Lucky little countries

AMSTERDAM: Western Europe's small democracies have, on the whole, been exceptionally fortunate. Freer and richer than almost anywhere else in the world, countries such as Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland would seem to have little to worry about.
This is why the world normally hears less about them than about Afghanistan, say, or Kosovo. Yet all three have been much in the news of late - and not for happy reasons.
The most successful political force in Switzerland today is Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party.The party's propaganda material tells its story. A poster shows three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag. And images of junkies and Muslim women in headscarves are contras-ted in a promotional movie with idyllic pictures of Alpine scenery and efficient banks.
Although the Dutch government is still managed mostly by mainstream, steady-as-you-go Christian Democrats, right-wing populism is growing. Geert Wilders's Freedom Party wants to ban the Quran, halt Muslim immigration, and deprive delinquents with an immigrant background of Dutch citizenship. The new Proud of the
Netherlands Movement, led by Rita Verdonk, the former minister of integration, promotes a somewhat more respectable version of this hard line.
These parties and movements share a sense that native-born citizens have been let down by liberal political elites, who seem unable or unwilling to stem the tide of immigration, crime, and Islamist militancy, as well as the erosion of national sovereignty by EU bureaucracy and global capitalism. Such fears are by no means confined to Europe's small countries.
The Dutch case is the most surprising, because, unlike Belgium, the Netherlands has no significant tradition of
right-wing populism. Nor does it share Switzerland's insularity. On the contrary, the Dutch pride themselves on their openness and hospitality to foreigners.
The case of Somalia-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the bestselling author of Infidel, best illustrates both the popular resentments and the relative openness that mark contemporary Dutch society. Much criticism and even abuse has been heaped on the Dutch for the way her adopted country has treated her. She has received death threats from Muslim extremists ever since she renounced -indeed, denounced - her Muslim faith, and was forced to live as a virtual fugitive, albeit under the protection of the Dutch state. Before moving to the United States, she was forced out of her apartment in The Hague by complaining neighbours, and almost deprived of her passport.
Now that she is a permanent US resident, the Dutch government no longer wants to pay for her protection. The way the Dutch government handled the affair was not elegant, to say the least. But how many governments pay for the protection of private citizens who live permanently abroad? The US doesn't pay to protect its citizens who are under threat even at home.
It is easy to voice contempt of the Dutch government. But what has been lost in all the commentary is the nature of Hirsi Ali's rise to prominence. It is hard to imagine many countries where a young African woman could become a famous member of parliament only 10 years after seeking asylum.
The reasons for her rise are not entirely salubrious. Whatever the merits - and they are considerable - of her arguments against the bigotry of Islamic or African customs, especially those concerning the treatment of women, she lent respectability to bigotry of a different kind: the native resentment of foreigners, and Muslims in particular.
Indeed, contrary to what some commentators have written, it wasn't cowardly liberals who hounded Hirsi Ali out of the country because of her politically incorrect views about Islam. She was betrayed by her own former ally, Rita Verdonk, and a variety of Dutch xenophobes, who don't like an outspoken black female immigrant from Somalia any more than they like Muslims.
The writer, a journalist, has authored several books. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2007.