Then and Now: Part Six

Rehearsal With Pies

The sixth video in our series about Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders concerns a pie attack on Mr. Fortuyn which served as a dress rehearsal for his assassination, which occurred a few short weeks after the incident. The official and semi-official campaign against Pim Fortuyn strikingly resembles the current campaign against Geert Wilders, right down to the stock descriptive phrases and the iconography on the left-wing posters. Like Mr. Fortuyn, Mr. Wilders, despite the campaign against him, is immensely popular with the voters and threatens the time-hallowed oligarchy that runs political affairs in the Netherlands.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report about the 2002 pie attack on Pim Fortuyn. Along with the video, he has translated an abridged version of an article by Peter Siebelt that contains extensive background about the pie incident. He also includes two photos of anti-Fortuyn posters, one made by the International Socialists, and the other a random smear-poster from those days (at the top of this post).

Note: the Dutch word for “pie” can also be translated as “cake”. Some of the “pie”-derivative words would not make sense in English — “pier”, for example, which is not only confusing to read, but also not commonly spoken. So “caker” and “caking” are used instead in the text below.

We’ll begin with the two videos, which have been spliced together on Youtube. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

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Attack on Pim Fortuyn (The Rehearsal)

During the press conference on March 13, 2002 for his new book “The Ruins of Eight Years of Purple” [coalition government VVD (blue), PvdA, D66 (red)], Pim Fortuyn was attacked by left-wing activists.

Afterwards he stated that PM Wim Kok (PvdA, Socialist) and PvdA leader Ad Melkert should stop demonizing him. “By saying that I incite hatred, they incite such reactions,” he said.

Fortuyn was taken aback and felt besmirched in his integrity. “PM Wim Kok is partly responsible for this; he is the PM of all Dutch people, thus including me.”

After having pies thrown in his face at the presentation of the book “The Ruins of Eight Years of Purple” [coalition government VVD (blue), PvdA, D66 (red)], Fortuyn appeared in the Barend & Witteman Show.

He was not asked about his policy, but his “tone”. The “tone” of the ongoing demonization campaign and pie-throwers was not quite an issue to the interviewer.

These are the final minutes of that program, in which Fortuyn states: “And for the first time in years now, a politician can raise this issue without disappearing under lock and key.”


The left-wing activists who threw the pies — which contained a revolting smelly substance — were not arrested until May 14, a month after Fortuyn had filed a complaint, and a week after his assassination on May 6, 2002.

Full transcripts of these videos are at the bottom of this post.

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An abridged version of the Peter Siebelt article:

The rehearsal: “Pied”

by Peter Siebelt

Time and again that poster of the International Socialists floating into my memory. It was a call for a demonstration on May 11, 2002 by the platform “Nederland Bekent Kleur” [Netherlands Admits Color, which is now involved in the Wilders Trial] against Pim Fortuyn. Four days before the parliamentary elections the plan was that the International Socialists, the FNV [left-wing workers union], GreenLeft, the PvdA [Socialists] and other Left-wing groups in Rotterdam, would demonstrate in front of Fortuyn’s home with the slogan, “Give racism no vote”.

Even before the murder of Fortuyn, I had received indications that the demonstration would get out of control. The poster promised nothing good. On it was the face of Pim Fortuyn, with a blood-red triangle pointing at his forehead. Underneath was the text “Stop the Dutch Haider”.

When anti-globalization pie-throwers are preparing for an action, they put a picture of the heads of the targets on a bulletin board. They also keep track of when and where their target will be present. Would the poster of the International Socialists have been used on that bulletin board?

The guru of the international “caking” movement is the Belgian Noël Godin. During an interview he once was asked whether the Austrian right-wing politician Jörg Haider was on his pie list. “You cannot fight Haider with whipped cream,” Godin said, “To fight him, I recommend vitriol-pies (acid). Also a dynamite pie is imaginable. Butyric acid is not good enough for Haider. Him, you should permanently prevent from causing further major damage.” According to the pie throwers [or “cakers”], Fortuyn was the Dutch version of Jörg Haider…

Ever since the sixties, politicians, managers, and scientists have been “pied” by action groups. Dozens of websites “inspire” activists to this “playful” concept. Except for a few victims, most are politically conservative. The “caker” of Dutch VVD (center-right) politician Bolkestein put it like this: “Whoever is sweet gets a sweetie; whoever is of the right gets a pie!” The public usually easily forgets such attacks, but with the pie attack on Pim Fortuyn was different.

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At the time when Fortuyn was “pied”, he was extremely popular with a large proportion of the Dutch public. People were glued to the tube to follow his controversial performances. His number of followers grew by the day.

