Sid Lukkassen: “Making a Right-Wing Realist Voice Heard Is Very Useful”

Gerry van der List — 18 July 2023

The polemical writer Sid Lukkassen, 36, switched from the VVD to FVD. On a sunny café terrace in Arnhem, he explains his far from sunny view of society. “I do not rule out civil unrest.”

“I see myself as the chronicler of a civilisation nearing its end. In 2015 I published Avondland en identiteit. Mark Rutte received a copy; the book was praised for its original vision. People did say I was too gloomy. For example, I pointed to the dangers of Russian militarism, Chinese neocolonialism and militant Islam.

“And what came next? The invasion of Ukraine, tensions in the South Pacific, Islamic State. I am quite prepared to say that in 2015 I was too optimistic. Since then, the world has only become more totalitarian. Including the Netherlands. Reality keeps proving me right. Which writer can say that about himself?”

Sid Lukkassen was suddenly cast aside by the ECR

“Perhaps it is just as well that I have no children. Our society has become unliveable in so many areas. Mass immigration. Energy prices. Nitrogen. The lack of housing. Unreliable government. An ageing population. Europe’s geopolitical irrelevance. Identity politics. Decadence. Climate lockdowns. Inflation. Your heart sinks.

“There used to be a Protestant-humanist ethos with classical virtues. Living within your means, saving for a rainy day, and so on. But the erosion of money’s value is so great that you cannot save fast enough to keep up. Ultimately, you will pay the benefits of that pensioner sitting in Greece drinking ouzo at sixty. All those old-fashioned bourgeois ideals, such as diligence, are being flushed down the toilet.

“I did intend to start a family. But two years ago my relationship broke down, shortly before we were to marry. I lived in Brussels with a French-Cypriot woman. In the end, we turned out to have different expectations for the future. She was a true cosmopolitan. She worked incredibly hard for a multinational that squeezed her like a tangerine. A company like that functions as a surrogate family, consuming the energy that, biologically speaking, you should invest in creating a family. Yet ultimately you are an interchangeable pawn who can simply be sacrificed. I work hard too, but my books are and will remain mine. In fifty years, people can still say: Sid came up with that.

“Fortunately I had saved a great deal for our wedding. Because I was suddenly cast aside by the ECR, the European Conservatives and Reformists group for which I worked. That was because FVD members defected to JA21. It was a ruthless settling of scores. In the middle of a lockdown, while my grandmother was dying.

“Now I am a consultant and writer. It is not easy to make a living from that, true. I have to finance my books through crowdfunding. But I am intellectually independent. I do not have to lick Joost Eerdmans’s boots.”

Sid Lukkassen spent eight years as a VVD councillor in Duiven

“I spent eight years on Duiven’s municipal council for the VVD. I still notice how much I benefit from that. I understand politics well; I know how those games work. Under Rutte, the VVD has unfortunately become a party without a vision. He is a left-liberal who blows with every wind and is surrounded by cheerleading monkeys claiming that everything in the Netherlands is going so well. During the coronavirus period, you could also see that the VVD no longer values classical fundamental rights and supported coercive measures. A true liberal, by contrast, distrusts the collective and defends individual freedom.

“I am now active in Forum for Democracy. I stood on the candidate lists for Arnhem’s municipal council and for the Senate. Thierry Baudet appealed to me. He did not have Geert Wilders’s rawness. That business of deporting all Muslims and putting our own people first. He offered a culturally conservative analysis that made sense and encompassed much more than opposition to mass immigration. I do not agree with Thierry on everything. I let him know that too. But at least he understands what I write. And that is already quite something.

“In practical terms, I probably could have achieved little on the municipal council or in the Senate. I have enough experience with politicians and policymakers to know that you cannot bring about a fundamental change through politics. But making a right-wing realist voice heard is very useful. You can become a cultural force, make people think.”

“I do not rule out civil unrest”

“In books such as Kerkgangers en zuilenbouwers and Levenslust en doodsdrift, I argue for a New Pillar. An alliance of truth-seekers that arms itself against the virtue-signallers. You cannot make it alone. People with a rationally thought-out worldview are censored, economically boycotted, demonised, driven out and made invisible. Left-wing people are extremely intolerant.

“In this intellectual climate, you develop an attitude of: fuck you and your system of virtue. We will create our own pillar. With a sense of community and an appealing future. And our own media. Such as Ongehoord Nederland, which is now facing a witch-hunt.

“The old system of pillarisation was characterised by accommodation at the top; you are right about that. That conciliatory element is absent now. We are being pushed into a ‘do or die’ situation. With grim aspects. I do not rule out civil unrest.”

