Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius held the HJ Schoo Lecture on Monday evening, 12 September. The HJ Schoo lecture is a tribute to journalist HJ Schoo and is considered the unofficial opening of the political year. Several VVD members have already preceded Dilan, including Frits Bolkestein, Mark Rutte and Edith Schippers.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Exactly 42 years ago today, on 12 September 1980, the army took power by force in Turkey. I was three years old and living with my parents in the capital Ankara. The junta’s seizure of power turned our lives upside down overnight. What happened that day eventually led to us having to leave everything we knew behind.

After that September 12, it would turn out that staying in Turkey was no longer an option. There, that day, began the route that has brought me, today, here. The fall of a democracy has shaped my life. It is therefore only right that I should want to talk to you here, on this stage, about the democratic rule of law. About its inestimable value. About the threats I see, to the democratic rule of law in our country. And about what we have to do to ensure that we can continue to live in this country the way every person wants to live: in freedom.

Before the coup, there was a struggle in Turkey between the government and the opposition. The opposition consisted mainly of students, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. They were fighting for a democratic rule of law and for fundamental freedoms for all. In practice, however, they were first and foremost busy fighting against the authoritarian leaders who stood in the way of their goal. These had to go first. At any cost. The country’s leaders had lost credibility. The democratic system, already shaky, also came under increasing pressure. And with all the violence back and forth, Turkish democracy crumbled bit by bit. Until the military junta also brutally swept off the last fragments of Turkish democracy. On that 12 September, the military junta became legislature and executive in one. And effectively the judiciary as well, as justice was henceforth administered through military courts.

Separation of powers, toppling rule of law, it may all sound a bit academic and abstract. But for the regime’s opponents, it became frighteningly concrete. The junta had politicians arrested, dissolved parliament and banned activities of associations and trade unions. In the months following the coup, hundreds of thousands of people were arrested, detained and tortured on arbitrary orders. These events were later written about that essentially erased an entire generation. An inky black period in which fear, distrust and total arbitrariness ruled. Neighbours no longer trusted each other, friends disappeared into prison and never returned, people lost their jobs and there was no longer any security of existence.

My parents chose not to be quiet. They didn’t have to – because they had it good – but they chose to unite, to make their voices heard. They chose to stand up for fundamental freedoms. Even if that was dangerous. Only years later have I understood how incredibly tough that period was for my parents. They fought against the leaders who squandered those democratic values. But in that struggle, they failed to prevent the democratic system itself from going down. And because of that struggle, they paid a very high price in their personal lives too. At one point, they were in acute danger. They could be arrested at any moment. The danger became so great that fleeing was the only option. Friends, family, work, everything you build up as a young family, was left behind.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am grateful and very honoured to give this 14th HJ Schoo lecture. I never met Hendrik Jan Schoo, but I was a distant admirer. Of his intellectual courage. Of the fact that he always looked the beast straight in the mouth. Of his rational, cool analyses. Because underneath that cool factuality, as a reader, I always felt his passion. Passion for truth, Passion for people, Passion for democracy. To me, Schoo was the personification of freedom of speech. Not caring about what people want to hear. Tell it like it is. Or as he often said: I gotta call them, as I see them.

Let me put it bluntly: today’s world could use a bit more HJ Schoo. Especially now, we need people with courage and passion. The courage to face the threats to our democratic constitutional state. And the passion to fully defend that democratic constitutional state. Because today, in our country, I too often have the impression that we have forgotten the importance of our foundations. That we have forgotten that a well-functioning democratic constitutional state is the guarantee that allows us to live in freedom. That that rule of law guarantees that every act of government must find its basis in law. And not just any law, but a democratically created law. A law moreover that is not aimed at restricting our freedom – because it is not “law is law”, or “command is command” here. Our laws are there to give us legal certainty and equality under the law.

It is precisely within that democratic rule of law that you have a choice. Who your political representatives are, when you are fed up with them and when it is time for new people. It is precisely within that constitutional state that you decide how you organise your life and are free to be whoever you want to be. And precisely within that rule of law, you know that everyone who knocks on the door for help also has access to justice and that it is not the law of the loudest that applies. But that democratic rule of law only exists if we make a joint commitment to it. If we stick together to the rules we have agreed upon. If we are aware that we have to do it together in this country. We make the rule of law. It is part of our culture. And we cannot live without it. That awareness, that sometimes seems very far away.

