| PAJOT |
19 november 2004 17:26 |
Zelfs The Wall Street Journal heeft het door !
In these columns yesterday we noted that freedom of speech is granted selectively in Europe. There are limited restrictions on Muslim militants, even when they incite murder, but zero tolerance for home-grown radicals. A case in point is Tuesday's court ruling in Belgium upholding an earlier decision that effectively banned the anti-immigration and secessionist party Vlaams Blok from politics on the grounds that it is racist.
This decision cuts the party off from state funding and puts its supporters under the risk of possible prosecution for aiding a criminal organization. Because private funding of political parties is effectively outlawed in Belgium, the ruling will force Vlaams Blok to
disband. But -- here's the futility part -- party leaders said they will reorganize under a new name. The new party "will clearly express itself as the successor to the Vlaams Blok," the party's Web site declared Sunday in anticipation of a negative ruling. Possible new names are Vlaams Blok + or Vlaams Belang, which means "Flemish Interest." The
party has already deleted the most controversial aspects of its charter to ensure future compliance with the law.
Trying to outlaw extremist parties isn't only futile (since they can simply reappear with a new name) but also counterproductive. The cordon sanitaire the established parties have built around the Vlaams Blok -- a gentleman's agreement to keep them out of government -- seemed to have only strengthened their ranks. According to recent opinion polls it is the most popular party in Flemish-speaking Flanders, the richest part of Belgium with 60% of the population.
The way to combat bigots and extremists is to engage them in the political arena and expose their views as possibly dangerous. Shunning them or trying to ban them only allows them to present themselves as martyrs for a just cause and makes the established parties look weak and fearful.
One of the reasons parties with xenophobic views in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe have recently been gaining popular support is that they often put their fingers on real problems that the political elite has wilfully ignored. Vlaams Blok owes its success not only to pandering to Belgian fears about immigration, but to its criticisms of Belgium's
overburdened welfare state and oppressive taxes, both issues that Belgium's federal system has rendered intractable. Leaving these serious pocketbook topics entirely to the fringe parties has strengthened them.
Indeed, support for Vlaams Blok has grown steadily in Flanders over the last decade even as mainstream parties have tried to suppress it. Such has been its success in wooing disaffected voters that party leader Frank Vanhecke could declare Tuesday with some justification: "What happened in Brussels today is unique in the Western world: never has a so-called democratic regime outlawed the country's largest party." The
law being applied for the first time in this case was aimed specifically at Vlaams Blok, and it has now found its target, leaving Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt vulnerable to charges that he is using the judicial branch to combat political enemies.
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