Fortuyn: Unhappy and scared

Fortuyn had a message that, at some level, did work

By Paola Buonadonna

I met Pim Fortuyn for the first - and as it turned out the last time - last Friday as he sought to highlight the apparent decline of the Left in Europe.

He was not a happy man. For the past few weeks the international press had courted him, which he enjoyed, only to portray him as a spiritual brother to France's Jean-Marie Le Pen, which he did not.

A dishevelled looking black man ran up behind the group, waded through the crowd of cameramen and lunged towards him... to embrace him

He had organised a press conference in Rotterdam, the city he had taken by storm in municipal elections last month on his platform of zero immigration peppered with anti-Islamic rhetoric.

The international media were to be given the chance to speak to him afterwards.

The atmosphere at the speakers' club where we met was faintly shambolic, and slowly descended into farce.

Only a tiny room had been set aside for about 30 of us, journalists and cameramen, some coming from as far away as Japan and Australia.

Fortuyn remained closeted with worried-looking assistants for about an hour, while the programme for the rest of the day seemed to shift every few minutes.

Indignant tirade

Fortuyn had no party and only an embryonic and contradictory ideology to sell.

His 10-minute address was an indignant tirade against his detractors. He seemed to have no policies, no particular vision apart from a nostalgic hankering for a country that never was - a completely white but also completely modern and liberal Holland.

Then came the individual interviews. I introduced myself as working for the BBC and his face darkened further - he claimed he had been misquoted by a BBC correspondent.

As a mark of his distrust he refused to answer my questions in English - which he had used with every other foreign crew - and reverted to Dutch, which required a laborious process of translation.

I found him a bit of a puzzle, a strange mix of the naive and the media savvy.

The killing has shocked the Netherlands

He had found a message that, at some level, did work. There is a clash between conservative Islamic culture and the open, liberal Dutch attitude to most things in life.

But he was unable to explain how one could defend tolerance by being intolerant of others, or to stand up the argument that the Netherlands was about to be turned into some Islamic fiefdom.

At the end of the interviews he agreed to go on a walkabout so the disgruntled cameramen would have something to film.

But within seconds of him starting down the road, something bizarre happened.

A dishevelled looking black man ran up behind the group, waded through the crowd of cameramen and lunged towards him... to embrace him.

He patted Fortuyn on the shoulder several times assuring him of his support. Fortuyn finally freed himself, got into a waiting car and sped off.

The feeling among journalists was that we had been treated to a not-too-subtle stunt, to make the point that Dutch citizens from ethnic minorities actually liked Forutyn and approved of his message.

When approached for a comment, the man had shouted abuse and then disappeared.

Look of fear

Back in London we agonised over whether to use the material. In the end we didn't.

The picture editor pointed out that the initial look in Fortuyn's eyes had been one of fear.

He had flinched, then attempted a smile, all the while trying to wipe the guy's hand off his shoulder.

Fortuyn was scared.

He had complained of receiving death threats and often had bodyguards with him, highly unusually for a Dutch politician.

It is vaguely ironic that he should have met his death outside a radio studio and desperately sad that a country he had almost persuaded was under threat is sitting in shock before its TV screens, feeling afraid about the state of its democracy.

Whoever shot the messenger just made his message that little bit stronger.

Paola Buonadonna is an Italian journalist living in London, and a reporter for BBC television's On the Record programme.