The politics of resentment

Notwithstanding his call to ban the Koran, Wilders and his admirers claim to believe in unfettered free speech as a Western birthright. No criticism of Islam, however offensive, should ever be hampered by political correctness. And Wilders uses every opportunity to test the tolerance of Muslims, which is often very limited indeed. His latest provocation is a short film denouncing Islam, which is yet to be shown but has already caused panic. Remarkably for a Dutch politician, and a minor one at that, news of Wilders' antics has reached the world media.

Some commentators have suggested that Wilders, born and raised a Catholic in a provincial Dutch town, is a true believer like his Muslim enemies, a man driven by the goal of keeping Europe Judeo-Christian. He may be a believer, but this is probably a red herring. His war on Islam is also, and perhaps even mainly, a war on the cultural and political elites, the Dutch intellectual establishment, the Eurocrats of Brussels, the liberal-minded queen. His speeches are studded with references to the arrogant elites who are out of touch with the feelings of the common man. Tolerance is seen as weak and typical of people who live far removed from the harsh realities of the street, where upstanding Dutch folks are being menaced by violent and unruly foreigners.

This notion of the elitist appeaser is not confined to the Netherlands. In Israel they are called, with a knowing sneer, "beautiful souls" -- the educated Jewish activists who criticize Israeli abuses against Palestinians, the Israeli peaceniks who believe that negotiation is better than violence and that even Arabs have rights.

The common man, more in touch with the real world, supposedly knows better. Uncompromising toughness, the hard line, is the only way to get results. In the United States, the word "liberal," in the mouths of populist radio jockeys and right-wing politicians, has become almost synonymous with effete urban snobs of both coasts. Liberals, in this view, are not only soft but have about them something distinctly un-American.

The association of elites with foreignness, with tolerance and with metropolitan cities, is old. Elites can often speak foreign languages, and big cities are traditionally more open to mixed populations. Modern populism -- American politicians running, or pretending to be running, "against Washington," French populists speaking for "deep France" -- is invariably hostile to capital cities. Brussels, capital of the European Union, stands for everything that populists, left or right, hate. And big cities are where most immigrants live, not in the kind of small towns where right-wing populists find most of their support.

Still, the politics of resentment does best when it can tap into real fears. There are reasons for people to feel anxious about economic globalization, pan-European bureaucracy, the huge and not always effectively controlled influx of immigrants and the aggression of radical political Islam. These anxieties have too often been ignored. There is a sense among many Europeans, not just in the Netherlands, that they have been abandoned in a fast-changing world, that multinational corporations are more powerful than nation-states, that the urban rich and highly educated do fine while ordinary folks in the provinces languish, and that democratically elected politicians are not only powerless but have abjectly given in to these larger forces that threaten the common man. Tolerance is seen not just as weak but as a betrayal.

The Muslim threat too is not just a fantasy. A small number of ideological extremists has inflicted real violence in the name of the Islamic faith, and will continue to do so. But the popular resentment goes deeper and wider. Wilders, and others like him, are not just attacking the extremists. His success is based on the sense of betrayal, and as so often happens, the loathing of elites has found an outlet in the loathing of outsiders.

We must fight Islamic extremism, to be sure, but not by tapping into the darkest gut feelings of the unthinking mob. Nothing good ever came from that.

Ian Buruma is a contributing editor to Opinion. He is a professor of human rights at Bard College, and his most recent book is "Murder in Amsterdam: The Killing of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance."