After 15 years, Dutch anti-blackface group declares victory


By AFP
December 4, 2025


Santa Claus is coming to town - Copyright ANP/AFP ROB ENGELAAR

Stéphanie HAMEL

Cherished Christmas tradition for some, profoundly insulting for others, the Dutch character “Black Pete”, a servant who helps Santa Claus distribute presents, has divided opinion in The Netherlands for decades.

Until recently, Santa’s arrival on the eve of Saint Nicolas Day (December 5) — a major Yuletide celebration for the Dutch — was marked by many people dressing up as Black Pete, complete with blacked-out faces and often afro wigs, creole earrings and make-up to plump out lips.

Stung by the caricature that harks back to Dutch colonial times, Jerry Afriyie founded the “Kick Out Black Pete” (KOZP) movement in 2010 to fight racism and is now wrapping up with the battle won.

“Around this time of the year, you would pass hundreds of Black Petes (Zwarte Piet in Dutch), hundreds of white people in blackface. Today, it is different,” he told AFP.

“Even small children are correcting me. When I say ‘Zwarte Piet’, they say ‘Piet,’ added the 44-year-old poet in an interview in Amsterdam.

In 2010, Afriyie’s foundation “Nederlands Wordt Beter” (“The Netherlands is improving”) set three objectives.

They wanted Dutch colonial history, heavily dependent on slavery, taught in schools, an annual commemoration for the victims and Black Pete to get the boot.

KOZP activists organised peaceful protests whenever Santa came to town with Black Petes in tow. Some were pelted with eggs or even fireworks by Black Pete backers.

The movement hit global headlines, tarnishing the country’s reputation for tolerance, and reached new heights amid the 2020 “Black Lives Matter” protests.

Then Prime Minister Mark Rutte — who had said for years that “Black Pete is just black” — urged the tradition to end.



– ‘This is not normal’ –



Afriyie explained that Black Pete was a figment of the imagination of Jan Schenkman, who popularised the story of Santa Claus in the Netherlands.

Black Pete is “actually a black servant. He (Schenkman) himself said it. It’s a black servant serving a white master,” said Afriyie.

“And I think that in 2025, it’s uncalled for.”

The movement’s goal was to “de-normalise” Black Pete and the blackface tradition, said Afriyie.

“It was as normal as Dutch pancakes. And we felt like, hey, this is not normal. It’s hurting people. A lot of children feel insecure,” he said.

KOZP has been so successful in persuading organisers — often municipal officials — to make the Santa arrival inclusive that it held no protests this year.

According to an Ipsos survey, the percentage of Dutch wanting to maintain the tradition has dropped to 38 percent, compared to 65 percent in 2016.

Sporting a “modern Pete” outfit of a long purple wig, spangles and a face lightly dusted with soot, Gipsy Peters told AFP: “It’s good to keep traditions alive but we can adjust them a little.”

“It should be about children and not about colour or something,” said the 35-year-old, who works in a school.



– ‘It’s not about racism’ –



However, not everyone agrees and maintaining the Black Pete tradition has become a rallying cry for far-right leader Geert Wilders among others.

Several activists in a recent anti-immigration rally in The Hague dressed in the “traditional” Black Pete outfit.

Away from official celebrations, many Dutch still apply blackface as part of the costume.

Jaimy Sanders, 30, who works in a plumbing firm, told AFP: “It’s not about racism. It’s about fun for the children.”

“And I really don’t care if they’re purple, green or whatever colour. As long as we can talk about the children and not the adults who make such a big deal of it.”

Afriyie said much progress had been made, although the war against racism was not won in the Netherlands, still wrestling with its colonial past.

“You have to understand, being a black person in the Netherlands, we have seen it all,” he said.

“I think that this country has made a huge step in fighting racism. But we are not there yet.”

“And it’s good to hold the country accountable for the remaining fight that needs to be fought instead of resting it on the shoulders of a few.”

Ghost of Franco still haunts Spanish politics, 50 years on

In Spain, far-right parties such as Vox have reiterated their allegiance to the dictator Francisco Franco, who died 50 years ago on 20 November, 1975. In a bid to counterbalance this, the country's leftist government has announced hundreds of events throughout the year to mark the restoration of democracy.


Issued on: 20/11/2025 - RFI

General Francisco Franco pictured in the 1960s. © AFP - AGENCIA TORREMOCHA

The government on Wednesday announced a series of 480 concerts, conferences and exhibitions under the slogan "Spain at Liberty", celebrating the restoration of democracy after the death of General Franco, who died in 1975 aged 82 after ruling Spain with an iron fist for nearly four decades.

Democratic elections followed in 1977 and newly enfranchised Spaniards approved a new constitution in a referendum the following year, now celebrated with a public holiday on 6 December.

Spain's Democratic Memory Minister Angel Victor Torres said that instead of holding an event on the anniversary of Franco's death on Thursday, the government had opted for "celebrating the recovery of democracy" throughout the year.

"We are not celebrating the death of the dictator, we are celebrating the beginning of the end [of the dictatorship]", he told a news conference.

More than 150 events have already been held so far this year across the country, and Torres said the programme would be extended into 2026 and possibly beyond.

He added that many of the events would focus on people born after the end of the dictatorship who did not experience the "years without freedom".

Franco memorabilia for sale at a flea market in Madrid in February 2025. Spain's government plans to publish a list of symbols of Franco's dictatorship to be removed from public spaces, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on 22 October. © Thomas Coex / AFP

International discourse

Spain continues to grapple with Franco's legacy and the scars left by one of Europe's bloodiest fascist regimes.

Franco rose to power during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) on the back of a coup against the country's left-wing Republican government.

Under his authoritarian regime, the country experienced censorship, repression of minorities, totalitarian indoctrination and the execution of dissidents.

Historian François Godicheau told RFI that Francosim was able to stand the test of time because it adapted quickly to the post-war world.

"It adapted to the Cold War. It became the champion of anti-Communism," he said.

Godicheau says the same discourse can be heard today at an international level.

"Today, the same thing is happening in the rhetoric of Vox as in the rhetoric of President Javier Milei in Argentina, for example. Anything that vaguely resembles a redistributive policy... is Communism."

General Francisco Franco observes the front during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). © AFP/Archives


Over recent years, Madrid has hosted far-right leaders from Europe and beyond, thanks to invitations from the leader of the Vox party, Santiago Abascal – including France's Marine Le Pen, Hungary's Viktor Orban, Italy's Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders from the Netherlands, and Milei.

Adapting United States President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" to "Make Europe great again", Abascal, as head of the Patriots for Europe parliamentary group, hosted the Patriots for Europe summit in Madrid on 8 February this year.

At the podium, Orban paid tribute to the "role of Francoist Spain" which rid the country of Communists, while Wilders praised the Reconquista, which expelled Muslims from Europe.

For Godicheau, however, the biggest legacy of Francoism is "political apathy" – Franco having famously said: "I don't do politics."

