What does NRC think | Fewer taboos after Fortuyn, but also much tougher political debate

A country where you can cycle to work as a politician: in 1997, the Netherlands wanted to radiate that. Prime Minister Wim Kok stepped on the pedals in front of the cameras in Amsterdam together with European leaders. The fun is oozing from the photos. Five years later, the political conviviality was over: on May 6, 2002, Pim Fortuyn was shot dead in cold blood by a left-wing animal activist. The cycling prime minister did not disappear from the streets, but a lot of security was added. The House of Representatives got gates. The Public Prosecution Service still has a day job of threats from politicians.

The Netherlands woke up rudely in 2002 from a period of stability and complacency. After the Cold War, major ideological contradictions seemed to have come to an end. Society did not need debate, but market forces. In the 1990s, Purple cabinets were set up, in which arch-enemies PvdA and VVD worked together. Colorlessness as a political ideal. Eight months: it remains astonishing in what a short period of time this order was shaken. In August 2001, publicist Fortuyn stated that he wanted to go into politics. At the beginning of May 2002, his LPF was high in the polls for the parliamentary elections later that month.

The zeitgeist was in Fortuyn’s favour. With 9/11, shortly after its political entrance, sentiment about Islam turned. Fortuyn fueled this by calling Islam a backward culture. Kok withdrew from politics, thus inadvertently creating a power vacuum. Unemployment, purchasing power: everything was right. But behind those great figures was also another reality: of impoverished city districts, the strong concentration of Muslims there and a growing sense of insecurity. Fortuyn saw this more clearly. At least act smarter. The introduction of euro money, on January 1, 2002, contributed to the feeling that everything was becoming more expensive and less ‘ours’. Experts and politicians put that into perspective.

After 2002, politicians and the media started to look more at ‘the street’ – and less at ‘the state’. Taboos disappeared from politics: everything had to be said and named, whether it was an inconvenient truth or a savage emotion. The question is to what extent that was the merit of Fortuyn or the result of the popular anger after the murder against the established order. The fear of citizens – of missing out – has never disappeared from The Hague. The Fortuyn revolt also contributed to the hardening of the debate. Since 2002, there has been a stable market for populist politics, which has only intensified in tone and anti-democratic tendencies. The gap between politicians and citizens has not narrowed either. The Allowances affair showed deep distrust of citizens, especially compatriots with a different skin color or strange surname. The Tax and Customs Administration was ordered to open the hunt for ‘fraudsters’ because of a politician who was afraid of ‘missing something’.

In the meantime, middle parties are failing to win the voters’ confidence, resulting in more and less powerful factions in the House. In many dossiers, political stagnation predominates: nitrogen, agrarian reform, housing construction. And just as under Purple, the Netherlands is in relatively good shape, but anger about growing inequality, poor employment contracts and the shortage of affordable housing is lurking. Twenty years after Fortuyn’s murder, naming problems out loud has become commonplace, but solving them is still not easy.