The Geert Wilders trial

[Louis VI the Fat]

Vague? The first time I saw Wilders I thought he was from the Congo he's so black.

Wilders' mother was born in Soekaboemi, Dutch East Indies.[10] In a biography, Wilders himself seems to play down his Indo heritage.[11] Anthropologist Lizzy van Leeuwen analyses Wilders' Eastern heritage with the concept of displacedness, and classifies his standpoints as "post-colonial revanchism". This analysis is met with agreement in Indo communities.[10] However, in an interview, Wilders denied van Leeuwens' speculations.[12]

Edit: Bless Wiki links:

Geert Wilders is surprisingly popular with immigrants who came to the Netherlands from the former Dutch East Indies. The key, believes anthropologist Lizzy van Leeuwen, lies in the populist politician's own convoluted family history.

If you consider the evidence, says Lizzy van Leeuwen, Geert Wilders is himself a second generation immigrant. His mother was born in Sukabumi, in what is now Indonesia. His grandfather, Johan Ording, was a civil servant in the colonial administration and his grandmother, Johanna, belonged to a mixed blood family.

Could that have played a role in the development of Mr Wilders' preoccupation with territorial issues? "It's possible," says Ms Van Leeuwen. She knows of dozens of immigrants from the East Indies who have roughly similar ideas. But actual evidence? She admits there is none.

More significant is that people from the Dutch East Indies will immediately recognize Mr Wilders as one of their own. Despite the bleached hair. "I interviewed more than a hundred elderly immigrants. They see him as what they call an 'Indies boy'. As someone who tells the truth."

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/ge...ies-immigrants