 Hello, hello, hello, I'm Meroen Kilili and this is DM25, a radical political movement for Europe. Today, Kert Wilders, the far-right candidate, has come out on top in the Dutch elections. So I'm here with one of the coordinators of DM25's local group in Amsterdam. Her name is Lucio Cornelius and she is going to answer all our questions, I hope, on what exactly just happened in Holland because some of the media coverage, well, a lot of the media coverage is not very illuminating, let's say. And it's like, oh, freak out, far-right, populist, how terrible, but I'm hoping that we can get a bit of an inside track from Lucio on what just happened. So Lucio, welcome to DMTV. What just happened in terms of the elections in Holland? Well, firstly, the left has been caught with its pants down, I think. We really didn't foresee that they would fear so badly, like right at the bottom end, the centrists and the right-leaning parties have all come up on tops. I'm sure most people listening today know a little bit about Herb, but yeah, he's quite a character. He's been around since the early 2000s, came up with the ridiculous idea of Nexit, which is the Netherlands leaving or exiting the EU, far-right politics. His party is actually known as the anti-refugee party that is how it is being spoken about on the local news and in the media. And the issue is that he has managed to tap into the very, very strong idea that the reason why we are in the state we are in is because of foreigners, because of migrants, because of refugees, and he's managed to begin to control the narrative through that kind of idea. Interestingly enough, if you read a little bit, you'll find out that he bent a little bit with some of his really strong ideas, but I was still shocked last night, that he still mentioned the Quran and other types of things in his speech. So I was, yeah, it's kind of frightening to think of the future that is now sort of building in the, you know, in the atmosphere and we really don't know where we're headed. It can take months and months, can't it, for these coalitions to be hammered out. So we're not talking yet about with us being the prime minister. He won't be the prime minister, but of course his party has the most number of keys. So you know how it goes in terms of policy. Then there has to be consensus amongst everybody that's sitting with the acceptance of these policies. And that's where we really have a chance to swing things. But what I'm saying is if he doesn't play his cards right or begins to alienate all those other people and who can be a really strong opposition at this point then, yeah, he's going to be in serious trouble. So he'll have to, thankfully, we do have that little bit of hope. What kind of far right politician are we talking about here? What exactly is this guy carrot with his fantastic hair advocating for? Well, he is a very, very dangerous kind of politician because his economics is very center or centrist, but his social politics are the dangerous kind. The same kind of rhetoric that we listened to, like in Donald Trump and everybody else that frightens the ordinary citizen into believing in the fact that the other is the perpetrator and not actually analyzing what's really gone from a true perspective, but using this populist idea that it is migrants. And he last night, when I heard him speak, he just kept like nailing the word naderlander, naderlander, naderlander. So he's really gotten into the psyche of local people and trying to sort of raise that nationalistic ego if you want, you know, and he's trying to build them up that way so that they will never ever stop voting right. It's kind of frightening because there is a lot of support for this kind of ideology in the Netherlands. Netherlands has become sort of famous for its liberality and, you know, we're famous for the Dutch tolerance, but it's all a smokescreen because when you really get to the nitty gritty of things, I mean, 77% of the population went to the voting polls. And out of that 77%, the majority voted for Pewewe and out of the majority that voted for Pewewe, the issue that won the votes is actually the migrant issue. Pewewe being the anti-Islamist party of... Islamist pro-Israel, yeah, the kind of politician that is coming to the fore all over the planet right now. What is it in your view about, I mean, you mentioned the psyche of the people. What is it that would make more than a quarter of the Dutch electorate vote for this far-right party today? What exactly is he tapping into? It's a revival of nationalism, basically. For a long, long time, people were teetering on the edge about how things have gone the way they have, you know. And after corona, the economy has sort of gotten a kickstart again. But if you listen to Dutch people on the street, they'll be like, yeah, nobody speaks Dutch anymore. Everybody speaks English. And, you know, the Dutch language is dying. The Dutch culture is dying. So it's almost like a grabbing at something that they believe is being destroyed. I'm trying to make people become nationalistic again and become proud of their heritage. And it's that kind of hard party line and making people believe that the reason why things are where they are is because there's so many foreigners here. It's because of the Muslims. It's because of the migrants. It's because of the refugees. You know, if we get rid of the refugee problem, then, you know, things can change and become better for local people. But the truth of the matter is we actually don't have a working force anymore. I mean, unskilled labor is at an absolute low. Dutch companies are offering higher wages all the time because they're trying to get in this workforce, but the Dutch people do not want to work in these jobs. So, I mean, if they use their heads, they would actually realize that that is a community into which they could tap to enrich their economy. We've got almost 40,000 undocumented people just in Amsterdam alone from what we've heard. And that is a community that can offer so much richness to this nation. But because of this far-left ideology that those people are a burden and those people are criminals and those people are coming here to destroy what's already in place, then, yeah, of course, Dutch people are going to buy that lie because they don't want to recognize that they are the reason why this is going the way it is. I'd like to switch gears a bit and ask about his campaign, which you obviously witnessed up close. As I understand it, I feel this is a very effective campaigner. And as you say, he's been part of the Dutch political scene for 25 years. Was there anything that stood out about this campaign that worked particularly well, tactically speaking? Well, he slid a little bit away from the far-right and toned down his message a bit. You know, he didn't so much speak anti-rhetoric. Anti-rhetoric. And so I think because he promises this economic change and shift, and also that people also know that, well, he's not gonna let foreigners come in. He's gonna tighten the borders. He's gonna do all of these things. But he's not so helpful. That's the idea. And so he slid away a little bit from there. But I must also say that it is sad that the left is so fragmented. And we spend so much time in big-braining everything, that whilst we were sleeping, they have grown so big and it's not overnight. They've been doing the same thing because the thing is with these far-right politicians, they never ever change their rhetoric, right? It's