This text is part of the quarterly research results 3 ’23
Sinds 2015 Pegida is active in the Netherlands. After an initially fairly successful period of a year, Pegida collapses. In recent years, the anti-Islam organization has been provoking Muslims with varying degrees of success, including by tearing up Qurans. Since the beginning of 2023 Pegida also manages to cause international diplomatic tensions.
If it is also possible in Copenhagen, then a cosmopolitan city like The Hague “is not going to come up with some kind of crap,” Pegida writes at the beginning of August 2023 op Facebook. Edwin Wagensveld (1968), the leader of Pegida Netherlands, together with a number of Danish kindred spirits, has just attended a demonstration in front of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen. While the participants shout 'Fuck Islam' at each other, a demonstrator stabs, under the supervision of the police, a Quran on fire.
In 2015 Pegida Netherlands was founded after the German example. Edwin Wagensveld, a Dutchman living in Germany, takes charge of the Dutch department. The intention is that after a short period he will hand over the baton to an activist from the Netherlands. While Pegida mobilizes tens of thousands of people in Germany, the numbers in the Netherlands remain significantly lower. Pegida gets several hundred people on their feet in the first year. But through counter-demonstrations, prosecution of various Pegida leaders, restrictions imposed on their demonstrations and, last but not least, tensions within Pegida Netherlands, that number is rapidly decreasing. After a year of campaigning, Pegida can only mobilize a few dozen people.
One man show
The longer Pegida continues to exist, the smaller the organization becomes. The temporary leader of Pegida, Edwin Wagensveld, remains involved and continues to support these Dutch Islam-haters to this day. He does that together with Hugo Kuijper (1982) and in the German Andreas, who lives in Sassenheim (Andi) Gasser (1960). Many more people are no longer involved. There is therefore no longer any desire to mobilize a large group of supporters. Pegida still focuses on Islam, but has focused on carrying out provocative actions due to a lack of support. The success of these actions then depends on the response to the provocations. Sinds 2020 Wagensveld demonstratively tears up a Koran at various demonstrations. And since 2021 Pegida announces demonstrative barbecues in front of mosques. The role of Kuijper and Gasser is clear. They film and photograph Wagensveld and then distribute this on social media, in order to obtain the actual effect: attention.
In addition to Muslims and Islam, Pegida is increasingly turning against the Dutch government. The restrictions imposed on Pegida by mayors during demonstrations cause great irritation at Wagensveld. Changing the time and location of a demonstration or the ban on the use of certain symbolism and the tearing or burning of objects during demonstrations anger him. As a result, Wagensveld regularly ignores the restrictions, is arrested by the police and returns to the same location a few weeks or months later, after which the whole circus starts again.
International tensions
Thanks to Wagensveld's perseverance, Pegida succeeded in January 2023 to legally and demonstratively tear up a Koran in The Hague. The police stand there and watch. Social responses have largely failed to materialize in the Netherlands this time. But that is not the case abroad. Several Dutch ambassadors are sent abroad called to account because the Dutch government facilitates such an action.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs is trying to limit damage and his officials are conducting feverish consultations. In the following months, Pegida will repeat this campaign, always in a fairly random place in a different city. De NCTV states that in response (not banning) these Koran destructions The Netherlands has become “even more prominent” as a target for a terrorist attack by jihadist organizations.
That is no reason for Pegida to slow down. Indeed, the inspiration that Wagensveld gained this summer at the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen has led to a true “tour” in the embassy district of The Hague. Together with Andreas Gasser and Hugo Kuijper, he visited the Pakistani embassies in September, Indonesia, Turkey and Denmark. Pegida is fully committed to diplomatic tensions. Pegida is numerically smaller than ever, but its international influence has never been greater.
