Tomorrow, the Dutch Christian Democrats will have their national convention in order to decide if they will back a government that will rely for its parliamentary majority on the backing on a xenophobic, anti-islamic party that advocates the abrogation of constitutional religious liberties for Dutch Muslims. (It also advocates a no-immigration policy.) Even though a lot of former party heavyweights have expressed concern and opposition to the plan (and two crucial MPs may break away from the parliamentary faction) the party convention looks set to approve. There is a sad and widely noted irony in this because the Christian Democratic was largely built around the former Catholic People's party, whose main reason for existing was Catholic (and worker) emancipation and had been the main advocate for religious pluralism in Holland. Not unlike the Labor party in Israel, the only ideology that the remaining Christian Democrats are about to embrace is the ideology of power.
In the low countries, Christian Democracy -- long the natural ruling parties of the Corporatist Center -- had embraced a kind a Social Hegelianism; co-operation between different elites, who would buy off troublemakers. Together with the German Christian Democrats they were the voice of the prosperous, cautious Northwestern core of the European Union. They had watched the Italian Christian Democrats implode from afar. Like in Italy the electoral gains of their demise did not accrue to the Social Democrats or the Left, but to anti-cosmopolitan, xenophobic right and to parties that represent (big) business interests.
In the Netherlands during the last election, the Catholic lower middle classes deserted the Christian democrats, which only held on to their protestant agrarian communities. Protestant Christian Democratic voters are socially conservative but generally not prone to populism. The rightward turn, which is due to complete collapse between the social democrats and christian democrats, is an attempt to regain the lost voters. This will be undoubtedly futile and in doing so they will drive away their remaining loyal Protestant voters.
In Flanders, the main political parties stood firm against embracing the racist nationalism. They have been rewarded (and I don't mean this ironically) for their patience with a non-racist nationalist party. This has made Belgium no easier to govern, but it has kept political focus peacefully on financial and linguistic matters. In Holland, where the electoral math still permits a reformist and humane majority coalition (VVD, D66, GroenLinks, with either CDA or PvDA), the political elite shows no such wisdom.
The happenings in small, wealthy countries are of no import on the world's stage. But they raise a troubling question. How stable are the German Christian democrats? The future of Europe's stability rests in the capable hands of Angela Merkel. But once she leaves the political scene things may get ugly quickly. If Christian Democracy implodes in Germany then a peaceful Europe may not last very long.
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