Many newspapers hold Geert Wilders indirectly responsible for the attacks in Norway. In the Lower House, however, all parties consider it inappropriate to link him to the massacre.
Anders Breivik, who shot dozens of young people dead at a summer camp for Norwegian socialists on Sunday, has distributed a 1,500-page manifesto in which he praises Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) as the only real conservative party in Europe. This has ignited a debate on the question of whether the Dutch politician played a role in the Norwegian tragedy.
Columnists, professors and politicians in a number of newspapers are analysing the role of Wilders. The general tenor is that Wilders is not responsible, though a ‘but’ then appears; he should more emphatically distance himself from the attacks, some commentators consider.
Wilders already said on Monday that Breivik is a “sick psychopath” and expressed condolences to the entire Norwegian population. yesterday he again emphatically condemned the attacks. WIlders also criticised the ‘guilty by association’ tenor of some commentators.
“The Party for Freedom has never ever called for violence and will never do so either. We believe in the power of the ballot box and the wisdom of the elector. Not in bombs and guns,” according to Wilders. He added that “neither I myself, nor the PVV are responsible for the work of a lone idiot who abuses the freedom-loving anti-Islamisation ideals in a violent manner.”
Wilders is “nauseated” by the references that Breivik makes to the PVV in his manifesto. This shows that the Norwegian is a “lunatic.” He “wants to work with Al Qaida, hankers after blowing up towns, dreams of knights who mutilate themselves in a surgical manner and to meet his hero Karadzic.”
Unlike many newspaper commentaries, the reactions of politicians are much more nuanced. Nobody in the Lower House considers Wilders is too blame for the massacre.
Centre-left D66 MP Boris van den Ham calls it an “idiotic reflex” to make a link between Wilders and the bloodbath. “It is precisely the people who are rightly critical of the generalisations of Wilders that should give a good example.”
Socialist Party (SP) leader Emile Roemer said: “It would be very unwise to point the finger at Wilders. If tomorrow a murderer appears who uses my words, am I then also responsible for this?”
PvdA leader Job Cohen was equally uninterested in the question of whether Wilders bears some responsibility. “For God’s sake, let us avoid that debate.”
Hans Moors, researcher into radicalism and the extreme right, considers that Wilders does have “a kind of responsibility,” according to the newspaper. “This man was not sick, not cognitively, and he is well educated. Wilders should substantiate what is wrong with the ideas of people like Breivik. Indicate where the boundary lies for him.”
Historian Jan Dirk Snel believes that Wilders “disseminates a false world picture” and is thereby “dangerous,” he told Nederlands Dagblad newspaper. NRC Handelsblad also considers that the PVV leader has a responsibility. “The ball is now in his court,” ran the leftwing newspaper’s headline.