Rr00ttt
25 april 2004, 20:45
Geachte heer Tommelein,
Als lid van de Vlaamse Liberale Democraten zou ik graag eens uw commentaar op onderstaande analyse die verscheen in The Times, toch een zeer gerespecteerde buitenlandse krant lezen.
Is België nu echt niet veel te ver aan het gaan? Het nastreven van een bepaald beeld op de samenleving is een mooi iets, het strafrechterlijk verbieden van het uiten van een beeld op een manier die 'de rechtbank niet bevalt' is dat allesbehalve.
Indien het de VLD menens is met de Democratie zoals ze zelf zo graag beweert, verwacht ik van u dat uw partij er een breekpunt van maakt dat de discriminatiewet in haar huidige vorm verdwijnt. Dit is een wet van het kaliber van de 'genocidewet' met het verschil dat het bij deze wet volstaat om van een misdaad/bepaalde intentie 'verdacht' te worden en niet eens noodzakelijk is ook wat in de ogen van de meerderheid daadwerkelijk strafbare feiten zijn te hebben gepleegd.
Vergis u toch niet, in Vlaanderen zullen de meeste mensen het zeker niet met alle, if any ideeën en uitspraken van het VB eens zijn, maar ik geloof nooit dat een meerderheid van ons denkt dat deze partij hier effectief de normale deelname aan het politieke debat volledig gewijgerd kan worden gewoon op basis van wat zij zeggen. Vlaanderen is toch geen politiestaat!
I've seen the future: it's scary and Belgian (Stephen Pollard, The Times)
The Prime Minister makes much of the “scare stories” and “myths” which opponents of further deepening of the EU supposedly propagate. They are based, apparently, on paranoia, and are products of not-so-latent xenophobia.
Well here’s a very scary story which is not speculation but fact. This week democracy — the right to vote for the party you wish to support — ended inside one EU member state.
On Wednesday, the Belgian judiciary banned a political party from operating in Belgium. The reason? The country’s political establishment dislikes its views. The party it banned is not some obscure fringe organisation but one which has 18 MPs in the 150-seat Belgian parliament, many local councillors and two MEPs. The opinion polls were predicting that it could win the most Belgian votes at the European and local elections in June.
The banned party is Vlaams Blok (VB). The Court of Appeal in Ghent — notorious for its left-liberal bias — deemed it to be an “undemocratic and racist” organisation because of its policy that immigrants should be given only two choices: “to assimilate or to return home”.
Maybe such a policy is indeed racist; maybe it isn’t. The VB itself, which has much in common with the Fortuyn List in the Netherlands, has been accused of this. But in a democracy, surely, that is a decision which voters should make, not judges. But the VB’s racism was merely an excuse. The real reason why the Belgian authorities have been bent on banning the VB for years has nothing to do with racism and the rights of immigrants. It is that the party advocates secession from Belgium and the establishment of a Republic of Flanders. Worse still, as Belgium’s only conservative party it upsets the country’s cosy political applecart. The Belgian Establishment has responded not by defeating it in argument but by banning it.
After Wednesday’s ruling, it is now illegal to distribute VB publications and its politicians are barred from state radio and television. The party is appealing against the ruling, but the Belgian judiciary’s predisposition to do the bidding of the political class means that the appeal has almost no chance of succeeding. When the ban is confirmed, the VB will be proclaimed a criminal organisation and disbanded, unable to exist, let alone to field candidates and argue its case.
I hold no brief for the VB; were I to have a vote in Flanders, I would not vote for it. But that is not the point. What happened in Ghent on Wednesday is a frightening but classic demonstration of the political mindset which lies behind the EU’s “ever-closer union”: if you do not sign up to certain beliefs then your politics are, by definition, beyond the pale and thus illegitimate.
The ruling was merely the latest in a series of attempts to destroy the VB because of the threat it posed to the Belgian status quo. In 1999, “undemocratic and racist” parties were banned from receiving state funding (private donations of more than 125 euros are illegal in Belgium). This decision was immediately followed by an action against the VB on those grounds. When a Flemish judge refused to issue a judgment, arguing that these were matters for the electorate rather than the courts, the head of the Centre for Equal Opportunities, the quango which had brought the case, said that he would continue appealing until he had found a judge who would find against the VB. This week one emerged: Alain Smetrijns, who happens also to be the chairman of the Lions Club in Ghent, a francophone pro-Belgian group.
