Anti-Muslim Dutch politicians in hiding after death threats

Herr Hintler...

On polling days I would be voting 'early-and-often' for the BNP if I had the misfortune to live in the UK. This is not to say I wholeheartedly agree with every one of their policy statements and social agendas.

Just as with every other patriotic political party they go way overboard with a lot of superficial and imbecile hysteria about the need to protect the purity of the Anglo-Saxon gene-pool from the corruptions of miscegenous inter-breeding with other races.

This is the sort of atavistic racist diatribe which alienates great sections of decent society who would otherwise support their ambitions for returning Britain to its indigenous inhabitants.

Steve (As blah blah blah)...

Interesting. Might you too eventually be persuaded to become one of my legion of political cohorts and disciples... ? Perhaps there is hope for you yet... ?

Here's a little bedtime reading for the Three Stooges : nimh-nuts, Walter, and Steve

Well, herberts ... yes ... and no. But in any case you definitely brought up a very interesting topic!

So let me bore you about it for a while now. Because I for one am fascinated.

-> Yes, in Holland everyone who's been a legal resident for over five years has the right to vote in local elections.

The logic is: if you're legal, you pay your taxes, your life, too, is determined by the politicians, then you should have the right to have a say in it as well.

-> Yes, minority voters turned up in greater numbers than four years ago. Hardly by the extent you suggest though, in general, but more about that in a bit.

-> Yes, they overwhelmingly vote left-wing. Both Muslim and non-Muslim minority voters do, in fact. They've always done so. More about that in a bit too.

-> Yes, there's been strident campaigns to get the minority voters to turn out too. But no, not just by the imams. By the political parties, by community leaders, by city governments themselves. And among Surinamese and Antilleans (not Muslim) as much as among Moroccans and Turks (Muslim).

-> But yes, imams did indeed call upon their congregation to go vote.

Of course, in your reality, they're damned if they do and damned if they dont. Imagine they'd have called on good Muslims not to vote? The outrage then!

In fact, look at the barrage of criticism imams have gotten from Dutch politicians these last five years about how they had nor cultivated ties to Holland, never taught their congregation anything it could use to function properly in Dutch society, instilled loyalty to the Turkish or Moroccan homeland and their politics rather than to Holland, turned them with their backs to Dutch society and institutions. Well, now they do encourage their flock to take part in Dutch politics and it's not good either. Personally, I think it was a good thing.

But - aside from that. I've got a couple of further relevant points here.

1) Turnout among minorities was up - but still low.

According to the NOS Nieuws site, turnout among minority voters, nationally, was 37%. That compares to a 58% overall turnout.

So still a 'native' Dutchman was more than 1,5 times as likely to vote as a Moroccan or a Surinamese.

2) Turnout increased among non-Muslim minority voters just like it did among the Muslims you talk about. More about that later.

3) The preference for leftwing parties was also as overwhelming among non-Muslim minority voters as among the Muslims you talk about. Of the Moroccans, 78% voted Labour, and of the Turks, 84%. But of the Surinamese and Antilleans (not generally Muslims), 81% voted Labour as well.

So apparently, neither on turning up or on what to vote, minority voters needed preaching imams to get inspired. My bet is that four years of borderline-xenophobe government policy was quite enough motivation in its own right.

The alternative to a leftist vote would have been, of course, a vote for a party of their own. If this had happened - if Muslim or immigrant parties had gained a serious foothold, your alarm I am guessing would have been even greater.

As it is, the only city where this happened was The Hague. Two separate "immigrant" parties newly made their way into the city council - be it only with 1 seat each. Appropriately, one is Muslim - the Islam Democrats - and one is mostly Surinamese / Antillean - "Solidarious Netherlands".

4) and by far the most important one, of course:

There are NOWHERE NEAR the number of minority voters in the Netherlands to "force" the leftwing gains we've seen, like you describe it.

At most, one can argue that they did exactly that in Rotterdam - I'll come back to that. But not in the other main cities, and not nationwide.

I'll guide you through this one.

Step one: percentage of minority voters on the total electorate.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), there were this year some 2,2 million "allochthones" (people who were born or either of whose parents was born abroad) who were eligible to vote. On a total number of 11,8 million eligible voters. (Source: "Van 12 miljoen stemmers is 2 miljoen 'allochtoon'", scroll down on this (ugly but fascinating) page).

Almost half of those "allochthones", however, are Westerners. 320 thousand Germans lead that pack.

