A Dissident Sound in the Lion’s Den

Martin Bosma, a Dutch member of parliament for the PVV (Party for Freedom), has recently been granted column space in a left-leaning newspaper. Our Flemish correspondent VH sends this note about Mr. Bosma’s first column:

Here is a translation of the first (and excellent) column by Martin Bosma in the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Once a “gentleman” among newspapers, it has become in the past decade a common multiculturalist and left-leaning paper. Now it has invited three politicians to write a column every three weeks: Femke Halsema of the GreenLeft, Martin Bosma of the PVV, and Ton Elias of the VVD. In his first column Martin Bosma uses this left-wing platform to hold up a mirror to the readers of the NRC, who are in general not quite supporters of the PVV.

Below is his translation from printed edition of NRC Handelsblad (a pdf of the article can be downloaded here):

You are tolerant until it gets too crazy for you

by Martin Bosma

It’s not just that you don’t like me. You even begrudge me my job. If NRC-subscribers were the only ones allowed to have the right to vote (be honest: don’t you dream of that sometimes?), my party would not get beyond four seats [of the 150 in parliament — translator]. With my fifth place on the list of candidates of the Party I could have well dropped out of the boat.

Your preferences are somewhere else: You’d assign 51 seats to GreenLeft and D66. (With the 37 seats for the PvdA [Labour Party] that will take Saint Job [Job Cohen, PvdA party leader] whistling to the prime minister’s residence.) All of that perfectly matches your lifestyle: the unsprayed Toyota Prius, the little eco-house in Tuscany, the golf weekend with friends in London. Islam is not at all a problem to you. Come on, after all, you are tolerant! To prove that, to the friendly Moroccan who delivers you this newspaper you will soon hand an extra big-hearted Christmas tip. Concerning xenophobia they are with you all in all at the wrong address.

And the kids? Do you expose them to your multicultural ideals, and are you standing at the gates of a black school every morning at half-nine? Is your Emma, Anne-Fleur, or Mees [stereotypical pseudo-elitist children’s names — translator] in a cozy classroom full of Muhammads and Alis?

Ho, ho. It should not get too crazy of course. When it comes down to it, you’d rather drive an extra block with your child cargo-bike. This obviously has nothing to do with all those Muslims there. You after all are not a racist. No, it’s because of that computer room or the color of the wallpaper. Or something like that. Your Minerva friends of the Old South chapter of D66 nod understandingly. For that matter, they are doing the same.

I disagree with just about everything you agree on. Multiculturalism I find appalling. Headscarves and mosques are an abomination to me. I do not believe for an inch in the climate-hype, and I think Al Gore is a charlatan. Obama causes a shiver down my spine. Christianity I find wonderful. EU nationalism I view as the reincarnation of the Soviet Union. Reagan, Solzhenitsyn, and Jabotinsky are framed on the wall in my office.

I would rather read Hayek and Ayn Rand than Keynes and Etty [communist and columnist for the NRC]. I am firmly pro-Israel (“extreme right-wing colonist leaders” — as this newspaper calls them — are to me people I enjoy visiting). My solidarity is with the last natives in the Transvaal [in the Hague] or Tarwewijk [in Rotterdam] neighborhoods, not the elites who brought one million Muslims under our roof. I do not at all think that it is ‘the pride of the Netherlands that we do not find one culture better than the other’. The Netherlands itself does not agree to that at all. Only the leftist elites think as much.

I write in my book, The Pseudo-Elite of the Counterfeiters: that we are not only politicians, but also missionaries. Hence my book, hence Fitna, hence the frequent trips the of my party leader around the entire the world. And hence the dissident sound I may let you hear every three weeks — here, in the lion’s den.

Despite everything, I do not give up on you. You are just a victim of your upbringing, your education and your environment.

Too bad about all those subscription withdrawals because of my column. But, well, leftists like to be tolerant, unless it concerns people with different opinions. Scores left the newspaper De Volkskrant when the shutters were opened there. Joris Linssen and Kees Driehuis of the state broadcaster even openly complained of an overdose of ‘Wilders-articles’.

If all these people subsequently chose the NRC Handelsblad, because of me they possibly will migrate again. I hope not, but so be it. You could almost compare their fate to all those Dutch people who ever again run away when the multicultural society takes over their street or neighborhood. This way the Multicult will have us all on the move.

And Mr. Bosma is quite right — see this article from Het Parool, also translated by VH:

Cycling further for a white school

“I am not going to ask people to sacrifice their child to an experiment of general interest.” — Education Alderman of Amsterdam, Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA)

AMSTERDAM — White children cycle all the way through the city to go to a white school. For a ten percent increase white fellow students, they cycle half a kilometer further. The Service “Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek” [Research and Statistics, O+S] of the municipality of Amsterdam, researched what makes high schools attractive to various groups of pupils. From the report, as presented today, it emerges that one out of five black students spend their entire school career in a black school. Among white students, ten percent grow up in a white primary- and high-school.

O+S researcher Lotje Cohen discovered that immigrant students of lower professional education (VMBO) especially choose a school close by in their neighborhood. Due to this, in such schools more than 40% of the students came from a weaker, black primary school. “Other students then start to avoid that school,” according to Cohen.

Native VMBO students are prepared to travel further for relatively white VMBO schools that train students for a profession in park maintenance, a bakery, or hotels and restaurants. It is furthermore the case that students travel further for a higher educational level. Cohen did not ask parents and students about the motivation for their choice, but studied on the basis of registrations what parents and children are really doing. Cohen: “That is important, because with a subject such as segregation, you won’t always get to hear the honest answers.”

Education Alderman Lodewijk Asscher does not feel challenged to stop the segregation at the school doors, for instance by forcing students to mix. “I am not going to ask people to sacrifice their child to an experiment of general interest. Before you ask parents to cooperate, you must be certain the quality is good everywhere.”