Do you remember Pim Fortuyn? Possibly not, because, unlike Jo Cox or Martin Luther King, you’re not really supposed to. He was the gay Dutch politician shot in the head back in 2002 for daring to express sceptical thoughts about the likely negative consequences for men like him of allowing large numbers of Muslims to flood into his nation, post-9/11. A large number of his countrymen evidently agreed with Fortuyn’s pessimistic assessment of Islam as being “a backwards culture”, as he seemed set to win big in the upcoming Dutch general election – until, that May 6th, he got some free bullets in his head, JFK-style.
As the event becomes gradually lost in the mists of time, most people, logically enough, tend to misremember that Fortuyn was perhaps shot by a mad Islamist, but this is incorrect. In fact, it was a nutty far-Left animal rights activist who did for him (hadn’t he heard how halal cattle are slaughtered?) Pim’s true killer, Volkert van der Graaf, who heart-wrenchingly “struggled to explain his veganism at dinner parties”, viewed Fortuyn as a threat to minority rights, which, ironically, was just what Fortuyn was arguing himself about Islam.
Van der Graaf: Generator of Controversy
In 2003, Van der Graaf got 18 years behind bars, but was released in 2014 anyway, because that’s just how fake judicial sentences work these days. When he originally failed to get the life sentence demanded by prosecutors, observers booed, stamped their feet and left the courtroom. He has since been allowed to emigrate somewhere more congenial to his tastes (Tehran? Islamabad?), whence he is obliged to submit a semi-regular “written report on his progress” to Dutch probation services, which presumably goes something like this:
Dear Insp. van der Valk,
Just to let you know: still haven’t brutally killed anyone else of ‘populist’ opinions who deserves it lately, not even Geert Wilders. Hope to keep it up!!!
Best,
Volkert xxx
According to completely unbiased Dutch media reports about his lenient parole conditions, “far-Right MPs said the decision was scandalous”. Of course, no normal people could ever have objected to this wholly reasonable and not-at-all overly-soft measure, could they? Only evil fascists would care one teeny, tiny, iota about punishing a man who had quite understandably murdered an Islamophobe.
As Fortuyn had been relentlessly demonised in the mainstream Dutch media as supposedly being a far-Right extremist – as so many flamboyantly homosexual liberals who selfishly object to being thrown off tall buildings by Taliban-types are these days – some of his supporters blamed the press and TV for his murder. According to this interpretation, journalists were guilty of generating an atmosphere in which a suggestible idiot like van der Graaf could essentially end up being brainwashed into thinking that, by popping a bullet in Fortuyn’s skull, he was doing humanity a favour by wiping out the next Hitler before he could begin converting all the mosques into gas chambers.
“The media did it!” chanted crowds outside the Dutch Parliament building as the death of their vanished hero Pim was officially announced. As they did so, one hard-Left agitator on the scene pulled out a poster of Mr. Fortuyn and tore it up before the crowd’s eyes. In the years since, I strongly suspect this individual may have gone on to occupy a prominent role within the U.K. journalism industry.
Jumping the Gun
If the media really did ‘do it’, as the crowds back in 2002 asserted, then has history just repeated itself over in Slovakia, where the country’s currently bullet-ridden Prime Minister, Robert Fico, has just narrowly survived an assassination attempt of his own? According to his supporters, Fico’s assassin was also primed to pull the trigger by unrelenting media demonisation of the victim. Personally, I much prefer to blame the actual perpetrators for such crimes, not newsmen, but there is little doubt Fico generally gets a bad press.
Full details are as yet unclear, but the alleged shooter, who has already been named in early reports as a 71-year-old amateur poet and former security guard named Juraj Cintula, is said by some sources to be a Left-winger of some kind, albeit not an eco-nut like Volkert van der Graaf. According to one source, he was “constantly described as a radicalised Left-wing, ultra-liberal thinker by those who knew him closely” whilst another called him “a Left-wing militant with a passion for poetry”.
Yet to glance through many major mainstream news sources, you would be forgiven for thinking, at least at first glance, that Cintula was a leading far-Right activist, having as he apparently did links to ultra-nationalist paramilitary groups, who objected to outsiders coming into the country. Like a non-gay Pim Fortuyn, it appears Mr. Cintula wished to protect “the inhabitants, the country, tradition [and] culture” from invasion by unassimilable outside forces. But how does that square with his simultaneous alleged status as a “radicalised Left-wing, ultra-liberal thinker”?
