Martin Bosma's dissertation on Netherlands involvement in anti-apartheid rejected again

Tweede Kamer president Martin Bosma will not be awarded his doctorate by the University of Amsterdam. A doctoral committee rejected the PVV parliamentarian’s dissertation on Dutch involvement in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle for the second time, Bosma’s supervisor Jean Tillie confirmed to the Volkskrant.

Bosma has been trying to earn a doctorate with his unconvential view of South Africa’s history for years. He already published a book about this theory, titled Minderheid in eigen land, in 2015. According to Bosma, anti-apartheid fighters are accomplices of the ANC, and the “disadvantaged” position of white South Africans is a harbinger of what could happen to white Dutch people in the future. In an earlier interview with Trouw, Bosma called white South Africans “the first Western guinea pigs in a multicultural laboratory.”

Bosma was initially under the doctoral supervision of political science professor Meindert Fennema, who was hopeful about Bosma getting his doctorate with the dissertation. But the first version was rejected. Tillie then took over from Fennema, who passed away last summer. According to Tillie, the second version was “a defensible dissertation,” but the doctoral committee ruled that it did not meet the UvA’s standard for scientific research.

Now that Bosma is not receiving his doctorate, his dissertation will not be made public. The university would not make any statements about its assessment process. “Formally, he can still receive his doctorate, but not with this committee,” Tillie told Argos.

Bosma and his spokesperson were not available to respond to the Volkskrant about his dissertation getting rejected.