navalny’s death. No, the Netherlands is not Russia, and this country does not have an effective party cartel either – because then Wilders would not be the intended prime minister, but would languish in a secret location in Twente. Anyway: Wilders’ “tsunami of asylum seekers”, also known as “asylum scum”, comes quite close to Navalny’s then “cockroaches”. Over the years, the Russian dissident proved to be able to jump over his own past. Why wouldn’t you also give Wilders the benefit of the doubt?
Because, terribly enough, Wilders has had to be heavily protected for 24 years and advancing insight benefits from outdoor space and contact with people who think differently. That is not possible with Wilders. Because Wilders, with Rutte’s impending departure, is the most accomplished political strategist in The Hague. He can now finally cash in on his long outstanding winnings. And Wilders is anti-Islam incarnate. That makes up more than a quarter of his life. It can’t be that something like this was in vain.
Wilders’ conversion is possible, but highly, highly unlikely.
Stephan Sanders writes a column here every Monday.