Belgium is in many ways a mini-EU: an artificial state created (much like Europe’s three former such states, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) as a result of political ideology rather than any sense of national unity, and held together by a political class which is prepared to subvert democracy to achieve its ends. Add to that a judiciary which, far from being independent of the political establishment, is an important part of the problem, and you have a recipe for what took place in Ghent this week: democracy, Belgian-style, in which you may vote only for a party whose views are approved by the elites.
The actions may be specific to Belgium, but the lesson is of wider import. The EU is in the process of becoming just such an artificial state. The fate of the Vlaams Blok shows that worries about the future of democracy are not scare stories. They are real dangers and they are with us today.
UPDATE:
Yesterday (Friday), the Flemish state television authorities decided to impose only a partial ban on VB politicians, pending the verdict of the Supreme Court. The Francophone Belgian TV authorities have, however, banned the VB completely.
And to be technically correct, it's not the VB itself which has been banned but its constituent parts. In Belgium, parties have no corporate existence but are rather comprised of a series of groups and organisations. It is those groups which have been labelled racist and undemocratic. As a consequence, anyone who has dealings with them is guilty by association. When the Supreme Court upholds the ban and the VB's constituent bodies are declared criminal organisations then people who have any association with them will themselves be criminals.
Biography
» About Stephen Pollard
Stephen Pollard is a political columnist who writes for most British newspapers, and regularly in the Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Wall Street Journal Europe. He is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the New Europe, a Brussels-based think tank, where he directs the health policy programme; and at Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, in London.
He is currently writing the biography of the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, which will be published in the spring of 2005.
From 1998-2000 he was a columnist and Chief Leader Writer on the Daily Express.
From 1995-98 he was Head of Research at the Social Market Foundation, and from 1992-95 Research Director at the Fabian Society.
He is the author of numerous pamphlets and books on health and education policy, and is co-author with Andrew Adonis of the best-selling A Class Act – the Myth of Britain’s Classless Society (Penguin, 1998).
He was recently described by the BBC as 'Britain's most prolific columnist'; has been called a 'Labour guru' on the front page of the Sunday Times; and is, according to the Guardian, the man who showed Tony Blair how to reform the NHS - an accusation for which he made the paper make a grovelling apology.
Als lid van de Vlaamse Liberale Democraten zou ik graag eens uw commentaar op onderstaande analyse die verscheen in The Times, toch een zeer gerespecteerde buitenlandse krant lezen.
Is België nu echt niet veel te ver aan het gaan? Het nastreven van een bepaald beeld op de samenleving is een mooi iets, het strafrechterlijk verbieden van het uiten van een beeld op een manier die 'de rechtbank niet bevalt' is dat allesbehalve.
Indien het de VLD menens is met de Democratie zoals ze zelf zo graag beweert, verwacht ik van u dat uw partij er een breekpunt van maakt dat de discriminatiewet in haar huidige vorm verdwijnt. Dit is een wet van het kaliber van de 'genocidewet' met het verschil dat het bij deze wet volstaat om van een misdaad/bepaalde intentie 'verdacht' te worden en niet eens noodzakelijk is ook wat in de ogen van de meerderheid daadwerkelijk strafbare feiten zijn te hebben gepleegd.
Vergis u toch niet, in Vlaanderen zullen de meeste mensen het zeker niet met alle, if any ideeën en uitspraken van het VB eens zijn, maar ik geloof nooit dat een meerderheid van ons denkt dat deze partij hier effectief de normale deelname aan het politieke debat volledig gewijgerd kan worden gewoon op basis van wat zij zeggen. Vlaanderen is toch geen politiestaat!
I've seen the future: it's scary and Belgian (Stephen Pollard, The Times)
The Prime Minister makes much of the “scare stories” and “myths” which opponents of further deepening of the EU supposedly propagate. They are based, apparently, on paranoia, and are products of not-so-latent xenophobia.
Well here’s a very scary story which is not speculation but fact. This week democracy — the right to vote for the party you wish to support — ended inside one EU member state.
On Wednesday, the Belgian judiciary banned a political party from operating in Belgium. The reason? The country’s political establishment dislikes its views. The party it banned is not some obscure fringe organisation but one which has 18 MPs in the 150-seat Belgian parliament, many local councillors and two MEPs. The opinion polls were predicting that it could win the most Belgian votes at the European and local elections in June.
