buruma146_ VINCENT JANNINKAFPGetty Images_thierry baudet

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Apr 8, 2019 Ian Buruma

نيويورك ــ يتلخص تفسير شائع لصعود زعماء الدهماء اليمينيين في مختلف أنحاء العالم في أن العديد من الناس يشعرون بأنهم "تُرِكوا خلف الركب" بفِعل العولمة، والتكنولوجيا، وتفكيك التصنيع، والمؤسسات القومية الشاملة، وما إلى ذلك. إنهم يشعرون بأن "النخب الليبرالية" تخلت عنهم، ولهذا يصوتون لصالح متطرفين يعدونهم "باستعادة" بلدهم و"جعلها عظيمة مرة أخرى".

وهي رواية معقولة في الأجزاء البائسة من ألمانيا الشرقية، أو مدن التعدين القديمة الكئيبة في شمال بريطانيا، أو حزام الصدأ في الغرب الأوسط الأميركي. لكنها لا تفسر الأعداد الضخمة من الناخبين الشعبويين الذين يتمتعون بالازدهار نسبيا. يتجاوز هؤلاء غالبا منتصف العمر، وغالبيتهم العظمى من ذوي البشرة البيضاء. وهم أيضا ربما يشعرون بأنهم تُرِكوا خلف الركب بفِعل تغيرات أربكتهم: صعود قوى غير غربية وبروز أقليات من ذوي البشرة غير البيضاء على نحو متزايد؛ ومن هنا جاءت كراهية الرئيس الأميركي باراك أوباما وتقبل الأساطير ــ التي نشرها ترمب وغيره ــ التي تزعم أن أوباما لم يولد في الولايات المتحدة.

وما يتعذر تفسيره بدرجة أكبر هو النجاح غير العادي الذي حققه الحزب اليميني المتطرف الجديد في هولندا. لم يكن لحزب المنتدى من أجل الديمقراطية وجود حتى قبل ثلاث سنوات، لكنه حصل على نحو 15% من الأصوات في انتخابات محلية عقدت مؤخرا، مما جعله واحدا من أكبر الفصائل في مجلس الشيوخ. وتشير استطلاعات الرأي إلى أنه قد يصبح قريبا الحزب الأكبر في هولندا.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 15 Comments on this article

George Bells Apr 27, 2019

Curious to know why bigots and xenophobes have been joined by a gay black man, a black woman of Nigerian background and a Dane in the new and increasingly popular Brexit Party. If only you bothered to actually ask the people you are attacking why we think as we do. Instead of going on a march in the UK to overturn the democratic decision of the British people.
As for the connection to climate change the answer is that both are down to common sense. We have heard and ignored the numerous warnings of doom for as long as I can recall. Whether it's the millennium bug or "everyone will know someone that dies of aids". It's very much the kid crying wolf. Many experts admit that the influence we can have on climate change is so small it's really not worth bothering with. Well not unless we all live in dark caves and eat dirt.
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Paul Martin Apr 15, 2019

After having read this article and expressed my spontaneous reaction to it, I had the curiosity to know more about this new "populist" leader Thierry Baudet, who, indeed, I didn't know.

I read his biography, heard his speeches, especially the one which he held after his victory. And I discovered a very nice, smiling, charming, elegant, cultured young man, expressing moderate, sensible liberal-conservative views. Nothing of a furious nationalist, or xenophobe, or extremist. Just someone who loves European culture and civilization, and would like it to endure.

Everybody shares the same wish and especially now that we all live in a deep anguish of seing our heritage destroyed, the positions of Thierry Baudet can be shared by a wide majority. Actually he is a very moderate guy, rather conservative, rather reluctant to accept modern views in terms of art or culture, but open minded and quite reasonable.

I would say that this is someone who is expressing a worldview which would have been mainstream in the 1970, or even the 80, at a time before the lunatic left would have put everything upside down with the gender studies, the multiculturalism and all what Baudet very rightly depicts as "oekophobia" a concept by which he means the hatred of all what is oneself. Everybody resents bitterly the self hatred of progressive élites, which caused this mess in which we are stuck. As a consequence a majority will follow the charming Thierry Baudet.

Thierry Baudet's does not reflect at all any kind of rejection of the virtue or all what Iam Buruma is reproaching him. On the contrary he personifies a very attractive political proposition, which will certainly be very popular in the Netherlands and potentially offers a new, promising political future in all of Europe.

Actually I am now quite enthusiastic about Thierry Baudet and I wish him to become the prime minister of the Nederlands ASAP. I find him much more pleasant, and balanced, as a political leader than the other so called "populists". I always found Geert Wilders ridiculous and one sided with his focus on anti Islam.

