Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders tells women to carry self-defence spray against ‘Islamic testosterone bombs’

THE Dutch debate on refugees and asylum seekers has come to this: Firebrand politician Geert Wilders handing out self-defence sprays to women fearful of what he describes as “Islamic testosterone bombs” in the wake of the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Cologne.

Wilders, surrounded by bodyguards and police, visited a market in the largely blue-collar town of Spijkenisse on Saturday to hand out the sprays, which contained red paint. Amid stalls selling vegetables, fish, flowers and bicycle parts, Wilders got a rock-star welcome from dozens of supporters, while a small group of protesters chanted and waved placards including one that read, “Refugees are welcome, racism is not.”

The publicity stunt fits into Wilders’ uncompromising anti-immigrant, anti-Islam rhetoric that has propelled him to the top of Dutch opinion polls, just over a year away from parliamentary elections.

In between shaking hands and posing for selfies with supporters, the Freedom Party leader said that, if elected, he would, “close the borders immediately and have no more asylum seekers. We just cannot afford to have more. The Dutch people in a big majority don’t want it and we cannot afford it and it makes our people and women only more unsafe.”

His message is gaining traction here amid the Europe-wide migrant surge and following attacks by Islamic extremists in Paris last year and the mass sexual assaults by immigrant men on women at Cologne’s train station.

It echoes Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and is similar to other populist, nationalist groups in Europe like Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France.

“The tendencies across Europe are very similar,” said University of Amsterdam political science professor Wouter van der Brug. “Across Europe, right-wing populist parties are picking up support as a result of the asylum crisis that we’re facing now, and also as a result of terrorist attacks.”

Leontine Maris was one of the first women to get a spray from Wilders on Saturday.
The 53-year-old said she votes for him though she disagrees with some of his more extreme comments. She said she was afraid not just of migrants, but also Dutch men.
“The whole society is going down the drain,” she said.

As Wilders’ popularity soars on the back of such disenchantment, Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s two-party coalition is in a slump, losing ground mainly to Wilders.
“Wilders is getting support across different layers of society,” Prof Van der Brug said.

Whether Wilders is able to parlay his current popularity into parliamentary seats next year and a tilt at power in the splintered Dutch parliament remains to be seen. He propped up Rutte’s first administration, a minority coalition of the Liberal Party and Christian Democrats, from 2010-2012, but walked out amid drawn out negotiations over austerity measures. Two days later, the government collapsed.

That decision could yet come back to haunt Wilders.

“The only logical coalition he could form would be with the same parties again and I think it’s quite unlikely they will do this again with him because of the negative experience they have in the past,” Mr Van der Brug said. “They don’t really trust him.”

Rutte has ruled out co-operating with Wilders unless the Freedom Party leader takes back comments made in 2014 that he would see to it that there were fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. Those same comments also landed Wilders in trouble with Dutch prosecutors, who plan to put him on trial on charges of discrimination.

That kind of criticism is not new to Wilders, who has made his name with inflammatory anti-Islam rhetoric. He was acquitted in 2011 on hate speech charges for comments including likening Islam to fascism and calling for a ban on the Koran.

Meanwhile last year he was among those targeted in a failed terrorist attack on a Prophet Muhammad art caricatures exhibition in Texas.

Wilders was a speaker at the contest organised by US right-wing blogger Pam Gellar when SWAT teams shot dead two men armed with explosives who tried to attack attendees at the event in Garland, Texas.