Halsema was responding to the opinion of psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple (AKA Anthony Daniels.)

Dalrymple had praised Amsterdam as being "the birthplace of intellectual freedom as a political ideal." He argued that "there is now more intellectual freedom in Amsterdam than in the past", and concluded that "Amsterdam is recovering its tradition as a city where the unsayable can be said."

“Frankly, I doubt that very much,” said Halsema, who notes that the culture of political correctness in the Netherlands – particularly among left-wing people – has been severely criticised in recent times. “The problems with the multicultural society were covered up, and those who insisted on addressing them were easily excluded as being racist,” she said.

Helsema said that during the last couple of years political correctness has practically vanished from public debate. To a large extent this was the work of the murdered politician Pim Fortuyn, famous for his words, “I say what I think and I do what I say”.

Since then, right-wing populist politician Geert Wilders and his party have won seats in the Dutch parliament, and now there is nothing that remains unsaid. “But was the disappearance of left-wing political correctness also beneficial for the tolerance towards people who hold different opinions – opinions that one might reject?” asked Halsema. Absolutely not, she said noting that members of ethnic and religious minorities are complaining that they are no longer free to express themselves.

Halsema gave the example of a salafist imam in The Hague calling the prominent columnist Afshin Ellian a “malignant tumour”. 

“Of course this is an abhorrent and threatening thing to say. Parliamentarians are now demanding from the government that this Imam’s Dutch citizenship is taken away and that he is expelled,” said Halsema.  However, “they do not take into account the fact that this man responded to a column from Ellian in which he wrote that salafism should be eradicated root and branch.”

Halsema said that she is concerned about “selective indignation, and the far-reaching consequences that are linked to the awful remarks of one person, while the equally awful remarks of another person are left alone, or even applauded.”

Although Halsema said she agreed with Dalrymple’s words, “without disapproval there can be no tolerance,” She saw that rather than freedom in Amsterdam increasing she sees that political correctness, has shifted.

“In the past you risked being labelled a racist if you said something that the public at large didn’t like, but now you risk begin called a fundamentalist, or a terrorist, or – even worse – a multicultural weakling. I highly doubt that this represents progress,” she said.

Halsema believes that in the Netherlands “the new virtue of ‘shouting out everything you think’ is particularly beneficial to populists." The politician pointed out that making freedom of speech inviolable to the utmost degree undermines two essential values of any democratic society:

• Freedom of speech should not go without freedom of intellectual doubt, and freedom to permanently investigate and question the truthfulness of all opinions. In a political culture where the coarsest opinion is often the final opinion, the search for truth and the ability to doubt will rapidly decline.
• If one’s own opinion, one’s own free speech, is put on a pedestal, it will be very hard to engage in a dialogue with dissenters. A truly democratic debate can only take place if the participants are willing to put themselves in the ideological position of the other, no matter how objectionable that position may be.

Halsema concluded: "I get the impression that the values of openly doubting one’s own position, and empathising with other people, are currently not very fashionable in the Netherlands, or in Amsterdam. In short, Mr Dalrymple, if you say that Amsterdam – and for the sake of argument I will expand this to the Netherlands – is recovering its tradition as a city where the unsayable can be said, I will reply: not quite yet."

7 August 2007

Natasha Gunn
Editor
Expatica Netherlands

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