It may well be that Cintula’s motives are mixed, or even incoherent. Like most of the British media, my prior knowledge of Slovakian politics is basically nil, and what counts as Left- or Right-wing there may not necessarily transfer easily across to a U.K. context. On economics, if not culture, Robert Fico is what we may broadly understand as being on the Left, and as such has often been described as a “Left-populist” by some commentators in the past. Nonetheless, it was evidently felt that a simple, easily-understood party line had to be taken on it all anyway, the line in question being as follows: Fico, like the equally non-PC Pim Fortuyn, was a borderline crypto-fascist who deserved to eat lead.
The Left Is Always Right
Just look at the tone of coverage of the event in the U.K., where the victim was constantly described as being ‘polarising’. How can any politician, of whatever ideological leanings, not be ‘polarising’?
Nonetheless, ‘polarising’ was the key adjective used in almost all early coverage of the attack. Sky News said things like Fico was a “populist” who was “very divisive in the EU” due to, for example, his staunch anti-immigration stance and outspoken nationalism, and therefore “it’s not surprising this sort of event might take place”. Did Sky News ever opine it was “not surprising” Jo Cox got stabbed back in 2016 because she was being “very divisive” by advocating mass immigration and publicly supporting Remain during the Brexit referendum? No, because that in itself would of course be just more ‘divisive’ rhetoric, whereas demonising someone of opposing, anti-EU, political leanings is merely a reflection of what the media think constitutes all normal right-thinking opinion.
The unspoken media subtext this time around, perhaps, is that Fico, as something of an anti-EU firebrand, and therefore supposedly ‘far-Right’, somehow had it coming: I thought the Left were none too keen on ‘victim-blaming’ these days? Depends what kind of victim it is, I suppose.
A major logical problem with this narrative, of course, is that, if Fico was indeed shot for being excessively Right-wing, as much initial reporting appeared framed to initially imply, then it would actually only make sense if he was shot by an opposing Left-winger. But this would create problems, as it would then obviously make Left-wingers look like the violent bad guys here. Thus, the alleged would-be assassin has instead to be presented primarily as a Right-wing ultra-nationalist who, for some strange reason, tried to shoot dead a politician who was every bit as anti-immigration as he himself appears to have been. Most media outlets were eager to reproduce social media images of Cintula meeting anti-immigrant paramilitaries from the ‘Slovenski Branci’ movement in uniform:
It is not illegitimate to publish such photos: they are apparently real, and may indeed turn out to point to his motives. Yet if so, then the basic consequent line of ‘Right-winger shot by Right-winger’ makes little narrative sense, at least from a propaganda viewpoint: ‘Right-winger shot by Left-winger’ does make narrative sense, but fails to impart the ‘correct’ desired message, so is automatically jettisoned by most outlets in favour of the former. For example, another public social media post of Cintula celebrated the birthday of noted far-Left paramilitary leader Che Guevara – and yet I could only find one single media outlet (Sky News, ironically enough) which mentioned this fact, someway down its analysis of the man’s previous online activities.
Maybe the most honest line to impart would be “We don’t know why this man did it, TBH, maybe he’s just mad”, but this would be to miss an excellent opportunity to demonise the Right – even if this opportunity would involve demonising both the victim and the alleged perpetrator alike as being borderline fascists, in the hope most viewers or readers don’t stop to actually think about this weird paradox properly. Fortunately, as the story involves Slovakia, a country most Westerners couldn’t give the slightest tiny shit about, the vast majority of consumers will basically just skim past the story after glancing at all the exciting images of a man they’d never previously heard of being brutally shot, whilst simultaneously and uncritically absorbing the intended media message that ‘all Right-wingers are bad and violent’.
Rivers of Mud
There seems to be something of a truth-muddying media-myth being promulgated at the moment, to the effect that acts of extreme political violence are only ever committed by members of the Far-Right, as with Jo Cox; a theory which might meet with some resistance from the ghost of Pim Fortuyn (or indeed of Leon Trotsky), I would imagine.
This idea seems to have been around for a while, even in fiction. In 1970, a trash-thriller appeared in British bookstores, Who Killed Enoch Powell? by Arthur Wise, in which the hugely popular, but also hugely hated (or ‘polarising’, if you will), anti-immigration politician in question was blown to smithereens by a bomb whilst giving a speech in Yorkshire.
To judge by synopses, the answer to the titular question of who actually killed Enoch is ‘the far-Right’, who exploit the situation to engineer their own rise to power by blaming Leftists/non-whites for the outrage, thereby gaining public support to stage a popular fascist coup.