Fortuyn had openly stated that he would address the “pet topics” of left-wing activists. He wanted to fight crime, had criticized Islam and the multicultural society, and supported Israel. And “the car” and “the farm” had to be left untouched.

That is what the activists did not want to happen. For their ideological existence was in danger. On Wednesday morning, March 13, 2002, Fortuyn was to present his book The Ruins of Eight Years of Purple [coalition government VVD (blue), PvdA, D66 (red)] in the Hague press center “Nieuwspoort”. But before he was able to address the press, the 27-year-old Pauline van Tuyll van Serooskerken pushed a pie in his face. She shouted: “Towards zero seats!” [in Parliament]. Another pie followed (thrown by Margriet Goris). And another one (by Jelle Goezinnen).

Fortuyn felt an intense pain in his face. “I was temporarily blinded by the components of the pie that got into my eyes. I even felt an intense burning,” Fortuyn later said. Afterwards it appeared that the pies were filled with vomit and excrement.

Meanwhile one of the other left-wing activists opened a jar of Butyric acid which filled the room with a penetrating stink. With this action the activists wanted to “break the charisma of the politician” and no doubt send a signal: if the politician would not withdraw, more bullying would follow… According to their press statement, Fortuyn was an “extreme right-wing populist.” [Note: this is the very same term that is now used against Geert Wilders.]

After the incident, Fortuyn said he felt threatened. He accused the then-Prime Minister Wim Kok [PvdA, Socialists] and PvdA leader Ad Melkert of “demonizing” him. He regarded the “pies” thrown in his face as a direct consequence of that. Six weeks later, five bullets ended Fortuyn’s plans.

During the trial against the “cakers” in October 2002, the squatter Bjorn [who was living in The Hague] said this to a journalist about the various names that “pie” groups use: “It all makes little difference. They are different groups, but they derive from the same circle of people.”

That circle of people is like a kind of bacon pie: all different layers that stacked up together form a product. That product is radical resistance against to the established order.^[1]

Each layer plays a role, such as activities concerning animal rights, the environment, refugees, and anti-globalization. The activities overlap and are inextricably linked with a local, national, or international agenda. The coordination is with a kind of octopus, whose tentacles reach into the anarchist collectives of which the murderer of Fortuyn, Volkert van der Graaf, his girlfriend Petra Lievense, and the pie-throwers are a part.

These radical collectives can be found in the so-called “free states”, in squatter-occupied buildings established as breeding grounds for all sorts of cultural and political activities.

In such buildings, dozens of action groups are active. They work closely together nationwide — as in the campaign against Pim Fortuyn. Every group has a “throw-group”. Call it a “pie-brigade”. These action groups use the throwing of pies at leading figures from politics and business as a complement to their other means of action. According to the collectives, the victims are co-responsible for all the suffering on earth. Often these people have patiently been waiting for years until the time is right.

Two of the pie-throwers at Pim Fortuyn, Jelle Goezinnen and Margriet Goris, had close ties to the Leiden free-state Eurodusnie [which has connections with Nederland Bekent Kleur (Netherlands Admits Color)]. This anarchist collective had already demonized Fortuyn for weeks, accusing him of a racist muckraking campaign, and calling him a right-wing extremist, a sort of “Dutch version of Jörg Haider”. Their participation in the demonstration by the Netherlands Admits Color would be the closing of their campaign against Fortuyn for the elections.

After the murder Eurodusnie announced in a statement that they did not see any reason to distance themselves from the murder of Pim Fortuyn. The activists were even surprised at the kindness and sympathy expressed by the media and politicians after his death for his political ideas. “Fighting against Fortuyn’s ideas remained necessary,” Eurodusnie stated.

Despite their cooperation with Nederland Bekent Kleur and the aforementioned sloganeering, Eurodusnie denies that left-wing and/or activist groups had created an atmosphere of hatred and “demonization”, and that the throwing of pies was a deed drenched in hate.

Eurodusnie is an organization that for various reasons is well worth the effort to look into. According to their own information, it is a radical leftist and anarchist movement, and most of the activities have a seditious character. About forty people are in some way involved in the “ bacon pie” of activities in Eurodusnie. The activities are organized in project groups in which other people are also involved. Squatters, students, pupils, the unemployed, and asylum seekers to work together.

The “Eurodusnie bacon pie” consists of a “giveaway shop”, a vegetarian eatery, political information centers and an aid organization for illegals. They also play a coordinating role in the circles of violent animal liberators at home and abroad, which Volkert van der Graaf [Fortuyn’s assassin] was part of. But let us not forget the very active Eurodusnie “pie group”.