Tonight I share with you my analysis of the situation and the need I see to be vigilant. To be alert to when an attack takes place. Even if it is directed at someone with whom we disagree or in whom we do not identify. To actually stand up for that freedom where necessary. And to defend, if necessary, our democratic constitutional state. And although you have given me quite a lot of time tonight, I will unfortunately not be able to cover all the aspects involved in this analysis. For instance, I will mainly focus on developments within our country, things we ourselves can directly influence. In doing so, I will leave out international developments, the accompanying worrying shifts in power and the major impact this has on our continent and country. And I will say it now; I will not send you home with a ten-point plan, an action manifesto or a quick fix. I am, however, sending you home with a mission.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Our democratic constitutional state is under pressure. And I think we are currently only moderately successful in defending it together. That is not a reproach, but an observation. And if I’m honest, I partly understand it too. Because people only want to defend something or someone when they think it is worthwhile. If they care. If they have a relationship with it. And that kind of relationship is built on reciprocity. You’re there for me, I’m there for you. That’s how it has been for a long time. In our country, if you participate, contribute, and abide by the rules of how we treat each other, the government is there for you. Then you can count on support. We keep you safe, we provide good healthcare, good education and a roof over your head. We take care of you when you’re not doing well. And if necessary, there is protection from the power of the state. And if all goes well, we leave you alone to live your life.

This reciprocity, of course, is not only of great value between the government and people at home. Above all, it is also a binding agent in our society. Within communities, districts, boroughs. All those written and unwritten agreements that go with it, the trust, that made our country a nice country to live in. Something you could be proud of. What you wanted to defend. That feeling that when you come back from holiday, you’re still happy and proud when you drive across the border. Because really, it’s all just fine here. That land, no one is allowed to touch it. That belongs to all of us. We share something essential there. Some rules may annoy you, but at the same time you understand why they are there. Because there you see that all those agreements together have given us a beautiful and free country. Where we may disagree on the best solution, but at least work on the same problem. That feeling, that seems to have disappeared. We don’t always feel that reciprocity anymore. And that pride too often seems far away.

Why is that? To be fair, the government has played a big part in this. We have made mistakes. Mistakes that not only had major consequences for individuals, but also consequences for the relationship between the government and the very people, for whom the government should have been there. Is it fair to expect people to stand up convincingly for the rule of law, when that same rule of law has let them down? The main examples in recent years are the Groningen recovery operation and the benefits affair. German philosopher Hannah Arendt analysed that a form of ‘mindlessness’, a kind of carelessness, has crept into modern democracies. In which the system and technical expertise are deemed more important than human experience. The great danger, according to Arendt, was that democracy thus becomes detached from what people actually experience and need. This is not a conscious and calculated process, but one with potentially very undesirable consequences.

In my view, this is exactly what went wrong with Groningen and the allowances affair. In both cases, the government, for different reasons, has come up against the people it is supposed to serve. The institutions that make up our rule of law and that should have offered protection to victims failed. And for too long, no one took responsibility for that. With the Groningen gas extraction, I saw the consequences myself. As a spokesperson in the Lower House and later as State Secretary for Climate and Energy, I sat at so many Groningen kitchen tables with tears in my eyes. How could we have let it come to this! Even looking at my current portfolio, I have to be honest.

For years and years, organised drug crime has been able to thrive and nestle in our society. The warnings and concerns of people who saw this happening have not been addressed in a structural and coherent manner. My party has also been at loggerheads over this. All efforts notwithstanding, we could and should have been further ahead, tackling this serious form of crime. Kim Putters, chairman of the Social and Economic Council, noted recently in his essay The Human State that the distance between government and citizens is too great. I quote: ‘Assumptions about what citizens will and cannot do are often wrong or turn out to be unrealistic. If the government does not understand people’s situation, policies are not only ineffective, but the solutions chosen may even exacerbate the problems.’ End quote. The stalemate that then seems to arise increasingly leads to social issues then being brought before a judge. From the plenary hall to the courtroom. That puts pressure on the judge’s authority within the trias politica. AND it puts pressure on the democratic legitimacy of major policy changes. It is up to us as politicians to take our responsibility and handle the judge’s position with caution.