From Washington to Warsaw: how MAGA influence is reshaping Europe’s far right

Marine Le Pen, Vox leader Santiago Abascal and Viktor Orban at the far-right Patriots for Europe summit in Madrid, 8 February. AP - Paul White

A new generation

In the 1960s, Franco's regime presented itself as the guarantor of a form of peace and internal stability, rooted in the population's need to heal the wounds of war, repression, hunger and poverty, and in the fear of a new conflict.

In the mid-1970s, after his death, the transition unfolded rapidly: elections, political reform, the dissolution of pro-Franco groups, the amnesty law of 1977 and then the monarchical Constitution of October 1978.

But there remained pockets of resistance, with some far-right groups organising street demonstrations on symbolic dates from Franco's rule, which drew thousands of people.

In October 1976, the Popular Alliance emerged, founded by former Francoist officials. It would later become the current Popular Party (PP).

Its platform was conservative and populist: order, security, support for the monarchy and constitutional reforms. It also embraced aspects of the Francoist legacy, including Catholicism and a market economy.

Several factors explain the re-emergence of these right-wing voices, including PP and Vox, at the beginning of the 21st century. Besides the country's economic and social challenges, a new generation of Spanish political leaders has been emboldened by the rise of far-right movements across Europe.

The Nazi roots of today's global far-right movements

The exhumation of a mass grave at a cemetery in Guadalajara, Spain in October 2021. For decades, family members of the tens of thousands of victims of Franco's regime have had little help from authorities to recover their loved ones’ remains. AP - Manu Fernandez

Legal framework

Spain has since the 1970s grappled with a legal framework to address the crimes committed under Franco's rule.

The 2007 "Law for the Recovery of Historical Memory" removed references to Francoism from the public sphere and encouraged academic and grassroots research on the repression up to the dictator's death.

It refers to "victims" but without naming any perpetrators, reflecting the spirit of reconciliation inherent in the democratic transition.

In October 2022, the "Democratic Memory Law", introduced by the government of Pedro Sanchez, replaced the previous legislation, addressing its shortcomings. Forced disappearances and mass graves were among the areas not covered by the previous law.

Several regions governed by PP-Vox coalitions have responded by proposing so-called "concord laws" intended to repeal the main provisions of the Democratic Memory Law.

Franco supporters gather and perform the fascist salute on the anniversary of his death. AFP/File

A reformed curriculum

To challenge the narrative reinforced by educational programmes under Franco, the Spanish government revised the country's history and geography curriculum in November 2024.

Lessons on the Civil War now include repression, exile and resistance, while those on the democratic transition also address remembrance and reparations.

But Vox-PP coalitions are putting in place their own educational agendas. In Andalusia, the governing coalition has demanded the removal of certain books from schools on the grounds that they contribute to the indoctrination of children.

Eye on France: A dark chapter of Franco-Spanish history

These movements are also vehemently opposed to the recent decision by Sanchez's government to remove symbols that recall the military dictatorship, its atrocities and its leaders from public spaces.

Among the examples are the Valley of the Fallen, the shrine to Nationalist soldiers, and the legal battle over the exhumation of Franco's remains in October 2019.

These memorial sites have become ideological battlegrounds, which the right and far right accuse Sanchez's government of exploiting in order to consolidate the ranks of a fragile majority.

The government has also initiated a process to ban foundations such as the Francisco Franco Foundation, the José Antonio Primo de Rivera Foundation and the Serrano Suñer Foundation, whose purpose is to perpetuate the memory of the regime's ideologues.

Relatives of Francisco Franco carry his coffin after the exhumation of his remains on 24 October, 2019. Emilio Naranjo/Pool via REUTERS

A siege narrative

To exert more influence at the ballot box, pressure groups have sprung up working to bring Vox, the PP and the centre-right Ciudadanos closer together.

Historian Godicheau says these convergences are possible because these movements share common values ​​and demands, notably around immigration.

"If Vox and its ilk claim a number of characteristic features of Francoism using Francoist rhetoric, it’s because there’s a potential political benefit. Namely, it’s possible to get people to identify with a narrative of a nation under siege...a glorious, pure Spain surrounded by enemies within."

This culture has permeated the country for several decades, shaping Spaniards over several generations, Godicheau said. "It’s easier to reactivate it than it would be in France to fully embrace Vichy, the militia, and the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup."

Paris honours the forgotten Spanish fighters who liberated the French capital

According to an October survey by Spain's national polling institute CIS, around 20 percent of Spaniards thought Franco's dictatorship was "good" or "very good", with 65.5 percent describing it as "bad" or "very bad".

As the country marks the 50th anniversary of Franco's death, Francoism itself clearly has not been laid to rest.

During the massive power outage that paralysed the country in April, Luis Felipe Utrera-Molina, the lawyer for the heirs of the former dictator Franco, posted on the social network X (formerly Twitter): "Under Franco, this didn’t happen."

The message was "liked" more than a thousand times.

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Isabelle Le Gonidec.

The Netherlands

No return of the centre but consolidation of the far-right and weakening of the left

 in Dutch elections

Wednesday 12 November 2025, by SAP / Grenzeloos

Much of the commentary on the results of the Dutch elections of October 29 can be summarised as “the centre is back”. However, the fact that the centrist party D66 won significantly while Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV lost 11 seats is by no means a decisive change in the political pattern of the Netherlands. With 26 out of 150 seats, the PVV now has the same number as seats as D66. And for the Dutch left, there is even less reason to celebrate.


Far right stable and strong

Firstly, the parliamentary far-right has shown itself to be remarkably stable. Around a third of the seats in parliament remain in its hands. The loss of the PVV is offset by the gains of other far-right parties: JA21 and FvD. JA21 supports similar politics as the PVV but in a more technocratic, respectable guise while FvD is arguably to the right of the PVV and openly refers to neo-fascist and racist ideas. Yet another party, the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB in Dutch initials) entered parliament in 2021 as a populist, rightwing party and has since then shifted towards the far-right. All in all, the far-right enlarged its parliamentary presence. The most likely scenario is the formation of a new centre-right cabinet, one that will not solve the social problems that stimulate the growth of the far-right. There is therefore a real risk of even further growth of the far-right.

The centre is shifting to the right

As stable as the far right is, so unstable is the famous political centre. One of the real surprises of the elections was that the losses for the conservative-liberal, pro-business government-party VDD remained limited. But that does not mean that this party is not changing. Under its present leader Dilan Yeşilgöz, the party has clearly shifted further to the right. The VVD lost votes on its “left” from liberals who switched to D66, but this loss was offset on the right by an influx of former PVV voters who apparently agree with the party’s new orientation. As a result, the VVD is becoming less and less ‘the right wing of the centre’ and increasingly the natural ally of the far-right.

And D66 has also shifted to the right. Its leader Rob Jetten is no longer the politician who once embraced the label of climate fanatic and who showed up at a climate justice demonstration.