the same thing over and over again. And if you wanna talk about the success of a publicity campaign, I think that's it. It's that you're creating this image of someone that is reliable, that is there for the people and he's protecting you with all these kinds of hard-lining policies. And that's what people are bought into. And it's mere fear-mongering because if you make people afraid of everything and then present yourself as the savior, that's how everything slides in the opposite direction. In the... Yeah, go on, sorry. Go on. In the same vein, if the left had gotten together, created a coalition, I mean, we did to a little degree, but had they been a bit more far-sighted and really from like at least three years ago when they saw things sliding this way, gotten together and really got into the media and all the important places, yeah, I think things would be a bit different. The media plays a massive role, obviously, in these kinds of things because those people are the ones occupying all the podiums. They are the ones with the adverts all over the place. They're the ones that are in your face. And it's really like getting into the minds and the heads of people. It has foreign policy and what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening now in Gaza. Has that played a role at all in the success of Gerrit Wilders here? I mean, one of the positions of Gerrit Wilders, I believe, is to cut funding to Ukraine. And there have been a lot of pro-Palestine protests in Holland, as in across Europe, indeed, across the world. I wonder if this has not kind of accelerated that anti-Islamic sentiment among his voting base. I mean, could you comment on that? I'm not really sure what his voting base and where they stand in terms of Palestine and the whole bloodbath in Gaza. But I can actually imagine how it has springboarded this kind of idea because the whole Islamophobia, terrorism, you know, all these things. And of course, there are large pockets of society who still believe that Hamas and these kinds of groups are the progenitors of the war. And so obviously that swings this kind of thing into the hands of the right-winged fear mongers. I really do believe that it is the fear that has been driven because our economy has taken a really huge knock since the war in Ukraine. When I first got here a couple of years ago, yeah, ordinary things like oil and, you know, cooking oil I'm talking about, they have now increased three times in price in the space of two years. It is absolutely mind-blowing. And so the ordinary man in the street peels it definitely in his pocket. And here you have somebody that has so many podiums available to him. And he just keeps spewing the same thing. And because they control the narrative, of course, people that go to the voting polls think, well, if I wanna save myself from this impending disaster, I have to vote that particular way. I'd like to step back a bit and look at the European context. Marine Le Pen's now second place in the polls in France. Maloney in power in Italy. The AFD in second place in Germany. The European elections are coming in next June. Can you comment on how this victory might aid the far right for future potential successes perhaps in the European elections, perhaps in other countries? Yeah, my dad used to say birds are for feather flock together. And that is the fear in the EU. Because, you know, when there is consensus among people, I mean, if you think about how the Holocaust took place in the first place, how this genocide is taking place in the first place is because these people find consensus amongst each other. And of course, if those voices are the loudest amongst them, clearly that trend. I mean, you look at Fundalai and getting on a plane and going without anybody's permission and going for representing EU. It's the shock to the system. But yes, they do know that they have sort of faith in each other and that they will cover for each other. So this right slide in Europe is no shock or surprise to me, but I do fear. Well, one good thing is that Khair did start his campaign with the idea that he wanted to exit the EU. So maybe his nationalism will save us a little bit, but I don't know. The thing is we actually don't know where we are headed. I would imagine that it is a very frightening position for a country such as the Netherlands that is the seat of world governance in terms of the Hague, being under a right wing government that's almost unthinkable travesty of justice. But I have to have hope because without it, we have nothing. And so I really hope that in the midst of all this that the right voices will start to surface and cause change and revolution. And I think that there is potential, there's potential for a shift. It's like when the, what can I call them? When these tyrants tighten their grip and their noose, then resistance is impending, you know? And I think that once people really begin to experience that kind of thing, I mean, I'm an ex-South African. So I come from apartheid, I know what it feels like to live under a right wing government. I know what it feels like for your movements to be tracked for people to be ostracized based on their color, based on ridiculous measures placed on them. So when that noose becomes really tight and when the burden becomes really heavy, resistance is inevitable. It will come. So that's my hope. Well, thank you. I hope it doesn't get to that point actually. And I hope we can head it off at the past. But then my last question to you really is, what do you think progressives should be taking from this victory now? What should, how should they be adjusting their campaigns? They're organizing their tactics in order to mount a fight back against this far-right wave? So if you listen to right-wing politics, it's one, two or three hard lines. It's never more than that. Also, they don't get into huge intellectual debates. It's this or that. I mean, Donald Trump just used three words, lock her up, got some company to find a really ugly picture of Hillary Clinton, where she looked incredibly evil. And that was it, he won the election. So, we need to stop all these use of jargon and intellectualism and all of that and really find out what is at the heart of the people? What's the counteraction to this? And like I said, one of my colleagues in DM 25 this morning said, maybe we need to remind people of their humanity. I don't know what it's really going to take, but I do know that we are too fragmented on the left. We do need to come together. We need to make ourselves a better place. Make ourselves more present. We need to make ourselves more visible. We need to also dominate spaces. I really want us to even think outside the box, like where do people like artists, poets, musicians put in all of this, because those are powerful tools to deliver messages. The right is not doing that, of course, but they don't need to, because they're already controlling the minds of the masses. But yeah, to bring back a swing, back to where things ought to be, we really need to join forces and become a strong voice and remain true in our pursuit of justice for all. Thank you very much, Lucille, for that very interesting exchange. I'll let you get back to work. I know you're at the office and you've managed to find a... Oh, go home, okay? You're the last person at the office now. I've kept you there for this. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the exchange. Thank you so much for having me. Have a good evening. Bye.