As a conclusion, it is unexplainable why Ian Buruma, a fine progressive liberal, fearing for the freedom of lifestyle which he cherishes, is worried about a politician such as Thierry Baudet, because it is very obvious that under a prime minister Baudet, Ian Buruma would have nothing to worry about. He would actually just be a bit safer than he now and run less risk of having all of a sudden his throat cut by a fanatic anti gay Muslim zealot, met at random just by walking in the street as it happened to Theo van Gogh.

In fact, I recommend everybody to do the exercise and listen to Baudet's speeches. And then it will be by clear that the extremist views are those of people like Ian Buruma for which all what is right from the cent left is basically Hitler.

It is understandable that the esthetical and ideological sensibility of a person like Ian Buruma, will not coïncide with that of the slightly reactionary Baudet. But what Buruma should understand, would he think sanely, is that it is impossible to continue in the direction in which, as a weird liberal, he would prefer to continue. People shall not permit it because it would mean their disparition as Dutch, Germans, French etc.

A backlash is unavoidable. Ian Buruma should pray for this backlash to have the friendly, charming, civilized face of Thierry Baudet, because otherwise, if one continues in the nonsensical direction pursued until now by the post modern lunatics who are still ruling, things shall become worse and worse to the point where the backlash will finally happen anyway, but this time it will have a really ugly face.

Mr Buruma, please come back on earth, and realize the utter impossibility for your worldview to be implemented on the scale of an entire people. Your experimentalist fantasies will never be possible outside of a tiny private elite of excentrics of your kind, and behind closed doors. Satisfy with this.
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j. von Hettlingen Apr 10, 2019

Ian Buruma points out the two categories of populist voters – the poor and the prosperous ones. The working class in rural areas feel “left behind” by the globalised economy, resent its institutions and the inroads technology had made. They blame the “liberal elites” for ushering in the free movement of capital, people and goods and a trickle-down economics, and vote for far-left or the far-right that promises to prioritise their interests and take back control.
But there is also the prosperous group of “past middle age, and overwhelmingly white” people who feel left behind and bewildered, because there is no effective outlet for their discontent over the “rise of non-Western powers abroad, the growing diversity and the increasing prominence of non-white minorities at home.” They vote for far-right extremists, who promise to restore their the old order and make them feel “great” again.
For the past decade, the face of Dutch populism had been Geert Wilders, notorious for his anti-Muslim, anti immigrant, anti-establishment, anti-intellectual rhetoric. In recent provincial elections, his party has lost seats to the Forum voor Democratie (FvD), a newcomer that did not exist three years ago. FvD gained some 15% of the vote, “making it one of the largest factions in the upper house. Polls suggest that it could soon become the largest party in the country.”
The far-right’s rising star, Thierry Baudet spoke about “oikophobia” – vaguely, self-hatred – of the governing classes, whom he believes prefer all other cultures before their own. He said, Europe lives in a “cultural and spiritual vacuum” and has forgotten that western civilisation once “confidently spread to every corner of the world.” He was keen to point out those academics, journalists, artists and politicians who threaten “our boreal world”. Boreal means “northern” and is seen as a euphemistic way of saying “white”.
Critics note that Baudet adopts the familiar mixed bag of nostalgia, xenophobia, climate-change denial and other nationalist zingers that Wilders has been babbling for years – just with more obscure words. The 35-year old admires Putin, and has spoken in favour of the anti-immigration policies embraced by Viktor Orban and Trump. He has been flirting with “Nexit” for a long time, constantly calling Brussels the root of all evil.
The author wonders why Baudet appeals to “so many people in such a stable, prosperous country? And why do politicians who worry about immigrants and national decline almost automatically assume that climate change is not a problem?” He claims to have found a “possible answer, not in Amsterdam, but in London.” He took part in an anti-Brexit protest a few weeks ago with hundreds of thousands of UK citizens.
“The crowd was utterly civilized, almost genteel even, and exuded a kind of virtuousness. There was a mostly unspoken assumption that Brexiteers were not just wrong, but bigots and xenophobes.” Although this mindset is a legacy of “virtuous rule” in many parts of Europe, Brexiteers, be they poor or rich, rally behind right-wing agitators, who ridicule virtuousness and rail against political correctness.
Working class people no longer support left-of-center parties, because in the last decades of the last century those mainstream politicians began to focus more on identity politics, like “race, gender, and ecology” than on bread-and-butter issues that affect their lives. The affluent whites reject the liberals’ agenda that embraces “anti-racism, equal rights for women and sexual minorities, as well as the health of the planet.”
This is the problem. Blinded by hubris, the reactionaries resent the progressives’ „social and educational privilege,” which they call paternalism: “We knew what was best for people, and those who opposed us were either stupid or wicked.” In defiance, Brexiteers voted to leave the EU, and Trump supporters propelled him to victory – all in 2016. They resented being told what to do and defended their decision, claiming they had had enough of doom and gloom in the media, and of experts, who predicted that Brexit would be disastrous for their economy.
Although supporters of Trump, Brexiteers, or Baudet rebel against the establishment and “give the finger to the politics of virtue,” one must ignore them. In order to gain attention they just do the opposite of what is widely considered rational – “anything...is better than admitting that the experts are right.” Nigel Farage, the UKIP rabble rouser, “likes to be photographed with a glass full of beer and a smoldering cigarette” in defiance of the “virtuous elite” who urge the public to drink and smoke less. The culture war is not going to end any time soon.
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Henk Crop Apr 10, 2019

