The Dutch are voting today. These general elections are the fifth in a ten year period. During that time the Netherlands went from one of the most left-wing governments it ever had (from 2007 to 2010), to the most right-wing ever, which followed right after, and which stayed in office until April this year, a mere 555 days. This constant election cycle is a consequence of how Dutch politics are organized. Government is usually formed by coalition since none of the major parties can’t win an outright majority. The global economic crisis and its effect on the Dutch economy dominate today’s Dutch elections. However, true to form, some parties want to make the elections about Africa.

The Socialist Party (SP) is growing in popularity. Which is why Geert Wilders, leader of the rightwing Party for Freedom (PVV) has decided to invoke Africa. According to Wilders, if Emile Roemer, leader of the Socialist Party (SP), would become prime minister, “Africa would be just fine.” In a recent debate on public radio, Wilders called Roemer the “King of Africa”. And a week before that, Wilders thought that “Africa would be happy with someone like Roemer as prime minister of the Netherlands.” Why all these Africa references? The answer is development aid. Basically Africa is an election proxy.

The PVV wants to stop giving development aid and start breaking down trade barriers. PVV also wants an immigration from Islamic countries halted; propose taxes on Muslim women who wear a hijab; ban Islam’s holy book, the Koran (which has been compared by Wilders to Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf); and that the Netherlands leave the European Union, in order to regain back its “sovereignty.” They connecting tissue is immigration which the PVV blames for all the Netherlands’ social and economic problems.

One in five Dutch citizens voted for the PVV during the last elections and it is your average right-wing populist party that you find throughout Europe. To them, Islam is not a religion, but a “totalitarian ideology.” So no surprise the PVV and its leader don’t ‘want to help Africa.’ The only Africans the PVV, its voters and some elements in Dutch media care about, are South Africans whites, which the PVV describes as its “brothers.” (The Netherlands governed a large part of South Africa during the 16th and 17th century.) Afrikaans–the language spoken by, but most certainly not exclusively, Afrikaners–is in danger, according to the PVV

Afrikaans is closely related to the Dutch language. The language spoken in South Africa and Namibia is continuously being marginalized. The Netherlands [should] defend Afrikaans and those who speak it for example via embassies and the Taalunie. [The Taalunie is the Dutch Language Union, comprised of the three countries where Dutch is an official language.]

In early 2012, a member of the party, Martin Bosma, visited South Africa to offer support to Afrikaans speakers. But even the local whites found him to rightwing.  The Afrikaanse Taalraad (the Afrikaans Language Council) made it clear that it did not want anything to do with Bosma because of his anti-Islam views. And to make matters worse, in a column in Dutch newspaper Het Parool, Bosma created the impression that he longed back to the days of apartheid when he said:

It is regrettable that the leftist Netherlands helped putting the ANC into power. Afrikaans and the Afrikaner people will most probably be destroyed. Thank you very much Ed van Thijn for your selfless idealism. [Ed van Thijn was the mayor of Amsterdam from 1983 to 1994 and a prominent member of the Dutch anti-apartheid movement.]

What the PVV, most of its supporters and probably 99 percent of the Dutch are unaware of, is that those for whom Afrikaans is their mother tongue are in most cases either Muslim, and not white. The very religion Geert Wilders and the PVV are so against. It will then probably be a surprise to them that early writings in Afrikaans are about Islam and were written in the Arabic script.

It is unlikely that the intention of trying to ‘save’ Afrikaans will have any effect on the amount of seats the party will win; their anti-Islam and Eurosceptic ideology is doing it for them.

However, the PVV is not the only one misrepresenting Africa for political gain. Across the Dutch political spectrum, a number of parties, during the campaign have used ‘Africa’ as metaphor to either evoke a sentiment, present themselves as Africa’s saviors or simply to demonize a political opponent. For example, in a short and snappy 140 character tweet, Jolande Sap, leader of GreenLeft, sneered at Liberal Prime Minister,  Mark Rutte: “Selfishness rules with Rutte. 70% cut on development cooperation breaks with Dutch tradition of international solidarity. Fair chances also for children in Africa.

Reading through the election program of the Green Party, it is interesting that there is no mention of ‘Africa’ whatsoever. So what its leader actually means with ‘fair chances’ is not clear. Does she mean fair chances in a bubble-blowing contest?

The Christian Union, a party which labels itself as ‘Social Christian’ appeared to do better. In its party program we read that “[i]nternational righteousness is more than only taking care of the poor in for example Africa.” But similar to GreenLeft, the use of Africa clearly serves as a way to illustrate an image from where the party distances itself from, to be looking like the messiah of Africa.

Finally, there is the Labor Party (PvdA) which, through an “independent” NGO, annually organizes the “Africa Day,” probably the largest Africa-themed festival in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, here again ‘Africa’ is one big, black scary place; it is basically one big Somalia.  As the PvdA writes in its party program: “[…] Our [ship] crews are also exposed to the threats of pirates off the coast of Africa.” The coast of Somalia of course approximates roughly one percent of the continent’s total coastline.