It seems that Geert Wilders (left), a racist Dutch politician, now pulls the strings of Mark Rutte (right), the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
Racism is everywhere, in every country and in each layer of our daily life.
What really pisses me off is how they institutionalize racism in several European countries nowadays by turning democracy into a mere dictatorship of majority.
Tolerating far-rightists by resorting to freedom of expression and by describing them with more permissible adjectives like populist and even xenophobic is just a way of doing it.
On the other hand, not all EU countries with a surging far-right movement exhibit these symptoms. For instance, as I've written before, the Swedish racists are also on the rise; but I don't believe that the Swedish democracy is under threat. Soon or late, they'll overcome this problem, which is a natural consequence of the current immigration trends that are socially painful, but economically necessary.
However, many other EU countries are systematically institutionalizing racism in a way that the Old Continent hadn't witnessed since the Nazis. Unfortunately, the Netherlands is one of these countries.
The problem with the Netherlands is not Geert Wilders, who denigrates Islam with lies and exaggerations. The real problem is how other Dutch parties and the Dutch society as a whole are surrendering to Wilders-style masked racism. A fringe politician can voice a racist opinion in any form. However, if this politician becomes a political king-maker and even the Prime Minister of his country starts to voice similar opinions, then it means that the problem is maturing into a similar one that Germany faced in early 1930s. We all know what had happened afterwards.
The latest remark by Mark Rutte, the new Prime Minister of the Netherlands, is such a dangerous sign:
Rutte told yesterday that he would have had a different attitude to the dual nationality of one of his junior ministers if she had had a Turkish, rather than a Swedish passport as well as a Dutch one.
Now this is not only a grave example of institutionalized discrimination in the Netherlands, but it is also an example of top-level racism, because Rutte has singled out the Turks, who had served as Dutch ministers in the past.
Imagine that US President Barack Obama or his predecessor George W. Bush saying that it is OK to be a Canadian-American dual citizen, but not Mexican-American. What would happen in America then? Such a remark would even cost him his office there.
The main problem about the EU lies here. Europe has become the land of comparative politics, not qualitative. In America, Rutte could be instantly kicked out of political game; but in Europe, he is still a prime minister as he is normal in the EU; because comparing to Geert Wilders, he is still a moderate.
With such a logic, you can rehabilitate even Mussolini's image -as we are seeing in Italy nowadays- as long as you compare him with Hitler. I believe that there is a similar level of distinction between Rutte and Wilders.
