In this article we will look back on the past decade. The reason is that in our opinion, there is currently a transition period, perhaps even the end of an era. Some organizations are on the verge of disappearing, many far-right activists have recently been dropped. At the same time there is a party in advance, the PVV, that provides an unadulterated extreme right sound, In many respects clearer than that of Hans Janmaat and Centre Democrats (CD) in the nineties.
But let's start at the beginning. More than ten years ago, the late nineties was the extreme right in a knock-out phase. Shortly before, in 1998, there had been municipal and parliamentary elections. Several far-right parties had dozens of seats in municipal councils and the Centre Democrats (CD) sitting with three people in the House. But in the spring of 1998 CD lost all its parliamentary seats and the party managed to retain only one council seat. The second main far-right party, of CP'86, even lost all council seats.
That last part was a half years previously torn. A hard core of neo-Nazis had taken over the party, after a series of fights. But the new framework of the CP'86 lost mainly in assaults, threats and drug use. The party funds were converted into hard drugs and beer. As icing on the cake took all violent incidents around the CP'86 sure the party late 1998 was banned by the court in Amsterdam.
And there was the extreme right just before the start of the new millennium knockout in the corner. There remained a few dozen activists, who hang and strangle a game (First People's Nationalists Netherlands, later renamed New National Party) and an action group (Outpost) were able to keep in the air. Furthermore, a residual antje neo-Nazis from the CP'86 that around the re-Dutch People's Union (NVU) ceased. It went nowhere more about, the extreme right problem seemed to need a final push. The question was whether there still someone had to come to pass, or that mutual bickering and scheming himself would put an end to.
But it did not happen. The handful of activists held some time in the full margin. And after a few years there are a number of things changed radically in Netherlands. And those changes led to the extreme right could again go through a period of growth.
First, the debate came around from Muslim extremism 2001 momentum. Pim Fortuyn stood in the summer of that year and was eligible for the 'Islamisation' of the Netherlands a problem. De aanslag op de Twin Towers, That same year, made Muslim extremism to the general public particularly visible. Fortuyn began with a triumph in the polls and seemed to be heading off on a monster score in elections.
Second Fortuyn made another important statement. He wanted to expand freedom of expression in the Netherlands at the expense of anti-racism legislation and if necessary article 1 deletion of the Constitution. By the murder of Fortuyn by Volkert van der Graaf Fortuyn became a "martyr of free speech '. Fortuyn had warned in advance that he would be killed as a result of the many severely criticized him, the 'demonization' by 'leftist church'. After his violent death and the subsequent huge electoral victory of the Pim Fortuyn List, there was a widespread recognition that more needed to be said about issues like immigration, Integration and Islam in the Netherlands. Or at least, there was no broad support more to go through the same way in the fight against discrimination, Racism rechtsextremisme.
These two themes, Islamization and more space for free speech at the expense of anti-discrimination were grist to the mill of the extreme right.
In addition, there was a third change, which would be even more important, if possible, for the position of the extreme right: the return of gabber, van hardcoremuziek, as a popular music style and youth culture. Because how was that again, gabber? Gabber music and cronies emerged more or less simultaneously as a musical genre and its subculture in the early nineties. Prune Hard and fast-paced electronic music, derived from the house scene. The subculture characterized by shaved heads, Tracksuits, associations with cheap horror movies, lots of cheap drugs (speed en XTC) and rapid, tight dance. It soon emerged in the gabber scene also own sentiments on the scene, taking pride in the own scene, but also proud of their own town or region and certainly the country, Nederland, were important. In addition, was at times also largely white character of the subculture put forward as a positive feature.
Through a combination of barren heads, vague nationalist sentiments and wearing Dutch flags on clothing created both a number of cronies self, As with the outside world the impression that this is a subculture went that showed affinity with the extreme right. Broadly knocked none of it, exceptions. There were many, typical childhood issues surrounding the subculture, but over the bulk of the gabbers was part of a subculture, music lover, often drug user, but did not outspoken far-right ideas after. Attempts by the extreme right to raise these cronies failed also for the most part. In the late nineties the gabber scene disappeared from the scene. The music became unpopular and the new generations of young people were interested in other youth cultures.
About 2001/2002 gabber came back as popular music and began a second life. However, it changed a thing. First, the music itself has changed in the meantime and there were now many different styles, umbrella called 'hardcore'. Secondly, there was a few things changed in the subculture, who from that moment also started a second life. The association with the extreme right and particularly the association with far-right skinheads ten years earlier based on superficial resemblance and not on facts, at a part of the new generation of ravers quickly arose an idea that this was more than a casual resemblance. Extreme right-wing skinheads were used as inspiration for clothing (bomberjacks, Lonsdaleshirts en soldatenkistjes), for dance (the typical skinhead pogo did his commencement at gabber parties, instead of Hakkuh of ravers) and also for their own vision of society. Thus the phenomenon Lonsdale youth formed. Gabbers who were dressed as skinheads and often critical to their radical views were holding about immigrants and multiculturalism. They made a small, but very visible part of the new generation of ravers.
