Whatever the ultimate outcome of its ongoing leadership struggle, the Dutch Tweede Kamer or House of Representatives will continue to allot the most (37/150) seats to the formerly stigmatized Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid [PVV], 2004-). Although its founder and head Mr. Geert Wilders of Utrecht has apparently removed himself from contention to become Prime Minister, the plurality held by his party can be expected to provide enormous influence over the formation of government policy. This observation rises from the comparative to the international, and from the commonplace to the momentous when one considers that his primary political objective for the last twenty years has been to defeat the Islamic religion, for which Wilders has, among countless other indignities, been ludicrously denied entry into an Allied nation, unfairly subjected to a risible hate speech prosecution, and forever deprived of all personal freedom amid constant police protection.
In Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me (2012), Wilders recounts his resistance to the Islamization of Western Europe, but especially of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Prof. Dr. Wilhelmus “Pim” Fortuijn had criticized both the Islamic challenge and multicultural response before being murdered by a non-Muslim opponent for his views whilst campaigning for parliament in 2002, a national catastrophe followed shortly thereafter by the murder of iconoclastic filmmaker Theo van Gogh for similar reasons. This eruption of terrorism combined with the extreme degradation of Wilders’ own neighborhood of Kanaleneiland by mostly Sunni Arab Moroccan immigrants induced him to produce the documentary short Fitna (2008), and to conclude, “Due to these two trends—increasing Islamic emigration to the West and rising Islamic intimidation of the non-Muslim world—the West is confronted by Islam in a way it has never been confronted before, with our most fundamental rights hanging in the balance” (24).
After alarmed but not alarmist analyses of subjects including deception (Taqiyya) in the cause of Islam, subjection (Dhimmitude) of non-Muslims within Islam, and the horrific sexual slavery within many Islamic countries largely ignored by the Western intelligentsia, Wilders continues, “Since Islam is bent on destroying our constitutional system and its attendant liberties, we should not extend to it the leeway that we allow religions in general” (79). At the international level, his polemic rightly notes, in particular, the normative challenge posed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the 2008 charter of which establishes (14) an International Islamic Court of Justice in Kuwait both in imitation and in defiance of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and the revised Cairo Declaration ([1990] 2020) of which excludes all perceived immorality and impiety from protected speech (21.c), as well as omits recognition of all distinctly political freedoms.
The main recommendation of Wilders as of 2012 was the following:
“We must not negotiate with Islam, we must expose it by denouncing its endless holy ways, ridiculing its violent reaction to criticism or satire, and banning its chief tools of propaganda. Most important, for the sake of defending our civilization, we should keep those who want to impose Sharia law on our societies as far away from our countries as possible” (123, emphasis in original).
Apart from likely unleashing a torrent of communal tension, there are at least two potential objections to such an ‘all-out’ modus operandi with respect to Islam. First, authoritarian and totalitarian actors have been on the receiving end of decades, even centuries of Western satire, caricature, and pantomime; and yet no such tomfoolery from Voltaire’s Candide (1759) to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) has ever had any effect whatsoever at diminishing their appeal, moderating their demands, or assisting their victims. Second, to not merely criticize, but to lampoon the Islamic religion is to undercut—perhaps irreparably—the realist Islamic governments whose cooperation remains necessary though not sufficient to prevent the further deterioration of international relations. The Abraham Accords (Sept.-Dec. 2020) sponsored by the United States but principally between the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and the State of Israel normalizing diplomatic relations with the latter manifested some of the most brilliant multilateral diplomacy since the Congress of Vienna; yet such results are only possible—if still unlikely—if the prospective negotiating partners can plausibly deny that their state religion is being disrespected.
After an intervening decade of pariah status within Dutch and European Union politics, Wilders and his insurgent Freedomists successfully contested the national elections of November, 2023 on a Working Program embodying a “social rights policy” (sociaal rechts beleid, 3) and evoking Orange resistance cultures previously aroused against the Catholic Church, King James II, and respective European empires. He commits his prospective government to hiring ten thousand more police (13), expanding the animal police (26), and directly electing chiefs of police, restoring the impartial application of the laws after years of institutionalized “diversity nonsense” (diversiteitsgeneuzel, 30). Comprehensive assurances are likewise provided with regard to the deeply unsatisfactory housing (19) and healthcare (16) situations in the Netherlands, including the perversion of the course of justice whereby unemployed illegal immigrants occasionally receive scarce resources immediately and/or for free, even as law-abiding and productive Dutchmen are increasingly compelled to wait longer and to pay more.
National reservation is furthermore invoked against the political religion of carbon dioxide reduction, especially in accordance with apocalyptic warming scenarios proven incorrect and authoritarian EU emissions directives proving impossible. Regarding the fundamental Dutch norms derivative of its particular Reformed tradition for which Geert Wilders–though a self-described agnostic, has demonstrated his willingness to lay down his life, Islamic education is to be completely prohibited (32), the EU flag is to be officially lowered (43), and constitutional amendments are to be forthwith enacted to establish a right of national referendum, to abolish the Dutch Senate, to protect the Christmas, Easter, and Black Pete (December 5th) holidays, and to declare and pronounce the “Jewish-Christian and humanist roots” (Joods-christelijke en humanistische wortels, 30) of the civilization of Holland and Zeeland. Among its minimal direct remarks concerning foreign relations, the PVV manifesto promises to relocate the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem, to stand down the existing mission to the Palestinian Authority, and to refuse to accredit diplomats unwilling to renounce Sharia (42). Even if one believes in moving the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem and that the existing Palestinian Authority has proven itself beyond salvage at this point, Wilders’ final proposal introduces the terrifying prospect of ambassadors and consuls being required to conform to some degree to the ideology of the government of the receiving state, subverting to little to no purpose centuries of the usage of nations. Ambassadors are furthermore always and everywhere accredited to the head of state—in the Netherlands to King Willem-Alexander—and thus even if Prime Minster, Wilders would lack the authority to order so radical an adjustment.
In the final analysis, it is probably for the best that Geert Wilders did not become Dutch Prime Minister, as heads of government ought to unify rather than to polarize. Yet he likely shattered forever the pan-European pretense that the electorate would courteously remain docile and disinterested as multilevel elites sequestered more carbon dioxide than Islamic jihadists, and so often appear to demonstrate greater care and solicitation for other more distant societies. Once again, we observe in motion the political theology of the distinctively Dutch Reformed tradition, long marked by its resistance to supranational and centralized authorities.