Decompacting the murder of Theo Van Gogh

On November 2, a prominent and controversial Dutch filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh, was shot and stabbed to death, allegedly by a 26-year-old Islamic extremist holding Dutch and Moroccan citizenship. According to a note left at the crime scene, this was an act of retribution for a Van Gogh’s recent project, which detailed what he saw as the misogyny and backwardness of Islam and Muslim communities in Europe. In the wake of this much publicized political murder, Dutch and European lawmakers have begun using an exclusionary political language “culture” and “European values”, amid promises to “get tough” on immigrants.
Perhaps the most difficult issue to confront in this is the gender politics. Van Gogh’s last project “Submission” is clearly provocative (If you have high speed internet, you can view the controversial film “Submission” here). It tells the fictional story of a Muslim woman forced into a violent marriage, raped by a relative and brutally punished for adultery. It features actresses portraying abused Muslim women, naked under transparent Islamic-style shawls, their bodies marked with texts from the Koran that supposedly justify the repression of females. It is easy to see how Muslim men and women could be offended by a film like this (Particularly one made by a white Dutch-born man).
Conversely, the film is a testimonial of sorts of an African immigrant raised in a strict Islamic society. The film’s screenwriter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, grew up an upper-class Muslim in Somalia before immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992. Now a Dutch politician, she has received death threats for numerous stances she’s taken and activities she’s undertaken. Although Van Gogh’s filmmaking may have been offensive to some, it is pretty amazing that a platform was given on national television for the viewpoint of an African immigrant woman (I doubt very much that our networks would carry anything close to this…).
More broadly, this case is clearly about political tolerance, or lack thereof.
On the one hand, it is clear that within the parameters of the case, Van Gogh’s murder is about a truly sinister form of intolerance and violence. He was murdered for his opinion. And that is really, really scary.
But the political ramifications of Van Gogh’s are perhaps more insidious, and far-reaching. On Friday, one of the most popular politicians in the Netherlands, right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders, told the AP that the country’s democracy is under threat and called for a five year halt to “non-Western” immigration:
** “The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long,” he said. “We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country. There is nothing to be ashamed of to say this. It’s not Islam. I speak out against the facts.” **
WHAT THE FUCK?! Has the whole world gone reactionary? (…here I was thinking it was only the red states…) I feel like I am in an Orwell novel. Condemning intolerance and close-mindedness with intolerance and close-mindedness. Strike one more country off my “places-to-flee-to-if-they-overturn-RoeV.Wade” list….
–Posted by Brendan

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