While Fortuyn and his lawyer Oscar Hammerstein watched the videos of the attack, he exclaimed: “Look at that: the media. The rows are opened to let the people pass and closed to take pictures and then they open again to let the people leave.” The ranks opened and closed to give way to the pie-throwers, both at entry and their retreat; there was not a obstacle in their way.

After Fortuyn was shot, all sorts of alarm bells start ringing. Thus, on May 7 it was discovered that a message from the AIVD about the pie throwers had remained untouched in the letter tray of the national counter-terrorism officer. This made one of the council women conclude of the “cakers”: “At first this obviously had no priority whatsoever.”

When the identity of the “cakers” become known to the Judiciary it took another nine days before they were arrested. This was two months after the pie attack…

Press Officer E. Kole of the Public Ministry (OM) has a rather airy explanation for this: “It was difficult to find out their names. They did not wear name tags.” No word about the fact that the identity of the perpetrators already for weeks remained in the letter tray of the national counter-terrorism officer. […]

On October 14, 2002, the court in The Hague ruled in the case against the three “cakers” Goezinnen, Tuyll and Goris. From various cities in Netherlands colleagues flocked in and around the court to express their sympathy. The “cakers” themselves were not present at the trial and continued to invoke their right to remain silent.

After much talking back and forth the court ruled that the “cakers” should pay €500 [US $682] each. The OM required 30 hours of community service, but magistrate P. Poustochine thought a fine to be appropriate since it seemed unlikely that they would comply with the community service (!). The court also found it necessary to emphasize that there was no connection between the murder and the pies.

In the public gallery that day, two key figures in the pie world were seated: the Brussels pie-guru Noël Godin and the Amsterdam Kees Hudig (better known under the pseudonym Kees Stad).

Godin is regarded as the shining example of the movement: he smeared more than thirty people, including Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. He is the head of the Belgian pie-brigade “Collectif Autonome de Chômeurs.”

Kees Hudig is a well-known radical connected to the funding organization XminY, which also was one of the financiers of the organization “Environmental Offensive” to which belonged the murderer of Fortuyn, Van der Graaf. Hudig is an important and active anti-globalist and has his own pie brigade, “Pastry without borders”. Thus was the Alderman of Economic Affairs, Krikke, “pied” in Amsterdam with two cream pies in October 2000.

Hudig had also supported the pie-action against Fortuyn. “The effect was that the smug gentleman on TV and in newspapers for the first time was pictured completely different from the way he wanted the audience to be accustomed to. Not a triumphant and smiling slightly roguish neat gentleman, but a dazed, desperate, or angry dirty man,” he wrote in an article.

How a criminal a pie can be was shown when in January 2000 a “colleague” of Kees Hudig and Jelle Goezinnen, Agent Apple of the American Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB), arrived in the Netherlands. He was on his way to a meeting of the radical environmental movement “Earth First” in London.

His visit to the Netherlands was a good moment to exchange “recipes”. Agent Apple is active in an anarchist group in San Francisco and is, like his Dutch partners, busy among other things with anti-fascism, anti-militarism, animal rights and… pies.

Agent Apple brought along a nice recipe. According to him, some people do not deserve a pie, but a rock against the head. To this end he had a “playful” solution. Pies with a base that is as hard as concrete and a blood-red filling on top. From the pie-toss files they looked up a person who had a good arm to launch this kind of pie, like a former baseball pitcher. They also played with the idea of adding pesticide to a pie. That would be ideal to “pie” a director of a multinational chemical corporation.

One of the most controversial actions of the BBB was the “caking” of Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco. Three pies hit his face. Brown felt abused. Three pie-throwers were arrested and were later told by the court they had to spend six months in jail. Before they went to their prison cell, they called out to all pie throwers in the world: “Let a million pies fly!” Jelle G. published their call in the Dutch (Euro) “Dusnieuws” of February 2000.

Hudig in his turn was angry at the prison sentence for the pie throwers and called for a pie avalanche against U.S. businessmen and ambassadors around the world.

A day before the lawsuit against the Fortuyn-cakers, in Amsterdam a “Grand Gala du Patisserie” took place. Kees Hudig was one of the organizers. They made it a festive evening. With much show the focus on the actions needed to survive. “Cultural Terrorism”, they called it. They showed films about the tactics and strategy of caking.

Noël Godin emphasized again that caking is one of the ways to damage the image and the reputation of public figures. About the actions he said: “This feels so wonderful, so blessed”. Godin dreamed of one day caking the pope. “He is a serial killer. He is against the use of contraception,” Godin said.

When someone suggested that it seemed quite confrontational to get a pie in the face, and asked if Godin was not afraid someone might go into cardiac arrest due to it, an excited Godin responded: “No. I’m definitely not afraid of that. On the contrary, I would consider it a hit if someone went out that way.”