Instead, D66 has joined in the attacks on the politically powerless group that in the Netherlands is so often blamed for everything that goes wrong: refugees. Jetten’s D66 managed to combine right-wing positions on increasing defence spending, detaining asylum seekers outside Europe and cutting benefits with a vaguely progressive sentiment, thereby winning the elections. Only the appearance is progressive. Incidentally, the result of this shift is only two more seats than in 2021. Here too, the so-called change in pattern is not that substantial at all.
Further erosion of the centre-left

The rise of D66 came largely at the expense of GreenLeft [1] and the Labour Party. Those two parties are engaged in process of merging and participated in the elections as a joint list; GroenLinks-PvdA.

D66 also attracted votes from conservative parties but only to considerably smaller extent. The GroenLinks-PvdA merger project was an attempt to climb out of the slump that GroenLinks and the PvdA found themselves in in 2021. The PvdA had already ended up there in 2017. That year, the PvdA suffered a historic defeat of 29 seats. This was the punishment for the party’s decision, after running a campaign against the VVD, to join a VVD-led cabinet and help implement a harsh austerity agenda. The merger party would rather not be reminded of this.

In order to be an attractive alternative, GroenLinks-PvdA is now trying to present a different message. But at the same time, its political horizon is limited to striving for participation in a coalition government with the right at the soonest possible moment. Choosing to be an opposition-party that builds up counter-power seems to be literally unimaginable for its leadership. But a choice to participate in a centre-right cabinet with D66 and VVD, a real possibility, will probably end badly for the party.



GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans was the embodiment of the dilemma in which the new party found itself. During the elections, he declared that he had “learned” from the experience of participating in the VVD-led government when “unnecessarily harsh” austerity measures were implemented. Timmermans had been himself a minister in this cabinet, the formation of which he had strongly supported. Another of Timmermans’ achievements was his earlier role in blocking cooperation with the left-wing SP. “Never trust anyone who has ever been a communist,” he said of this. In his own way, Timmermans is a sincere politician who is convinced that cooperation with the moderate right in a centre cabinet should be the goal. But that did not help him to be convincing as the leader of a left-wing opposition party. The upshot was that GroenLinks-PvdA was unable to retain voters who were leaning towards D66 and also failed to win new voters.
Further weakening of the entire left

A second surprise was that the elections brought yet another defeat for the SP which fell from five to three seats. For almost two decades now, the party has failed to win additional seats in parliamentary elections. Little remains of the historic record set in 2006, when the party won 25 seats. The party’s lack of self-criticism is discouraging. More often than not, disappointing election results are attributed to factors outside the party. With a new party leader and combative rhetoric, the party seemed to be on the verge of a minor revival but instead, yet another disappointment followed.

Part of the explanation for this failure is the ageing of its shrinking membership and of the party’s social base. It is striking where many former SP voters are going. When people switch parties, they usually move to one that is directly adjacent to their old home. But in the case of the SP, the number of defectors who are turning radically, in this case to the far-right, is remarkably high. The SP’s “economically left-wing but socially conservative” orientation does not deter people from choosing the far-right.

All in all, there is little reason to rejoice about the so-called return of the political centre as an alternative to the far-right. Not only is this centre unstable, its content is also becoming increasingly right-wing. The left, of course, has even less reason to rejoice. The fact that the ecologist Party for the Animals managed to maintain its three seats and that the far right is somewhat more divided than before is cold comfort. These elections also showed once again that outside the major cities, the radical-left party BIJ1 (‘together’ in Dutch) is virtually non-existent. In the capital Amsterdam, BIJ1 managed to score 2.4 per cent but Amsterdam is not the Netherlands. The fact that BIJ1 has a consistent left-wing narrative, opposing militarisation, NATO and racism, is not enough. Its future is unclear. After these elections, the Dutch left is at an all-time low.
A truly left-wing policy

The decline of the Dutch left is, of course, not unique; the right is on the rise globally. It would be a mistake to attribute the election results solely to the role played by specific individuals. It is true that election campaigns are becoming more and more like show business. Many people do not vote on the basis of well-considered political convictions but are guided by “vibes”, as Jetten correctly put it. But that leaves open the question of why certain political movements succeed in appealing to such feelings. Why does anger so often take the form of racism and support for the far-right, and why is a centre-right party like D66 able to present itself as a source of hope and optimism?

A Labour Party strategist attributed their loss to “poor communication”; the party has a good story to tell but fails to convey it convincingly because it still has “too much respect for intelligence”. More crude demagoguery and empty promises should therefore compensate for the lack of strategy. Perhaps that can help to win seats, but not to pursue left-wing policies.

At present, there simply is no audience in the Netherlands large enough to make truly left-wing policies possible, policies that break with neoliberalism, that prioritise the interests of the vast majority on issues such as the housing shortage and healthcare, and that take serious measures to combat the climate crisis. For this to happen, not only must enough people desire such policies, they must also be convinced that they are possible. Until they are, people will opt for the moderate right as an alternative to the far-right. Or they will join the large group of non-voters.

Focus groups and communication strategies cannot solve this fundamental problem. Building a base for such policies will be a long-term endeavour, going against the tide. It requires organising people and addressing their daily concerns and linking that to a vision that does not stop at the next elections. It requires struggle, debate and conviction. It requires strong social movements and a political organisation that gives expression to them. The sooner we face this with sober senses and act, the better.

6 November 2025

First published on Grenzeloos.

Attached documentsno-return-of-the-centre-but-consolidation-of-the-far-right_a9257.pdf (PDF - 900.1 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article9257]

Footnotes


[1] GroenLinks (GreenLeft) was formed in 1990 from a merger of the Communist Party (CPN), the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), the Political Party Radicals (PPR), and the Evangelical People’s Party (EVP).

Netherlands
A confident far-right and a stagnant parliamentary left in the Netherlands

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SAP / Grenzeloos
Socialist Alternative Politics (SAP) (formerly the Dutch Socialist Workers Party) is the section of the Fourth International in the Netherlands. Grenzeloos is the name of their publication.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Dutch centrist Jetten set to be youngest-ever PM after narrow election win

Dutch centrist leader Rob Jetten on Monday clinched a razor-thin election win over far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders with a winning margin of 28,455 votes. The result puts the charismatic Jetten on track to become the country’s youngest and first openly gay prime minister.


Issued on: 03/11/2025 
By:FRANCE 24

Democrats 66 (D66) party leader Rob Jetten speaks next to the media at the Dutch Parliament after parliamentary elections, in The Hague, Netherlands, October 30, 2025. 

© Piroschka Van De Wouw, Reuters


Dutch centrist leader Rob Jetten on Monday clinched a razor-thin election win over far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders, taking a historically slim lead of 28,455 votes with all the ballots finally counted.

Jetten had already declared victory on Friday after local news agency ANP, which tallies and publishes the results, had said Wilders could not overtake his lead.

The final ballots to be counted came from some 87,000 Dutch expats, whose postal votes were tallied in The Hague. As expected, the Dutch living abroad plumped more for Jetten (16,049 votes) than Wilders (7,451), giving the 38-year-old an unassailable lead.

READ MORECentrist D66 party ousts far right to win Netherlands election, local media reports

Wilders has accused Jetten of arrogance in claiming victory before the official declaration, and also shared unfounded allegations of voting irregularities.