In all the cases we can now come up with together here, we will have to do justice to what has gone wrong and what has been the government’s part in that. Be honest about where things went wrong. But that is where the shoe pinches. Professor and philosopher of law Bastiaan Rijpkema argues in his study Resilient Democracy that a democracy requires maintenance and that this requires a certain attitude, a democratic ethos, among those who participate in political debate and political action. He argues that this would require a change of opinion, the epitome of progressive insight. But that is where the shoe pinches. Because the perception and political debate often narrows down to staying on or resigning. Society and the media demand flawless politicians. So politicians feign flawlessness by not admitting their mistakes. This is how citizens, media and politicians hold each other hostage, according to the professor.

We will have to address this cramp. And we will have to work very hard to find solutions and do what it takes to avoid repeating mistakes. Only then can we regain people’s trust in government. And I believe this can be done. It can, if we restore our written and unwritten commitments. If we check every day that what we do is understandable to the people for whom we do it. Without that trust, a democracy cannot function well enough.

It is also what is needed to tackle the nitrogen problem. After avoiding these problems for decades, we all hit a brick wall. As a result, inaction is no longer an option. And unfortunately, because of years of inaction, it is no longer sufficient to make adjustments, but major steps have to be taken, with major and sometimes painful consequences, for all concerned. This is precisely why it is so important to dare to take those steps, and to do so in consultation with the farmers concerned. We depend on each other and have to do this together. Because once that relationship is under pressure, as we see in all the areas I mentioned, once there is doubt about the other’s intention, once trust is no longer leading, then cracks appear. Then a danger arises that is greater than the faltering of the relationship alone. Then we not only become prone to anger, but, worse still then indifference lurks. Then the willingness to fight for our relationship, to stand up for all that binds us, disappears. And that is a risk far greater than a disrupted relationship between government and people. Because then we no longer form a block against what potentially threatens us.

We cannot afford that. For there are forces that very deliberately and systematically attack our way of life. By intimidating the guardians of our rule of law. Threatening them. And worse. When I think of direct, direct attacks on the democratic constitutional state, I immediately think of the first major political events in my adult life, in 2002 and 2004: the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh. Men I admired, for their courage, originality and obstinacy. Many in our country took to the streets after those murders. They shouted, clapped and cried. For the cowardly murders and the loss of these two people’s lives. But perhaps also because they felt that something had been taken from them. Their own open-mindedness, and with it a part of their freedom. At least that is how it felt to me personally.

A harder slap in the face of the rule of law, I could not imagine. I therefore expected an uncompromising response. That the Netherlands would stand firm for freedom of speech. But I was shocked by what actually happened. Some of the reactions expressed doubt. Maybe it was better to sing a tone lower after all, some seemed to think. And even the government sent worrying signals. After the murder of Van Gogh, discussion arose to revive an article of law on blasphemy. I found and still find this an inconceivable reaction.

In the aftermath of the international cartoon riots and the film Fitna, cartoonist Nekschot was lifted from his bed by ten police officers in May 2008 for allegedly insulting Islam. He was released after a day and a half, but the message was clear: The Netherlands is under pressure, freedom of speech is negotiable. The reactions to Van Gogh’s murder and Nekschot’s arrest show that our country has a difficult relationship with religious criticism. Freedom of religion is a great thing for us, perhaps that is part of the explanation. I spoke about this a couple of times last summer with Amos Guiora, an Israeli-American law professor. He talks about a sacred veil, a holy veil, which many politicians are guided by. Guiora’s point is that politicians find it so difficult to proclaim positions on matters of faith that they prefer to ignore religious extremism for safety’s sake as well. Guiora believes that we are too afraid to restrict religious freedom.

I think his analysis is correct. Too often we have not dared to stand pontifically for freedom of speech precisely when a religion has been taken to task. And that is crippling for our democracy and our security. When freedom of speech is pressured or attacked by extremists, it is imperative that leaders defend it on principle. Don’t bend, don’t snap. Now you may be thinking: ‘Sure! We do that, don’t we?’ But I don’t think we have learned our lesson yet. Even in this day and age, you can still be quite alone as a fighter of free speech.