Buruma raises an important issue. However it is not what it is.
The EU was successful in developing a common market. However some 20 years ago it was decided to develop the EU into a political Union, which meant that Brussels was going to control extensively life of the EU citizen.
What was not done was to make the EU a transparant and democratic Institute.
With 27 members it still has the same structure as when they were with 6 more.
Brussels has set his own goals, the EU Superstate ( the bloc, the Federation ).
This is presented as a religion, which cannot be questioned.
They gain and maintain control over National Politicians by offering the perspective of a nice job in the EU bureaucracy.
There is no free press, because you have to be accredit.
The EU Parliament is mainly a debating club and has almost no authority.
- Henk Crop Apr 10, 2019
  
  Henk Crop. …… Furthermore they buy loyality by handing out subsidy to almost anything.
  The most powerful official is Juncker. He is a drunkard and the people really pulling the strings are some unelected officials behind him we do not know ( see The deep state of Europe, Basil Coronakis ). If nothing is being done the EU will drift into becoming a Soviet world. A stagnating economy, the citizen will loose their freedom.
  The question is not if you are for or against the EU. The question is what direction the EU is being developed. A Federation or a Confederation. In the latter the sovereign Nation will remain the basis of the EU. Will a few people in Brussels determine what we need or will the EU citizen do that ?
  These are the issues the FvD addresses and make them attract voters.
  It is not only Brussels who want more centralization. France wants that also. However Germany is fortunately opposed to that.
  
  Buruma writes that the Netherlands is exceedingly wealthy. However the disposable income per capita, that is what people really get, is below the EU average of E19,296.-.
  In ranking, the Netherlands is placed between Denmark and Italy.
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Piotr B. Apr 10, 2019

I hope that author is just a (cheap) provocateur and that his condition is not much more serious.
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lt lee Apr 9, 2019

"A common explanation for the rise of right-wing demagogues around the world is that many people feel “left behind” by globalism, technology, deindustrialization, pan-national institutions, and so on. "

An alternative explanation is reverse Flynn effect in some of these nations. People in these nations are becoming less intelligent. Intelligent people are more likely to be conservative right wingers.
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Paul Martin Apr 9, 2019

lan Buruma's views are always irritating.

Here for example: while making a remarkably accurate analysis of this massive rejection of pseudo elites and their pretence to pseudo "virtue", he cannot resist comparing us so called "populists" to little children refusing to eat their spinaches. By indulging this to himself, he ruins entirely the acceptability of his views. But he is like this. He cannot help it.

Though irritating, Ian Buruma is not stupid. Here he found precisely the psychologic mechanism to explain why we, educated, rather well to do, not even very conservative, but just normally related to traditional values not only self evident for us, but really basic and necessary for any civilization, we hate, despise and are enraged against a kind of patronizing preachers of decadence disguised in virtuous progressives.

The comparison with the severe portraits of protestant notabilities by Frans Hals is not very convincing. Though puritanic and almost suffocating, the moral values of those people, unlike those of the post modern LGBTQI discourse, were not inhumane. They favored family, patriotism etc. Thus, they were fit for supporting a civilization, while the cultural marxists are leading only to decadence, folk death, genocide of the european kind and with them soon the last traditional moral prohibitions of horrors such as pedophilia will be brutally dismissed as bigotry. Just wait.

What the Burumas of the world cannot understand, obviously, is that their project is resented as lethal for a majority of normal people, educated or not. Buruma cannot understand that certain things are no options which could possibly be accepted under any kind of circumstance: for example it cannot be envisaged that really white people could become a minority in Europe. It cannot be envisaged that morals be based on genders studies and that boys are taught that they are girls and vice versa. It cannot be envisaged that incest and pedophilia may become new legitimate "values". Traficking of babies for a market of same sex couples cannot be accepted. Babies factories where the wombs of poor women in the third world are rented for the satisfaction of affluents gays and lesbian liberal ideologues in Europe and America , shall never be viewed by a majority as something acceptable in a civilized world. what happens when a "item" (a baby) duly produced and delivered is refused by the "clients" because of a defect? Even less offensive situations will never been really accepted": for example: never a gentleman will be able to introduce in a society another gentleman saying: "this is my husband", without causing either a laugh or a polite smile in the audience. Political correctness has reached its limits because it has exaggerated everything to the point of creating absurdity in a topsy-turvy world.

