Fortuyn has been systematically misreported, both in Holland and abroad. The best proper description of him is that he was a libertine – different from both a liberal and a libertarian. He valued personal liberty much more than a liberal but still saw the need for a social framework where a libertarian rejects it. It comes to mind that Fortuyn followed Voltaire’s views here.
It is useful to clarify the distinctions. The best example still seems to be Fortuyn’s own homosexuality in relation to the new immigration into Holland. In Fortuyn’s view people are free to denounce homosexuality as worse than being a pig. Some people indeed have this opinion, both some native Dutch and some of the new immigrants. Fortuyn valued the freedom of expresssion so that there could be scope to start a dialogue. If thoughts would be repressed then this would cause them to go underground and they might pop up in unpleasant ways. By consequence Fortuyn himself should be free to comment on outdated cultural conventions and the unnecessary unkindness to pigs if not people themselves.
What happened in this debate is that many commentators, particularly in Holland that still is sensitive to the discrimination of the Jews and the Shoa in World War II, feared that Fortuyn discriminated against moslims. This focus did injustice to Fortuyn’s position for he did not target moslims and he intended no discrimination but defended their freedom of speech. By misrepresenting Fortuyn in this way, attention also shifted away from his other proposals on government, the economy and for example also the public health system. All this caused a shallowness of the debate, a shallowness that fed on itself. Fortuyn protested that he was being demonised and appealed to prime minister Wim Kok to protect him.
It is crucial to observe that Dutch key politicians joined the demonisation, including Wim Kok whom Fortuyn had turned to for help. Fortuyn was no racist and no fascist, the Dutch key politicians knew this, but they still issued statements that implied that he would be racist and fascist. It is important to realise that Fortuyn’s true ideas were known, for example from books that he had written over the course of years, while Dutch key politicians have the support of staff to research material. Their idea might have been that it was an election campaign and that election campaigns are ‘dirty’. My idea however is that these Dutch key politicians crossed a line and exposed themselves as liars. Even when Fortuyn protested that he was being demonised, they did not stop, and in that manner they contributed to the climate in which the gunman saw himself called into action. (Noteworthy, that gunman says that he did it to protect society, but he is an environmental activist who considers pigs to be members of society.)
Let us consider the evidence. The demonisation of Fortuyn consisted of:
(a) bad listening and wrong citation
(b) the grapevine
(c) suggestion and explicit false accusation
(d) in words and behaviour
(e) with mass demonstrations and pies in his face (mixed with vomit and excrements).