Re: Socialist Statements about the assassination of Pim Fortuyn

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 07/05/02 19:46 +0200, you wrote:
> I've translated official statements by the Dutch SAP, SP and IS on the
> murder of Pim Fortuyn. Little is known yet about the suspected assassin
> except that he was a 32-year old white Dutch environmental activist from
> Harderwijk, in a relationship with a woman with a child, who refused to
> make a police statement.
>
> STATEMENT BY THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY, DUTCH SECTION OF THE FOURTH
> INTERNATIONAL


> Precisely in the coming days and months it is more than ever essential to
> campaign massively and with force for a social and multicultural
> Netherlands. Before, during and after the elections. The "martyrdom" of
> Fortuyn could possibly lead to a further shift to the Right. We therefore
> call on everyone to cast a vote for one of the left-wing parties, the
> Socialist party or the Green Left.


I probably would not agree with some aspects of this organisation's
politics but the statement above  is a responsible and realistic position
which takes into account that the result of parliamentary votes may matter.
What I think is hard to defend is small left wing groups who intervene in
parliamentary elections without considering how this may affect the result.
Especially if they claim to be revolutionary while taking a free ride on
the fact that they are tolerated by the capitalist system because they are
ineffectual.


> STATEMENT BY THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS
>
> With great dismay we learnt of the murder of Pim Fortuyn. From the
> beginning we have campaigned against his racism. We have done this with
> the conviction that the broadest possible, massive mobilisation is the
> only way to stop the growth of racism. Precisely for that reason we
> mobilised for the demonstration on 11 May under the motto "Stop the Dutch
> Haider".


Juuriaan was pointing out before any of us expected the assassination, that
Pim Fortuyn was not identical to Le Pen. I also wonder if Fortuyn was
identical to Haider. It is a feature of the way the right reacts to and
exploits the neo-liberal workings of finance capital, that there may be
different racist responses in different contexts. Strange alliances get
proposed in the US too.

Haider has been making overtures to Sadaam Hussein presumably because it
suits his idea of national interest not to go along with US policy and
because of his deeply rooted anti-semitism. However shortly after the
French presidential election a senior spokesperson of Le Pen was using the
BBC to denounce muslims for raping girls and setting fire to synagogues in
France. Fortuyn's hostility to islam is presumably linked to its
reactionary position on sexual rights, which are striking statements of
individual bourgeois right at its most abstract.

What Fortuyn's position seems to ignore are the massive inequalities
created by global finance capital which are causing unprecedented
migrations of populations in the history of the world. In the metropolitan
heartlands of capitalism the local population can benefit from the uneven
exchange of value on a world scale, and seek to assert control of their own
bit of the world, while wanting cheap labour to run public services.  But
these contradictions of world finance capitalism can only be solved by
moves step by step to socialise the control of land on a world scale and to
manage the global capitalist economy by management of its capital flows.

Small left wing groups may not be able to grasp that nettle, but anything
short of this may make it difficult to unite people of different countries
and different ethnic backgrounds.


Chris Burford

London