The banned party is Vlaams Blok (VB). The Court of Appeal in Ghent — notorious for its left-liberal bias — deemed it to be an “undemocratic and racist” organisation because of its policy that immigrants should be given only two choices: “to assimilate or to return home”.
Maybe such a policy is indeed racist; maybe it isn’t. The VB itself, which has much in common with the Fortuyn List in the Netherlands, has been accused of this. But in a democracy, surely, that is a decision which voters should make, not judges. But the VB’s racism was merely an excuse. The real reason why the Belgian authorities have been bent on banning the VB for years has nothing to do with racism and the rights of immigrants. It is that the party advocates secession from Belgium and the establishment of a Republic of Flanders. Worse still, as Belgium’s only conservative party it upsets the country’s cosy political applecart. The Belgian Establishment has responded not by defeating it in argument but by banning it.
After Wednesday’s ruling, it is now illegal to distribute VB publications and its politicians are barred from state radio and television. The party is appealing against the ruling, but the Belgian judiciary’s predisposition to do the bidding of the political class means that the appeal has almost no chance of succeeding. When the ban is confirmed, the VB will be proclaimed a criminal organisation and disbanded, unable to exist, let alone to field candidates and argue its case.
I hold no brief for the VB; were I to have a vote in Flanders, I would not vote for it. But that is not the point. What happened in Ghent on Wednesday is a frightening but classic demonstration of the political mindset which lies behind the EU’s “ever-closer union”: if you do not sign up to certain beliefs then your politics are, by definition, beyond the pale and thus illegitimate.
The ruling was merely the latest in a series of attempts to destroy the VB because of the threat it posed to the Belgian status quo. In 1999, “undemocratic and racist” parties were banned from receiving state funding (private donations of more than 125 euros are illegal in Belgium). This decision was immediately followed by an action against the VB on those grounds. When a Flemish judge refused to issue a judgment, arguing that these were matters for the electorate rather than the courts, the head of the Centre for Equal Opportunities, the quango which had brought the case, said that he would continue appealing until he had found a judge who would find against the VB. This week one emerged: Alain Smetrijns, who happens also to be the chairman of the Lions Club in Ghent, a francophone pro-Belgian group.
Belgium is in many ways a mini-EU: an artificial state created (much like Europe’s three former such states, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) as a result of political ideology rather than any sense of national unity, and held together by a political class which is prepared to subvert democracy to achieve its ends. Add to that a judiciary which, far from being independent of the political establishment, is an important part of the problem, and you have a recipe for what took place in Ghent this week: democracy, Belgian-style, in which you may vote only for a party whose views are approved by the elites.
The actions may be specific to Belgium, but the lesson is of wider import. The EU is in the process of becoming just such an artificial state. The fate of the Vlaams Blok shows that worries about the future of democracy are not scare stories. They are real dangers and they are with us today.
UPDATE:
Yesterday (Friday), the Flemish state television authorities decided to impose only a partial ban on VB politicians, pending the verdict of the Supreme Court. The Francophone Belgian TV authorities have, however, banned the VB completely.
And to be technically correct, it's not the VB itself which has been banned but its constituent parts. In Belgium, parties have no corporate existence but are rather comprised of a series of groups and organisations. It is those groups which have been labelled racist and undemocratic. As a consequence, anyone who has dealings with them is guilty by association. When the Supreme Court upholds the ban and the VB's constituent bodies are declared criminal organisations then people who have any association with them will themselves be criminals.
Biography
» About Stephen Pollard
Stephen Pollard is a political columnist who writes for most British newspapers, and regularly in the Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Wall Street Journal Europe. He is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the New Europe, a Brussels-based think tank, where he directs the health policy programme; and at Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, in London.
He is currently writing the biography of the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, which will be published in the spring of 2005.
From 1998-2000 he was a columnist and Chief Leader Writer on the Daily Express.
From 1995-98 he was Head of Research at the Social Market Foundation, and from 1992-95 Research Director at the Fabian Society.
He is the author of numerous pamphlets and books on health and education policy, and is co-author with Andrew Adonis of the best-selling A Class Act – the Myth of Britain’s Classless Society (Penguin, 1998).
He was recently described by the BBC as 'Britain's most prolific columnist'; has been called a 'Labour guru' on the front page of the Sunday Times; and is, according to the Guardian, the man who showed Tony Blair how to reform the NHS - an accusation for which he made the paper make a grovelling apology.