A new cabinet, a new year – and yet at the end of the week you were left wondering whether 2021 is over. Of course, you had the freshly nominated ministers who often arrived at formateur Mark Rutte with a look of self-confidence.
Friday, after the last meeting of his third cabinet, the new ministers at General Affairs met for the so-called Startberaad. An informal introduction with a drink and films in which former ministers give tips about the profession. Subtle admonitions against too immodest conduct.
The Rutte approach: a first exercise in humility during conviviality.
The first formal cabinet meeting would follow on Saturday: the constituent deliberation, the last chance to clarify or tighten up mutual working agreements. Monday the landing scene, Tuesday government statement, etc.
Meanwhile, the week had taken another nasty turn. A turn that was very much 2021: a man with resistance rhetoric and a burning torch appeared at the front door of D66 leader Sigrid Kaag, soon to be Minister of Finance.
The type of personal intimidation of often (slightly) confused people that has unfortunately become normal for politicians, but also for the perpetrators, who also happily posted a video of their performance on social media on Wednesday.
You could say: it typifies the gap between citizens and politics. In reality, the opposite seemed to be the case: these are people who, with their aversion to government, no longer experience any distance from politics. They are coming to tell a story.
With corona, social media and the weakened ability of politicians to settle conflicts in 2021, this incident confirmed a phenomenon that has been dormant for some time: national awareness of democracy is on the wane. And especially the notion that in this country as many population groups as possible participate in the decision-making process.
Because it is precisely this elementary aspect of representative democracy – respect minorities – that is in danger of being supplanted by the view that only one’s own minority still deserves respect.
It is the dictatorship of one’s own experience, one’s own injustice, one’s own interest – in which the space for other minorities, other views and other interests has disappeared.
And that on the week of the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol one year ago. In Fidelity orphan American-born historian James Kennedy pointed out on Wednesday that “the threats of political violence” have been underestimated in the US for too long.
Not that a storming of the house of democracy is imminent here – liberal democracy is superior in this respect to the US presidential system (‘winner takes all’), which by definition sidelines half the population.
However, we have also seen here for years that rhetorical attacks on democratic institutions have remained virtually unchallenged. Only in recent months have you heard some counter voice from middle parties: “Words matter.” It illustrates the powerless handling of the issue. Shoes also matter. Or a tea towel, with the dishes.
And so the trend, including word inflation, has been going on for years. When Geert Wilders was prosecuted for his ‘less less’ statements in 2014, he undermined justice by complaining about a ‘political trial’; like it’s Russia here.
He never provided evidence of illegal political interference in court – he was convicted up to and including the Supreme Court for group insult. But with voters, his accusations trumped the facts: research showed a majority believed him. When, after his last conviction last year, he proclaimed that “the rule of law is bankrupt,” everyone was used to that rhetoric.
In 2015, he introduced the word fake parliament in the House. Also here: impotent responses. The then President of the House did not know. Most groups did not respond. A few years later, the word was so common that it disappeared on its own.
And so it was logical that FVD also started using hyperboles – nota bene to compete with the PVV. And as it goes: anyone who uses radical language is imprisoned, after that it can only be more radical. It turned out at the end of 2021, when FVD threw one inciting text after another into the world as part of its membership recruitment.
The Zeeland FVD member of parliament Marin Bos hoped for christmas eve that “VVD, D66, CDA, CU will disappear under lock and key for treason and high treason”. “TRIBUNALS ARE COMING,” wrote Thierry Baudet the same evening. So it went on. on December 28 suggested FVD MP Gideon van Meijeren that the “tyrannical government” on corona is pursuing a “totalitarian control state”. “Resisting it is (-) a duty.”
So when Kaag’s harassment came out this week, it came as a shock to leading politicians: several of them have recently undergone similar intimidation privately, noting that confused people are often susceptible to strong political rhetoric.
The issue therefore also stimulated politicians such as Gert-Jan Segers (CU) and Minister Hugo de Jonge to make a connection with the FVD hyperboles, and you could see a break with the past coming: parties no longer intend to “do this with FVD.” let it get away.”
What is complicated is that a link between political rhetoric and individual misdeeds is rarely demonstrable. And for some parties, this also presents a different dilemma. FVD has come to present its heated rhetoric as “civil disobedience”, nonviolent resistance in the tradition of someone like Martin Luther King. Choose it is not. But you don’t have to google long to see that, for example, the PvdD, Think and the Young Socialists of the PvdA were recently appreciative of civil disobedience.
More crucial is how politics, including regarding corona, should deal with increasingly radical language in the national meeting room. Banning parties creates the false impression that you can ban ideas. At the same time, the choice to ignore or tolerate the coarsening of the language has only exacerbated the problem.
And of course the House of Representatives has an exemplary function. Therefore, nothing stands in the way of her (or her president) from setting new standards: a limit to foul language, to war comparisons, to aggressive manners—to anything that contributes to the national disease of threats and intimidation.
At the same time, the catastrophic year of 2021 may also require self-cleansing of middle parties that have failed for so long in government formation. A veteran from The Hague who has held numerous top positions pointed out to me this week that the debate on the government statement next Wednesday is the House’s last chance to hold the outgoing formateur, Rutte, to account for this blot.
And you thought: there is something in it. It cannot be denied that the lengthy formation also provided room for radical and anti-democratic sentiment. After Wednesday there is no longer a chance to address the Prime Minister about this.
Turning pages is attractive to politicians, especially if they don’t have such a great story about them, but it’s like that heated rhetoric. If you never look back at the starting point, you also ignore the real issue: how did the sense of democracy fall so easily.
#cabinet #intimidation #dictatorship #selfinterest