Pim Fortuyn en de demonisering van het fascisme

Samenvatting

Pim Fortuyn and the 'demonization' of fascism. Pim Fortuyn, the right-wing political maverick who was murdered before he could win the parliamentary elections of May 2002, was allegedly 'demonized' by his leftwing opponents. But Fortuyn likewise took no prisoners in his sweeping criticisms of the so-called 'Church of the Left', the political establishment of regentendom, and an allegedly 'backward' Islam. At first sight, such insults and recriminations appear to balance each other out. However, this apparent symmetry of demonization is disturbed, since all parties concerned tend to agree about the 'outrageous' nature of the association between Fortuyn and fascism. My first argument is that this 'diabolic' association rests upon a simplistic and out-of-date interpretation of historical fascism itself. In the Netherlands, this 'demonization of fascism' was already countered by thinkers such as Ter Braak and De Kadt in the late 1930s. Remarkably, a similar view is traceable to the early work of Fortuyn himself. Secondly, I will argue that the comparison between Fortuyn and assorted leaders of the radical right is both justified and interesting. This is particularly evident if one attempts a more systematic account of modern rightwing populism as a 'third way of the right', or as the result of a liberalization of fascism In the author's view, the true challenge of Fortuyn's politics is accordingly to 'rescue' his vision of a more direct and personalistic democracy from the 'identitarian' framework of popular nationalism in which it is encased.