Dear Filip Dewinter
If Shakespeare were still alive, he could write a juicy tragedy about you. About the rise and fall of a political prodigy. From people’s despot to people’s traitor. For more than thirty years you set the tone for the public debate in Flanders, but recently you have even been gently pushed to the margins by your own chairman. When you went for coffee with Greek fascists or Syrian mass murderers, you usually received a symbolic slap on the wrist. Now that in the final stretch to crucial elections it appears that you are in the pocket of the Chinese, the embarrassment in your party is increasing. Your record is becoming too poor for Vlaams Belang. Very strange. Is the cyclo-cross rider embarrassed because his face is covered in mud? The triathlete because he is wet? The bear for shitting in the woods?
It doesn’t surprise me what my colleagues say Humo and Apache have exposed about you. I find it enlightening. Yes, it seems crazy that the man who built his career on the slogan ‘Own people first’ allows himself to be bribed by China and is also in league with Russia. But there is a method to this madness. Lend me your ear and I will explain it here. First I will praise your talent, then I will bury you. Purely figuratively, that speaks.
Your talent goes without saying. The fact that almost everyone speaks your language today is because you have firmly ingrained it. When Theo Francken talks about “illegal crap”, he is following in your footsteps. The annual round of hyperventilating about the headscarf is partly your credit. Nicole de Moor’s policy is based on the raw xenophobia you have sown. And when Professor Bart Maddens says that the cordon sanitary is the left’s life insurance to stay in power, he is reciting a worn-out DeWinterian debate sheet that I don’t think you believe anymore. I think you often laugh with your hands on your stomach when you read that silly and dirty talk. Full is full! More closed centers! We are the drain of Europe! Population is worth a serious debate! Although you too probably draw the line somewhere: I don’t see you saying that it is best to beat Roma with the matrak, even after fifteen buns of Koninck and six sausage loaves.
Before I explain the logic behind your espionage, let me quickly say this: I hope you have a dry cellar where the banknotes are waiting in man-sized stacks until you exchange Ekeren for a dacha on the Russian Riviera. You officially declared expense reports of – poor things – several thousand euros to your Chinese boss. A bit sad for someone with your income. I assume that you were also unofficially allowed to collect suitcases full of black money. Pats who fill their pockets usually do so with zeal and diligence – and you don’t lack that.
And now the line of criticism I promised you. At first glance it seems madness to fight for one’s own people and at the same time spy for someone else. On second thought, it’s understandable. Just like yourself, your famous slogan has a double meaning. Let us descend into history to clarify this. First some familiar material: collaboration. Your party is rooted in sympathy with the Nazi occupier. Their own people were sold out, betrayed and, if necessary, taken in trucks to the trains of death. The perpetrators and instigators of that moral sellout are still honored by you and yours. And your party has not changed. What does a name say? What we call Vlaams Blok or Vlaams Belang would smell just as rancid with any other name.
Quid China and Russia? Aren’t they traditionally archenemies of Nazism? Bwah. In practice it certainly came down to that at the time, but were they or were they not totalitarian regimes? That is the question. In totalitarian regimes, the first prey of power is always its own people. Yep, if there had to be persecution and starvation and killing, it also applied to the communists: own people first! Political dissidents, annoying journalists, strange artists, men with glasses and so on: to the camp with those people. I’m just saying, you don’t have to tie yourself in knots to collaborate with China and Russia. If your party comes to power, annoying members of your own people will also have to be dealt with first. My suitcase with toothbrush and teddy bear is ready.
The question remains: will the stream of revelations – now that it appears that you even lied to parliament about face masks – cause electoral damage to your party or yourself? The answer is known to anyone who has followed you since the late 80s: of course not. For your party, nothing can stop the advance, as seems to be the case with Trump: that man will still be elected behind bars. If one ever finds a freezer full of sawed-off heads in your basement, next to the stacks of money, the voter will still remain loyal to you. People will say: it’s just a story told by an idiot, it means nothing.
In fact, if I may believe the Flemish commentators, the voter can whitewash politicians who preached racism – they say about Conner Rousseau. Seems like a nice prospect to me that Vlaams Belang can become a virgin again with roughly 30 percent!
Zài jiàn
Joël De Ceulaer, senior writer
