The Murder of Pim Fortuyn and Collective Emotions. Hype, Hysteria and Holiness in The Netherlands?
2003; Volume: 16; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0921-5158
Autores Tópico(s)Freedom of Expression and Defamation
ResumoThe meteoric rise in the popularity of Pim Fortuyn and his political movement and its abrupt end, caused by his assassination on May 6 2002, was followed by an outburst of collective emotion. These phenomena involve two waves of hype in which the media played a major role. Massive media attention for Fortuyn as a politician who was gifted with great charisma and was said to 'speak the language of the people', made politically inactive social groups conscious of the potential role he could fulfill in solving the social problems with which they were confronted. His sudden death was consequently a great loss for his followers. The outpouring of public emotion that followed resulted in the creation of several spontaneous shrines, where thousands left messages, and which were visited by many thousands more. For a large part of Dutch society, the intense media coverage of this new phenomenon made these shrines pre-eminent constructed foci for dealing with and processing Fortuyn's murder. At the same time they functioned as 'democratic' tools in articulating criticism towards politics, and proved the hype to be an effective and meaningful one. On May 6,2002, at 6:06 p.m., as he left a radio interview as part of his election campaign, the politician Pim Fortuyn was slain in the parking lot of the national Mediapark in Hilversum. He was killed by five shots from a Firestar pistol wielded by Volkert van der Graaf, a 32-year-old environmentalist and animal rights activist from Harderwijk.1 It was the first political murder in The Netherlands since it became a kingdom and sent an unprecedented shock wave sweeping through Dutch society.2 It was not only the political nature of the murder that shocked society an anomaly within the non-violent and pacifist traditions of Dutch culture but also the sudden silencing of a powerful, new political voice and movement that was challenging the otherwise staid Dutch political establishment and holding up the image of a new society. Fortuyn represented a political voice in which a substantial, but regularly ignored, part of the lower and middle classes of the nation heard their views and feelings reflected. In this article, on the basis of a first selection from the thousands of letters, cards and website postings that people left at spontaneous material and virtual memorial sites, I wish to begin the process of understanding the meteoric but short-lived success of this new political movement and the massive and collective mourning and outpouring of condolences that followed the killing of Fortuyn. This process can be interpreted as 106 ETNOFOOR, XVI(2) 2003, pp. 106-131 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.161 on Mon, 23 May 2016 06:12:44 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms two different waves of hypes. But was this all 'hype' and according to some even 'hysteria' (Pels 2003:263,299; Van Schoonhoven and Wytzes 2003:26) connected with both the political movement and the personal involvement of the Fortuynists and other Netherlanders, and therefore, a less relevant or functional phenomenon? Wim Kok, then Prime Minister, had already at that time stated that he believed the Fortuyn phenomenon prior to May 6 was hype, orchestrated and perpetuated primarily by the media.3 Both before and after May 6, 2001, many commentators were asking how long Fortuyn and his LPF would be able to retain their popularity and wide support after the elections.4 Until how long after the murder would the collective emotions last and to what extent would they influence the popularity of the movement? Prime Minister Kok used the word 'hype' in a pejorative way to downgrade the importance of the movement itself and of the sincere motivations of Fortuyn's supporters. It is still an open question whether that does justice to the significance of the phenomenon. Kok underestimated the importance of the movement for society. Despite this fact, the media played an essential role in facilitating, and stimulating the awareness of discomfort among Fortuyn's (potential) supporters, and subsequently mobilizing them. This also accounts for the outburst of emotions after his death. It is on this outburst, the second wave of hype, on which I will concentrate in this article. Against that background, I will also examine to what degree and in what way this wave was seized upon, not only to express harsh criticism and protest against the system, but also to 'canonize' Fortuyn as a hero, saint or messiah after his death. A political sea change In fact, until shortly before his death, apart from political, governmental and academic circles, the 54-year-old, unmarried homosexual Pirn Fortuyn (February 19, 1948 May 6, 2002)5 was not widely known among his countrymen.6 He studied sociology, took his doctorate, became a lecturer at the University of Groningen, and later was appointed to a privately funded chair at Rotterdam's Erasmus University. In this latter function he was however, more occupied with political questions than with scientific research. When, in 1992, he also became a columnist with the widely read Dutch, weekly, news magazine Elsevier, he began to air his own views of Dutch politics and society. He unfolded his idiosyncratic perspective on The Netherlands, the world and their social, economic and cultural problems in many columns, and ultimately in twelve books. As early as 1994 he proposed the rebuilding of The Netherlands by a non-political cabinet of experts, of which he himself would be 'prime minister'. What he initially presented as a metaphor a position as prime minister began to attract serious attention, and Fortuyn began 'to reckon with the possibility that perhaps some day it might yet happen' (Fortuyn 2002b:359). But it was only in the middle of 2001 that he resolved to do something about the nation's problems himself and really became politically active. His time had come, and
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