Some good news, it seems, from the Netherlands. The apparently irresistible rise of the populist far right has been resisted. Sure, the optimism should not be overdone. There was still, collectively, a pretty strong showing by far-right parties in the recent Dutch election. The hopes of Geert Wilders’ PVV may have been denied, but it could take several weeks for Rob Jetten, leader of the centre-left D66 party, to establish a new government based on his very narrow victory.
Followed by impressive election results for the Democrats in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City, it might be possible to believe that the cause of progress has, like a struggling old family car, been jump started. But this is the point. It will take courage to fight back against the raucous and hubristic voices heard on the far right. And that fight has to be sustained. Defeatism is self-perpetuating. Bullies must be confronted. They are not as brave or as scary as they pretend to be.
It should not be necessary for Europeans to be reminded of the Enlightenment principles which they themselves gave to the world. But, as governments struggle to contain populist forces, perhaps it is necessary. Those truths used to be self-evident. Facts can be established and agreed upon. Lying and cheating are bad. Criminals should not prosper. They should, in fact, be caught and punished. Tyrants should be overthrown and tyranny must crumble. Justice is within reach.
But in 2025 apparently we cannot be so confident about these truths. The bad guys – some of them, anyway – are winning, for now. They act with impunity. Bullying is working. Lies are not challenged. Just look at the resignations at the top of the BBC, called for by the Trump machine and his useful, idiotic cheerleaders in the UK. For every chink of light, there is another flood of darkness just about to descend.
If we need a text or a rallying cry to provide encouragement at this difficult time, then a 1982 film called “The Verdict”, directed by Sidney Lumet with a script by David Mamet, offers some help. In the movie, a lawyer, Frank Galvin, played by Paul Newman, is struggling with a loss of faith in himself and in his profession. He is working on a compensation case, trying against the odds to get justice for a wronged family. When all seems more or less lost at the end of the appeal process, he is invited by the hostile and partial judge to make his final case to the jury.
And he tells them this:
You know, so much of the time we’re just lost. We say, ‘Please, God, tell us what is right. Tell us what is true.’ I mean, there is no justice. The rich win. The poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time we become dead, a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims, and we become victims.
We become… we become weak; we doubt ourselves; we doubt our beliefs; we doubt our institutions; and we doubt the law.
But today you are the law. You are the law, not some book, not the lawyers, not a marble statue, or the trappings of the court. See, those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are, in fact, a prayer… I mean a fervent and a frightened prayer.
In my religion, they say, ‘Act as if you had faith; faith will be given to you.’ If… if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts.
You will have to watch the film to see how the case plays out.
Winter is approaching in Europe and the days are getting darker and shorter. We need enlightenment once more. But it has to be realistic and practical enlightenment. We cannot indulge in wishful thinking. For every happy Dutch result, there are others – in the Czech Republic, in Slovakia and in Poland – which suggest that the darker forces of reaction and far-right populism are still strong.
“If we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice,” the lawyer Frank Galvin says. We have to show courage. We have to stay true to the enlightenment principles which first emerged here in Europe.
“Mehr Licht!” were supposedly the final words uttered by Goethe: more light! An old joke has it that Goethe had, in fact, been passed a cup of coffee which did not have enough milk in it. Whatever the truth, that spirit must prevail. President Obama surged to office in 2008 assuring his supporters that “Yes, we can.” Rob Jetten and D66 had their own Dutch version: “Het kan wél”.
However you say it, it’s the right message. As Dylan Thomas urged us (in a slightly more funereal context) we should “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Stefan Stern is an accomplished writer who has contributed to the BBC, Management Today magazine, and The Financial Times, where he served as the management columnist from 2006 to 2010. He is currently a Visiting Professor in Management Practice at Bayes Business School, City, University of London.
