The left ignored the needs of ‘the little people’ and helped create ‘Wildersland’, claims novelist Joost Zwagerman in the Volkskrant.

Wildersland exists. Two NRC journalists discovered it recently. Its borders skirt the southern provinces of Limburg, Noord Brabant and Zeeuws Vlaanderen. That is where the majority of PVV voters live.
Nightmare
Why there? It can’t be just that Wilders grew up in Venlo, although his fellow Limburgers do look upon him as their champion in the battle against The Hague which they feel is consistently ignoring their needs or even belittles them.
What does the PVV voter want?, the NRC journalists asked. Remarkably, islam hardly put in an appearance in their article. On the contrary, Wilders’ crusade against islam, ‘a fascist ideology’, does not seem to figure very prominently in the mind of the PVV voter.
The voter from the south turns to Wilders for all kinds of reasons. His acknowledgment that they have a grievance at all is a vote winner in itself. Expansion, globalisation, the European Union as a sluggish machine producing guidelines that are disastrous to the region’s economy, but also the threats to healthcare and an increasingly tough and uncaring society, all these constitute the PVV voter’s nightmare.
Martyr
The worries of the PVV voter don’t really differ very much from those of a lot of other voters. In the NRC, a priest in Maastricht put it like this: ‘The old people in my parish all voted for the PVV. They feel neglected in their old people’s homes and they think Wilders is going to do something about it. It has nothing to do with muslims but they do think their needs are ignored in favour of people coming in from other countries.
The well-educated don’t vote for Wilders’ repressive policies either. What they value is freedom of speech.
Pollster NIPO found that ‘Well-educated voters are attracted to the PVV mainly because they feel freedom of speech is under attack from a growing islamisation. They see Wilders as a martyr for free speech.’
Wilders’ martyrdom was only confirmed when the public prosecution office decided to put Wilders on trial. The support among the well-educated went from almost zero to 10 to 15 percent in 2009.
They seem to take Wilders’ sweeping statements in their stride because the alternative to Wilders’ strident islam bashing worries them even more: a left wing government which ignores the needs of the Dutch burgher.
Labour in particular seems to be unable to lure back the voter. They have not come up with a view of society in which all cultures can recognise themselves. Their cry that Wilders is creating a divided society only re-inforces what he already knows: society is divided and has been for a long time. It’s us, the indigenous Dutch little people and them, those in the top (often leftwing) layers who feel they can be morally superior.
‘Binding’
Labour leader Job Cohen’s mission ‘to keep things from falling apart’ theoretically forms a safe home for the wandering voter. But because he and other left wing politicians insist on calling Wilders a ‘danger to society’, Wilders and his voters are excluded from this ideal because apparently they don’t really count.
It doesn’t say very much for Cohen’s cohesive society when self declared leftwing opinion makers are in the business of ridiculing these voters or putting them in with the extreme right.
The question that should be asked is: did those former CDA and VVD voters change into extreme right wingers who can be bashed at will overnight?
Little people
Why is it that leftwing opinion makers have it in for people who formerly voted VVD, PvdA and CDA? Do they really think that the traditional parties will automatically win back confidence once the disenfranchised voter has been characterised as the dregs in an otherwise nice bottle of wine?
Martin Sommer said it very succinctly: ‘They’ve started to hate the people’.
Hate? Some opinion makers loathe and despise.
Take Anil Ramdas, presenter of a multicultural talkshow for VPRO tv.
White trash
Ramdas published a column on the website of the Vlaams Cultureel institute De Buren (the Neigbours) in which he links the lack of cultural taste of the white under classes automatically and exclusively to extreme right wing convictions and moral inferiority: ‘And look at the ever-growing number of PVV voters, two million of them already. Those Hollanders (…) are mainly anti-social white trash with stupid ideas and no manners.
‘What else is there to say about most Telegraaf readers, SBS 6 and RTL watchers and PVV voters than that they are rough, rude, uneducated, vulgar louts? Primitive, chip-on-the-shoulder, right wing and extreme right wing types without morals, principles, ideals…how else can I put it?’
No morals?
God almighty. Primitive, extreme rightwing, no morals, no principles. Ramdas denounces white trash vulgarity but does it in a way he deplores in others. Hate mongering is ok as long as it serves a moral purpose. If not, it’s ‘primitive’.
Do most RTL watchers lack morals? Ramdas doesn’t say their morals are ‘scary’ or ‘small minded’, he just says they have none. PVV voters and RTL watchers thus find themselves in the psycho ward together. Joran van der Sloot is said to have no morals. That would make most PVV voters Joran-like people.
One mouseclick reveals that RTL watchers are on average fifty year-old women who love Oprah Winfrey, read women’s magazines and care for an elderly or infirm member of the family. They will be surprised to learn they are stupid, primitive, extremely right wing and without morals.
Tragedy
Behind the foul language Ramdas uses to characterise as white trash anyone whose political opinion doesn’t agree with him, lies a greater tragedy. Once looking down on the lower classes and claiming a hedonistic lifestyle was the privilege of bohemians.
But as soon as that lifestyle trickled down to the lower classes, the hedonism of the lower classes was declared deprived. Contempt for the lower classes has always been with us but Ramdas’ venom lies in equating lack of taste with the extreme right. As if giving the finger is a uniquely right wing thing to do in this confused society.
At the same time, Ramdas thinks civilised people should vote for Cohen. It’s the perfect illustration for the left wing dilemma. Either you vote for Cohen’s cohesive society or you marginalise the PVV voter by calling him primitive, stupid and extremely right wing.
If you really want a cohesive society, politicians should counter Wilders’ rhetoric by recognising the deeply felt unease in Dutch society by both the muslims who feel excluded and insulted and the white Dutch population whose world has changed dramatically by immigration and to which the left shows an exclusive commitment.
Identity crisis
Ramdas’ name calling illustrates an identity crisis on the left. Progression and emancipation no longer define it. Emancipation by laying into ‘white trash’ won’t really elevate the masses.
Emancipation by incrimination, that can’t be what it is all about. Belittling the needs of a large group of people has given rise to Wildersland.
This is an unofficial translation