Even if the killing of Fortuyn wasn’t politically motivated, things will never be the same again, to use the same hoary cliche all the newspapers have been using. Holland has always been an country where the politicians may have been a self selected elite, but you would still find them standing next to you at the herring car, downing a Hollandse Nieuwe. You want to know when the last Dutch politician was assasinated? 1672…
I’m afraid this openess soon will not exist anymore. There have been other attacks on politicians the last two decades -a minister’s house blown up in 1991, the hotel where the extreme rightwing Centrumpartij was meeting being torched, but never anything that justified the amount of security heads of state drag around with them in countries like Germany or France, let alone the USA. I really couldn’t blame politicians if they wanted to be more protected now, but it’s a pity. Something precious will be lost if our politicians become the same as every other country’s.
The other main thing on my mind right now is what will happen in the elections on may the fifteenth. The government has decided, after conferring with the leaders of the Lijst Pim Fortuyn to at least let them go through –constitutionally they had little real choice anyway–but there won’t be any campaigning anymore [1]. The various partyleaders had already decided to stop their campaigns out of respect for Pim’s death, as a sign of their outrage about his killing, including how it damages our democracy.
That latter is what concerns most of us now, both Fortuyn supporters and opponents: this is unique in our history, this is totally and wholly undutch, something which foreigners probably won’t understand. This will be our 11 september, our day the world changed forever. We see ourself as tolerant, rational and enlightened, as somewhat smugly superior to other countries –now we’ll have to review this view of ourselves. Holland, it turns out, is not special, bad things can and will happen here.
[1] The Lijst Pim Fortuyn won’t be appointing a new leader before the elections, probably hoping to pick up some more voters that way as well as a sign of their respect for him.