The Dutch Electoral Council will officially declare the result on Friday. The Electoral Council will also detail whether there were any problems on election day.

Historic tie in Dutch election leaves political landscape polarised

Rob Jetten, líder del partido Demócratas 66 (D66), habla tras la publicación de los primeros resultados a pie de urna de las elecciones parlamentarias neerlandesas en Leiden, Países Bajos, el 29 de octubre de 2025. © Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
04:06

The result puts the charismatic Jetten on track to become the country’s youngest and first openly gay prime minister.

But first he has the arduous task of forming a coalition.

The fragmented nature of Dutch politics means no party wins enough seats in the 150-member parliament to form an absolute majority.

Jetten’s D66 party is projected to win 26 seats – the same as the anti-Islam, anti-migrant Freedom Party (PVV) led by Wilders.

Democrats 66 (D66) party leader Rob Jetten casts his vote during the Dutch parliamentary election, in The Hague, Netherlands, October 29, 2025. 

© Piroschka Van De Wouw, Reuters
01:55

The most viable option – and Jetten’s preference – is a four-way coalition with the centre-right CDA (18 seats), the left-wing Green/Labour (20) and the right-wing VVD (22).

That coalition would have 86 seats for a solid majority but there are doubts over whether Jetten can get the VVD and Green/Labour to work together.

The next step comes on Tuesday when Jetten appoints a so-called scout to see which parties are willing to work with whom.

Until a new coalition is formed, the caretaker government led by Dick Schoof is in charge.

The coalition talks are expected to be lengthy and arduous. Schoof has said he is bracing to still be PM at Christmas.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Dutch centrist D66 party wins big in election as far right loses support

Issued on: 30/10/2025 - FRANCE24

In the Netherlands, the centrist D66 party looks on course to beat the far right in the national election. Exit polls have predicted Rob Jetten's party will claim victory, which could lead him to become the country's youngest ever prime minister. Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders who had come first in the last elections in 2023 said he was disappointed about his Freedom Party's result. Meanwhile the leader of the left-wing Dutch Greens Labour party stood down after a disappointing result.

Video by: Morgan AYRE

Centrist D66 narrowly leads far-right PVV in knife-edge Dutch vote, exit polls show

The centrist Democrats 66 (D66) have taken a slim lead in the Dutch parliamentary election, according to exit polls, narrowly ahead of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in a tightly contested race that could reshape the country’s political landscape.


Issued on: 30/10/2025 - RFI

Leader of D66 (Democrats 66) Rob Jetten reacts on stage to the announcement of the Dutch parliamentary exit poll during a results evening of the party in Leiden on October 29, 2025. The Dutch headed to the polls on October 29, 2025 for a knife-edge election, with all eyes on the performance of the far-right, which is riding high in many top European countries. 

AFP - ROBIN UTRECHT

By:Jan van der MadeFollow

The current tally shows a 1700-vote gap between the centrist liberal D66 and the far-right PVV, with each party looking likely to win 26 seats in a close fight.

Having processed 98.6% of the vote, projections indicate that both the centrist liberal D66 and the far-right PVV will be the major winners. However, in the current scenario the PVV will be down from 37 seats, while D66 will gain 17.

By 5 o'clock in the morning, the margin between the parties stood at just over 2,000 votes.

This represents a substantial shift from the previous evening. An Ipsos I&O poll published shortly after voting ended on Wednesday night had projected D66 to win 27 seats, with Geert Wilders' PVV close behind on 25 and the liberal-conservative People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) on 23.


The left-green alliance GL-PvdA is forecast to secure 20 seats and the Christian Democrats (CDA) 19, which would be a considerable gain.

Exit polls of Dutch elections, 29 October 2025. © Screenshot NOS TV


'Great day for democracy'

In a polling station in Rijswijk, a suburb of The Hague, Sven van den Berg led his team of volunteers in counting the votes after the polls closed at 21:00.

In total, he said around 850 people turned up to vote during the day, which was a little bit more than last time. “It was a great day for democracy,” one of the vote counters told RFI.

Sven van den Berg, head of a polling station in Rijswijk, The Netherlands, during national elections on 29 October 2025. © RFI/Jan van der Made


Meanwhile, at a jubilant gathering in Leiden, D66 leader Rob Jetten told supporters that the early figures showed “a vote of confidence in openness, in Dutch democracy, and in the future of Europe.”

Jetten, 38, has campaigned on a pro‑EU and progressive ticket, promising a coalition that would “restore pragmatism and stability” to Dutch politics.

Volunteers at a polling station in Rijswijk, The Netherlands, unfolding ballot sheets after elections, 29 October 2025. © RFI/Jan van der Made

Dutch voters cast ballots amid discontent over politics and stalled promises

All four parties in the governing coalition –⁠ the PVV, VVD, New Social Contract (NSC) and Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) –⁠ are projected to lose ground. Wilders reacted on X. “The electorate has spoken. We remain the second and perhaps even the largest party in the Netherlands," he wrote.

Among the smaller parties, JA21 is expected to move from one seat to nine, while Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy (FVD) is expected to go from three to six seats. BBB was projected to fall back to four from seven, and the Socialist Party (SP) slipped to three from five. NSC, which entered parliament in 2023 with 20 seats, is now projected to lose all representation.

Other minor movements include the return of the pensioners’ party 50Plus with two seats, and small shifts affecting Christian Union (CU) at two, Volt at one, and Denk, the Party for the Animals (PvdD) and the orthodox SGP all holding steady on three.

Election posters in The Hague, The Netherlands, 29 October 2025. © RFI/Jan van der Made

According to Ipsos I&O, about 80,000 voters took part in the nationwide “shadow election” at 65 polling stations, completing anonymised replicas of the real ballot. The firm emphasised that the exit poll serves only as an indication: in exceptional circumstances, the final tally could differ by as many as three seats.

Turnout was estimated at 76.3 percent, slightly down from 77.7 percent in 2023. Early official results were expected overnight, with smaller municipalities reporting first.

For much of Europe, the Dutch result is being watched as a barometer of the far right’s resilience after recent electoral surges in Italy, France and Austria. Whether Jetten’s centrist revival can hold when full counts arrive remains uncertain, but for the first time in years, the political tide in The Hague may be moving against Wilders.

 OPINION - Why the Nobel Committee must reconsider its award to Maria Corina Machado

The decision to award Maria Corina Machado a Nobel not only diminishes the credibility of the prize but risks turning it into a symbol of Western hypocrisy rather than global justice

Edward Ahmed Mitchell | 17.10.2025 TRT/AA



- The author is the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

ISTANBUL

Of all the awards that the Nobel Committee hands out every year, the Nobel Peace Prize has long been the most prominent. From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to South African President Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize has often highlighted monumental figures of history who peacefully advanced causes of justice while overcoming remarkable challenges.

Yet this year, the Nobel Committee's decision to honor Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado has betrayed the values that once defined the award. Far from embodying the legacy of Dr. King or Mandela, Ms. Machado has consistently aligned herself with movements and leaders that promote war, xenophobia, and bigotry.