So in all, there were some 1,1 million non-Western allochtones eligible to vote. The biggest group among them, by the way, were the Surinamese (not Muslim).

1,1 million non-Western "allochthones" eligible to vote, on a total electorate of 11,8 million - thats just 9%.

However, we already noted that minority voters were even this time far less likely to turn out than 'native' Dutch.
I.e.: of every 100 eligible voters, 9 were non-Western. But their turnout was just 37%. 37% of 9 = 3,33 non-Western eligible voters who actually turned out. In total, of every 100 eligible voters, 58 turned up. So you have 58 voters, 3,3 of whom are non-Western. That's 5,7%.

Of yesterday's voters in The Netherlands, just 5,6% was a non-Western immigrant or child of immigrants.

That alone dooms your theory. Because 5,7% of the voters is not enough to create the kind of election victory we have seen for the left.

But that's not all, by far.

Step two: Minority turnout now was 37%. Four years ago it was lower - but not zero, of course.

In fact, despite all those campaigns, the increase in minority turnout was merely incremental.

For example, in Rotterdam four years ago 30% of the minority voters turned out. And in 1998, national turnout among minority voters was 32%. I have no national number for four years ago, but it must be somewhere in that area, then. 25-35%.

That is to say: most of the minority voters who voted this time, voted last time too. And the overwhelming majority already voted Labour back then as well (only in the mid-90s did a lot of Moroccans switch to the Green Left, when Mohammed Rabbae was one of its leaders).

So you had your 100 eligible voters in 2002 too, 9 of whom were non-Western "allochthones", 25-35% of whom turned up: that's like 2,5 of 'em. 2,5 on every 100 eligible voters; 2,5 on every 59 voters who actually turned out - because total turnout was 59% then too.

OK, so this is what we are talking about here. On every of those 59 voters who actually came to vote, back in 2002 only 2,5 were non-Western "allochthones", while this time it was 3,3!

All those Muslim womenfolk and youths that you talk about, who would normally not vote but this time were chased to the voting booths, on orders of their imams, made up ... 0,8 on every 59 voters. Slightly over 1% of the total number of voters.

But 1%, obviously is not the kind of swing we were talking about here. Labour alone made a multiple of that in gains.
So they must have come from somewhere else. From - gasp - white Dutchmen and -women.

And don't forget that there was also the Socialist Party, which made huge gains as well - without any substantial support from minority voters.

5) You can check this conclusion easily by looking up election results by town and council, too. You will see that the left won significantly in towns both large and small. That means: whether there were many minority voters or not.

6) But, let's look at those big cities. Because there's more interesting stuff to find out still.

IMES did a research on minority voter behaviour (more specifically: that of Turks, Moroccans and Surinamese & Antilleans) in yesterday's local elections. Here's the table with data.

What is most striking is that minority turnout differed greatly from city to city. In Amsterdam, only 31% of minority voters turned out. But in Rotterdam, 49% came.

This does not plead for the by-orders-of-the-country's-imams explanation, of course; it rather suggests that the local political situation played a determining role.

The reason is obvious. Amsterdam has a centrist city government, while Rotterdam has been governed by the Fortuynist Livables, who for four years have hammered on a strict-or-xenophobe (depending on your perspective) integration policy.

The details seem to corroborate that explanation. Eg, the difference in turnout is particularly striking among Moroccans: in Amsterdam, 35% turned up, in Rotterdam, 55%. But it was even more striking among Surinamese and Antilleans, who have no imams to send them on their way. In Amsterdam, 24% turned out; in Rotterdam, 51%.

The rationale again is obvious: the strident Livable Rotterdam government. After all, its alderwoman even suggested that pregnant Antillean teenagers should be forced to abort.

7) Looking at these two big cities, however, there are two further conclusions to be drawn. One pleads for your case and one against. But both are interesting.

-> In Amsterdam, turnout among these minority groups was a low 31%, as noted. In 1998, turnout of Turks, Moroccans and Surinamese & Antilleans in Amsterdam was 39%, 23% and 20%, respectively - an average of 25-30%. So almost comparable. Even if it was a bit lower still in 2002, the increase to 31% this time round can't have been all too big. Perhaps an extra 5% or 10% of minority voters that went to the poll.

5% or 10% of a group that in itself makes up slightly under half of the Amsterdam electorate - thats good for an extra 5% in the polls - at the very most.

