Voltaire and Theo van Gogh
There is a last chapter to this story. As an expatriate living in the Netherlands, I felt the shock of the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh somehow blunted by the fact of the first one, the murder of the politician and sociologist, Pim Fortuyn. It shouldn't have happened again so soon but it did and, for some reason, it did not surprise me.
Both were examples of intolerance, the first from the European community and the second from the Muslim world. Both sent shock waves through the Dutch population. Both brought tens of thousands of people into the streets to protest violence that seemed directed at the very core of democracy - free speech.
But there was one significant difference. When Fortuyn was killed, a large section of Dutch society made their voices heard and showed their grief in public. But Fortuyn was a vocal opponent of immigration, which kept another large group of residents - the immigrant community - off the streets. When Theo van Gogh was felled, the shock was also felt among the immigrant Muslim population.
Thousands of local Muslims joined the commemorative marches, lined up outside the crematorium and appeared as never before on Dutch radio and television, expressing their concerns about the damage done to the Muslim image in the Netherlands by a small group of fanatics. More surprisingly, these same Muslims began to voice their support for freedom of speech - something that probably would have been unheard of a few years ago.
Ironically, while the Muslim community in the Netherlands reacted to van Gogh's murder by showing support for the filmmaker's right to insult Muslims in public, many Dutch politicians took a sharp turn to the right. The current right-of-centre coalition announced new, hard measures to go after "terrorists". They caught the main suspect in the van Gogh assassination and rounded up more than just the usual suspects.
Incredibly, the Dutch Ashcroft-like Minister of Justice responded by saying publicly that there should be a crack down on blasphemy! I kid you not.
A few hundred years ago the French philosopher, Voltaire, described the problem this way:
Like Salmon Rushdie, van Gogh personified free speech around the world, in his provocative films and on television to a select public. While he had his share of enemies, no one deserves to die because their views shock or offend others. There are still those in free countries who attack free speech from the pulpit and the political stage in words, laws or with bloody deeds. But they will never succeed in silencing the voices of free peoples.
Theo van Gogh is dead. Long live Theo van Gogh!
Both were examples of intolerance, the first from the European community and the second from the Muslim world. Both sent shock waves through the Dutch population. Both brought tens of thousands of people into the streets to protest violence that seemed directed at the very core of democracy - free speech.
But there was one significant difference. When Fortuyn was killed, a large section of Dutch society made their voices heard and showed their grief in public. But Fortuyn was a vocal opponent of immigration, which kept another large group of residents - the immigrant community - off the streets. When Theo van Gogh was felled, the shock was also felt among the immigrant Muslim population.
Thousands of local Muslims joined the commemorative marches, lined up outside the crematorium and appeared as never before on Dutch radio and television, expressing their concerns about the damage done to the Muslim image in the Netherlands by a small group of fanatics. More surprisingly, these same Muslims began to voice their support for freedom of speech - something that probably would have been unheard of a few years ago.
Ironically, while the Muslim community in the Netherlands reacted to van Gogh's murder by showing support for the filmmaker's right to insult Muslims in public, many Dutch politicians took a sharp turn to the right. The current right-of-centre coalition announced new, hard measures to go after "terrorists". They caught the main suspect in the van Gogh assassination and rounded up more than just the usual suspects.
Incredibly, the Dutch Ashcroft-like Minister of Justice responded by saying publicly that there should be a crack down on blasphemy! I kid you not.
A few hundred years ago the French philosopher, Voltaire, described the problem this way:
"The man who says 'believe as I do or God will damn you', will presently say 'believe as I do or I will assassinate you!"
Like Salmon Rushdie, van Gogh personified free speech around the world, in his provocative films and on television to a select public. While he had his share of enemies, no one deserves to die because their views shock or offend others. There are still those in free countries who attack free speech from the pulpit and the political stage in words, laws or with bloody deeds. But they will never succeed in silencing the voices of free peoples.
Theo van Gogh is dead. Long live Theo van Gogh!
posted by J. DeVincent at 1:05 PM
2 Comments:
Indeed. That's why van Gogh had enemies. That's also what I meant by "intolerance from the European" community. It's not a simple problem. I don't believe in insulting people simply because they hold beliefs that I find absurd. (Although I do believe in satirizing them.)
Nevertheless, the principle of being able to say what you want to say is essential to freedom. Free speech is the freedom at the bottom of the pyramid that holds the rest in place. Without it, in my view, freedom as such is not possible.
In the NL we have also had Islamics calling from the sanctity of their Mosques for homosexuals to be thrown head first off of buildings. A Dutch comic responded by saying, "I can understand the call for throwing homosexuals off of buildings, but head first?
Now, if only the Islmaic community could learn to treat themselves less seriously. It would go a long way to solving some of the "clashes" of culture we are seeing today.
As I wrote, the Islamic response was surprising. That's what's needed -- a backlash among immigrant communities in countries like the Netherlands aimed at stopping fanatics and fanatical insults through social pressure.
Van Gogh may have been crude and foolish to focus his criticism on a single religion, instead of on religion in general, but he did not deserve to die because of it.
Why, thank you, Sir Rascal. Coming from someone who obviously has a way with words, I'll take that as a compliment.
It's just a hobby and I don't advertize Black Tulip. How did you find it?
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