Two years ago, French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in the street by a Muslim extremist. In a lesson on freedom of speech, he had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. With the aim of getting his students to think for themselves. To be critical. To engage in conversation. He paid for that lesson with death. An outright attack on our freedoms. Cartoons also caused unrest in Dutch classrooms. In Rotterdam, a teacher even had to go into hiding from his students. In response, an imam started a petition calling for a ban on blasphemy. The text was: “We Muslims strongly condemn all forms of violence in response to cartoons, but also feel that insulting our prophet Mohammed has nothing to do with freedom of expression”. The petition was signed more than 100,000 times in a few days. The initiators were supported from the Lower House by Farid Azarkan of DENK.

Of course that is their democratic right, but for me it is hard to fathom that the supporters of the petition wanted to open the discussion on the limits of freedom of speech after Paty’s murder. To my mind, they acted as if Paty herself had provoked the cowardly murder. The discussion should have been about how on earth we can raise children in our country who cannot stand a drawing. Who don’t know how to talk to each other about it. And don’t know how to respect different opinions and views. Instead, they – or their parents – resort to intimidation and threats to enforce their rightness. The problem is the total lack of resilience and tolerance for other opinions and ways of life. And you don’t solve that by banning those other opinions. You solve it precisely by increasing that resilience and broadening your outlook. Exactly what Paty stood for and what his colleagues are still working on every day.

Even among the guardians of free speech, things do not always go well. Where that freedom of speech should be the greatest good, in the world of the media itself, I hear worrying noises. Cartoonist Ruben Oppenheimer, who has been threatened after making cartoons about Turkish President Erdogan, told me that he hears from colleagues that if you make such drawings, you are asking for it a bit. He was jeered and laughed at when he had to be secured for periods. While this very moment had been the time for those colleagues to get behind him as a block. To use every drawing or column to support him, instead of putting everything into perspective. To stand up for their freedom to do their jobs.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We tend to take our democracy and rule of law for granted. Part of the explanation will be that the Netherlands is an old and longstanding stable democracy. For almost 80 years, generations have grown up without war, oppression or persecution. A great thing. But then you also run the risk of a people becoming too comfortable. Then the notion of a rule of law under pressure can seem very distant. Then a people’s alertness can diminish, for forces that want to overthrow democracy. And so while I partly understand that, you will hopefully understand that I do not resign myself to that. That cannot surprise you by now.

As Minister of Justice and Security, I am busy every day fighting the attacks on our way of life. Not only by terrorists and extremists, as just discussed, but also by organised crime. Scenes that were long thought impossible in our country are now harsh realities. We are dealing with cold-blooded criminal killings in residential areas. And with so-called mistake killings. The worst blows to our rule of law, were undeniably the murders of the brother of the star witness, of lawyer Derk Wiersum and of crime reporter Peter R. de Vries. Direct attacks designed to disrupt our judicial process and instill fear in others.

In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in threats and acts of violence by drug criminals. Prosecutors now doing their jobs anonymously. Journalists being secured. Investigators forced to live in safe houses. Most, thankfully, choose not to be intimidated and go on with their work. But I know they sometimes feel lonely. And for those who do quit because it becomes too much for them, I can only sympathise. This is the reality we live in. And a next generation of ruthless criminals is being groomed by recruiting 11-year-old boys. First to deal, the next career step is anyone’s guess.

And still together we do not seem to fully grasp how organised crime has entrenched itself in our society and is tampering with everything our country stands for. The danger of organised crime is not only felt in our country. It is an international problem, which some countries have been fighting for much longer. Earlier this year, for instance, I was in Italy to speak to mafia fighters. To see what we can learn from them. Because by necessity, they have gained a lot of experience in tackling organised crime in recent decades.

This year marks 30 years since a mafia bomb under a motorway near Palermo ended the lives of investigating judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards. Two months later, the mafia similarly murdered his colleague Paolo Borsellino and five police officers. They were guarding him while visiting his mother. When I was in ItaIia, these murders were brought up again and again in conversations. As if it was not 30 years but just 30 days ago. The murders are a strong part of Italian history and collective memory. The deadly attacks on these mafia fighters of the first hour marked the moment when people drew a line. That people no longer accepted that daily life was dominated by criminals who refused to respect the rule of law. Italians took to the streets en masse and made it clear that they were done with the enormous misery brought to them by mafiosi. The mafia still exists in Italy. But those who fight it form a front with a large part of the people. Which allows them to go all out, to defeat this evil.