The awkward fact is, however, that in real life, Powell was indeed the subject of numerous intimidatory threats of violence against his person – but, naturally, as with Nigel Farage today, they came not from the anti-immigration Right, but the pro-immigration Left. Throughout the 60s and 70s, ‘Disembowel Enoch Powell!‘ was as common a student Trot placard slogan as ‘From the River to the Sea!’ is today. Black radicals marched through the streets bearing such signs alongside an effigy of Powell in a coffin, which they then proceeded to remove and burn. During one university speech, a protester placed a fake bomb on the stage where he was speaking (albeit a kind of comedy one, like from a cartoon), before Enoch was eventually forced to flee. So, the real-life Left threaten Enoch Powell, then we get a book in which the fictional Right are blamed for exploiting the fact.
Today, a sequel to the book could be called Who (Nearly) Killed Robert Fico?, to which the official answer would no doubt likewise be “An evil Nazi, it could be no other”. And yet, the very existence of books like this, which fantasise about Right-wing bogeymen being killed, would seem to suggest that Leftists, too, are actually capable of acts of extreme violence towards political opponents, not just Rightists.
I have no objection to authors writing stories about the murder of any given public figure they like. It’s fiction, after all. But, strangely, it only ever seems to be stories about Right-wing people getting murdered which end up getting published. ‘Divisive’ and ‘polarising’ figures existed on the Left during Powell’s own time in politics too, you know. And yet, I don’t remember major publishers ever having released any airport thrillers with titles like Who Stabbed Tony Benn? or Who Set Barbara Castle’s Head On Fire?
Such an unbalanced literary situation continues today. I find there are several novels and short stories by Guardianista-types imagining the violent murder of Donald Trump currently available on the market (How It Ends by Zoe Sharp was even printed in the New York Times), but none from reputable publishers treating Joe Biden similarly – although maybe that’s just because Joe’s pending appointment at Dignitas renders any sniper’s bullet wholly unnecessary anyway.
Just as the NYT was happy to print a tale about the killing of Trump, so in 2014 our very own Guardian was happy to print one called The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983, by Hillary Mantell. “Rejoice,” concludes Mantel’s story, once Maggie is no more. “Fucking rejoice.” Given the general tone of their coverage, you could be forgiven for concluding that’s precisely what the average Western journo these days thought about the shooting of ‘far-Right’ Robert Fico too, just like with poor Pim Fortuyn before him.
Forget the actual killings and attempted killings of public political figures in any of these cases, whether real or imagined: the true opportunity not to be missed is for a spot of light character assassination instead.
Steven Tucker is a journalist and the author of over 10 books, the latest being Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science: When Science Fiction Was Turned Into Science Fact by the Nazis and the Soviets (Pen & Sword/Frontline), which is out now.
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Well it always seems to be Leftards behaving like mental and aggressive thugs against Right-wingers doesn’t it? They’ve got some serious anger issues. A perfect example is what the German AfD politicians suffer on the regular, and this is most certainly caused by the media over there. Just the latest here. Does it not say it all that you can smash a glass ashtray over someone’s head, which causes injury and the need for hospital treatment, but the suspect is not even arrested, only ”spoken to” by the police?
”A left-wing extremist is being investigated in Germany on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after a state lawmaker for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was attacked with a glass ashtray in the northern German city of Schwerin.
The incident occurred in a Scottish-themed karaoke bar in the early hours of Friday morning where Martin Schmidt, a member of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament, was unwinding with parliamentary colleagues.
The suspect was spoken to and identified on-site by police officers but was not arrested because “there were no grounds for detention,” according to the authorities. They confirmed an investigation is ongoing into “dangerous bodily harm and insult.”
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania AfD state chairman Leif-Erik Holm accused the media of fueling the rise in attacks against those affiliated with his party, accusing them of further escalating the “political violence from the left.”
He said the attack was “the result of the agitation and propaganda against our party that has been going on for months.
