Can Europe Become Western Again; Far-Right Populist Geert Wilders Scores Major Victory in Dutch Election: Wilders Campaigned to Ban the Quran and Close the Borders to Migrants from Islamic Countries; Europe’s Far-Right Populists Buoyed by Wilders’ Win in Netherlands, Hoping the Best is Yet to Come

By admin On Dec 2, 2023

Can Europe Become Western Again?

For the first time in a millennium, Europe no longer plays a critical role in promoting Western civilization nor in world history at large.

Ostensibly it should. Some 750 million people live on the European subcontinent.

Europe still remains the most popular tourist spot on earth. Its hallowed architecture, art, infrastructure, and natural beauty still remind millions of visitors of the world’s once most dynamic and grandiose civilization.

Even now, European nations, in and out of the Europe Union, still produce a combined gross domestic product of $24 trillion, second only to the United States.

Europe’s exports are among the world’s most coveted cars, sophisticated technology, and valued industrial goods.

Yet since World War II, Europe has played an increasingly reduced role in world affairs, despite its membership in the NATO alliance and the growth of the European Union.

Why?

The 20th-century traumas of World War I and II — in which some 70 million Europeans were killed — saw Europe commit near collective suicide. The ensuing Cold War hinged on protecting a relatively unarmed Europe from an aggressive nuclear Soviet empire on Europe’s borders.

But as World War II and the Cold War faded into memory, Europe did not snap back and assume its centuries-old role as a world leader and beacon of Western Civilization.

Instead, a weary Europe outsourced its security to the United States. It redefined itself as a postmodern, pacifist, socialist utopian project — most recently predicated on redistributionist entitlements, open borders, and radical green policies that have all inevitably ensured European decline.—>READ MORE HERE

Far-Right Populist Geert Wilders Scores Major Victory in Dutch Election:

Wilders campaigned to ban the Quran and close the borders to migrants from Islamic countries

The electoral win by Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right leader who has championed draconian policies against immigration and Islam, reflects how intractable the issue of migration remains in Europe—and in much of the West.

Nearly a decade ago, an influx of Middle Eastern and African arrivals drove a wave of anti-immigration policies across Europe, boosted the popularity of far-right parties and stirred tensions with Europe’s growing Muslim population.

Today, as some European countries grapple with a flow of migrants not seen since 2015-16, the failure to identify policies to manage the surge in arrivals is prompting a political backlash.

Those tensions helped propel Wilders to a major election victory Thursday, putting a leader who has proposed slashing immigration, closing mosques and banning the Quran within reach of the leadership of the Netherlands.

Wilders’ Freedom Party, or PVV, which has promised to halt all immigration to the Netherlands, was set to win 37 out of 150 seats in the country’s parliament, based on projections by Dutch news agency ANP based on results from almost all voting districts. The PVV’s closest rival, former European Commissioner Frans Timmermans’ Labor/Green Left coalition, was projected to secure 25 seats.

The incumbent ruling party, the VVD, was on course to secure 24 seats, down from the 34 gained in 2021, according to ANP.

The result puts Wilders in line to lead talks in forming a governing coalition, and possibly become the next prime minister, though negotiations are likely to take some weeks.

While Wilders’ party was the clear winner from last night, analysts said it would be possible for a left-leaning or right-leaning coalition of other parties to form a government without the Freedom Party.

In the past, Dutch mainstream parties have moved to cut Wilders’ party out of government. However, the new leader of the VVD, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, said before Wednesday’s vote that she was open to forming a government with the Freedom Party as long as it didn’t hold the premiership.