The mystery of Dewinter's "unalloyed Fascism"

by Eric Defoort

Belgian prime-minister Guy Verhofstadt and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht have portrayed Filip Dewinter as a “genuine fascist” (quality daily De Standaard December,17 2004). As an historian specialising in the study of several forms of fascism - National-Socialist, reactionary, ultra-right-wing and far-right thinking and acting - I really don’t know what to make of this. In particular, I don’t know what to make of that word, “genuine”. Does Verhofstadt and De Gucht have Marinetti in mind? Or do they perhaps mean Mussolini? But would that be the Benito from before or after the Lateran Treaty? Could it be that they see in Dewinter a kind of d’Annunzio, where Fiumefraternizes with Antwerp?

Perhaps, like a lot of people, they just use “fascist” loosely to mean National Socialist. But then we are left with the problem of that “genuine”, because historians invariable hold that the distinctions between Fascism and National Socialism are larger than the analogies. Large parts of Fascism are characterised by a vitalistic-optimistic anthropology. Is that what the two liberal^[1] coryphées see in Dewinter?

Perhaps Luckas Vander Taelen can help us. This historian, who once held a seat in the European Parliament for Agalev , declared in 1995 that he saw no fascism in Filip Dewinter but, instead, a far-right reactionary democrat. This does absolutely nothing to simplify things. But at least, thanks to Vander Taelen, the problem is restricted chronologically: Dewinter’s transformation into what Verhofstadt calls a “genuine fascist” must, therefore, have taken place between 1995 and 2004.

But really, if you try to label post-war and contemporary politics with an historically situated, strongly differentiated concept like fascism you will soon find yourself on a very precarious venture. The political personalities you must conflate range from Evita Peron to Pim Fortuyn. You will soon learn, among other things, that inside a “genuine fascist’’ lurks a potential “neo-fascist’’ in which hides the promise of a “post-fascist’’ who is at heart nothing more than an “genuine gentleman”. You will have to force Dewinter inside a Russian Matrushka doll? This is an issue Minister De Gucht should discuss urgently with his Italian colleague Gianfranco Fini.

But, of course, none of this has been written for the benefit of Belgium’s Prime-Minister and his Minister of Foreign Affairs De Gucht. They don’t worry about correct and nuanced terminology. Their goal is simply to depict a distorted image of their antagonist, whom they can then scold with missionary zeal. They lose sight of the fact that by acting in this way they take on more and more aspects of the image they so want to scold.

Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne, already told us long ago - in the sixteenth century, in fact - that he who is a distorter of the meaning of words is also a betrayer of society. And a genuine one.

1. In Belgium "liberal" means "of the VLD party". Traditionally, the liberals were Tory in style but over the last years they have been blackmailed by the left and corrupted by power, and their Toryism has largely departed. There are influential and impartial commentators such as the Dutch journalist and author Derk Jan Eppinck who contend that Vlaams Belang is the new and genuine "liberal" party.