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No wonder Pim baffled the Left

Pim Fortuyn managed to combine the virtues which Guardian readers love to love and the vices they love to hate.

"Should we be celebrating this as an anti-racist act or condeming it as an anti-gay one?" wrote one. Only in The Guardian would anyone ask that about a political murder. One reader insisted that Fortuyn had "reaped as he had sown": he had probably been assassinated by a Muslim unhappy at his plan to restrict Muslim immigration into Holland.

It turned out that it was not an angry Muslim, but a human-hating animal-lover who had shot Fortuyn - apparently because

"Fortuyn was a bigot who deserved to die - being gay is no excuse"

of his views on the sexual quality of horses' buttocks. Even so, said another letter-writer, Fortuyn was a bigot who deserved to die - and "being gay is no excuse".

Pim Fortuyn managed to combine the virtues which Guardian readers love to love and the vices they love to hate. He was openly gay - which is terrific: homosexuals are an oppressed minority. Unfortunately, he was also anti-immigration - which is terrible, because to be against the free movement of people is certainly racist (although to be against the free movement of goods and services is to be properly anti-capitalist).

Again, Fortuyn was in favour of women's rights, the legalisation of hard drugs and prostitution - which are all modern and progressive causes. As one reader insisted, far from being a fascist, "Fortuyn wanted to set the Dutch people free . . . he could have rescued Holland. His assassination has taken from us a first-class leader."

But then again, he attacked Islam - which is very, very bad: Muslims are an oppressed people. Attacking them is racist - and you can't get much worse than that.

What caused particular contortions amongst the Guardian-reading classes were Fortuyn's reasons for attacking Islam.

Islamic leaders in the UK have called for the death penalty for gays

He pointed out that, in its fundamentalist form, Islam is against the very progressive causes dear to every Guardian-reader's heart (and to a few other people too): for it quite explicitly denies that women have equal rights to men, it asserts that homosexuality is a crime which should be punished, and its laws stipulate that thieves should have their hands chopped off and that adulterers should be stoned.

Hence the readers' quandary: should one mourn Fortuyn for his defence of liberalism, his attachment to not stoning adulterers and allowing women equal rights - or should one celebrate his demise for putting an end to his "racist" dissing of Islam?

One faction - lead by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association - shared "Fortuyn's concerns about Islam and its antipathy to liberalism. Islamic leaders in the UK have called for the death penalty for gays . . . we have to confront Islam's attitudes to women, democracy, and human rights in general." Another faction, however, felt that all Fortuyn had done was to "incite racial and religious hatred which could have dire consequences for one of the most progressive countries in Europe."

It is an article of faith, especially amongst Guardian-readers, that there are no cultural or religious differences which cannot be overcome within a liberal, democratic society. This has the effect of reducing cultural differences to the

in order to preserve liberal democracy, we have to turn immigrants into people who share our values

difference between flavours of ice cream: which one you choose is simply up to you, and they can all be combined together if that's what you want.

The former Marxist Fortuyn denied that article of faith with all the passion of a heretic. He noted that Islam, in its fundamentalist version, is incompatible with liberal democracy. He suggested that we consider the sort of society the fundamentalists say that God requires.

Can anyone steeped in liberal values honestly deny that he had a point? The point is not, however, one which can easily

... to admit it would be "culturally imperialist" and "racist"

be accepted by adherents of the multi-cultural myth. For Fortuyn rudely insisted that its logical corollary is that in order to preserve liberal democracy, we have to turn immigrants into people who share our values, and accept our secular, democratic procedures for resolving disputes.

The paradox is that the preservation of a liberal society is, of course, precisely the result which Guardian-readers want: they want immigrants to end up with the views and values which are reflected of the comment pages of the Guardian. But to admit it would be "culturally imperialist" and "racist" - the ultimate sins in the Guardian-reader's lexicon of vices. Hence last week's contortions.

Fortuyn was not a very likeable human being, and may have been a deeply unpleasant politician, but he wasn't a racist. He was a hard-core liberal who showed that cultural imperialism is essential to preserving liberalism. No wonder he caused so much anxiety.