During the “Grand Gala”, Godin confirmed the close liaison between the pie brigades, the anti-globalists and anti-MacDonald’s vandals. In the network of these “demolishers” Eurodusnie plays an important role. According to Godin, there is a “pirates pact” between the known anti-MacDonald’s vandal José Bové and the international pie brigades. Bové visited Godin in Brussels where together they designed a secret weapon with the name “zelda”. […] Zelda would be a huge catapult with two telescope arms that simultaneously can launch two pies 35 meters, for example at the police. […]

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Notes:

[1] The layered “bacon-pie”: According to Siebelt, the top layer is the administrative elite, composed of political parties such as Green Left and the Socialist Party. The layer under that consists of NGOs and environmental organizations such as Oxfam Novib, GreenPeace and [the Dutch] Milieudefensie [Environmental Defence]. The bottom layer consists of underground cells, such as the Animal Liberation Front et al.

Peter Siebelt is an independent investigator and for decades has been a top specialist in left-wing activism research. He publishes articles on his own website and, among others, at Het Vrije Volk. He has written books such as Eco Nostra: The network behind Volkert van der Graaf and Sinistra: Political mafia in the Hague at the provincial and municipal levels.

Attack on Pim Fortuyn (The Rehearsal) Part 1

00:00		00:04		Party leader Pim Fortuyn was attacked this morning by three pie-throwers…
00:04		00:08		…who call themselves the “Biological Bakers’ Brigade”.
00:08		00:12		This happened just before the official presentation of his book “The Ruins of Eight Years of Purple”
00:12		00:18		[coalition government VVD, PvdA, D66] which was already available in a few bookshops.
00:18		00:24		To the great interest of the press, Fortuyn entered the “Nieuwspoort” press center, near the Parliament Buildings in The Hague.
00:24		00:28		Shortly before Fortuyn wanted to begin his presentation, the pie-throwers attacked.
00:28		00:32		Left-wing activist: “Towards zero seats [in Parliament].”
00:32		00:38
00:38		00:42		Left-wing activist: “Towards zero seats.” [Fortuyn: “Well, a second pie”]
00:42		00:46		Left-wing activist: “Give racism no vote.”
00:46		00:50		The pie-throwers, according to their press release, want to
00:50		00:54		“break through the charisma of the entrenched extreme right-wing populist”.
00:54		00:58		After Fortuyn had refreshed himself, the presentation was able to start.

Attack on Pim Fortuyn (The Rehearsal) Part 2

00:00		00:04		If you say, “If I could legally arrange it, no Muslim would enter the county anymore”…
00:04		00:10		…but that is but very tough language. If not discriminatory?
00:10		00:16		That indeed is tough language, because, as I have extensively argued in one of my books…
00:16		00:22		…in Islamic culture, I’m not talking about religion, for that is what people should discover for themselves…
00:22		00:26		…but Islamic culture, especially when a peasant background comes along with it,…
00:26		00:28		…is at right angles to our core norms and values.
00:30		00:34		But according to you that applies to all Muslims who would like to enter here.
00:34		00:38		Sorry to say, but indeed, for the very large part.
00:38		00:42		Yes, but you point at all of them: “If it were up to me, no Muslim would enter anymore.”
00:42		00:46		No, I said “if I could legally arrange it,” but that I cannot do.
00:46		00:52		As I understand it, this would affect other rights that are important to me to such an extent that I thus cannot do it.
00:52		00:56		But do you not incite with that kind of phrasing?… you mention ‘the ruins of purple’.
00:56		01:00		But those are ruins.
01:00		01:04		But with all that wording, you must also at some given point again work together with people.
01:04		01:08		Well, let us first start clearing the debris, and I understand Mr. Wiegel is on his way…
01:08		01:12		…and we will form a coalition government within hours, that will be perfectly all right.
01:12		01:16		And do you think that a will be a society in which…
01:16		01:20		…one is still capable of working a little bit peacefully together?
01:20		01:22		Absolutely, absolutely [“At this tone?”]
01:22		01:26		Yes, absolutely, because I also want the [military/social] draft, and I also explained why.
01:26		01:30		You now may well mention all kinds of little things, but to me it is about the tone of that society.
01:30		01:34		We must first have a discussion together, and it is in particular…
01:34		01:38		…the PvdA (Socialists) and that entire leftist church, and the press also collaborated,…
01:38		01:42		…who for years have prevented the real issues from being discussed here.
01:42		01:46		And for the first time in years now a politician can raise this issue…
01:46		01:50		…without disappearing under lock and key, which is a bloody shame, thank you.