The media have recycled the same headlines following Dutch elections for about a decade now, and similar observations are regularly trumpeted in international newspapers. Part of me thinks they actually just run the same articles, updating the picture, changing a few names, and maybe touching up a few percentage points. The political landscape is changing in the Netherlands, it is true. "How could this happen in this bastion of a liberal democracy?" commentators ask in an accusing tone.
I shall go against the international headlines and some of the Dutch media when I say to you, please remain calm. This sudden explosion of intolerance and fragmented politics is nothing new; we have been reading about it for decades. The myth maintained by international media outlets and perhaps the Dutch bureau of tourism, which parrots the Netherlands as an open-minded leftwing paradise, has long kept a smoke screen over the well-established and not always tolerant tradition of smaller parties, extremist or moderate, left or right, which rise up suddenly, gain power and occasionally disappear into obscurity as fast as they came.
The international press summed up the results of yesterday's Dutch legislative elections as a major victory for the far-right, anti-Islam and ironically named Freedom Party (PVV). They are also quick to point to the two cities (out of the entire country!) where the PVV managed to top the polls in local elections. But while The Hague, where the PVV is now the second-largest party, is certainly a city of international and national importance, gaining control of it, along with the little-known city of Almere, does not equal an electoral sweep.
The PVV's sporadic success is significant not so much because of the small number of votes they won, but because of the xenophobic, nationalist rhetoric that has managed to get them votes. While this development grabs the headlines, several Dutch political parties on both the centre and the left have made just as many – if not more – gains. In the cities of Utrecht and Nijmegen, the Green-Left party (GroenLinks) gained enough to become the largest party. The more moderate D66 party made the biggest gains nationwide, becoming the largest party in Leiden, Haarlem, and Hilversum. The socially progressive and fiscally conservative party's success was far greater than that of the PVV, but since they don't say controversial things about the Muslim faith or try to convince people that the country is being taken over, they're just not as fun for the front page.
The state of politics in the Netherlands reminds me of the internet. It is often said in the context of political interaction that the internet is a fragmented place where people with like-minded ideas gather and stay in their own echo chamber. Conservative blogs are read by conservatives, liberal blogs read by liberals, etc. A virtual space with room for so many ideas also creates space for fragmented groups to isolate themselves from one another and believe what they want to believe without much information to say otherwise.
The Netherlands, a nation where 85% of the population is connected to the internet, was divided along political, religious, and social lines long before anyone knew what a blog was. Where nowadays some people and political parties lament the influence of Islam, much of the population can remember when it was socially unacceptable for Catholics to marry Protestants. In the liberal bastion of the Netherlands, political parties used to organise along religious or nationalist values, which did not begin with the PVV in 2009 or 2010.
Yet the mainstream media does not take the time to put events in their historical and national context. They choose instead to pluck the most emotion-stirring facts, part of the get-more-attention game that winds up shaping the conversation in different public spheres.
For those who are asking for real news, there is some. Large numbers of voters concerned with protecting the environment, social programmes, and fiscal responsibility are going to be sitting in more city council seats than in recent memory. In some cases they will wield more power than other more traditional parties that have freefalled from their formerly dominant positions. They will also be sitting at the table with representatives of political parties who are, among other things, anti-Islam and anti-immigrant. Despite all the drama, headlines, and fearful rhetoric from those outside and inside the country, the tricky part starts now – they actually have to govern ... together.