Earlier this year, she addressed the Patriots of Europe, a far-right gathering of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant fascists. Speakers included Dutch politician Geert Wilders and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen. As Reuters reported, "All the speakers railed against immigration and most called for a new ‘Reconquista,’ a reference to the medieval re-conquest of Muslim-controlled parts of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian kingdoms." The rally, Reuters added, was opened by a video message from none other than Machado.

Ally of Israel’s ruling Likud Party

Her address to the Patriots of Europe was not a one-time dalliance with racists and fascists. Her party, Vente Venezuela, entered into a formal alliance in 2020 with Israel's ruling Likud Party, a partnership she personally signed and that remains in effect today. Likud is a far-right, openly racist, and genocidal political party that has spent decades leading the fight to perpetuate occupation, apartheid, and mass violence against Palestinians – policies now under investigation by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

Machado has praised Israel’s government, declared that "the struggle of Venezuela is the struggle of Israel," and pledged to move Venezuela's Embassy to Jerusalem despite Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of the entire city.

Although the Nobel Committee claims that Ms. Machado peacefully supports democracy in Venezuela, she has called for foreign military intervention to topple the Maduro government and even expressed support for bombing unidentified individuals in boats off the country's coast.

By choosing Machado, the Nobel Committee has sent a dangerous message – that moral inconsistency, extremism, and alignment with fascist movements can be overlooked whenever a politician opposes a Western adversary. The decision not only diminishes the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize but risks turning it into a symbol of Western hypocrisy rather than global justice.

What the Peace Prize should reward

The Nobel Peace Prize should go to a person who has shown moral consistency by peacefully pursuing justice for all people, not to a politician who claims to support democracy in her own nation while supporting war, fascism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim bigotry abroad.

If Machado wishes to prove she is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, she should immediately renounce her alliance with the Likud Party, apologize for addressing the Patriots of Europe conference and renounce anti-Muslim fascism, and retract her support for violence as a means of securing political change. If she refuses to take these steps, the Nobel Committee should do the honorable thing: rescind the award and select a laureate whose life’s work truly reflects peace and justice – one of the countless activists, journalists, healthcare workers, or human rights defenders who have peacefully pursued justice for all.

The Nobel Peace Prize made a mistake this year. There is still time to correct it.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.

The CIA Wins Another Nobel Peace Prize

by Michael K. Smith / October 18th, 2025

While millions waited in hopes that the Global Sumud Flotilla would win this year’s Nobel peace prize for its epic solidarity with Palestine, the Norwegian committee charged with granting the award gave it to Maria Corina Machado instead, veteran CIA coup plotter in Venezuela. As the late Gore Vidal aptly advised, “Never underestimate the Scandinavian sense of humor.”

A day later in Gaza, the Israeli army destroyed the children’s hospital Al Rantisi with dynamite charges exponentially more powerful than those conceived by their inventor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), creator of the prize that carries his name. With the victims’ bodies barely cold in the rubble where the hospital previously stood, Machado praised the Holy State as a “genuine ally of liberty” while sending compliments to the “long-suffering Venezuelan people” as well as President Trump: “I accept this award in your honor, because you really deserve it.”

Congratulations poured in, among them, from Barack Obama, who won the peace prize in 2009 on his way to authorizing seven wars in Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria). Also from Guatemalan president Bernardo Arevalo, who called Machado a “world class Venezuelan,” an appraisal that would have shamed his father (Juan Jose Arevalo), the first democratically elected president of the Central American republic and author of The Shark and the Sardines, a strong anti-imperialist essay whose title alone captures the historic power dynamic between Washington and Latin America.

Machado, a pseudo-Venezuelan “sardine” eager to sell-out her country to the “shark” in Washington, was received in the White House in 2005 by George W. Bush in recognition of the quality of her aspirations, and twenty years later she is still at it, imploring Trump to invade Venezuela in the name of liberty, democracy, and the struggle against narco-terrorism. Of course this has nothing to do with Venezuelan’s proven oil reserves of 303.8 billion barrels, the most of any country in the world. Perish the thought.

Dr. Nobel, an arms manufacturer who got the idea for awarding a peace prize from his secretary Bertha Felicie Sophie, who was a pacifist and feminist, as well as the author of Lay Down Your Arms (1889). In his will, Nobel stated that the profits from his considerable fortune were to reward “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Since its creation (1901) the prize has been accompanied by pious Eurocentrism and conditioned by Great Power geopolitics that have more to do with tweaking the conditions of permanent war than they do with establishing peace. This was never more evident than in the case of Woodrow Wilson, who won the prize in 1919.

Elected on a peace platform, Wilson immediately plunged the U.S. into the bloodiest war in world history (at the time) — World War I — transforming an expensive battlefield stalemate into a lopsided victory for the Allies, who promptly imposed a bitter and humiliating “peace” on starving Germany, which began to take growing note of the German-supremacist denunciations of an obscure Austrian corporal. Forgotten was Wilson’s Fourteen Points declaration he had boomed across the Atlantic on the pretext it contained the secret to human happiness and permanent world peace. Once his complete lack of strategic sense was revealed at Versailles, Europe’s veteran imperialists ignored his pious nostrum about establishing a “machinery of friendship” in favor of perpetuating European colonialism, leaving Wilson unable to convince even his own country to join his crowning glory — the League of Nations.

Other “great” Americans who won a Nobel peace prize include Nordic-supremacist Teddy Roosevelt, for whom war was a greater thrill than life itself, and whose popular book series, The Winning of the West, was worthy of Himmler. He estimated that “nine out of every ten” Indians were better dead than alive, deemed “coloreds” degenerate by nature, and looked on Latin peoples (“damned dagoes”) as little more than children. He applauded U.S. civilian massacres in the Philippines, which killed hundreds of thousands.

However, the most genocidal U.S. winner of the peace prize would have to be the late Henry Kissinger, who befriended apartheid South Africa, ushered General Pinochet into power in Chile, gave the green light to Indonesia’s mass extermination of East Timor’s mountain people, and killed millions of Indochinese with saturation bombings. His comment about the Cambodian phase of the latter attacks, which paved the way for Pol Pot’s rise to power, make an ideal epitaph for the career of the clueless foreign policy expert: “I may have a lack of imagination, but I fail to see a moral issue involved.”

With the Scandinavian sense of humor continuing to enrich our political folklore, there’s no reason for Donald Trump to lose hope.

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Michael K. Smith is the author of Portraits of Empire. He co-blogs with Frank Scott at www.legalienate.blogspot.com. Read other articles by Michael.

A confident far-right and a stagnant parliamentary left in the Netherlands


Thursday 16 October 2025, by Alex de Jong


On October 29 the Netherlands will have parliamentary elections, again. In early June, the government of prime-minster Dick Schoof lost its majority as the far-right PVV of Geert Wilders blew up the coalition. Shortly before the elections, the contrast between the most important political events in the Netherlands could hardly be sharper. On 20 September, after an anti-immigration rally, fascists rioted in The Hague. On October 5, a quarter of a million people marched through the streets of Amsterdam to show their solidarity with Palestine.