And yet, Labour, the Socialists and the Greens went from 53% to 68% - or up 15%. Labour alone won 11%.

It's a classic showcase of how the left won big in these elections, in numbers that can not remotely be reduced to the influence of of new minority voters.

-> In Rotterdam, however, the story is different. Turnout among "allochthones" shot up there, from 30% to 49%, after all. In a city where allochthones make up 46% of the population (if probably a good chunk less of eligible voters), that makes a strong impact.

A quick calculation suggests they made up about a third of the voters this time, and just a fifth last time. Thats over 10-15% extra on the total vote - four-fifths or so of which went to Labour. And Labour won, indeed, an extra 15% of the vote.

Yes - in Rotterdam it does seem that a large, probably dominant chunk of the Labour gains was thanks to new minority voters - tho non-Muslim Surinamese and Antilleans as much as Moroccans! - coming to the vote when they didnt bother last time.

For me, this is a win-win conclusion. The nationwide lurch to the left in these local elections, from Amsterdam to little towns, goes far beyond an extra 1% of total voters being "allochthonous". Across the country, it was 'native' Dutch too who shifted to the left dramatically.

Yet at the same time, the specific example of Rotterdam shows that in a city where a Fortuynist party actually took reign - and Rotterdam was the only large city that ended up under Fortuynist leadership - a massive mobilisation of new minority voters does take place - and can revert the previous lurch to xenophobic politics.

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Well, thank you herberts. I had wanted to go to bed early, but if it hadn't been for your post I would never have looked this up and calculated it in this detail. And though I understand it'll probably bore most of you to death, I find this fascinating. This is Able2Know at its best, really - getting to researching something a bit and figuring out the facts and conclusions!

You've done a brilliant job in posting up a first class presentation, nimh - and you have my sincerest respect for this.

However.....

But.....

Except.....

On the other hand....

That you're wrong is merely an incidental technicality of which it would be crass and boorish of me to itemise the reasons for - - but suffice it to say that statistical figures are notoriously rubbery and unreliable and are most often compiled and loaded in such a way as to serve the interests of whoever are the reigning political elites at the time.

Hmmm ... and the lack of any figures is usually the hallmark of those who are just sayin' stuff.

Incidentally NiMH - Holland is so awash with potheads and dope addicts high on legalised Amsterdam Gold and Gypsy Skunk it's not at all surprising that the voting patterns reflect this national malaise of Leftwing complacency towards their nationhood being gradually eroded through the development of a burgeoning Islamic presence.

I'm in the position of being an atheist trying to convince a priest who knows that All The Answers are in the Bible...

I'm quite sure you can quote me whole lists of statistical figures, but don't you think it a bit suss that it was Holland who only just recently voted an overwhelming 'NO!' to their joining the EU... ? And research has shown that the Dutch didn't want to give the EU the moral imprimatur to flood Europe with Muslims via accepting Turkey for EU membership...

Helloooo... ? Some inconsistency here...

Here you are NiMH - a picture paints a thousand words... In my own country nobody who is so alien to my nation's cultural identity would be allowed immigration rights - let alone be given the vote to go influence government policy upon a whole range of social issues....

Here we are witnessing national suicide on a grand scale.

We deserve everything that's coming to our great grandchildren...

Well Mr Herberts,

You have already demonstrated that you are not below using statistics yourself when you (erroneously) believe they support your point, so you are a hypocrite for sweeping aside Nimh's very detailed rebuttal of your claims without actually addressing her evidence.

Your pictures do not prove anything without a reference of origin. I doubt the original photographer called them "mossies", if these were taken in the Netherlands as you suggest and not anywhere else.

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/ned060224





Paaskynen... You remind me of the Lefties in France of 30 - 40 years ago who would shout down as a 'racist!' and a 'bigot!' anyone who dared to venture the quiet opinion that one day in their own lifetime they would witness their Muslim population grow into a second nation living alongside them within their own national borders.

And one can only imagine with what utter incredulity and abusive contempt those leftwing trendies of the '60's would have reserved for anyone venturing the opinion that by the year 2004 a full 50% of France's incarcerated criminals would be of the Islamic faith.

France is nothing less than a barometer of what awaits other Western nations for having opened up immigration to the Islamic hordes.

I'm surprised at your naive complacency towards the prospect of social damage being wreaked upon your Finnish homeland by Islamic immigration. Whether it's Sweden or Denmark or Norway - the news is uniformly the same in featuring the same stories about Muslim youths raping the local white girls as Western 'sluts' - and Muslim high unemployment rates and their gross over-representation in the prisons system.

