Meindert Fennema's fight for freedom of expression
Emeritus professor of political theory Meindert Fennema passed away on 12 June from the effects of cancer. He had long since shaken off his communist past, but he remained a colorful and recalcitrant scientist who continued to engage in public debate.
Despite his debilitating illness, Fennema remained involved in public debate within and outside the UvA until the very end. A few months ago, for example, he gave free rein to his thoughts on the issue of Laurens Buijs, who in his view is fighting the right fight against the alleged lack of academic freedom at the contemporary UvA. This lack of freedom reminded him of the time when he himself was still a member of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN), a party where democracy was hard to find, Fennema thought afterwards.
Meindert Fennema was born in Leeuwarden shortly after the war but spent most of his childhood in Zeist, where his father was an assistant butcher in the slaughterhouse. He later wrote the book The Slaughterhouse about it. After high school in Utrecht, he worked for some time on board one of the cruise ships of the Holland-America Line. Only a few years ago he wrote the book Happy Ship Rotterdam about this, in which he described what happens on a ship full of millionaires.
Hans Daudt
Fennema initially studied sociology in Utrecht, where he was a member of the student body. He later wrote down his experiences as a frat boy in the book Goed Fout. Memories of a follower. Influenced by the turbulent zeitgeist of the 1960s, he ended up at the “red” UvA, where he continued his studies at the Department of Political Science and played a prominent role in the affair surrounding Hans Daudt, the professor who had been dismissed by students because of his lack of democracy in the implementation of what they consider necessary “communist” curriculum. In the early 1980s – still a member of the CPN – he obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on international elite networks, in particular financial networks, and became a professor of political theory and affiliated with the UvA's Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies.
Racism
For Fennema, academic freedom, democracy, and freedom of expression were absolute values to which everyone was entitled, especially in an academic context, including people with less sympathetic or racist views. For example, he always stood up for the racist politician Hans Janmaat, believing that, he, too, had freedom of expression, just like everyone else. Fennema even managed his archive for a long time.
He also supervised PVV member Martin Bosma with his promotion, because “everyone has the right to obtain a doctorate.” He wrote a rather curious biography of Geert Wilders which is not entirely in line with the facts, but the latter had not contributed to it. These were all actions and views that were not always appreciated by the “left-wing” UvA, even though he was and remained left-wing, but also a critic of the left, in particular of the PvdA.
Village politics
After his retirement, he settled in the elitist Kennemer dunes, more specifically in the municipality of Bloemendaal, where he got involved in village politics on behalf of GroenLinks, which in his eyes was polluted by snobs of dubious disposition. He wrote the book Village Politics. What is the local authority about. A humorous lawsuit arose about this book and the statements Fennema made about it in the media, which, to his delight, were widely reported on. He was much in demand as a columnist and publicist, including at de Volkskrant.
In recent years he was a columnist for ThePostOnline. In the last period of his life, he returned to Amsterdam, where he died at the age of 77.