“I expect Prime Minister Schwesig and Interior Minister Pegel to condemn the act decisively. And I appeal to the political competition, but also to some media, to finally verbally disarm. The constant slander, defamation, and distorted images create a political climate that promotes exactly such acts,” he added.”
https://rmx.news/article/afd-state-mp-hospitalized-after-glass-ashtray-attack-by-left-wing-extremist-in-karoake-bar/
I am glad to see you are first on this as usual. When it comes to this issue you are main (man, woman, or whatever of the other 277 1/2 genders you identify as). The Islamophiles are enough to make us all vomit into our cornflakes, but I have just managed to get my wife to read “Beyond Terror” by Anne Marie Waters and she is now beginning to understand why I have been making such a fuss over the years. She was quite astonished to read some of the stuff in that book and kept saying to me “Listen to this”——-Keep up the good work
😸 👍
check out the thumbs down —–ha ha ha jeez
Is that the normal Police procedure over there? Let’s see what happens if we glass one of the MSM MPs. Remember on Twitter when Tommy Robinson got a Milkshake thrown at him and so many MPs were laughing about it. There was a reaction because the Left has no self awareness. I told him I have a Milkshake just for him!
Probably, you have to be there in Slovakia to make any kind of sense at all of an essentially senseless criminal and barbarous action.
Fico:
‘Fico’s Party is a successor party of the Neo-Stalinist Slovak Communist Party. Just like Putin he incorporated a form of Nationalism & Social/Religious Conservatism. He was however Leftist on some issues.
Some on Right opposed Fico for different reasons while some on Left also opposed Fico for other reasons.’
Cintula:
‘I have known him for decades. If he was planning something, there were no signs. But I can’t look into his head……Our whole building is trying to understand why he did this‘
‘Some say he was some pro-Russian activist, others call him a leftwing terrorist and blame the opposition for stoking the attack. It depends on who you ask and who they voted for’
‘He is 71 years old unstable and mentally unwell person. He has been all over place. In rather short time-span he managed to be anti-Roma racist, pro Russian paramilitarist, private security employer, poet, pro Ukraine liberal, founder of “Society against violence”, attempted murderer.
So drawing any political or geopolitical conclusion from this insane person and his act is pointless and insane itself.’
https://www.reddit.com/r/Slovakia/comments/1ct8gfw/could_you_provide_me_some_information_about_juraj/?rdt=33601&onetap_auto=true&one_tap=true
Politics in Europe is increasingly polarised. The EU, rather than bringing everyone together, seems now to be a divisive Imperium not unlike the Austro Hungarian Empire in its latter stages.
Slovakia’s political landscape has been sharply separated for years between pro-European and nationalist-leaning factions led by Fico.
“The shooting is, of course, tragic and every single Slovak should condemn it…….but at the same time, Fico and his party were the ones contributing to this climate of hate in society.”
Martin (Cintula’s neighbour)
“I hope I am wrong but I believe this will not be the last shooting,”
Jana Bačík, a 22-year-old student.‘
Isn’t the key point of the article though the contrasting reactions to such events depending on the political persuasion of the victim?
And that nice bit of victim-blaming ‘they were the ones contributing to the climate of hate’.
Populism, like anti-elitism, is left-wing by its very nature.
Well, they managed to turn Hitler and Mussolini – basically radical socialists – into “far right” – in the case of the former, his political party even had the word socialist in it – so they can turn anyone into a far right radical.
The method is crude but effective. Relentless repetition.
I will take the author to task on one thing. There is no logical issue in the idea of brutal conflict between two sides of the same ideological spectrum. It happens all the time, In fact WWIi was largely the conflict between national socialism and international socialism. It happens within religions too. Shia vs Sunni, Catholics vs Protestants.
You’d think that because they have more in common than not, they would get along and fight others, but as we observe in human nature all the time, often the closer you are, the more hatred and conflict you find. I suppose because that’s where the power struggle really begins.
Well, they managed to turn Hitler and Mussolini – basically radical socialists – into “far right” – in the case of the former, his political party even had the word socialist in it – so they can turn anyone into a far right radical.
The method is crude but effective. Relentless repetition.
Is this hitlering of the other party, whatever the other party happens to be, really effective or is it just mindless repetition of a learned trope by mindless people?
He was shot by the CIA-Deep State. He wanted an indepth investigation into the Rona criminality. He is against the forever war with Russia. He is a Christian, a patriot and a believer in a limited state. He has criticised the WHO scamdemic treaty.
TPTB can’t tolerate such views. JFK and all that. 5 Black Presidents were murdered during the scamdemic for opposing the Medical Nazism. Fico joins a very long list of those murdered, or attempted to be murdered, by TPTB.
My thoughts exactly. 👍
World Council for Health called it out immediately, issued a statement on 17/05/24:
https://worldcouncilforhealth.substack.com/p/slovakias-pm-who-spoke-out-against
When Fico was elected Prime Minister in November 2023, he made his opposition to the WHO Pandemic Treaty clear, confirming publicly that Slovakia as a sovereign nation would not sign the Treaty. Later he announced an inquiry into what he called the ‘the whole circus around Covid’including the so-called vaccines, citing concerns about the 21,000 excess deaths since 2020.
