Sky Castle

I really am. I don't know how many people around here follow international politics. The Netherlands voted today. Almost 15% of the Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders and the PVV and I am scared.

I am frightened by him. Geert Wilders is intelligent, idealistic, charismatic, racist and not scared to use every dirty trick in the book and a couple of new ones. He uses tactics that I have come to associate with Adolf Hitler in the early 1930's.

Geert Wilders targets the Islam, and paints it like the Islamic religion in itself is a source of evil. He makes it seem like all Muslims are terrorists or criminals, like the crisis is their fault and like the Dutch culture is being ruined or at the very least threatened by each and every Muslim living in this country. He makes it seem like violence is the answer. He makes it seem justified to discriminate against Muslim people or even to use violence in whatever form against them. He is ruthless, racist and seemingly without empathy.

This is a man that blames the economic crisis on a group of people, based on their religion. He uses people's fears and worries and does not only use them, but also actively works to enlarge them. He makes Muslims the scapegoats of society, and nevermind the effects of his actions on thousands of lifes of people, people my age, whose grandparents came here and who have never known anything but the Netherlands, but have now firmly been labled 'foreigners'.

Yes, I am scared. I am scared because this is a freightning man, but I am even more scared because 3 in every 20 people think he is right. I am terrified by that but I am also very, very disappointed in my country.

What also scares me is that in the future, people will associate me with hate for Muslims on account of my being from the country where this man became so big. I am scared that people will only see those 15% who are in their own right extremist, and forget that more than half of the people actively did NOT vote for Wilders. You might think it's a far fear, but isn't that exactly what Geert Wilders has done for the Muslims? He's taken a minority and made it the prime example of what all Muslims are like.

I am scared.