Geert Wilders must be our most famous politician abroad by now. He travels a lot to the US and other countries to raise funds, give speeches and talk about his film. He is the leader of the PVV (Freedom Party) that keeps coming first or second in the polls. This may or may not surprise you, but it means people are angry and afraid. The party has one member (Wilders) and is strongly build around the great leader. Recently Wilders has started to include some leftist ideas, such as better care for the elderly and fierce opposition to reform of the pension system, to his rather right wing, xenophobic populist agenda, which makes his party all the more dangerous. There was a huge buildup to the “release” of his film Fitna, which is (whatever you think about the message or content) a very uninspiring, cliche cut and paste job with lots of angry men with long beards and 9/11 images.

The Qur’an has been compared by Wilders with Hitlers’ Mein Kampf. I have taken this comparison as inspiration for the new piece “Het Boek, het volk en de strijd” (“The book, the people and the struggle”), and added a (much less crazy) comparison between Geert Wilders and the late Dutch National Socialist Party NSB. The piece for saxophone quartet and electronics is written together with Bas Apswoude and Olivier Sliepen. It is not so much a traditional chamber music piece, more a mix between a radio play and a musical composition. It will be premiered in a concert with me and the Amstel Quartet December 11 at the Toonzaal in Den Bosch.