..on eve of historic election in the Netherlands,
by Ann Corcoran 3/12/17
Invasion of Europe news….Western Civilization is under assault: “If this continues, our culture will cease to
exist.” (A Dutch
citizen of Amsterdam told The Washington Post this week)
All eyes will be on the Dutch
election scheduled for this Wednesday! And, if things couldn’t be more tense in
the lead-up to election day, last night Turkish Muslim protestors were driven
from the streets of Rotterdam by mounted police officers and water cannons.
Trumpeted The Sun: THE BATTLE OF ROTTERDAM Dutch riot cops use batons, water cannon and
horse charges to clear thousands of Turkish protesters in Rotterdam
DUTCH riot police have broken up
protests by supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Turkish
ministers were barred from speaking at a rally in the Netherlands.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered
outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam last night after cops prevented
Turkey’s family minister from entering the building.
The Washington Post, in a lengthy story written before the Battle of Rotterdam
last night, tells us what is at stake on Wednesday: Anti-immigrant anger threatens to remake the
liberal Netherlands
AMSTERDAM — Xandra Lammers lives on
an island in Amsterdam, the back door of her modern and spacious four-bedroom
house opening onto a graceful canal where ducks, swans and canoes glide by. The
translation business she and her husband run from their home is thriving. The
neighborhood is booming, with luxury homes going up as fast as workers can
build them, a quietly efficient tramway to speed residents to work in the
world-renowned city center, and parks, bike paths, art galleries, beaches and
cafes all within a short amble.
By outward appearances,
Lammers is living the Dutch dream. But in the 60-year-old’s telling, she has
been dropped into the middle of a nightmare, one in which Western civilization
is under assault from the Muslim immigrants who have become her neighbors.
“The influx has been too much. The borders should close,” said Lammers,
soft-spoken with pale blue eyes and brown hair that frames a deceptively
serene-looking face. “If this continues, our culture will cease to exist.”
The stakes have risen sharply as Europeans’ anti-establishment anger
has swelled. In interviews across the Netherlands in recent days, far-right
voters expressed stridently nationalist, anti-immigrant views that were long
considered fringe but that have now entered the Dutch mainstream.
Voters young and old, rich and poor,
urban and rural said they would back the Geert Wilders-led Freedom Party no
longer the preserve of the “left-behinds”, which promises to solve the
country’s problems by shutting borders, closing mosques and helping to
dismantle the European Union.
“They’ve found a very powerful
narrative,” said Koen Damhuis, a researcher at the European University
Institute who studies the far right. “By creating a master conflict of the
national versus the foreign, they’re able to attract support from all elements
of society.”
Ronald Meulendijks has a poster of
Geert Wilders in his IJburg apartment. “I think Holland will need a civil war,”
he said, “between the people who don’t belong here and the real people.”
(Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
“The main issue is identity,” said
Joost Niemöller, a journalist and author who has written extensively on Wilders
and is sympathetic to his cause. “People feel they’re losing their Dutch identity
and Dutch society. The neighborhoods are changing. Immigrants are coming in.
And they can’t say anything about it because they’ll be called racist. So they
feel helpless. Because they feel helpless, they get angry.”
Echoing a theme I’ve
heard on my travels everywhere in America:
“A government has to treat its own people correctly before accepting
new ones. First, you must take care of your own.” And if the government fails,
Meulendijks has dark visions of what’s to come. “I think Holland will need a civil war,” he
said, “between the people who don’t belong here and the real people.” Continue reading here.
Did the civil war begin in
Rotterdam, last night? Americans should be enormously thankful that we have a
window on our own future as we watch the invasion of the European
continent. And, now that Donald Trump is in office, we, God-willing, will
not go down the path Europe has been on for way too long. Go here for our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.
And, here for The Netherlands, Geert Wilders, here.
BTW, we heard Wilders
speak as a side event at CPAC 8 years ago
(2009). It was a side event because the organizers of CPAC refused his presence
on the main program. (CPAC organizers have been notoriously Republican
establishment dolts who never understood where the people were headed on the
issues of Islam and immigration.)
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