Former PvdA minister and current Telegraph columnist Ronald Plasterk has won the Pim Fortuyn Prize. The jury praises him as a public thinker who speaks out without being influenced by social pressure or ideological movements.
Plasterk, who has been a columnist at De Telegraaf since 2020, received the award on Wednesday at press center Nieuwspoort in The Hague. He is praised by the jury as someone with “courage, vision and enormous intellectual baggage” who “asks questions where others remain silent”. The jury believes that Plasterk dares to be critical of issues such as immigration, climate and education, even when it concerns the PvdA.
The Pim Fortuyn Prize is intended for opinion makers, administrators or politicians who participate in the social debate and dare to address taboos. Jury chairman Joost Eerdmans (JA21) describes Plasterk as a “public intellectual who is not carried away by moral panic, activist hypes or ideological dogmas”.
Other nominees were former politician Rob Oudkerk, columnist and podcast maker Marianne Zwagerman and the Iranian-Dutch writer and activist Keyvan Shahbazi.
The prize is a tribute to Pim Fortuyn, who was shot dead in Hilversum on May 6, 2002. He also did not mince words. The politician was murdered by Volkert van der Graaf, who saw him as a growing danger to society.
The challenge trophy was awarded to writer and columnist Natascha van Weezel last year. The jury consists of Simon Fortuyn (chairman and brother of Pim Fortuyn), professor Afshin Ellian, psychiatrist Esther van Fenema and Eerdmans.