{"id":1879,"date":"2009-11-02T17:25:51","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T22:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/?p=1879"},"modified":"2009-11-02T17:25:51","modified_gmt":"2009-11-02T22:25:51","slug":"the-killing-of-theo-van-gogh-five-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/2009\/11\/02\/the-killing-of-theo-van-gogh-five-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The killing of Theo van Gogh – five years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOn this day five years ago Theo van Gogh was shot and killed by Mohammed B, in Holland’s first (and so far, only) Islamist terror attack. At this late date I’m not sure I still stand entirely by what I wrote at the time<\/a>, as I tried to push back somewhat too hard against an unrelenting stream of Islamophobia that his murder unleashed. I tried to explain what might have driven van Gogh’s murderer at a time when his motivations were still far from clear, as well as why his murder didn’t make van Gogh into a free speech martyr. Looking back I came on too strong and my point was lost in te confusion.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut I still believe it is wrong to call van Gogh a martyr of free speech. His killing was a political deed, intended as a a warning and threat to those Mohammed B. saw as enemies of Islam, but this in itself is not enough to make him a martyr, just like John Lennon wasn’t made a martyr when he was murdered by a deranged fan. Van Gogh never had to fear state prosecution, or social ostracation for his views, no damage to his career. That one random nut decided he needed killing therefore did not turn him retrospectively into a martyr.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis myth however has served as a focal point for Dutch Islamophobia, confirming the supposed dangers Islam offers to our liberal, tolerant society. Van Gogh’s murder shows the dangers of allowing this alien philosophy to grow unchallenged, showing the need for strict measures to make sure Muslims living in the Netherlands fully share our values — or leave the country. He provided the excuse for all sorts of people to let loose their id, all in the name of freedom of speech, aimed at a part of the Dutch population increasingly seen as alien and unbelonging by a growing segment of (white) voters. It was only after van Gogh’s murder that Islamophobia found its official voice in Geerd Wilders’ PVV, which since than has grown larger and larger, while the established parties seem to have no answer to its rightwing populism, waffling between joining in and condemning it.\n<\/p>\n

\nA recent and telling example is how the current social democratic minister for integration, Eberhard van der Laan, who today took a strong stance against Wilders by calling his party “dangerous”, while alos having been in the news last week for feeling “uncomfortable” about Turkish and Moroccan people living in council housing while saving up for a house in Turkey or Morocco to retire to — real Dutch people never buy houses in Spain to spent their winters in, apparantly. This sort of me-tooish populism helps legitimise Wilders, while the attacks on him make him look the victim of the “Den Haag establishment” as well as the only honest man there, not changing his opinion ever other day.\n<\/p>\n

\nVan Gogh’s murder accelerated an already present tendency towards intolerance in the Netherlands, fetishised the idea of free speech as being as rude as you want to without consequences, paved the way for the PVV to quite possibly be the largest party at the next elections, while setting back any serious attempts to deal with integration problems. It may therefore have been the most important political event in the country’s recent political history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this day five years ago Theo van Gogh was shot and killed by Mohammed B, in Holland’s first (and so far, only) Islamist terror attack. At this late date I’m not sure I still stand entirely by what I wrote at the time, as I tried to push back somewhat too hard against an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islamophobia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1880,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879\/revisions\/1880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}