Remember when we used to call the terror of the Italian mafia Italian states? Today, Italians look at Dutch states with concern. Of course, after the murders of Wiersum and De Vries, the talk shows were filled with outraged interpreters and experts for a week or two. But after that, most of us went back to business as usual anyway. This is incomprehensible. Because the very guardians of our democracy deserve all the support and recognition for the tasks they perform and the values they defend. Because when we flinch, they step forward. When we remain silent out of fear, they are the ones who continue to investigate, write and judge. And when we sleep, they watch over our freedom. The government is currently investing more money in tackling organised crime than ever before. With a broad offensive, we are pulling out all the stops to prevent little guys from becoming big crooks, to catch the big criminals and to make our country as unattractive as possible to drug cartels. In doing so, no one fighting for our rule of law should fear for their own safety.

They show themselves to be resilient, but they are in fact vulnerable. It is then up to the government to provide the best possible protection. People under serious threat are given surveillance and security. By people who are ready and willing to face danger day and night. Their job is to keep others safe. Also for these men and women of our security services, my deep respect. They help us keep the rule of law resilient. Our investigative and criminal investigation services are among the best in the world. They will not rest until criminal networks are rounded up. The first major blows have been struck. I watch with pride, admiration and gratitude how work is being done for our security.

Let me say right away that all this is not enough. The crime fighters cannot do this alone. All those people working day in and day out for our security need our support. It is up to us as a society, to show that they are not alone. There is a need for those around young people to say unequivocally that a life of crime cannot be an option. There is a need for people who use drugs to start being aware of the world behind them. There is a need to hold each other accountable for behaviour that drives, legitimises and makes organised crime socially acceptable. In short: there is a need for us to consciously choose which side we are on. And that we then choose the right side.

I can imagine you wondering how organised crime is undermining your way of life. Surely it all seems a bit far away. In Italy, many people can still tell from their own experience what it means when criminals are in charge on the streets. What it means when you cannot trust anyone, from politicians to policemen to judges. Because many of them are corrupt and you never know who is in the mafia’s pocket. And when hardworking people are competed to pieces by lazy, money-laundering competitors. Make no mistake, that can happen here too. Already, many billions of criminal money annually find their way from the underworld into our above-ground economy. It happens incrementally, which is why we often don’t notice it, but the dirty money is already eating away at the fabric of our society. And it all goes hand in hand with violence; from intimidation to bloody shootings, where anyone can end up in the path of a gunshot.

Standing up to this, speaking out, is not easy. I realise that. When you stop looking away, sometimes you see things or have to do things that are unpopular or even scary. But let me counter that with a quote from Paolo Borsellino: ‘Fear is normal, for every human being; what matters is that that fear is accompanied by courage.’ Let those words sink in for a moment.

The more the threat becomes intertwined with our daily lives, the more we will have to show as a whole society that we do not want it. That our life in freedom, is worth too much to us. In this, we will have to stand side by side. However, too often we do not stand side by side. Too often we stand against each other. Or rather, we allow ourselves to stand against each other. And this is what worries me perhaps even more. While we – however understandably at times – are disappointed in each other, stand against each other, or don’t even bother anymore because we are indifferent, we meanwhile set the door ajar for influences that choose to only magnify differences further. Who deliberately poison such already difficult debates with lies: vaccines will kill you and the government wants to replace farmers with asylum seekers – that work.

Who use such topics to saw at the foundations of our society. To feed distrust in society. To make us believe that even that policeman who keeps us safe, that judge who independently determines our rightness, that scientist who provides us with thoughtful facts, that they are targeting us. There are politicians who in difficult times only think: how can I make political capital out of this? For them, damaging democracy is means and end at the same time.

