PIM.

Fortuyn was born on February 19, 1948 in Velsen, to a Roman Catholic family. He studied sociology in Amsterdam and later worked as a lecturer at the Nijenrode Institute and as an associate professor at the University of Groningen. In 1988, he moved to Rotterdam, and became the director of a government organisation administering student transport cards. From 1991 to 1995, he was an "extraordinary full professor" at the Erasmus University and held the Albeda professorship in public service wage negotiation. When he left that position, he made a career of public speaking and writing books and press columns, gradually becoming involved in politics.A onetime communist and former member of the social-democratic PvdA, on November 26, 2001 he was elected by a large majority as lijsttrekker of the newly formed Leefbaar Nederland (Livable Netherlands) party to participate in the May 2002 Dutch parliamentary elections.In an interview in 2002 he described himself as a Catholic.On February 9, 2002, he was interviewed by the Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper (see below). The statements he made were considered so controversial that he was dismissed as lijsttrekker the next day. In the interview Fortuyn said, among other things, that he favoured putting an end to Muslim immigration, if that were possible. Having been rejected by his party, Fortuyn founded his own party LPF (Lijst Pim Fortuyn) on February 11, 2002. Many Leefbaar Nederland supporters transferred their support to the new party.As lijsttrekker for the Leefbaar Rotterdam party, a local offshoot of his national party, he achieved a major victory in the Rotterdam district council elections in early March 2002. The new party won about 36% of the seats, making it the largest faction in the council. For the first time since the Second World War, the Labour Party found itself out of power.On May 6, 2002, at age 54, he was assassinated in Hilversum, North Holland by Volkert van der Graaf. The attack took place in a parking lot outside a radio studio in Hilversum, where Fortuyn had just given an interview. This was nine days before the elections for the lower house of Parliament, for which he was running. The attacker was pursued by Hans Smolders, the driver of Pim Fortuyn, and was arrested by the police shortly afterwards, still in possession of a gun.Months later, Volkert van der Graaf confessed in court to the Netherlands' first modern age political assassination (excluding WW II events), possibly the first since the lynching of the De Witt brothers in The Hague in 1672. Van der Graaf said: "I confess to the shooting. He was an ever growing danger who would affect many people in society. I saw it as a danger. I hoped that I could solve it myself." Van der Graaf was sentenced to 18 years in prison.The assassination shocked the Netherlands and made the cultural clashes within the country apparent. Politicians from all political parties suspended campaigning. After consultation with LPF, it was decided not to postpone the elections. However, under Dutch law, it was not possible to modify the ballots, so Fortuyn became a posthumous candidate. The LPF went on to win an unprecedented debut in the lower house of parliament, winning 26 seats (17% of the 150 seats in the house). However, after the elections the following year, this figure dropped to 8 seats, and 2005 polls suggest that figure would drop to just one seat, if elections were to be held.Fortuyn was buried on July 20, 2002, at Provesano di San Giorgio della Richinvelda (Provesano), in the province of Pordenone in Italy, where he had owned a house. ----------------------------------------------------------- VIEWS ON ISLAM AND IMMIGRATION.In August 2001, Fortuyn was quoted in the Rotterdams Dagblad newspaper, saying, among other things, "I am also in favour of a cold war with Islam. I see Islam as an extraordinary threat, as a hostile religion. In the TV program Business class Fortuyn said that Muslims in Netherlands did not accept Dutch society. Fortuyn appeared several times in the TV program Business class, moderated by his friend Harry Mens. In this program it has been suggested that his words were interpreted rather harshly, if not wrongly. For instance, he said that Muslims in the Netherlands needed to accept living together with the Dutch, and that if this was unacceptable for them, then they were free to leave. His concluding words in the TV program were I want to live together with the Muslim people, but a tango needs two.On February 9, 2002, he made further controversial statements in a Dutch newspaper, this time the Volkskrant.He said that the Netherlands, with a population of 16 million, had enough inhabitants, and therefore, the practice of allowing as much as 40,000 asylum-seekers into the country each year had to be stopped (however, the actual number was not that high and already falling at that time). He claimed that if he became part of the next government, he would pursue a restrictive immigration policy while also granting citizenship to a large group of illegal immigrants. Furthermore, he considered Article 7 of the constitution, which asserts freedom of speech, of more importance than Article 1, which forbids discrimination on the basis of religion, life principles, political inclination, race, sexual preference, or whatever. However, he distanced himself from Hans Janmaat of the Centrum Democraten, who in the 1980s wanted to remove all foreigners from the country and was repeatedly convicted for discrimination and hate speech.Fortuyn proposed that all people who already resided in the Netherlands would be able to stay, but he emphasised the need of the immigrants to adopt the Dutch society's consensus on human rights as their own. He said "If it were legally possible, I'd say no more Muslims will get in here", claiming that the influx of Muslims would threaten freedoms in the liberal Dutch society. He thought Muslim culture had never undergone a process of modernisation and therefore still lacked acceptance of democracy and women's, gays', lesbians' and minorities' rights, and feared it would dismiss the Dutch legal system in favour of the shari'a law.One of Fortuyn's fears was of pervasive intolerance in the Muslim community. In a televised debate in 2002, "Fortuyn baited the Muslim cleric by flaunting his homosexuality. Finally the imam exploded, denouncing Fortuyn in strongly anti-homosexual terms. Fortuyn calmly turned to the camera and, addressing viewers directly, told them that this is the kind of Trojan horse of intolerance the Dutch are inviting into their society in the name of multiculturalism.When asked by the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant whether he hated Islam, he replied: "I don't hate Islam. I consider it a backward culture. I have travelled much in the world. And wherever Islam rules, it's just terrible. All the hypocrisy. It's a bit like those old Reformed Protestants. The Reformed lie all the time. And why is that? Because they have norms and values that are so high that you can't humanly maintain them. You also see that in that Muslim culture. Then look at the Netherlands. In what country could an electoral leader of such a large movement as mine be openly homosexual? How wonderful that that's possible. That's something that one can be proud of. And I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much.Fortuyn was author of the 1997 book Against the Islamicisation of Our culture. -------------------------------------------------- OTHER VIEWS.He said he was neither right wing nor left wing, asked for more openness in politics, and expressed his distaste for what he called "subsidy socialism". He furthermore criticised the media as a Siamese twin of the government.He wanted smaller-scale organisation of public services such as health, education, and the police, making extensive use of the possibilities of information technology (for example, a surgeon conducting an operation remotely at a local hospital). Critics said his plans would require building hundreds or thousands of new institutions at enormous expense, but Fortuyn said no extra funds would be allocated until inefficiencies had been removed.He also held liberal views, favouring the drug policy of the Netherlands, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and related positions.He wanted to unite the army and air force to save money, retaining only a navy, but also favoured re-instating compulsory military service, giving youngsters the choice between military service and a new form of social services (in which they would help in hospitals or retirement homes, for example). It is often said that he wanted to disband the army and the air force; however, Fortuyn denied this on 24 March 2002 in a business TV programme.