Standing for peace, health freedom, and national sovereignty made Prime Minister Fico a marked man. His resistance to key aspects of the globalist agenda resulted in this heinous assassination attempt. …
Oops, should be posted under Pilla’s BTL.
You’re the only one (so far, I haven’t looked beyond here) who seems to have got close to what’s really happened. I’m sure this is a false flag or Deep State shooting. Nothing that happens these days can be taken at face value. We’ll see what happens…
There is no Far Right and never has been. Prior to roughly 1933 there was no Right whatsoever; it was invented by British Socialists because they objected to Hitlers Socialism.
In 1945, just prior to the end of the war, Hitler delivered a speech marking the anniversary of the naming of his party. He spoke of his dream, which he vowed would be eventually fulfilled, of a world Socialism movement of Socialist Governments. Around 6-7 years ago John McDonell, he of many boats, spoke of exactly the same thing. There was literally no difference between the two dreams of a world Socialist Government other than the original 1930’s difference: Hitler believed in the nation state and McDonell / Corbyn et al do not.
Ever since then anyone who is not Left is said to be Right and anyone who is, factually, right is deemed to be Far Right.
In my personal opinion if it is not a Socialist then it is on the side of the majority of people. Nutcases who go off murdering people are generally one man bands with a mental problem. For reference look at Jo Cox murderer who was a nutcase obsessed with Nazism which is, as I explained and Hitler went to great lengths to stress, Socialist. What did the British Socialists deem themselves to be and still do? Left wing.
There is no Far Right and never has been. Prior to roughly 1933 there was no Right whatsoever; it was invented by British Socialists because they objected to Hitlers Socialism.
This isn’t true. The political terms left and right go back to the French revolutionary national assembly where the radicals who wanted a democratic republic were seated on the left of the building and the moderates who wanted to keep a constitutional monarchy on the right.
Doesn’t this endless game of My political opponents are literally Hitler!, played by all ‘political’ people regardless of the side they claim to be on, ever get boring? The guy has been dead for almost 80 years now.
Agreed. That is my understanding of the definition of the political term, with it being an import & translation of the French Revolution phrases “La Gauche”, & “La Droite” – even to the extent of the structure of the Parliamentary House of Commons, in effect.
Excellent article by Steven Tucker. May I just point out some other factors in this attempt on Fico’s life, especially the connection with the judiciary, which the assassin himself mentioned.
“In an undated video posted on Facebook, the alleged attacker was seen saying: “I do not agree with government policy. Liquidated mass media. Why is RTVS (public broadcaster) being attacked? Why are people… Mazak, why has he been kicked out of his post?” he continued, in reference to Jan Mazak who had been removed as chairman of a state judicial council.”
Slovak leader Fico stable after surgery but condition ‘very serious’ (msn.com)
Note that only a month before the attack…”On 16 April 2024, Jan Mazak was removed from the post of President by 10 votes out of 16 members of the Council of the Judiciary present. The appellants argued that Mazák abused his position to unlawfully gather information against judges.”
The Slovak Prime Minister Fico was also anti-LGBT and vowed to end Slovakian military support for Ukraine, and to oppose Ukrainian membership of NATO.
Your final sentence says it all. It’s obviously a Deep State operation. I don’t rate Fico’s chances of ‘recovering’ very highly. Have you ever seen someone with such apparently seriously injuries being bundled into a car like Fico was (as seen in a clip on UKC news)? – isn’t someone like that normally supposed to be carefully left as they are until the medics can get to him?
Good article exposing the hypocrisy of the left for all to see. Tony Benn is one of the good guys from the old left. He was against joining the EEC.
A badly needed article on what is now commonly taking place, like nearly every day. Don’t like what someone says, organise their assisination or push them out a window, or down their helicopter. All happening with monotonous regularity. Who is going to be brave enough to fight the killers?
four yrs ago at the better way conference in Bath, one of the speakers had security detail and wore a protective vest. That was four yrs ago.
Today, the blatant epsteining of people, and assisnations are being done in broad daylight.
Arthur Docters van Leeuwen, the former head of the Dutch Domestic Intelligence Service once confided to me that Volkert van der Graaf could not, according to all the evidence examined by his service, have succeeded in pulling off his assassination of Fortuyn without outside assistance, which points to a conspiracy not a lone gunman.