We see increasing pressure from the flanks of the political and social debate. We see how those flanks often skillfully exploit the distorted relationship between government and people in this country. We see how they are slowly questioning all the institutions that form and defend our democratic rule of law. Step by step, they try to make the police, free press, independent judiciary and science controversial. Politicians blackening journalists. Judges dismissing them as biased. Calling the police collectively racist. Who think that other politicians or their families should be allowed to be visited and threatened at home. It sometimes seems as if we have fallen into one big, hysterical algorithm. The most extreme expressions on the flanks actually have very little to do with our daily lives and the challenges people face at home every day. But they do attract a disproportionate amount of attention and too often determine how parts of society are organised. And you know: in a democracy, this is allowed. As long as you stay within the boundaries of the law, in a democracy you are allowed to support and propagate all ideas. But count on hardcore opposition. At least from me. Movements that threaten the constitutional state must be named and shouted at more loudly and explicitly.

Today, I will mention two such movements. First, wokism. A movement that has come over from the United States. I am explicitly not talking here about emancipation movements that advocate equal rights and inclusion. Those obviously have my support. What worries me are the movements that focus on the opposite; on exclusion.People who think they get to decide which information or opinion is right and which is wrong. Or what is hurtful and not hurtful. Who is right and who is wrong. Who, under the guise of inclusion, are only concerned with exclusion. With cancelling everything they don’t like. Topics, views and opinions are declared unmentionable. And why? Because these would hurt.

Wokists want to determine who has the right to speak. Only if you belong to the right group are you allowed to have a say. This reduces individuals to gender, origin or orientation, with a fixed, corresponding opinion. To deviate from that means to be excluded. You may be thinking: ‘Is woke really such a problematic movement? Yes, as far as I am concerned it is. Our ability to grow, to learn, to develop, is nurtured by mutual criticism and open discussions. Those who seek to limit that by demanding safe spaces at universities, by excluding any form of supposedly confrontational knowledge; by subordinating freedom of expression to subjective emotions or by determining what words the free media may or may not use, limit true progress. By a self-claimed right not to be hurt. This puts enormous pressure on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and academic freedom. Our free society needs open debate, which is our oxygen. Open debate where you fight words with words. Open debate, where arguments determine whether you are right, and not the length of your toes.

Man or woman: find some balls and be resilient, I would say. In an open society, you have to develop a shield. Now, there are some opinions or facts that you would rather not see or hear. It is a dangerous misunderstanding that there is such a thing as the right not to be hurt. It is dangerous because people then tend to behave accordingly. That leads to self-censorship. To avoid hassle. To avoid drawing fire. To keep your job. To avoid getting cancelled. As the legal scholar Afshin Ellian wrote about academic safety and freedom, “In tolerance, words do not wound”. That is exactly the opposite of what wokism does. Wokism promotes intolerance while tolerance is precisely the core of the democratic rule of law.

Actually, I cannot explain and summarise it better than with this quote from the European Court of Human Rights, I quote, “Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society, one of the basic conditions for its progress and for the development of every human being. It applies not only to “information” or “ideas” that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or regarded with indifference, but also to utterances that offend, shock or alarm the state or any section of the population. These are the requirements of pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness without which there can be no democratic society.” End quote.

The second movement I want to discuss here is the systematic feeding of mistrust and anti-government sentiment. Now, of course, everyone is free to be against the government and our institutions and replace facts with opinions. As long as that is within the limits of the law, it is allowed. Personally, I find hanging our flag upside down very disrespectful to those who have fought and are still fighting for it and our freedoms. But it is not illegal unless you hang it in a dangerous place. However, if someone chooses to make his or her point that way, I especially hope that the person can be convinced with good arguments to do otherwise.

What I want to talk about goes a lot further. I want to talk about extremism. People who cross the line considerably and try to achieve their goals through intimidation and violence. Who, for example, abuse their right to demonstrate – a great thing in a constitutional state. Who create dangerous situations on motorways. Who visit politicians at home and intimidate them in order to force them to change their policies. We see it in more areas and it seems to be getting more and more intense. The independence of the press is consistently questioned by some. The NOS, for the safety of its reporters, found it necessary to drive in vans without a logo. So-called alternative news sources bring complete alternative truths. Arguments, facts and the beginnings of cogent reasoning are apparently completely superfluous in the process. Scientific publications are selectively shopped, teachers are threatened if they don’t like their school advice, attacks on police officers are condoned and encouraged. Even hospitals need security these days. Politicians question the independence of our judiciary without blinking an eye. Thierry Baudet retweets a video calling policemen fascists and openly expresses hatred of Jews online. The dog whistle has now been exchanged for an entire wind orchestra.

