THE HAGUE, 05/12/07 - Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar is "pleased" about the anti-Wilders campaign started by Doekle Terpstra. "I appreciate the initiative very much," she said yesterday.
Vogelaar supports the "initiative to set up a counter-movement against polarisation and for mutual respect." The Labour (PvdA) minister did say that she is not in a position to join the movement. She also said the action should not be directed against Wilders the person. "But binding society together, there I can find myself very much," she said, adding that she regards Terpstra's action as a "citizen initiative, which is wonderful".
Doekle Terpstra, in militant terms, called last weekend for a "movement outside parliament" against Wilders, the Party for Freedom (PVV) leader. "Wilders is evil and the evil must be stopped," he told newspaper Trouw. Following substantial criticism, he has meanwhile said that "it is not a movement against Wilders but a pro-movement to show that good things happen in society".
Annemarie Jorritsma, incoming chairwoman of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) and former vice-premier for the conservatives (VVD), has joined Terpstra's movement. The same applies to Eelco Brinkman, chairman of building sector organisation Bouwend Nederland and prominent member of the Christian democrats (CDA). Other prominent persons who have teamed up with Terpstra are national sporting umbrella organisation NOCNSF chairwoman Erica Terpstra (VVD), coach Foppe de Haan of the national football team for players under 21 and historian and EU enlargement propagandist Geert Mak.
Terpstra (CDA) is chairman of HBO Council, the umbrella body for colleges (HBOs), and former chairman of union federation CNV. He considers Wilders is "polarising" with his negative statements about Islam and the Koran. Wilders said yesterday Terpstra talks "like an Ayatollah" and is insulting PVV voters.
In the Lower House, the governing parties did not wish to react. But the Socialist Party (SP), leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) and centre-left D66 opposition parties consider it unwise for Terpstra to attack Wilders personally by calling him evil and urging for him to be stopped. SP MP Harry van Bommel added that "people in problem neighbourhoods are not helped by pointing out to them what is going well in the Netherlands."
Independent MP Rita Verdonk, an electoral competitor of Wilders with her new party Proud of the Netherlands (TON), considers the anti-Wilders campaign "a ridiculous idea." Verdonk pointed out that Wilders has the support of 600,000 voters and that he has the right to put forward his ideas. She considers it "cannot be allowed" for the chairman of a supposedly neutral organisation, HBO Council, to come up with such an initiative.
According to a poll by Algemeen Dagblad newspaper, 42.9 percent of the Dutch consider the counter-movement a good idea and 42.3 percent, a bad idea. Some 45 percent consider Terpstra's movement incites hatred against Wilders.
