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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
OUR LIFE AND TIMES by Kevin A. Barry
Holland moves Right
Amsterdam, Netherlands--A new administration took power in
the Netherlands, in July, an outcome of the elections of May 14. The new
administration represents a right-wing answer to the problems facing world
capitalist society. Two items already speak volumes--the interests of working
class people and human rights. If I read the proposals of this new government
properly, there will be a deterioration in the labor conditions for the working
class. Unemployed and medically-rejected people have to fear large financial
cutbacks and limits on their rights to get social benefits. In the case of human
rights, several limitations will be introduced regarding immigrants and
political exiles. There is talk of these restrictions being the most severe in
Europe. A number of things in the process of a strong move to the
Right deserve notice. The former government, and the traditional political
parties, have no real answer to the problems facing world capitalism. They
adjust themselves to the status quo, and the so-called “new” party, the LPF
(the party of the late Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated on the eve of the
elections in May) is no exception. A lot of traditional social-democratic voters either did
not vote, or voted for the LPF. This is a process one can see everywhere in
Europe where social-democratic parties were part of the government. These
parties, which in name are leftist but which in practice follow neo-liberal
policies, are receiving strong blows. The bourgeois ideology is everyday poured
out to the people, resulting in the impression that the LPF would do something
new. Actually, this party is a right-wing populist party and the ideas of
Fortuyn are in line with those of Berlusconi in Italy and Haider in Austria. The move to the Right, which was already going on for a
long time, was strengthened by September 11. It has become clear that individual
terrorism--the successful attempt on the life of Fortuyn--does not stop the move
to the Right. On the contrary, it forms a climate for more repression. —K.L. |
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