Sid Lukkassen sees the EU as a cultural-Marxist behemoth

“As a boy I had many dreams and ideals. I thought, for example, that European culture had much to offer. The Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the German tradition of Bildung: all of that is very interesting and valuable. I was also fairly positive about European integration. After completing my master’s degrees in history and philosophy, I did a traineeship at the European Parliament. At the time, I hoped we could steer the European Union in the right direction by reconnecting with our cultural sources. But in practice you encounter bureaucracy and technocracy. Brussels is a revolving door of jobs, and the EU a cultural-Marxist behemoth. Frits Bolkestein seemed a classical liberal who spoke out against cultural Marxism. But what did he achieve in Brussels as a European commissioner?

“What does cultural Marxism mean? Applying Marxist ideals of equality to culture instead of economics. Previously, the left placed its hopes in workers who were supposed to revolt against the bourgeoisie. That did not happen. Workers became much too comfortable. So a new group of marginalised people was sought. There is now extreme overidentification with that group. Muslims, for example, are regarded as a pitiable, oppressed minority, whereas Western culture is engaged in an existential struggle with Islam. The coming battle in schools between woke and Islam will be fascinating. Muslim children certainly will not allow themselves to be squeezed into that fashionable mould of virtue, with all the rainbow business; they have a tough playground culture. It will be difficult for children from soft families who vote for Jesse Klaver to hold their own against it.

“I trust my moral intuition. That little voice in my heart saying: listen, this simply goes too far. Men, as transgender people, in women’s sports, to give one example. Then you think: surely that is bizarre. You must dare to keep saying that aloud. Something like: sorry, guys, I cannot go along with this; I am no longer going to validate your madness. I am not an apparatchik of the system. I am a free, creative individual.”

Critics call Sid Lukkassen autistic

“My critics call me autistic. Do you think I am autistic? I see myself as an empathetic person. Look at all the people I have gathered around me. From every walk of life. When I came into contact with Zihni Özdil, he was surprised by the colourful parade in my network. He comes from GroenLinks; he was not used to that.

“Nor am I alienated from my own background. I come from a family of hardworking labourers and no-nonsense middle-class people. People who tile bathrooms. I am the only ‘intellectual’ in my family, so to speak. But my intellectual passion has only strengthened the bond. My family does not consist of virtue-signallers. They are down-to-earth people with a realistic outlook. Left-wing policies trouble them. My father has to work with foreigners in construction. He wonders why we did not train good tradespeople ourselves in the Netherlands. But then, that is down to the Labour Party and its education laws. The state of Dutch craftsmanship is deplorable.

“I am recording this conversation, by the way. I hope you do not mind. I have had bad experiences with the media. They like to frame you as far-right. Once, in a one-to-one WhatsApp conversation, I philosophised about when a revolution is necessary. That belongs to an old tradition of thinking about natural law. In the seventeenth century, the English philosopher John Locke already pointed to the right of resistance when a government becomes tyrannical. And the media then label that an ‘incitement to violence’. Taken completely out of context.”

“Sometimes you have to provoke a little to get attention”

“For strategic reasons, Zihni Özdil advised me to avoid a controversial term such as ‘population replacement’. Well-meant but idiotic advice. Again, it is about the tone rather than the substance. What are we supposed to say instead? A change in the demographic composition of the population? The most common boys’ name in big cities is now Mohammed. That is a major development. You are perfectly entitled to point it out. Call a spade a spade.

“In the House of Representatives, I think Forum’s Gideon van Meijeren does that well. A provocateur? Oh, sometimes you have to provoke a little to get any attention at all. They keep trying to corner him and cast suspicion on him. But he knows his subject well and champions the classical liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

“I let the outrage over tribunals and ‘Negroid primates’ pass me by. I do not subscribe to newspapers or magazines either. I am trying to produce a long-term, lasting, creative philosophical analysis. And apparently that is interesting. That is why you are sitting here too, is it not?”

The KIRAC affair affected Sid Lukkassen deeply

“When it became known that I was second on the FVD list for the municipal council here, a newspaper called me a ‘sex-film extra’. That refers to the business with KIRAC. It is not that I was ‘raped’, as Michel Houellebecq said—the French writer who also ended up in a porn film by the artists’ collective. But I was used.

“I longed for an encounter with the Other, to quote the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. I thought that by being filmed cuddling a left-wing girl, I could show that there is still hope for authentic human connections. Beyond established prejudices in the media. But KIRAC turned out to be after media attention and shock value.

“The affair certainly affected me. Old childhood friends, from whom I had heard nothing for years, suddenly started calling. To tell me that I had been a role model for conservatives and had now disgraced myself by allowing a horny chick to take me in. And publisher Tom Zwitser, whom I had thought a friend, no longer wanted to publish my new book, Wees afgrondelijk. You really do go through a dark period then. The gain is that I now know clearly who my friends are.

“I am not a conformist who thinks only of his job and always makes cautious choices. Apparently I am a colourful individual, open to adventure and intellectual experiments. And then you have to learn not to give a shit what outsiders think of you.”

Sid Lukkassen (Zevenaar, 1987) studied history and philosophy and earned his doctorate at Radboud University Nijmegen. He has been a municipal councillor, lecturer and policy adviser in the European Parliament, and has published a series of books.