This time did existing right-wing extremist (NNP, NCE and Voorpost and later the New Right) attempts to recruit these young people for their organizations. However, it failed again, with some exceptions. These organizations were not to join the experiences and expectations of the Lonsdale youth: too serious, te ideologically, too boring, too expensive, too little action.
However, what was a success, were extreme right-wing activist groups, which often stemmed from their own initiatives Lonsdale Groups. Thus was Blood & Honour during this period re-established and gained a reasonable following among Lonsdalers. But also created new organizations and managed occasionally to successfully acquire supporters. A good example is the National Socialist Action (NSA) from Zoetermeer and surroundings. That organization was created initially in circles Lonsdalers and developed slowly but surely becoming a serious organization with a serious supporters. It is now a small neo-Nazi activist group, with a clear militant anti-Semitic profile. Besides BVlood & Honour and NSA, there are several groups emerge, of which one is still active. But by and large meet all the same profile. (1)
Rond 2004/2005 , these two types of right-wing extremism - Lonsdale youth and action groups - explicitly define the image of the extreme right. They must also have the opportunity. Indeed, there is the still the necessary space for (radical) criticized immigration, 'Foreigners', Muslims and left. The debate on freedom of expression at that moment is still dominant and is declining public support for the fight against discrimination and right-wing extremism.
That all changed after the murder of Theo van Gogh. Murder and rolling up the network around the killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, provides a number of rapid advances in many areas. In line with this retrospective is the first important that a wave of anti-Muslim actions took place in the months after the murder. Were a significant part of those actions (very) violent: the bombing of a mosque and many arson attacks across the country on Muslim targets. When police then, after research, perpetrators arrested and adjudicated these offenders, it proved here in a substantial number of cases to Lonsdale youth, hence giving rise very emphatically and very negative image.
Secondly, to take the government responded to these events by all kinds of new laws and measures are to combat extremism and radicalization. Because in the fight against extremism too soon extremist statements in image were silenced debate about freedom of speech also largely. Extremist opinions, at least Muslim house, had to be stifled. All of this new government initially focused mainly on (perceived and real) Islamic radicals. But soon, partly due to the wave of anti-Muslim violence, there was also some attention to problems caused extreme right. When trouble from that quarter in the period thereafter continued to increase in some regions, the government became increasingly developed initiatives against the extreme right. This can include the NSA and Blood in the Zoetermeer region & Honour in Groningen and Noord-Holland.
Extreme right-wing groups have been among those to suffer increasingly negative attention also. De overheidsrepressie, but also increasing media attention and actions of antifascists ensured that pressure was put on these groups. This meant that individual right-wing extremists held the seen and pulled out. But that also meant that tensions arose within these groups to feuds, splits and brawls led, which again people abandoned.
These developments are not initially been critical. It turned out that these dropouts largely could be replaced again by newcomers from the Lonsdale Scene. But from 2008 there was a new situation slowly, because the hardcore subculture slowly disappeared. As in the nineties, the popularity of this style of music became peaked, a new generation of young people chose other musical styles and other subcultures. That dried up the "natural" supply for the extreme right slowly but surely.
And where we are now than? It is perhaps too early to draw definitive conclusions, but it certainly does not go well with the extreme right-wing activist groups. After a number of incidents, arrests and convictions, but mostly by quarrels and fights is Blood & Honour die in the Netherlands after death. There are a few dozen activists and hooks currently a week people off. At NSA is also suspended at the moment and strangle. This is not the repression of the bickering between the immediate cause, but looks for all the far-reaching solidarization with extremist Muslims against 'the' Jews a source of conflict, besides the unbearable nature of some leaders. Again we see an erosion of the active supporters and an increasingly marginal role. The AIVD signaled in the last annual report a halving of the number of active neo-Nazis in the Netherlands to 300, in one year. Our impression is that there are possibly going to be a lot less. All is counting these shaky structures of course a difficult task.
At the same time we are seeing the emergence of a big extreme-right party, the PVV, with now 24 seats in parliament and firmly represented in the councils of The Hague and Almere. A party also argues in its election manifesto to completely stop immigration from Muslim countries, for ethnic cleansing in Israel (Palestinians out) and for full registration of all ethnic Dutch. And that's all fairly smooth. What have we instance, proposals to 'ethnic registration'? Black and white? Jew, Arab, and Antillean? Negro, blank? Who knows?, it goes in any event beyond the electoral programs of the CD in the nineties.
There so there seems to be somewhat of a reverse situation of a decade ago. Then there was an end to the extreme right-wing parties and the rise of extreme right-wing activist groups, framed in a large subculture. Right now we see a return of the extreme right in the party politics and collapse of neo-Nazi extra-parliamentary activism.
Of course this is a rough sketch in a few pages and there is room for the necessary qualification, eg, the role of an organization like Outpost. Outpost has admittedly benefited from the developments outlined above, but appears to cause less under the recent developments. But more about that next time.
Noot
(1) - A fourth development was the rise of the Internet. In this period, the Internet flourished and became available for large parts of the population. That made it for (potential) right-wing extremists much easier to keep in touch, to find each other and spread propaganda. Because it was a new plea and especially less a political or social development, we continue here is not expanded in.
