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D utch C ourage
Maverick gay leader Pirn Fortuyn assassinated
by B o b R o e h r an d R e x W o c k n e r
im Fortuyn, one of the worlds most
prominent gay political leaders, was
assassinated May 6 near Amsterdam,
the Netherlands, just nine days prior
to national elections.
He had appeared on a radio program and was
leaving the studio when an assailant pumped
five bullets into his head and chest at close
range. He died on the spot.
Police captured Volkert van der Graaf short
ly after the shooting and charged him with mur
der. Published reports said the white 32-year-old
is a Dutch national who is married, has a child
and worked for Environmental Offensive, an
animal rights and environmental group. Accord
ing to media sources, van der Graaf might have
been upset that Fortuyn favored lifting a ban on
raising animals, such as mink, for their fur.
This was the first political assassination in
modem history for the Netherlands. Gay leaders
are in shock.
“It still feels totally unthinkable, and it feels
like our democracy and our way of life have
been deeply wounded,” veteran Dutch activist
Grada Schadee said. “I was much against his
political ideas, hut I deeply respected him on his
openness [as a gay man]. He was so sharp in his
debating techniques. He was serious yet also
caused much laughter with the public.”
Fortuyn’s (pronounced fore-TOWN) mete
oric political rise had been highly controversial.
Opponents tried to link his anti-
Muslim immigrant position with the
rise of neo-Nazi politicians in Austria
and France, but he denied those asso
ciations. His nonideological popular
appeal seemed more closely akin to
that of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.
Fortuyn, 54, was a striking figure
with his shaved head and well-tailored
suits. He was a former professor of soci
ology, an ex-Marxist now with a liber
tarian bent, a political adviser and
columnist before plunging into elective
office, and a man of some wealth who
strove to be the world’s first openly gay
prime minister.
He viewed the growing ghettos of
Islamic fundamentalist immigrants as
a threat to Dutch tolerance.
“ You either loved him or you hated him,” said Hans
“How can you respect a culture in
Verhoeven, editor of the Amsterdam magazine Qay & Night
which the woman has to walk several
Marie] Le Pen,” he said April 8, referring to right-
steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen
wing politicians in Austria and France. “My poli
and keep her mouth shut?” he said in a recent
cies are multiethnic and certainly not racist.”
interview. “For Muslims, as a homosexual, I am
In the June issue of Partisan Review, U.S.
less than a pig. I am proud that in the Nether
lands I can come out for my homosexuality, and journalist Bruce Bawer writes of those Islamic
fundamentalist communities, drawing upon his
I’d like to keep it that way.”
Many media outlets had dubbed Fortuyn a experience living in Amsterdam and Norway
with his lover. He explains how they cling to
right-winger, hut he disputed that.
rural medieval traditions of Koran-based sexual
“I find it intolerable that 1 am being compared
morality where women are chattel and homo-
with statesmen such as [Joerg] Haider and [Jean-
WENTWORTH CHEVROLET
sexuals are put to death. “If fundamentalist Mus
lims in Europe do not carry out these punish
ments, it is not because they’ve advanced
beyond such thinking but because they don’t
have the power,” he says.
Bawer takes on those who defend fundamen
talism in the name of tolerance. “Fundamental
ist Islam is not a race or an ethnicity; it is an ide
ology. Its critics are not racists, any more than
critics of Nazi or Stalinist ideology were racists.”
He sees it as a threat to concepts of equality and
individual rights that are at the core of Western
society.
Fortuyn’s solution was for immigrants to
learn to speak Dutch, accept secular law and
integrate themselves into European society.
Those who were not willing to do so would have
to depart.
He also reflected the frustration of a working
class that did not see the government bureau
cracy as responsive to their needs and a popula
tion troubled by rising crime, which often
seemed tied to immigrants. He rode those frus
trations to political power, much as Ventura did
four years ago.
His newly established Pirn Fortuyn’s List
party garnered 35 percent of the vote and con
trol of the municipal government earlier this
year in Rotterdam, the nation’s second largest
city. Polls had his candidates drawing 15 per
cent to 20 percent of the vote in national elec
tions, which would have given them a leading
role in forming the next government, as the
Dutch political system is fragmented into sever
al small parties, and coalition governments are
the rule.
The election will go forward. It is difficult to
predict the effect Fortuyn’s assassination will
have on its outcome.
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