If Mark Rutte Gets To Set the Bar For Leadership, We Are Screwed

Last week The New York Times published a glowing article on Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister. ‘Playing by the Rules: Dutch Leader Offers a Sober Contrast in a Brash Era’, written by Thomas Erdbrink. In the article Mark Rutte is portrayed as a humble leader, living a sober life. We understand why The New York Times would print such an article, since our prime minister comes across very differently from other leaders in the world, such as president Donald Trump or president Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. But the politics of the biking prime minister with the indestructible smile are not free from populist sentiments with racist undertones.

The article is heavily focused on his ‘style’ instead of his political legacy, and paints an all too rosy picture of our prime minister. For example, Mark Rutte does pay for his own coffees and refuses to be reimbursed (the man makes 170.910 euro a year, or 14242 a month, or 468 euro a day, him paying for his own coffee is the least he can do). Mark Rutte is head of the center-right VVD, or People’s Party of Freedom and Democracy, a party that last year for the eighth year in a row was said to be the party with the most ‘integrity affairs’, according to the Political Integrity Index held by the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant. Integrity scandals stemming from drunk driving, to lying about meetings with foreign leaders, to fraud.

Integrity

The list of shady or outright fraudulent VVD politicians is so long, that whole books on the subject exist. A popular misstep amongst them is being less than honest about their income, so they receive more public assistance or pay less taxes. Another is having conflicts of interest where political responsibilities conveniently overlap with business or financial interests. Then there are the legal convictions for stealing, fraud and money laundering. In 2017, Henry Keizer had to resign as the national chairman of the party after investigative journalistic platform Follow The Money revealed he was under investigation for tens of millions in fraud and forgery. 

When it comes to the business of politics the list is just as long. Several Secretaries of State and Ministers of the VVD serving under Rutte have had to resign after lying to parliament, disappearing public documents and in one case even fabricating complete meetings with salient quotes ascribed to Vladimir Putin. Each time Rutte stood in front of parliament, denied knowing anything about it and tearfully defended his colleagues. 

It is in Mark Rutte’s interest to make sure that, while other members of his party misbehave time and again under his leadership, he himself exudes a squeaky clean image. Omitting the many transgressions of his colleagues and party whilst lauding his leadership seems a bit one sided.  

Discrimination and racism

Erdbrink in his article explains what the Dutch ‘poldermodel’ is: a way of coming together and building consensus. He says it’s ingrained in Dutch society, stemming from the Medieval Era, as the country back then had to come together to build dikes and canals so the land could be livable.

But this is no longer the Medieval Era. On the contrary. The Dutch Prime Minister has been trying to ‘polder’ his way through institutionalized racism and discrimination in the Netherlands. For instance, in 2013 Rutte defended the Dutch black face tradition in which Santa Clause is celebrated with ‘Black Pete’. Rutte said: 

“Black Pete is black and I can't change that. That's his name. It is an old children's tradition and it is not about a green or brown person. I can only say that my friends in the Dutch Antilles are very happy when they celebrate Sinterklaas because they do not have to paint their faces. And if I myself have to play Black Piet then I have to spend days getting the paint off my face."

A few days ago, with the protests against police violence and racism gaining momentum, Rutte changed his tune and said while he still doesn’t believe black face is racist, he spoke to people “with a dark skin color, with children who said ‘I feel incredibly discriminated against because Piet is black’’, and somewhat changed his view: ‘Then I thought: that’s the last thing you want at the Sinterklaas party.’ This however doesn’t mean his party or the government will prohibit black face (as they have done the veil in public buildings and transportation). No, Rutte emphasizes that his changed position is a ‘private view’ and not cabinet policy. ‘There are no government agencies that deal with Black Pete’, he said. 

This insistence on separating politics from tradition is a bit rich coming from the party that literally ran campaign ads claiming: ‘Celebrating Sinterklaas doesn’t make you racist’ and called anti-racism activists ‘drammers’ (meaning people who are both whiny and pushy about their agenda). Those on the receiving end of racism and discrimination, were told by Rutte to ‘fight their own way in’ in 2015, on the back of another scathing report on discrimination in the job market. 

Institutional and financial racism

That institutional racism (a term Rutte has said to ‘hate’) exists in the Netherlands, is proven by the fact that the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration has engaged in ethnic profiling and in doing so disadvantaged at least 11.000 people between 2012 and 2015. People were selected for extra scrutiny of their social surcharges on the basis of ‘dual nationality’, investigative journalists from the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw and tv news organisation RTL Nieuws found. More than 11.000 people with dual nationality were required to undergo additional checks. The reporting revealed that for a lot of them their childcare allowance was discontinued and reclaimed – without justification or on the basis of minor mistakes. According to the Tax and Customs Administration, a 'risk module' was built in 2012 that was used to determine the provisional assessment, making dual citizenship one of the ‘risk factors’. 

RTL journalist Pieter Klein reported that surcharges of thousands of people were stopped and reclaimed, creating money issues for many and putting extra stress on families. One of the victims even committed suicide. People who objected were told they were suspected of fraud but were never shown any evidence for these claims. If they objected, the Tax Administration took them to court. Most victims of this discriminatory policy will never be reïmbursed, and promises have been made to those responsible at the Tax Office that they will not be punished.

You would expect a prime minister to unequivocally speak out against these injustices. However, the Dutch prime minister himself has been convicted of racism by the courts. In 2003 Rutte - then a State Secretary for Social Affairs - advised municipalities to do additional checks on Somalis who receive social assistance benefits, tracing residents of Somali origin by searching the population register by place of birth. The court's ruling in 2007: 

"The court finds that an investigation that exclusively focuses on persons of Somali origin is discriminatory. Article 1 of the Dutch constitution dictates that all who reside in the Netherlands will receive equal treatment in equal situations. Discrimination on the basis of religion, race, sex, or on any grounds whatsoever is not permitted. The court finds that in this case there is discrimination on the basis of race because it concerns a group of people of Somali origin, regardless of the nationality of the person concerned.” 

Instead of showing remorse, Rutte commented that if this is the law, the law has to be changed. Three years later he entered into the first cabinet that carried his name (we are currently governed by the third). It was a minority cabinet that was only able to govern with support of the far right PVV (Party For Freedom) led by Geert Wilders. However, it wasn’t the racist views and blatant islamophobia within the PVV that broke up the partnership. It was the fact that Geert Wilders walked out on negotiations on austerity. 

Because it is not ‘his no-nonsense approach to politics’ that has led Mr. Rutte ‘to steer the Netherlands away from its longtime cradle-to-grave welfare state’. But his staunch neoliberal beliefs. As Erdbink rightly observes ‘the Netherlands has grown increasingly businesslike and conservative’. And it is this determination to run the country like a business, that has left so many of its citizens in the cold. Even in the middle of a global pandemic, big companies like KLM are paid billions in bailout support and get to put millions of tax payer money towards executive bonuses, while the least fortunate see their welfare allowances decimated.

That might seem like a ‘sober contrast’ to Thomas Erdbrink, but it sure looks like business as usual to us.

cc-foto: Roel Wijnants