A growing far-right 

In The Hague, fascists trooped through the streets intimidating people of color and pelted the office of the social-liberal D66 party with stones. Nazi salutes were combined with the orange-white-blue flags associated with the Dutch National-Socialist Movement of the thirties and forties. Showing the connections between fascism and colonialism, others carried flags of the colonial East India Company, the VOC. This was an expression of the confidence of the far-right which feels emboldened by the growth of parties with similar views in parliament.

In Amsterdam, people came together for the largest international solidarity demonstration in Dutch history. This march, often cheered on by local residents, was also a protest against the far-right. Rarely has the gap between official politics and public opinion been so wide. Precisely the (far-)right-wing parties that so loudly proclaim to speak on behalf of “the people” represent only a minority in their fanatical support for Israel’s genocidal violence. 

The polls for the October elections however provide little reason for optimism. The Schoof cabinet was the most right-wing Dutch government in post-war history, and the first to include a far-right party. That it fell apart after eleven months was no surprise. Many had expected the government to fall even earlier. Dutch politics in the 21st century looks extraordinary chaotic. Since the turn of the century, only one government coalition has lasted its full four year term. And in August 2025, the country saw a political first, as the conservative NSC left the rump cabinet. It took this unprecedented step because the final two remaining parties (the right-liberal VVD and the right-wing populist Farmer-Citizen Movement, BBB) continued to block the NSC’s proposals for rather tame political protests against the genocidal policy of the Israeli state.

But looking beyond the chaos on the level of parliament seats makes clear that the general pattern of Dutch politics is relatively stable, unfortunately. The PVV remains stable and the bourgeois right, especially the right-liberal VVD, continues its rightward drift. Polls predict the PVV will lose only a few per percent as compared to 2023, and crucially, with a predicted 20 per cent remain the largest party. The far-right bloc in the Dutch parliament now consists of five parties, from the Calvinist fundamentalist SGP, to the neo-fascist FvD and a BBB undergoing an accelerated evolution from self-declared centrism to a far-right party calling for emergency laws to block immigration.

What is new, is that the VVD is facing heavy losses. This has to do with clumsy behaviour of its political leader Dilan Yeşilgöz, but more fundamentally there is tension within the party between those who would like to continue in a coalition with the PVV and those who prefer “stability”. When the Schoof cabinet began its term, the bourgeois right made a number of agreements with Wilders in an attempt to shore up the stability of the coalition. One was a departure from the tradition that the largest coalition partner also provides the prime-minster. This would have made Wilders prime-minster, but the thought of him representing the country on an international level made some in especially NSC uncomfortable. As a compromise, the party-less bureaucrat Dick Schoof became prime-minster. And the new cabinet also promised that it would respect the rule of law. That too was an attempt to limit the role of the PVV as this party strongly supports abolishing constitutional rights such as the freedom of religion (for Muslims) and breaking with international treaties regarding refugee rights and migration.

Predictably, such attempts to contain Wilders made little difference. He was quick to point out that this meant his more extreme plans are still on the agenda for the future. And not being personally part of the cabinet allowed him to continue to style himself as the opposition to a weak and compromising mainstream right.

Wilders choose to blow up the coalition by making demands that he knew would be impossible to implement such as a complete closure of the borders for refugees and expelling all Syrians living in the country. In the 2023 campaign, Wilders sometimes attacked the centre-left from ‘the left’ on issues such as health care costs, but once in government his party quickly dropped its ‘social’ facade and went along with the right-wing economic policies of its partners. A plan to tax stock buyback was rejected and a CO2 tax on industry abolished. Abolishing the own risk fee in the mandatory health insurance plans, a long standing PVV promise, was dropped. Such steps made little difference in the popularity of Wilders. When he ended the coalition, Wilders gambled he would be able to polarise the election around hostility towards migrants and refugees. Wilders knows this is the main driver for support for his party.

The fact that this step meant that the PVV is currently not considered a coalition partner for the bourgeois right is only a temporary loss for him. Wilders treats government participation not as an end itself but as only part of a long-term project to turn the Netherlands into a more right-wing, racist and authoritarian society. The far-right, even when not in government, increasingly determines the parameters of what is considered politically possible in the country.

A stagnant left

And what about the left? Its ongoing merger with the green party GroenLinks means that the Labour Party (PvdA) is shifting slightly to the left. But that the PvdA sounds left-wing during election campaigns is nothing new, and there is no real change in its long term orientation. The research departments of both parties now advocate a form of ‘green social democracy’, but such advice does necessarily have much influence on the parliamentary course. Moreover, with its previous enthusiastic support for neoliberal policies, the PvdA has made much traditional social democratic politics impossible. 

The merged party is caught in a contradiction of its own making. On the one hand, it realises that in order to win votes, it must distinguish itself from the centre and clearly opt for a left-wing and ecological course. On the other hand, GroenLinks-PvdA, led by former European Commissioneer Frans Timmermans of the PvdA, wants nothing more than to form a coalition with the (centre-)right and therefore cannot afford to offend its desired partners too much. The PvdA’s strategy of governing together with the right now threatens to drag GroenLinks along with it.

That could turn out badly after the elections. It will then probably be difficult to form a cabinet, and the longer this process takes, the more pressure there will be, both internally and externally, on PvdA-GroenLinks to ‘take responsibility’. That could translate, for example, into committing to a centrist cabinet. This would further encourage the party to identify with policies that are supported by fewer and fewer people.

The main party to the left of the left of Groenlinks-PvdA, the Socialist Party, has opted for a back to basics approach. After years of decline, the party is predicted to win around four per cent of the vote, a slight increase. The course of this party can be summed up as ‘economically progressive, socially conservative’. It remains largely silent on issues of racism and focuses on social-economic issues. Even after the riots in The Hague, the SP was the only left-wing party to vote for several motions of the far-right, one that equated far-right violence with the imaginary violence of the far-left, and one defending ‘everyone’s right to peacefully protest against refugee centres’. While using fiery rhetoric about ‘defending the working class’ it also declares its willingness to join a government coalition with the centre-right, especially favouring the Christian-Democratic CDA. In this way, although the SP once grew as a left-wing opposition party pressuring the PvdA, it now risks taking the same dead end course.

Many left-wing people in the Netherlands will probably vote for the Party of the Animals, a party that has evolved from a single-issue supporter of animal rights in a progressive left-wing and ecological party. Also participating is the radical left and anti-racist BIJ1 party but unfortunately it is doubtful if the party will manage to return to parliament. [1]

The quarter of a million people in Amsterdam show that even in the Netherlands a movement against the far-right and its horrors is possible. Such potential needs to be organized and build upon. To turn the tide, the Dutch left will have to work on building its own power, its own structures and proposals for a different society. In the daily struggle for socio-economic interests and against the far-right, it must work together and look beyond the upcoming elections.

16 October 2025

Attached documentsa-confident-far-right-and-a-stagnant-parliamentary-left-in_a9217.pdf (PDF - 900.8 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article9217]

Footnotes


[1] For the position of the editorial board of Greenzeloos, journal of the Dutch section of the Fourth International see “Before and After the Dutch Elections: Left Resistance is Essential”.

