The Belgians have decided that democracy needs to be protected from people who rock the boat and are too popular. The right wing Vlaams Blok has been banned for being "racist". This was not precisely unexpected since the other Belgian parties have been looking desperately for a way to get rid of the Blok for years and they have managed to write laws that now permit the prosecution and banning of it.
Although the Vlaams Blok is claimed to be racist, the evidence suggests that racism is in the eye of the beholder. Their main position is a protest at the perceived victimization of the Flemings within the Belgian state. Arguably this victimization is itself racism and thus they are fighting racism and the loss of their native culture not perpetuating racism themselves. The real problem seems to be that the Blok is popular - holding approval from something like 50% of the voters in Flanders - and thus threatens the cozy rules of the current Belgian rulers.
If a party is so beyond the pale as the Blok then one wonders just how it can gain such high approval unless it is responding to widely felt grievances. There is no doubt that some Vlaams Blok supporters are racists, but tarring the entire organization for the statements of a few supporters is very dangerous ground to tread on. There are very few successful political parties who have no extremists within them and the doctrine of collective responsibility is one not normally seen outside of tyrannies. The stated policies of the Blok are not in fact much different from those of President Bush's republican party, indeed in many ways one suspects the Blok would consider Bush to be a dangerous right-winger, and that they would themselves see parties such as Bavaria's CSU, Spain's Popular Party or the Berlusconi coalition in Italy as being most similar to their own.
The largest irony is that this banning comes just days after the murder of Theo Van Gogh a few miles to the north of Flanders. As the local Belgian historian and journalist Peter Belian writes there is a connection between the Blok and both Pim Fortuyn and Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands. All are concerned by the failure to assimilate of some of the newly immigrant communities to the region. The problem is fundamentally that toleration has to be a two way street. Tolerating people who are intolerant of you and your beliefs is not a viable policy and if the political elite attempts to enforce such an unequal bargain on you then it should be no surprise that it is rejected.
To me there is also considerable transatlantic resonance in that I see much of the same complaints about Bush made about the Blok by much the same set of people. There is, it seems to me, a significant chunk of people within the western world who are coming to the end of their patience with the "political correctness" crowd. Since these people are generally law abiding and quiet the rumblings of their discontent can be hard to discern. Flanders may turn out to be a flash point because banning a party that has a third of the seats in the assembly shows a contempt for the views of the electorate that is simply stunning in its insensitivity. I can hardly think of a better way to encourage more people to vote for the Blok or its successor.