When Geert Wilders, founder and front man of the Party for Freedom (PVV), explained his “Plan for the Netherlands” in the build-up to the Dutch general election of 2017, he declared that “the biggest problem in this country is Islamization.” This process, Wilders claimed, constitutes an “existential threat” to “our identity, our freedom. Who we are. Everything.”[1] For close observers of Dutch politics, similar statements, made by the leader of the then third-largest party of the country (second-largest after the elections), were stale—over the preceding decade they had grown accustomed to Wilders’ Islam-alarmist messages. His claims may sound rather radical, however, to foreign ears. After all, most of Wilders’ political friends in European Parliament do not denounce Islam as directly or explicitly;[2] nor is the issue as salient for them as it is for PVV leader. Besides, didn’t Wilders come from and operate in the Netherlands, a country that has long been prided for its cultural openness and religious tolerance?.This paper aims to contribute toward a better understanding of the ways in which immigration in general, and Islam in particular, are politicized in the Netherlands—a history in which Wilders plays a key role, though he is not the only protagonist. I will do so by focusing, first, on the societal background against which these issues surfaced on the political agenda during the past decades. I will then analyze how the issues of immigration and Islam are depicted by Wilders’ PVV and how these representations evolved over time. The final section will situate this politicization in the contemporary Dutch political landscape and discuss its societal implications.
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- United States of America