Netherlands
A New Step in the Radicalisation of the Far Right in the Netherlands
Polski Strajk: first strike amongst temporary workers, mainly Polish migrant workers, in AH and Jumbo distribution centres
The Netherlands and the 1965 mass killings in Indonesia
Amsterdam riots and the wolf who cried antisemitism
Pinkwashing and Queer Dilemmas

Alex de Jong is editor of Grenzeloos, the journal of the Dutch section of the Fourth International.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

AI tools ‘exploited’ for racist European city videos


By AFP
October 13, 2025


An AI-generated video of London in decline, shared on the social media site X account of British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, is viewed on a smart phone in London. — © AFP HENRY NICHOLLS

Anna MALPAS

Daubed in Arabic-looking graffiti, London’s Big Ben is shown smouldering above piles of rubbish and crowds dressed in traditional Islamic garb in an AI-generated, dystopian vision of the British capital.

Far-right leaders and politicians are seizing on such clips of reimagined European cities changed by migration to promote racist views, falsely suggesting AI is objectively predicting the future.

The videos — which show immigrants “replacing” white people — can be made quickly using popular chatbots, despite guardrails intended to block harmful content, experts told AFP.

“AI tools are being exploited to visualise and spread extremist narratives,” the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate watchdog, Imran Ahmed, told AFP.

British far-right leader Tommy Robinson in June re-posted the video of “London in 2050” on X, gaining over half a million views.

“Europe in general is doomed,” one viewer responded.

Robinson — who has posted similar AI videos of New York, Milan and Brussels — led the largest far-right march in central London for many years in September, when up to 150,000 people demonstrated against the influx of migrants.

“Moderation systems are consistently failing across all platforms to prevent this content from being created and shared,” said Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

He singled out X, owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, as “very powerful for amplifying hate and disinformation”.

TikTok has banned the creator account behind the videos posted by Robinson. According to the platform, it bans accounts that repeatedly promote hateful ideology, including conspiracy theories.

But such videos have gained millions of views across social media and have been reposted by Austrian radical nationalist Martin Sellner and Belgian right-wing parliamentarian Sam van Rooy.

Italian MEP Silvia Sardone from rightwing populist party Lega in April posted a dystopian video of Milan on Facebook, asking whether “we really want this future.”

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom released an AI video of women in Muslim headscarves for the October elections titled “Netherlands in 2050.”

He has predicted that Islam will be the Netherlands’ largest religion by that time, despite just six percent of the population identifying as Muslim.

Such videos amplify “harmful stereotypes… that can fuel violence”, said Beatriz Lopes Buarque, an academic at the London School of Economics researching digital politics and conspiracy theories.

“Mass radicalisation facilitated by AI is getting worse,” she told AFP.

– ‘Hate is profitable’ –

Using a pseudonym, the creator of the videos reposted by Robinson offers paid courses to teach people how to make their own AI clips, suggesting “conspiracy theories” make a “great” topic to attract clicks.

“The problem is that now we live in a society in which hate is very profitable,” Buarque said.

Racist video creators appear to be based in various countries including Greece and Britain, although they hide their locations.

Their videos are a “visual representation of the great replacement conspiracy theory,” Buarque said.

Popularised by a French writer, this claims Western elites are complicit in eradicating the local population and “replacing” them with immigrants.

“This particular conspiracy theory has often been mentioned as a justification for terrorist attacks,” said Buarque.

Round dates such as 2050 also crop up in a similar “white genocide” conspiracy theory, which has anti-Semitic elements, she added.

AFP digital reporters in Europe asked ChatGPT, GROK, Gemini and VEO 3 to show London and other cities in 2050, but found this generally generated positive images.

Experts, however, said chatbots could be easily guided to create racist images.

None has moderation that “is 100 percent accurate”, said Salvatore Romano, head of research at AI Forensics.

“This… leaves the space for malicious actors to exploit chatbots to produce images like the ones on migrants.”

Marc Owen Jones, an academic specialising in disinformation at Northwestern University’s Qatar campus, found ChatGPT refused to show ethnic groups “in degrading, stereotypical, or dehumanising ways”.

But it agreed to visualise “a bleak, diverse, survivalist London” and then make it “more inclusive, with mosques too”.

The final image shows bearded, ragged men rowing on a rubbish-strewn River Thames, with mosques dominating the skyline.

AFP, along with more than 100 other fact-checking organisations, is paid by TikTok and Facebook parent Meta to verify videos that potentially contain false information.

A New Step in the Radicalisation of the Far Right in the Netherlands

Saturday 4 October 2025, by Alex de Jong


It’s always risky to make predictions, but we may well look back on the riots in The Hague on 20 September 2024 [following protests against plans for a new asylum seeker centre in the Schilderswijk neighbourhood,] as merely the beginning. Here and there it now seems to be dawning even on parliamentary left parties that the far right cannot be brought to reason through civilised exchange of opinions. But an adequate response is still far off.


On 20 September the Nazi mob carried Prince’s flags [The Prince’s flag (Prinsenvlag) is an orange-white-blue flag historically associated with the Dutch Republic but now used by far-right groups as a nationalist symbol with the logo of the VOC (Dutch East India Company), since adopted by far-right groups as a symbol glorifying Dutch colonial history

Of course, the riots didn’t come out of the blue. Much has already been said about how a stream of propaganda from parties such as FvD, [1] PVV [2] and BBB [3] incites the far right’s urge towards violence. In the Netherlands, the far right has now become mainstream. Racism cannot be ignored; Dutch far-right forces have their own means of spreading their worldview. The PVV is the country’s largest party and its talking points are eagerly repeated by supposed centre-right forces, whether it’s the VVD [4] or De Telegraaf. [5]

Far-right violence is nothing new in the Netherlands. The first riots against ’guest workers’ took place as early as the early 1970s. And more recently we saw, for example, attacks on anti-racists during protests against Zwarte Piet [(Black Pete) is a blackface character in Dutch Christmas traditions, which has been the subject of sustained anti-racist protests since 2011] The far right was also very active in the riots during the coronavirus period.

What was new was that on 20 September violent far-right activists—fascists, that is—not only reacted but chose the moment themselves and did so under their own flag. This marks the increased self-confidence of these people. The white-power flags and Nazi salute are no longer limited to internal parties. When the far right attacks (Black) anti-racists, that’s hardly news. When it also turned against the police and politicians on 20 September, that still came as a surprise to some.

The refusal of the left parties to sign the so-called declaration against far-right violence was the right choice. The only effect of such a declaration, arising from the CU’s [6] urge to profile itself as morally superior, is that the far-right parties who sign it get an alibi. Meanwhile they continue unabated spewing civil war rhetoric and dehumanising entire groups.

What doesn’t help, however, is that the SP [7] as the only left party supported a motion submitted by this same far right. The letter of the motion for ’the right of every Dutch citizen to non-violently resist the arrival of an AZC (Asielzoekerscentrum — Asylum Seeker Centre) is pointless; that right already exists and is certainly not in danger of being banned. The cabinet would rather ban left-wing organisations. The spirit of this motion is, of course, to encourage racist protests. In addition, it is a way for parliamentary far-right forces to show, after they had signed the CU declaration, that they have no substantive disagreement with the rioters, but merely a tactical disagreement about the use of violence.

