Page - 112 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

112 | Sakina Loukili www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 107–131 ligious or cultural identity cannot coexist harmoniously with their national identity and argue that not only is this perfectly possible, but these iden- tities can even strengthen each other. Yet as Margaretha van Es rightfully notes, with a few exceptions, little attention has focused on how Muslims have challenged discourses and practices that marginalize them.24 In politics, resistance for Muslims has come to take shape as something more than simply voting for established leftist parties, a practice that had come to be expected of them.25 In the Netherlands, certain political shifts after the attacks of 9/11 in the United States have signified the normaliza- tion of anti-Islam rhetoric in politics and left a deep impression on many Dutch Muslims. The most important shift is signified by the rise of Rotter- dam-based politician Pim Fortuyn in the early 2000s and the later emer- gence of the anti-Islam Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) under Geert Wilders in 2008, which in many ways represented a continuation of Fortuyn’s response to Islam and immigration.26 The politicians of NIDA and DENK illustrate the significance of these polit- ical shifts when their references to Fortuyn and Wilders mark particular mo- ments of consciousness for them. An example came up in an interview I held with then fraction representative of NIDA in The Hague, Cemil Yilmaz. He described the growing influence of right-wing rhetoric in which Islam is prob- lematized and how that impacted him and others in his faith community: Bolkestein started it. Paul Scheffer continued it. And after that we obvi- ously had a few national and international events that influenced it. I also mean a Fortuyn, Wilders, and so forth […]. We [generation of people with an Islamic/migration background] have experienced the post 9/11 years in a very conscious way, and the post-Fortuyn, Van Gogh and Wilders years even more so.27 Not surprisingly then, NIDA was founded only a few years after the electoral success of the PVV in 2010 and was followed closely by DENK. While there is a longer history of Muslims becoming and being active in Dutch politics, for two main reasons I believe that NIDA and DENK may rep- 24 Van Es Margaretha 2019, 142. 25 Dancygier 2017. 26 Oudenampsen 2019. 27 Interview held with Cemil Yilmaz in The Hague, 5 February 2020.