Anti-Migration Cabinet In Netherlands Inaugurated After Slavery Anniversary

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

THE HAGUE/AMSTERDAM (Worthy News) – Dutch King Willem-Alexander on Tuesday oversaw the inauguration of the Netherlands’s most right-wing government on record, seven months after the anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) sailed to victory on a pledge to limit migration.

While leftists have accused the cabinet of looking inward, the new government pledges to maintain support for war-torn Ukraine as it tries to halt Russia’s invasion.

New Prime Minister Dick Schoof, a former intelligence chief, told reporters that he sees the biggest threat to the Netherlands coming from “the east.”

Yet, with migrants fleeing war, persecution, and poverty from mainly Islamic nations entering the Netherlands, the PVV argued that it was time to end the Muslim influx.

The leftist opposition has condemned PVV leader Geert Wilders for blaming Muslims, charges he denies.

Wilders said the tiny wealthy nation of nearly 18 million people was not able to accommodate more asylum seekers amid a housing crisis and mounting tensions in bigger cities where Dutch women, gay couples, Jewish people, and others have been attacked, often by radical Muslims.

NOT PRIME MINISTER

Yet despite his party’s election victory, Wilders did not become prime minister under pressure from other coalition parties he needs to have a working majority in the 150 seat House of Representatives, the lower house of Parliament.

Instead, Schoof signed the official royal decree Tuesday at Huis Ten Bosch Palace. The 67-year-old was formally installed alongside 15 other ministers who make up the country’s right-leaning coalition.

Besides the PVV, the conservative-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the populist Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB), and the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party are part of the coalition.

Their policy objectives include strict measures on asylum-seekers, scrapping family reunification for refugees, and reducing international students studying in the country.

Analysts and some civil servants have questioned whether some policies are legally or constitutionally possible to enact.

Schoof will lead a partially technocratic government that includes experts and members of the parties but not the faction leaders.

MARK RUTTE

He replaced Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who left on his bicycle after handing over the keys of Het Torentje (The Little Tower) in The Hague near Parliament, where he governed over the last 14, often turbulent, years.

The 57-year-old will soon become the secretary general of the NATO military alliance at a time of war in Ukraine and mounting tensions in the Middle East and Asia.

Rutte’s farewell came a day after he attended the closing ceremony of the 160th anniversary of the end of slavery, where organizers declined to invite Geert Wilders or the House of Representatives speaker, Martin Bosma, who used to be part of the PVV faction.

Bosma refused to retract what organizers called “derogatory statements” about slavery and anti-slavery freedom fighter Tula.

He had been critical about the slavery anniversary, saying it was aimed at white men while not honestly acknowledging that there had been Black slave traders as well.

But at the 22nd edition of the event in Amsterdam’s Oosterpark, outgoing members of Mark Rutte’s government, campaigners, and Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema said the Netherlands should not go backward.

LONG HISTORY

They recalled that for almost three centuries, Dutch traders had been profiting from enslaving 600,000 Africans and an unknown number of Asian and indigenous Caribbean peoples.

Last year marked the 160th anniversary of the day slavery was officially banned by the Dutch and 150 years since forced labor in the colonies stopped.

The ceremony was part of the day festival in Amsterdam known as Keti Koti when the Netherlands remembered“breaking the chains” of slavery.

Rutte was among those who laid a wreath at the slavery monument in remembrance of those turned into enslaved people.

Rutger Groot Wassink, Amsterdam’s deputy mayor, who last week warned that “winter is coming” with the new government, said wealthy cities such as Amsterdam had a deep connection with a history of oppression and slavery.

“Everyone in the Netherlands needs to look this in the eye because more understanding of historical context will help us move forward,” he said.

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