Paul Belien Goes to Work for Geert Wilders

Regular readers will be familiar with Paul Belien, the man in charge of the invaluable Brussels Journal website. I’ve had the privilege to work with him on a number of occasions, most notably on the planning and execution of Counterjihad Brussels 2007.

Therefore it gives me great pleasure to announce that Geert Wilders has taken on Paul Belien as his personal assistant. Paul is Belgian, but he is also Flemish, which means he speaks the same language as Mr. Wilders. As I understand it, Flemings and Dutch people can communicate as easily as, say, Texans and Canadians — though perhaps without as much mutual ridicule.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated an article from De Wereld Morgen about Paul’s new assignment:

Paul Belien will become “Personal Assistant” of Geert Wilders

by Christophe Callewaert

According to the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Paul Belien will become a personal associate of Geert Wilders. Belien is a right-wing conservative ideologue and the husband of VB MP Alexandra Colen.

For some years there has been a fault line between Paul Belien and the Vlaams Belang [“Flemish Interest”]. Belien complained in 2005 that the VB was driving away the ethically conservative electorate by taking in politicians who want to widen the scope, such as Jurgen Verstrepen. […]

Nevertheless, the demarche of Wilders is remarkable. Despite the many overlaps between the PVV of Wilders and VB, Wilders has always kept some distance. However, in 2008 he did leave the door ajar. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz [see also “Geert Wilders to Ally With Vlaams Belang?”], he said: “There are other sounds coming from the Vlaams Belang. Some, even from the Jewish community say they have changed. That they have changed their discourse. Others say that this is not the case. I have to see and talk with people and further study. I’m not saying it is impossible.”

In the Dutch newspaper Trouw VB leader Filip Dewinter said of this: “We are slowly growing a bit towards each other. Discreetly, without the media involved in it, through all the channels that are needed for something such as this. We ensure that Wilders is adequately informed about us, directly. We do this through various forms of parallel diplomacy. Slowly but surely we get a better understanding,” as also shows from interviews with Wilders.

According to Trouw, Paul Belien had played an important role in the rapprochement process. Belien is [apart from being editor of Brussels Journal, The Voice of Conservatism in Europe] also director of the International Free Press Society (IFPS). The IFPS organizes meetings at which Wilders speaks, and raises money to help cover his legal costs. Also Filip Dewinter and Frank Vanhecke were allowed to speak at a meeting of the IFPS last year in Copenhagen.

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This Danish link is not trivial. The IFPS was founded by the Dane Lars Hedegaard. But also the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) plays an important role in forging a major right-wing anti-Islam front in Europe.

The Danish People’s Party is also an example for Geert Wilders. Since 2001 the Danish People’s Party has also supported a liberal-conservative minority government from out of the opposition. That’s precisely the formula that is also on the table now in the Netherlands.

Beginning this year, Paul Belien predicted that it in the Netherlands could also go that direction [in “The Wilders Momentum”]: “…the most likely outcome of the June elections will be a center-right minority government that depends on the support of the PVV,” Belien wrote in March.

Belien then was very positive about this formula. “It is a formula which has allowed DF to set the government’s agenda without being part of the government,” says Belien. According Belien, Wilders — “currently the most interesting political phenomenon in Europe,” dixit Belien — now also has his hands free to build an international political movement against the “multicultural relativism”.

Belien himself has quite a few links with that “international movement”. In 2007 he made the top of the VB list during a study trip to the U.S. to meet American conservative organizations. Belien is a friend of the family with some U.S. think tanks and has easy access to the columns of newspapers like The Washington Times.

After the murder of Joe Van Holsbeeck [a teenager who in 2006 was murdered by two Gypsies from Poland in a crowded Brussels Central train station when he resisted while they tried to take off with his MP3 player] Belien published a provocative text on his website. In that article, “Give us weapons,” he wrote: “We are the animals of the herd, they are the predators. The herd-animals have let the predators in their biotope themselves. Our political, spiritual and intellectual ‘shepherds’ have made us believe that this was to be an ‘enrichment’ for our society. […] When if the state can or will no longer protect its subjects and their children, it is the duty of the citizens to do that themselves. ‘Necessity knows no law’. The shepherds have lost their authority. Watch video images of the predators that lurk in Brussels Central and realize that nobody will defend us if we do not do it ourselves. Who counts on the “politie(k)” [police/politics] for protection is as good as dead.”^[1]

The “Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism” asked him to remove the text.

Note:

[1]

There are several versions of this text floating around on the internet. Also, according to Paul Belien, the word “predators” had been introduced by others at the moment of publication to make a link to the murderer of Joe Van Holsbeeck.