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The drawing depicted two women; a young blonde with a friendly expression and a scowling older woman wearing a headscarf. On top of the image was a nod to this month’s general election in the Netherlands, along with the phrase “The choice is yours.”
The social media post, made by the far-right, anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, prompted a record 14,000 complaints to the country’s anti-discrimination hotline. “Many of those who called to report the image compared it to Nazi propaganda from the second world war,” the hotline said in a statement, adding that the 19 anti-discrimination agencies associated with the hotline had flagged the post to police, amid concerns that it could be an incitement to hatred.
It was a glimpse of how the discourse across the Netherlands has hardened in recent years, as politicians disproportionately target Muslims, asylum-seekers and other minority communities in a bid to drum up votes. As polls suggest that Wilders’ party could again emerge with the most votes, the election on 29 October has been recast as a broader litmus test for the country and its democratic ideals.
“It isn’t just about Muslims. What’s at stake is the very idea of what it means to be Dutch,” said Esma Kendir of the Collective of Young Muslims. “So will the Netherlands continue to stand for equality, for human rights, for freedom of religion, or will it move towards exclusion and fear?”
At the last election, the far-right Freedom party (PVV), led by Wilders, shocked the country by finishing first. The result gave rise to a fractious and fragile rightwing coalition – the first to fully include the PVV – and which collapsed 11 months later after Wilders pulled his support.
For many in the Netherlands, the inclusion of Wilders’ party in government, after years of being mostly sidelined due to his extreme views, signalled a major shift. “When Geert Wilders and his party came into the government, it really felt like confirmation that open hostility towards the existence of Muslims is now politically acceptable,” said Kendir.
The impact was swiftly felt, she added. “The public debate has become more extreme than ever,” she said. “What’s happening now goes beyond ‘negative talk’. It’s open hostility that has become normalised. The way Muslims and Islam are spoken about today would have caused outrage a few years ago. Now it barely raises an eyebrow.”
While Wilders has long gained publicity through boundary-pushing stunts, from a website that invited people to post complaints about Polish people and other eastern European migrants in the country to the campaign rally in which he promised “fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands, his unexpected election win in 2023 had led other parties to seek votes by targeting the same groups, said Florian Drenth of Muslim Rights Watch.
“He’s setting marks at certain places and constantly using far-right rhetoric, which is normalising this narrative,” he said. “We’re seeing now that other parties have become more hardened.”
The priorities set out by the coalition government hint at this hardening, from its promise to send rejected asylum seekers to Uganda to exploring the possibility of revoking citizenship for serious crimes that have “an antisemitic aspect”, and slashing funding for organisations that help to integrate asylum-seekers.
“The dangerous thing is that we see that the rule of law – so this democratic system in which minority rights are protected and are being kept safe, so to say – we see that this is breaking down,” said Drenth. “But it’s happening in a way that is so slow that it’s normalised.”
As Wilders began campaigning for the general election, he framed migration as a problem to be eradicated, calling for the Dutch border to be closed and the army to patrol it, as well as the deportation of Syrian refugees and Ukrainian men of fighting age.
The far-right framing clashes with the reality of the country, said Bart Lauret of the Dutch Council for Refugees. “When it comes to migration more broadly – including labour and skilled migration – it is essential to emphasise that the Netherlands needs these people: in healthcare, in industry, in construction, in agriculture.”
Even so, the far-right discourse had spilled out of politics and into the streets of late, said Lauret in an email. “This hardening of positions is also visible in society: fierce protests against new asylum centres, violent far-right demonstrations.”
The result is an election campaign that had focused more on scapegoating asylum-seekers – a group that represents a small portion of total migrants – than laying out concrete proposals to tackle the issues facing the country. “Asylum seekers and residence permit holders have wrongly been stigmatised as being responsible for all kinds of problems in society, from the housing crisis to the undermining of the welfare state,” said Lauret. “Refugees come here seeking safety; they are fleeing war and violence. These people deserve humanity, not politicians blaming them for everything that goes wrong.”
Politicians’ continual targeting of asylum-seekers, however, had come with an unexpected upside, said Lauret, citing a surge in support for the council’s efforts to speak up for migrants’ rights. “We also see a rise in the number of volunteers wanting to support refugees.”
It was a similar story across the Muslim community, said Drenth. “Some in the Islamic community, they are asking whether we belong here. And they’re worried about it,” he said. “But on the other hand, we see that yes, we do belong here. And that’s why we are stepping up for our rights.”
The hardening discourse had laid bare the need for Muslims – many of them born and raised in the Netherlands – to play an active role in shaping the country’s future, said Kendir. “There’s a strong sense now that silence is not an option,” she said. “So we see more young Muslims getting politically active, informed and engaged. We want a Netherlands that takes equality seriously. Not just as a slogan, but in real policy and daily life.”
