Den Nederlandske liberale og anti-nationalist, Ian Buruma, giver i Samarbejds-Politiken udtryk for, at beskyldningerne om fascisme og nazisme mod poltiske modstandere er forkert og uvirksom. Buruma er tilsyneladende godt klar over, at de politikere der skulle føre de kosmopolitiske visioner ud i virkeligheden har tabt kontrollen over projektet. Ikke desto mindre gør han i manglen på evner til at føre det projekt fremad han selv står for, over til smæderi mod dem der vil afmontere projektet. Men det er da altid noget, at han kan få øje på dele af problemstillingen.
Til daglige er han professor på et amerikansk college, Bard, hvor man dyrker “liberal arts”.
Om islamiseringen og et evt. Brexit, har han ifølge wiki opslaget om ham bl.a. udtalt:
According to Buruma, Western society is robust enough to embrace even illiberal practices, so long as these are not violent. “Living with values that one does not share”, he wrote in a recent column on France‘s burqa ban, “is a price to be paid for living in a pluralist society”.
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Buruma argues for wholehearted British participation in the European Union because they are the “strongest champions in Europe of a liberal approach to commerce and politics“.
Buruma var en bekendt af den jihad myrdede filminstruktør Theo van Gogh og tilbage i 2005 skrev han en artikel i The New Yorker om situationen i Holland, et par måneder efter jihad mordet på van Gogh. Artiklen er bestemt læsværdig og med mange facts om bl.a. Geert Wilders som ikke er almindeligt kendte udenfor Holland. I artiklen kan man bl.a. læse:
Max is a successful writer and newspaper columnist, a figure on the Amsterdam literary scene, and a close friend of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered on November 2nd.
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Mohammed [van Goghs jihad-dræber] was never a hangabout. On the contrary, he had a good high- school education, and was known to his teachers as a promising young man. He was, as they say in the neighborhood, a positivo, who would surely make it in Dutch society. Not just ambitious for himself, Mohammed was always helping out troubled Moroccan kids, making plans for a youth program at his old school, and writing uplifting articles for a neighborhood bulletin. He was someone who could talk to city councillors and social workers. He knew his way around the intricate byways of Holland’s generous welfare system, where applying for subsidies is an essential skill.
Things didn’t quite work out as Mohammed had hoped, however. A subsidy for a community center he’d been lobbying for was turned down. A promised renovation scheme for public housing never materialized. His mother’s death came as a shock. That year, Mohammed abandoned his studies in social work, went on welfare, and behaved in ways that were increasingly odd….
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For van Gogh, the worst crime was to look away. One of his bugbears was the long-standing refusal (since abandoned) of the Dutch press to identify the ethnic origin of criminals, so as not to inflame prejudice. He saw this as a sign of abject cowardice. To show respect for Islam without mentioning the Islamic oppression of women and homosexuals was an act of disgusting hypocrisy. In a free society, he believed, everything should be said openly, and not just said but shouted, as loudly and offensively as possible, until people got the point. It was not enough to call attention to illiberal Muslims; they were to be identified as “goat-fuckers.”
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Another politician, Geert Wilders, started a party of his own, the Groep Wilders, with a platform of barring all non-Western immigrants for five years and arresting Islamists, even when, as he put it to me, they are only “prepared” to break the law. Although, like Hirsi Ali, he has to hide from people who wish him dead, this hitherto obscure parliamentarian has soared in the opinion polls, and has positioned himself as the next Pim Fortuyn.
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A key text in this national discussion was by Paul Scheffer, a social critic and an influential thinker in the Labor Party. In NRC Handelsblad, the most important national broadsheet, he wrote, “Segregation in the big cities is growing, and this is very bad news. That is why the soothing talk of diversity and dialogue, of respect and reason, no longer works. Tolerance can survive only within clear limits. Without shared norms about the rule of law, we cannot productively have differences of opinion. . . . The self-declared impotence of our government to guarantee public order is the biggest threat to tolerance.” To be sure, Scheffer had been saying this kind of thing for some time, but when old lefties cry out for law and order you know something has shifted in the political climate; it is now a common perception that the integration of Muslims in Holland has failed.
I Samarbejds-Politiken skriver han bl.a. (original artikel på Project Syndicate):
Ser vi atter fascismens frembrud? Det er mange mennesker begyndt at tro. Donald Trump er blevet kaldt fascist. Det samme er Vladimir Putin og en række folkeførere og højlydte højrefløjsfolk i Europa. Den seneste tids flodbølge af autoritær aggressivitet er nået så langt som til Filippinerne, hvor den tiltrædende præsident, Rodrigo ’Hævneren’ Duterte, har lovet, at formodede kriminelle vil blive smidt i Manilabugten.
Et af problemerne ved at bruge ord som ’fascistisk’ eller ’nazisme’ er, at de er blevet brugt af så mange ignoranter i så mange forskellige situationer, at de for længst har mistet enhver reel betydning. Kun de færreste har et førstehåndskendskab til, hvad ’fascistisk’ oprindelig betød….
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Det resulterer også i, at vi alt for let ledes bort fra de virkelige farer ved den moderne form for demagogi. I sidste ende er det jo ikke svært for Trump – eller for den sags skyld for Geert Wilders, Putin eller Duterte – at afvise anklager om at være fascist eller nazist.
Det kan godt være, at de som politikere er frastødende, men de er hverken ved at etablere hære af uniformerede stormtropper eller bygge koncentrationslejre, ligesom de ikke ønsker en korporativ stat. Putin er den, der kommer tættest på, men selv han er ikke Hitler.
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Det kan godt være, at de som politikere er frastødende, men de er hverken ved at etablere hære af uniformerede stormtropper eller bygge koncentrationslejre, ligesom de ikke ønsker en korporativ stat. Putin er den, der kommer tættest på, men selv han er ikke Hitler.
Hermed ikke sagt, at alt det, populisterne siger, er usandt. Hitler havde jo også ret, da han opfattede, at massearbejdsløsheden udgjorde et stort problem i Tyskland. Meget af det, agitatorerne skælder ud på, er så sandelig kritisabelt: manglen på gennemsigtighed i EU, grådigheden i Wall Street og bankfolkenes bedrageriske dobbeltspil, den manglende vilje til at takle de problemer, masseimmigrationen medfører, og ligegyldigheden over for de personer, der er ramt af økonomiens globalisering. De traditionelle politiske partier har enten ikke villet eller ikke evnet at løse disse problemer.
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Fascismen og nazismen i 1930’erne opstod ikke ud af det rene ingenting. Fascisternes og nazisternes ideer kunne næppe siges at være nyskabende. I årevis havde intellektuelle, aktivister, journalister og gejstlige formuleret de hadefulde tanker og ideer, som skulle danne grundlag for Mussolini, Hitler og deres imitatorer i andre lande.
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Ord og ideer har konsekvenser. Nutidens populistiske ledere bør stadig ikke sammenlignes med morderiske diktatorer fra en fortid, der ikke er så fjern endda. Men ved at udnytte og spille på samme folkelige følelser bidrager de til at skabe et forgiftet klima, hvor vold atter kan blive en del af den politiske hovedstrøm.
Undskabens Hotel 