This is where social media plays a big role. Sure, they have generally positively influenced the way we communicate and connect with each other. But there is also a very nasty and dangerous side to it. Online hatred, anti-Semitism and racism, fake news and threats, often cowardly anonymous, are obvious examples of this. A completely parallel world has emerged that compares poorly with our real, real-life world that is indeed framed by laws and social manners. And the bosses of social media companies like Facebook feel no responsibility for this. Indeed, it has become a very lucrative revenue model. Have you ever noticed that influencers who supposedly reveal ‘the real truth’ often also sell products or subscriptions or engage in crowdfunding? In the Netherlands, too, social media are now widely used for politically motivated campaigns, including conspiracy theories, fake news, misinformation and algorithm fuelling.

At the beginning of the corona outbreak, much was still unknown. Many questions, few answers. The spreaders of fake news and conspiracy theories gratefully exploited the uncertainty many of us felt. People want to understand things, they look for an explanation and want to hold on to things. The downside of reality is that it is often complex. A conspiracy offers an explanation, with logic, and clear causes. And, very importantly, with an identifiable ‘culprit’ just like in the movies. And thanks to social media, conspiracy theories not only spread very quickly, you also get caught in an algorithm trap that means you only start seeing posts that confirm the fabrications. The result: a deep-seated distrust of science, media and government. Fake news, distrust and suspicion pollute and radicalise the social debate, even to the point of compromising our democratic rule of law and its guardians. For too long, we have collectively thought: just don’t give conspiracy theories and undermining statements any attention. Then it won’t get bigger, and it will go away. But that is not true.

It is not going away at all and the malodorous lard is even seeping into the House of Representatives. The fuss generates attention, and attention generates name recognition, likes, prestige, influence, money and votes. It has become a revenue model of parties like Forum and the Van Haga Group, which otherwise no longer have any substantive agenda. Like the woke movement, they take their inspiration mainly from the United States. As if that serves the interests of the Netherlands. What can we do about this? We can brutally push people who take refuge in conspiracy theories into a corner, but we can also try to better understand why so many people are apparently susceptible to them. Our society is apparently not sufficiently resilient to adversity. One way to resist this now is to respond more often anyway. Even if a tweet containing nonsense gets thousands of likes, and the response to it with a substantiated rebuttal only dozens. And even if abusive comments follow. In doing so, large social media companies will have to take responsibility transparently. If they do not, we will have to hold them accountable.

Protecting freedom of speech is really different from allowing a parallel world to emerge in which intimidation, incitement and threats remain without consequences. The distrust that is almost carefully and systematically injected like a poison into our society makes us, almost imperceptibly, step by step indeed less proud of our free democracy, indeed less willing to stand up for it. Without really noticing it, the foundations of our democratic constitutional state are being gnawed away. And us? We let it happen. And yes, here too the warning comes from the United States. The storming of the Capitol, shows how disastrous the consequences can be. In recent months, the US Congressional Investigative Committee has made it clear how close the United States, The Land of The Free, has skirted past an authoritarian power grab.

It is hopefully clear to you that our democratic rule of law is close to my heart. Because it brings us so much. Freedom, peace, prosperity. My response to the pressures our democratic rule of law is experiencing is concerted action. From me, my colleagues and from all of us, as residents of this country. A joint defence built on the realisation that our way of life is at stake. Government and residents need to go into relationship therapy. Of course, here I look first to myself, to fellow administrators and to other politicians. In The Hague and in the rest of the country. We must set a good example, make sure that what we do is transparent, followable, implementable and clear.Not take decisions and then explain to people why it is good for them, but first collect what is going on and how we can serve them better. We must always keep an eye on how policies work out in practice. We have to make sure that legal protection is in order, and that there is the prospect of recovery if things do go wrong. Preventing people from being crushed by policies or actions that turn out completely different from what was once intended.

