It goes without saying that the Netherlands lives polarized times. Results from last elections have shown an increasingly fragmented landscape of political preferences. So far, this fragmentation has given us a complicated government formation process. But it is giving us more than that. The fragmentation of political views is also a fertile ground for distrust and frustration in the public administration. In times of polarization a great number of people distrust their government. The creation of a compromise between political opposed views, the core task of a government, it's doomed to produce unsatisfactory results to whoever choose for sharp political views. And we go another round in an spiral feeding the discontent with "those politicians", "hanging to power at the cost of their ideas". An impossible dynamic, that feeds on itself and breeds more polarization and frustration. 

And yet, there is another concerning element in our current maelstrom. It is not only that we are spiraling down towards political polarization. It is also that our current winning pole feeds on intolerance for the difference. So we are not only becoming more different, but we are also becoming less and less tolerant for anything that is different. 

The tenant of our cherished democracy is that he who gathers the support of the people, governs. That support, sadly enough, is being gathered today with the demonization of our own people. The movement that -today- Wilders leads is a process that devours our own friends, our own citizens. The Netherlands, and Europe, is a land of others. We all come from somewhere else, we all believe in something different. We all have build into this piece of earth that we inhabit. We all have worked and paid taxes, and committed mistakes, and helped a neighbor, and paid a fine when crossing a red light. We all have donated to some charity or filled in hours of communal work in the mosque. Wilders asks us to forget all this. Wilders break through the dutch politics used a mirror and a torch. A torch lighting the darker corners of our country, the ones that we rather did not look at. And a mirror that only reflects our mistakes and our frustrations. Thanks to his mirror and his torch we are reminded that indeed, many of us fear each other. We have been transfixed into staring, perhaps unbelievingly, to a country deeply divided. And not only divided. We are staring to a communal slope, to a slippery slope of descent into more hatred and more exclusion.

Ask yourself then. Is this the leading that you where wishing for? A leadership where our fears become the motor of a political agenda?

Long time ago, perhaps ten years ago, we all welcomed the upcoming of the wilderians -then called fortunites- in politics. Democracy is a system that flourish on different opinions, that need sharp evaluations and even thorough shakes. Then we thought that we might have grown too comforted with ourselves, too lazy to tackle the debate that the fortunites brought to the fore. Indeed, whatever was called multiculturalism then, seemed to be a doctrine for the lazy minded, a recipe for slouch and clientelistic policy. Debate was needed. Today the day, we have had ten years of increased harshness, and no solutions. Time to ask ourselves: is this where we were meant to go? Are we getting closer to a better country, to a better political debate? I don't think so. What started as a much needed evaluation of the taboos of dutch politics, has grown today into a growing challenge for being more intolerant and more nonsensical. I belong to no organized church, but I still cringe at hearing that "the Islam is an ideology instead of a religion". How could it be that the political debate of a country become so degraded that such a simplistic, insulting and obviously wrong statement has become center of the debate that would lead to a new government? Our politics of today are reigned by fear and discontent. Fear in the big parties to loose yet another election, discontent as a winning political agenda.

Our political leaders are transfixed in the mirror of Wilders. Stagnated. The Christian Democrats, a most pragmatic political organization, have been maneuvered into an impossible position. To govern with the most intolerant politician in decades, or to accept their failure at leading the last decade of government. Or the liberals, once upon a time a force for the rule of law, try to accommodate themselves into a movement that was ejected from their own ranks few years ago. Staring at the mirror of Wilders, Christian Democrats and Liberals stare at their own mistakes. They try, pathetically and desperately, to forget their principles and become part of this new order, this increasing cacophony of intolerance and harshness.

The origin of the movement that storms the dutch politics today is to be found in a profound identity crisis. Crisis that is not a dutch one, but an european one. Wilders ask a powerful question: Who are we? Who is the dutch people? That was, and is, his mirror. With his torch he points the isolationists aspects of our nation. Wilders tells us what we must not be. But this politic is empty of any other content. A question, and a negative answer. If there is hope for yet another day for our country, this question merits yet another answer. Wilders answer to his own question asks us to reject our own citizens, and send them away. We need to think again about ourselves, the dutch people. The dutch people is -indeed- not muslim. Neither christian. The dutch people is muslim and christian... and jewish, and buddhist, and atheist. The dutch people is open and is close, it is solidarian and egocentric. Libertarian and libertine, socialist and neoliberal. The last election gave us yet another reflection of ourselves. We are all different, fragmented and opinionated. Pass is the time when one, or maybe two political parties where able to represent us all. Does this mean that we are doomed to another fratricidal moment in european history?  Are we in an impossible to govern country? Not at all.

Broaden your sight. At the turn of the century we are faced with a vibrant society. Diverse, yes. Difficult to govern, yes. But alive. One report after the other tells us that the welfare of our society grows. Our kids can go to schools and universities that did not exist few decades ago. Our parents, retired, discover that the end of their working life opens the begin of a new creativity season. Most of us struggle, successfully, to balance work and free time. We live in a country that influence, and is influenced, by the world at large. And then I wonder: isn't all this reason enough to be proud of ourselves? Who are the dutch people, and who our government should be, is the question of the day. The answer is, funnily enough, simple. We are an heterogenous crowd, coming from the four corners of the world, decided to build a good life here and now. So far, we have managed quite well. Do we need a government that denies all this?

I don't think so.