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Cuchullain
Aspirant Forumlid (ballotage periode)
Ireland
25 Posts
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 Posted-05 May 2007: 16:24:32   
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It's become the Unholy Trinity of the Dutch calendar. Fourth of May: Rembrance Day. Fifth of May: Liberation Day. Sixth of May: some gung-ho lunatic murders the man who was going to be our next prime minister and changes the course of Dutch history forever.
This weekend it's five years since the almost unprecedented assassination of populist politician Pim Fortuyn right here in Hilversum, a stone's throw in fact from where I'm sitting now.
A lot has been written about the mass-psychosis that followed. First people almost set fire to the government buildings, then they voted a dead man into parliament, and finally they stood by while Fortuyn's minions did a fantastic job of killing off his legacy.
What if...
What remains after five years is mostly questions. How would Fortuyn have done if he'd lived and become prime-minister? How extreme were his anti-immigration views, knowing what we know now? Did he have anything meaningful to say beyond all the hype and hot air? And...does anyone still care?
Relevant questions, I'm sure. But when I think of Fortuyn, my thoughts tend to be of a rather different nature. The first thing that comes to mind in fact is the poker face of Amsterdam mayor, Job Cohen. Who I was about to interview in front of a live audience, when suddenly his mobile phone rang. Cohen just nodded, shot me a steely glance and whispered three words: "Fortuyn's been shot." For a whole, excruciatingly long hour it remained our secret while the show went on. And when I finally walked out into Dam Square, I could hardly believe the trams were still running. As if nothing had happened...
Getting very drunk
The phone call I made right there and then is probably the reason that whenever I do think of Fortuyn, it's with a smile. My first thought had been to get on the next plane out of the Netherlands - something a lot of Dutch people indeed ended up doing over the weeks and months that followed. But my second thought was to call Milly, a girl I had known for a while and was just friends with. I asked her if she would consider coming over and getting very, very drunk with me. Which we proceeded to do, with sincerest apologies to the nice lady from The Guardian newspaper who phoned with some pressing questions about Fortuyn's obituary. I doubt if - after six whiskeys - my answers made much sense.
What did suddenly make sense, though, was Milly. We've been married for just over seven months now, and if I say it was Fortuyn who brought us together I'd be only half joking. So I guess it's only natural that we pay our respects to the great man from time to time. Which we do by repeating some of his more colourful dictums, like "into the kitchen with you, much better!" Which he once said to parliamentary reporter Wouke van Scherrenburg, a formidable lady who'd been hounding him around The Hague all day.
Yul Brynner
Ah yes. That impatient, high-pitched voice. The flamboyant manners and peacock-like attire. And most of all that mixture of petulance and childlike innocence. I guess that if I had to remember Pim Fortuyn in any way it wouldn't be as some messianic leader, nor as a nasty right-wing extremist who damaged the Netherlands' reputation abroad, but it would be as Yul Brynner. Playing the King of Siam in that old Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, and cocking his big moony head in delighted amusement while saying things like 'you very difficult woman' and 'etcetera, etcetera'.
So I think I'll let others debate whether or not Fortuyn was a flash in the pan, and how xenophobic his statements about the 'backwardness' of Islam were. Not very anyway, if you ask me. Plus that he was the first Dutch politician to call for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, something the current centre-left government is now working on and that can hardly be called a typical extreme-right notion.
For me, it's enough to think of him as our one and only clown prince: the man who showed Dutch politics how to be human again, with all the imperfections and contradictions that entails. And that's a lesson today's Dutch leaders - whether they be left-wing, right-wing or something else - would do well to remember before Fortuyn's memory fades for once and for all.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Radio Netherlands.
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