Nikki Sterkenburg on Baudet's meeting with Alt-Right
Nikki Sterkenburg, external PhD candidate at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs in The Hague, was interviewed by the NOS programme Nieuws & Co about the meeting of Thierry Baudet with Alt-Right movement Jared Taylor. 'If Baudet would have wished to stay aloof of this movement, he shouldn’t have agreed to dine with this gentleman,' says Sterkenburg.
The meeting of Thierry Baudet, leader of the political party Forum for Democracy, with the extreme right leader Jared Taylor, has caused intense discussion. Taylor was invited to the Netherlands by the Erkenbrand society.
Nikki Sterkenburg is journalist for Elsevier Weekblad and conducts her research into radical and extreme right movements in the Netherlands, such as Erkenbrand. 'The society is a mix from libertarians to national socialists, they call themselves varied. But their ideals can be typified as extreme right.' The meetings are mostly attended by men. 'They promote a traditional roles and are fiercely against feminism. They believe in white supremacy: own people, own nation,' said Sterkenburg to NOS.
In the interview with NOS, she compares the controversy about Baudet and Taylor with the discussions around Farmers' Party (Boerenpartij) in the sixties and seventies. 'The Farmers' Party also looked for followers among right oriented movements. This became a problem because it also resulted in links with fascism and racism. The Farmers' Party was never able to distance themselves itself from those views.'
For her dissertation, Sterkenburg interviewed members of Erkenbrand. Based on this, she wrote an article which was published in Elsevier Weekblad ('Dan ben ik maar een nazi'), she won the Mercur prize for best magazine report in 2017.
Read the interview on NOS.nl or listen to the Radio 1 report, both in Dutch.
Photo: ANP