During our stay in Holland there were national elections. Actually, we quite didn't notice them. Very few election ads here and there on the streets, we would have been totally unaware of them if not due to the fact that we received a list of all candidates through the mail (I suppose they are sent to all households).
This list made me aware of the political parties that exist in Holland, some of them with very perculiar names. Among the traditional names like Christian-Democrat, Labour, Socialist, and Democrat, there are other party names that are a bit ambiguous, like People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Proud of Netherlands, Freedom Party, Party One, and All Netherlands. There are also party names that get close to curious, such as Green Left (that is a redundancy), Animal's Party and Pirate's Party.
Unlike in Canada, there is no Marijuana Party. I guess they do not need that anymore. :-)
One of the key issues in the Dutch election was immigration and how to treat immigrants who reject Dutch values, such as freedom of speech. Probaly the most outspoken among all candidates is Geert Wilders (photo), leader of the Freedom's party. In his line of argumentations he even compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kempft (Horror of horrors!). Well, the fact is that the Koran has been criticized over the centuries by the likes of Tocquevile, John Adams and Winston Churchill, to name a few. The reaction of some people is just to label Wilders as 'racist.' But, what race is Islam?
The fact of life is that whenever someone just 'labels' the other it indicates that whoever 'labels' has lost the argument.
Independent on what the Freedom Party suggests I hope that the Dutch will be corageous enough to discuss the issues, freely, even under threat.
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