Now it is time for a backlash. And the backlash sometimes carries some unsavory aspects. What a wonder?

The most surprising thing is that intelligent cultured people like Ian Buruma are surprised.
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Gunnar Eriksson Apr 9, 2019

It is additionally important to recognize that the Neo Liberal Paradigm and the present Ultra Nationalist wave are just tools from the same toolbox. Tools that aim to prevent a change of the real power and wealth distribution.
Consider the Mercers for the creation of TRUMP and the Murdoch press for BREXIT.
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Steve Wolfe Apr 9, 2019

You can rationalize populism however you like, but I believe it is rooted in the recognition that so called progressive leaders are exceedingly corrupt. The solutions to the ills of the world always seem to enrich progressives and their elite benefactors. It is insulting to say populists are rebellious children, but then I'd expect no less from an elitist toady of the elite.
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vivek iyer Apr 9, 2019

This is not a plausible account for two reasons
1) educated people could tell that soi disant 'experts' were telling stupid lies.
2) uneducated people were wholly unaware of virtue signalling careerists with third rate minds

Lower rates of taxation are popular with those who are net contributors to the Exchequer. Controls on immigration are popular with those whose entitlements would be diluted.
A different problem has to do with 'baby boomers' getting older and more cranky and reverting to the old fashioned racism they grew up with. Well educated young people may protest against what is happening but their economic position is more precarious than it was for 'boomer' cohorts and, in any case, they don't have the numbers. Add in the social conservatism of working class immigrant groups and the Structural Causal Model is complete.

Oddly, deindustrialization and regionally concentrated structural unemployment need not militate for an anti globalization backlash. The Republicans could have engineered powerful incentives in Rust belt and Red States such that voters would have been more pro Globalisation than those squeezed out of urban knowledge hubs by rising rents and 'Baumol cost disease'. The UK, too, could have done this- indeed, rather naively, some economists imagined that something like this had happened. That is why the Leave vote was not anticipated by the market.

Is the FvD really a 'far right' party? It's appeal is to better educated people entering their peak earning years who will benefit immediately from lower taxes and a more technocratic approach to Government.

What about Baudet? Is he really a 'frat boy' enjoying great 'wealth' and 'status'? He comes across as a 'striver' like Roger Scruton and about as much of a heavyweight.

It is tempting to smear one's opponents by calling them Stalinists or Hitler worshipers. Why not tell the truth instead? They are as foolish and inconsequential as one is oneself. We rose by telling lazy, stupid, lies. They are rising by the same meretricious means. The old order gives way to the new. But, against stupidity the Gods themselves battle in vain.
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Petey Bee Apr 9, 2019

Yes, this is a classic pattern.

In any perfectly healthy society, you will find some 10-20% who are xenophobic, nationalist-chauvinist, etc. This is probably not avoidable, and at this level of representation, it is not that big a deal - provided there exist other alternatives for citizens who feel let down by centrist politics.

It is when you add another 20% who find their quality of life threatened on a material (vs cultural) basis, and this group also goes to the far right by default, that one really needs to start asking questions.

I don't know the particulars of the Netherlands, but I have a suspicion that all is not perfectly well for them.

The phenomenon of a reflexive aversion to "virtue signaling" etc means the audience is agitated, trust and willingness to consider both sides is already in short supply, so certainly ordinary rhetorical mistakes will prove more costly in this environment.
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nonreductionistic episteme Apr 9, 2019

How ironic that Buruma commits precisely the same mistake he identifies in his peers, with the sneering tone, misrepresentation of the opinions of his opponents, and condescending claim that there is nothing more to the revolt against the elites than petulance! Truly amazing. One wonders whether he would have even written this if he himself had not fallen into the mob's hands. What a time we live in.
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Matthias Mentink Apr 8, 2019

Really persuasive article. I think you're on to something here!

Of course one may take it step further and ask if an expert is really an expert or rather an "expert". Not arguing one way or the other here but self-reflection is always good.
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Prashant Kotak Apr 8, 2019

But then, how so very simple for the well-educated, prosperous and virtuous Dutch intelligentsia to turn the tables on us petulant Brexiteers! All you have to do is imbibe the values and qualities of a Trump, or a Salvini or an Orban (or at least feign that) and we childish Brexiteers will of course insist on doing the opposite! Remain? You couldn't keep my paws off that European Parliament voting card if you tried!
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