Holland's Edmund Burke Stichting revisited

Back in 2002, only months after I went on line with this website, I made a comment on the existence of a group in Holland calling itself "De Edmund Burke Stichting" -The Edmund Burke Foundation in English - which was established in 2000. What initiated my comment was an email from a young man of Dutch background, providing the link to the website,  http://www.burkestichting.nl/nl/welkom/index.html and this short message: "So you thought there was no such thing as a Dutch Conservative..." Indeed, I didn't.

I refer the reader to my comment in which I exhibited my astonishment, acknowledged the evidence of my misapprehension, and loudly applauded the initiative by a small group (at the time) to disseminate the key ideas of conservative thought and promote debate about the state of Dutch society in a conservative framework - an urgent task. I thought this an encouraging sign that efforts would be made to check the moral and social decay in Holland, and at best turn it around. I had high hopes for the goals and activities of the Edmund Burke Stichting.

Alas, almost seven years later those hopes have all but been dashed. The way ahead is long for that sad decaying country, despite the gallant efforts of the Edmund Burke Stichting. 

I see Holland mostly from outside, through BVN satellite broadcasts and online news reports. There are also my visits approximately every three years. I have seen little change over those years. In some respects, it appears worse. PC dogma prevails; the dominant political class who monitors the nation's fidelity to that dogma remains unchallenged; and anybody who threatens that dogma and the class's hegemony risks character assassination. In extreme cases there is political assassination. Since the Edmund Burke Stichting formed there have been two political assassinations, and one failed attempt on the Dutch Royal Family this last week in Apeldoorn.

In a way, morally, the failed attempt by driving a car at 80 kph through a crowd of bystanders, killing and maiming ordinary Dutch citizens, to get at the royal family was worse than the successful political murders. You would think there has to be some evil spirit driving such an event. But will that palpable evil make an impression? 

Geert Wilders, the producer of FITNA, is at present undergoing the same character assassination as Pim Fortuyn - the same smear by the same types. The lesson has obviously not been learned. I do not mean to imply that Wilders is a conservative in the Burkean sense. He is not, though confronting many issues of concern to conservatives. I only mean to highlight the fate of anyone in Holland who represents a substantial threat to the dominant political class.

The shocking events in Apeldoorn did not ultimately prompt this reflection on the ambitions of The Burke Foundation. It was the mindless anti-Catholic bigotry on Nova's report on the Pope's visit to Israel. The shamelessness of the anti-Christian bigotry in the Dutch media has its implications, to which the Dutch generally appear blind.

A second prompt, though less impressive, was one or other PC-class politician of the Dutch Labour Party (PvDa) on the Pauw en Witteman program, refusing to acknowledge the political and cultural framework of Islam in a debate with a member of Geert Wilders' party (PVV). Of course, it's a cynical political manoeuvre to harp on Islam solely as religious belief. It's a ploy that has opposite uses, depending on the occasion. Last night, the issue of Islam was made into an issue of the freedom of religious belief. The PVV member was accused of denying freedom of religion in Holland because he objected on cultural and ideological grounds to Turkey joining the European Union. How hypocritical can you be from a party whose members regularly mouth anti-Catholic bigotry? No matter how much the PVV member insisted on the political and cultural issues, he was ignored or spoken over.

The second use, the more important one, is to smear all religious belief and to disqualify people of faith from taking part in public discussion. The idea is that people of faith are given to violence and lack the necessary reasoning ability. Religious belief equates with irrationality, provable neither on a priori grounds or by observation, is the grotesque smear.

The photo below is of Theo Van Gogh murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri in the middle of a busy street in Amsterdam. It's symbolic of the state of Dutch society. Bouyeri is second generation Dutch from Moroccan descent. He grew up and was educated in Holland. His first language is Dutch; his demented outpourings are in Dutch. All the evidence points to Bouyeri's motivations as political with religion as the pretext. But Van Gogh's shot and stabbed body serves only as a instrument of smear, and not as a reflection of something fundamentally wrong in Dutch society.

There are many good people in Holland who see their society's problems. The mystery for me looking in from the outside is why they appear unable to see the underlying causes of the problems - the failed ideas that underlie the problems. The same social and moral problems can be observed in Australia or in America, but in both countries there is a strong conservative voice challenging PC orthodoxy. The conservative voice in Holland is not heard; and the Dutch mind appears unwilling to listen.

Homosexual activists in Holland boast that ninety-nine percent of people support their political agenda, meaning that Holland can be proud of this exhibition of tolerance. Unfortunately, it is not tolerance to allow a political agenda that strikes at the very heart of European society. It's not tolerance to brand those with reasoned moral objections to the homo-fascist agenda with "homohaat". You see, in Holland homophobia has progressed to the higher smear of homo-hatred.

There is a moral sickness in Holland that manifests itself in such horrors as the two political assassinations, and the ramming of one's fellow citizens with a car at 80 kph.

European fascist movements led by homosexuals