If you're yet another Western trendy who thinks it shows moral sophistication and political maturity to help nurture and grow an Islamic society in your own national homeland then good luck to you.

How very cheaply and easily is this generation giving away its national birthright.

NiMH is a she... ?

How about you, Paaskynen... ? And incidentally, I see you are waving the Euro flag and not your own national flag... that's not a good sign.

Ehm... they didnt vote against "joining the EU". We've been a member of the EU since the very beginning, and nobody wants to leave it.

The Dutch did, indeed, vote against the proposed European Constitution (not quite the same thing). For a number of reasons. For example, the leftist Socialist Party also campaigned against the Constitution, because it was too liberal (thats free-market for you Americans out there).


You mean you are referring to, gasp, statistics?

Yes, a large majority of Dutch opposes Turkish membership. It includes me. And?

Thanks for those quotations, Herberts.

Note that they refer to opinion polls taken before the elections - two weeks before the election in fact - about whether people intended to go and vote. About half of the immigrant population did.

The numbers I quoted were from a research done among actual voters on polling day itself. Its finding was that actual turnout was 37% (plus/minus a margin of error I assume).

That seems to show that a significant percentage stayed home at the last moment after all. Pity, but it means we can do even better next time ;-)

no my innate decency and manners overcame my gut instinct to kick you in the goolies

This post has been slightly updated and further elaborated on in the Elections in the Netherlands thread

You're whistling past the cemetery, Ms Nimh... (yes, I'm a male-chauvinist sexist pig too! ).

While you're sitting there in the semi-darkness next to a burning candle in your fashionable garret in downtown Brussels, drinking chardonnay and nibbling on crackers with Chevagne cheese - there are forces out there in your homeland suburbs who do not at all want to assimilate into Western kaffir society as a docile and compliant minority.

Answer me this: Why do you, Paaskynen, and Steve want to dissolve and dismantle the historic and traditional identity of your own homeland societies... ?

Why do you want to vote for leftwing parties whose every intention it is to turn society on its head through the implementation of liberalist policies which eventually would result in George Orwell's '1984' coming to reality... ?

And why is it that if someone expresses a desire to preserve his national identity against this being eroded and corrupted by immigrant foreign cultures - this must therefore mean the person is a raving ratbag jack-booted nazi... ?

And I'm fascinated by the paradox of you leftwing traitors to your own homelands having the unmitigated gall to pose as the morally-righteous for wanting to foster and nurture the growth of Islam within your own national borders.

The tragedy of course is that while you now are able to claim the moral high-ground for your exulted moral pretensions - it will be your great grandchildren who will have to bear the full brunt of the repercussions of the political legacy which you are helping to leave them.

In a few decades from now, when there will be serious rioting in the streets - with gunfire and lynchings - you will have long since gone to your grave complacently self-deluded that your leftwing-liberal voting habits will have left a long-term social benefit for your society.

I'm in Budapest actually ... and I tell you, the effort to get a truly decent piece of cheese here is just atrocious
<makes "Absolutely Fabulous" face>


No need to lecture me about what life is in multicultural Dutch neighbourhoods. All of my mom's family is from there. I lived among plenty of immigrants/muslims myself. And I worked in an organisation that was made up of mostly immigrants/muslims.

Me too. I worked for a full 25-years with a score of different Islamic nationalities as my colleagues throughout each day.

I've also worked with many Dutch and Hungarians. The post-1956 Hungarian immigrants I've worked with in Australia were especially notable for their very strong rightwing political leanings - God bless 'em! No simpering Lefties amongst any of them wanting to stuff up their homeland with an Islamic immigration programme.

Apparently this 1956 revolutionary exodus had the effect of leaving behind in the Mother Country a residual population that is mostly composed of far-left, morally-elite, angst-filled, handwringing, guilt-ridden, leftwing-liberal socialist wankers.

NiMH...

Jail warder were you... ?

Oh Roger, I only just now 'got' your question I think. It wasnt that 62% was unemployed or anything; it was that 62% of the voters said the subject of (un)employment was important in determining their vote.

Well, there's very few Muslim immigrants here in Hungary, so it's not really an issue in the first place.


I wouldnt know that yet really, I'm not Hungarian.

(I'm a Dutchman who moved to Hungary last year.)