Van der Plas’s [8] motion to introduce an asylum freeze through emergency legislation shows that she wants the BBB to be seen as the party that accommodates fascists. The indignation about this motion was widespread, but also rather hypocritical. Van der Plas’s argument that the violence is actually caused by the presence of refugees is, after all, nothing new. And left parties too assume that racism is a ’natural’ and inevitable response to the arrival of migrants, and that this response should be contained by limiting migration. Sometimes this reasoning is dressed up by talking about how the ’support base in society’ shouldn’t be overburdened, but the reasoning is the same.

Quite apart from the question of why migrants should have to pay for the racism that confronts them, it is hopelessly naïve to think that the far right could be ’taken down a peg’ in this way. Whether 100,000, 1,000 or 10 migrants enter the country, for the far right it will always be too many. With the cooperation of parliamentary left forces, provisions for asylum seekers have been so dismantled that any increase, however small or temporary, can be declared a ’crisis’ and a ’flood’ with the help of De Telegraaf’s screaming headlines.

A similar naivety was evident in much of the commentary that former minister Marjolein Faber [9] received from the liberal-left corner. ’The minister achieved nothing’ was often the tenor. Was Faber’s biggest problem then that she wasn’t effective enough in making it impossible for refugees to find safe refuge and respectful treatment? What Faber did do was create a continuous crisis atmosphere and hammer home that refugees are the Netherlands’ misfortune. The ’mass migration’ that the far right rails against is a phantom, and the last thing the far right wants is to break the grip that such illusions have.

The rise and further radicalisation of the far right is, of course, not unique to the Netherlands; it is a worldwide pattern. Looking back, the first election of Donald Trump was a key moment. Trump’s success also came as a surprise to many of his supporters. And for the far right, this success held several lessons. The first lesson was that it is not necessary to strongly moderate one’s own propaganda for electoral success. The number of right-wing voters who withdraw their support because of open racism and sexism is very limited and is compensated for by the energy of the true believers. Second lesson: once Trump was in power, liberals limited themselves to much fuss about his tone and coarse manners, but practically speaking what they did was mainly wait in the hope that after the elections things would return to ’normal’. Amidst a historic disaster like the pandemic this was enough for the Democrats, but four years later Harris went down ignominiously.

About twenty years ago, one of the differences between the Netherlands, compared with countries like France with the Front National, [10] Belgium with Vlaams Blok, [11] or Austria with the FPÖ, [12] was that the most right-wing parties here had no ties to historical fascism. Groups in the 1980s and 1990s whose members did have such ties, such as CP86 [13] and Hans Janmaat’s CD, [14] remained marginal partly for this reason. Geert Wilders and before him Pim Fortuyn [15] were precisely bourgeois-right politicians radicalising to the right. At the beginning of his career, Wilders still distanced himself from the Front National. Today he is one of the greatest allies of the party renamed Rassemblement National.

The history of such parties is a contradictory process of radicalisation and adaptation to bourgeois right forces. In an important respect, such parties adapted to prevailing conditions. The classical fascist ideal of the one-party state was abandoned. Instead came the choice for the form but not the content of parliamentary democracy. An essential characteristic of democracy is that the group that is still the minority today can, through organisation and persuasion, strive to be the majority tomorrow. The classical left critique of this ideal picture is well known. Some groups have far more resources than others, and the extra-parliamentary power of capital, whether exercised through text messages to the prime minister or threats of capital flight, pays little heed to parliamentary majorities.

But parliamentary relations are not entirely meaningless either. And that is precisely what contemporary far-right forces want to change. Their aim is a state with the form of a parliamentary democracy in which elections no longer make a difference. Instead of banning all opposition parties, they want to make their work impossible. Instead of abolishing freedom of expression by law, unanimity is enforced in cooperation with well-funded media enterprises. To know what this strategy looks like, one need only look at Turkey or Hungary. And soon the United States? There is no reason to think the Netherlands would be immune to this.

Far-right parties are, in short, not normal parties, with at most an extra dose of racism. They want to fundamentally change the frameworks within which politics is possible.

It won’t stop with 20 September, that much is clear. In Doetinchem there were protests against an Asylum Seeker Centre complete with Nazi salutes; in Den Bosch dozens of right-wing extremists gathered for a planned storming of another Asylum Seeker Centre. Such a movement cannot be persuaded, and a strategy of giving in only encourages such movements. Such a movement can only be rendered harmless if it loses hope that its goal is achievable.

30 September 2025

Translated for ESSF by Adam Novak from Greenzeloos.

Attached documentsa-new-step-in-the-radicalisation-of-the-far-right-in-the_a9201.pdf (PDF - 927.4 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article9201]

Footnotes


[1] Forum for Democracy (Forum voor Democratie), a nationalist far-right party founded in 2016 by Thierry Baudet


[2] Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid), Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party founded in 2006, which became the largest party in the 2023 elections


[3] Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging), an agrarian populist party founded in 2019


[4] People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie), the main conservative-liberal party


[5] De Telegraaf is the Netherlands’ largest tabloid newspaper, known for its right-wing populist editorial line


[6] ChristenUnie (Christian Union), a Christian democratic party


[7] Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij), a left-wing party that originated in Maoist politics but has moved towards social democracy


[8] Caroline van der Plas, leader of the BBB party


[9] Marjolein Faber of the PVV served as Minister of Asylum and Migration from July to September 2024, resigning after her controversial policies


[10] Front National, now renamed Rassemblement National (National Rally), is France’s main far-right party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen


[11] Vlaams Blok (Flemish Block), a Flemish nationalist and far-right party in Belgium, banned in 2004 and succeeded by Vlaams Belang


[12] Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs), a nationalist far-right party with historical ties to former Nazis


[13] Centrum Party ’86 (Centrumpartij ’86), a far-right party active in the 1980s with explicit neo-Nazi connections


[14] Centre Democrats (Centrumdemocraten), founded by Hans Janmaat as a splinter from the Centrum Party


[15] Pim Fortuyn, charismatic right-wing populist politician who was assassinated in 2002, nine days before parliamentary elections

Netherlands
Polski Strajk: first strike amongst temporary workers, mainly Polish migrant workers, in AH and Jumbo distribution centres
The Netherlands and the 1965 mass killings in Indonesia
Amsterdam riots and the wolf who cried antisemitism
Pinkwashing and Queer Dilemmas
Far-right electoral victory in the Netherlands
Far Right
The imperial engine of fascism
Labour panders to racism – playing the far right’s game
“The crisis of liberal hegemony is the reason why so many Europeans are turning to the extreme right”
The Carnation Revolution of Portugal Today: The New Challenge from the Far-Right
UK Supreme Court backs bigots and transphobes

Alex de Jong is editor of Grenzeloos, the journal of the Dutch section of the Fourth International.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.