However, this is not just a task for people’s representatives. This is a task of the entire government. The human dimension must be taken into account when drafting and implementing laws. Legal protection and enforceability must play a major role here. This role is now too unilaterally assigned to the courts. Restoring our mutual relationship is an important condition to regain pride in what we have here together. To regain focus on what we stand for together in this country. And to be able to defend ourselves against that which threatens it.

Of course, you can also expect me to do everything in my power to continue facing those threats from my mission. To tackle terrorists and drug criminals in our country. To prevent young boys, from becoming big criminals. To ensure that journalists and lawyers can do their jobs safely and our police officers are well-equipped for the tough job they have. You can expect me to stand for our way of life.That I will protect our freedoms. And that I will always stand up against people who want to destroy our way of life. And I hope to do so together with all others who protect our freedom from their own roles. All the journalists, scientists, teachers, policemen, police officers, lawyers, judges, cartoonists and politicians who do their work every day. Even when others don’t like it.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Since the murder of Theo van Gogh, Geert Wilders, the PVV leader, has been heavily protected. With every step he takes. For eighteen years now. Anyone who does not find this a shocking and unacceptable fact has not understood the principle of the democratic constitutional state. There are no ifs or buts here. The same goes for personal attacks on journalists, scientists, policemen, whoever… Stand up for those people. Even if you disagree with them. Maybe even just when you don’t agree with them. Realise that this is what our country was built on. The freedom to disagree. Hard on substance’ is part of a free country. Ideas clash, we challenge each other and that’s how progress is made. That is good. But intimidation, violence, threats, trying to silence people, visiting people at home, involving families, there is never an excuse for that. Don’t pout your lips in perspective then, but speak out.

Dear listeners,

I am going to conclude. Let me tell you this, I am not gloomy. Democracies worldwide have already experienced several crises and problems. And often survived so far. But let no one take for granted the achievements of our democratic rule of law. I outlined to you at the beginning of my lecture how the junta in Turkey eventually swept democracy off the table with one move. You may now be thinking: but that cannot happen here. That’s right. In the Western world, we are organised in such a way that democracies don’t fall overnight because of a coup or a revolution. In developed democracies, dangers manifest stealthily. When a developed democracy breaks down, it does not happen with one big bang, but very gradually, with small pieces. Each time, something crumbles. And the creepy thing is that, as a result, we hardly notice it.

I hope tonight to have contributed to that awareness sinking in. We must turn the tide. I believe in a resilient democracy in which we are intolerant of intolerance. And there is only one way to do that: decisively and uncompromisingly. If only a few heroes do the right thing, they are vulnerable. Derk Wiersum was such a hero. Samuel Paty was such a hero. Both paid the highest price. Because our enemy thought: they stand alone and we want to keep it that way. We must dare to stand around these people. Stand behind them, when they are threatened. When they are struggling. Because they are standing up for us. For the principles of the democratic rule of law. For the whole of society. So we must stand up for them. That reciprocity, which we no longer seem to feel, I would so like to get back. After all, we will still need it badly. Because it is precisely that awareness and that trust in each other that can help us face all the great social challenges of the times to come. So I ask all of you: be a hero too.Just in small ways, in everyday life. Get involved. Don’t take anything for granted. Do not be tolerant of what we should not tolerate. Speak out.

Dear attendees,

In case you do not appear in my earlier enumerations: you too are needed for this. A resilient democracy requires resilient democrats. If enough people are prepared to be heroes, if we make sure we are many, no one can overthrow us. Then there is no starting point for the opponent. Then we have – I almost dare not say it – group immunity. Uncompromisingly and resolutely protecting all our achievements, that is the only way to make the Netherlands a beautiful and safe country, with freedom for all.

Thank you.

Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius in brief
Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius was born in the Turkish capital Ankara and at the age of eight she came to the Netherlands as a political refugee. Her parents had to leave the country because of their struggle for Kurds, trade union rights, women and other minorities.

Dilan studied socio-cultural sciences at VU University Amsterdam. In the same city, she became a councillor and campaigned, among other things, for the criminalisation of street harassment of women and Lhbt people. In 2017, she became a member of parliament for the VVD and spoke out against discrimination and anti-Semitism. Since 10 January 2022, she has been Minister of Justice and Security.