This week marks the first anniversary of Theo van Gogh’s ritual slaughter for his sins against one immigrant community of Islam. He died the week after his film, Submission was shown on national television. The message behind the film — images of a woman’s body painted with verses from the Koran — was obvious: Islam uses women, often in cruel ways.
No doubt Mr van Gogh’s film was clever, edgy, graphically compellling. But here, a year later, you have to wonder: what in the world was he thinking? Or was he thinking at all? Did he, as so many “celebrities” do, think his fame insulated him from danger? He actually laughed once when a Muslim man warned van Gogh that he was going too far.
This anniversary recalls the original mixed feelings that emerged with the details of his slaughter. He is purported to have asked his killer if they could “talk about this.” Or words to that effect. If true, what stellar ignorance drove Mr. van Gogh’s political/artistic work? How could he have failed to see how useless talk is? Was he blind to the rage “Submission” invoked? Was this hubris or simply a person willfully ignorant of the times in which he lived?
So many questions. Such a babble of thunderous silence.
Now, a year later, Europe is marking this anniversary with continent-wide eruptions. The rising tide of anger between blacks and Pakistani in the underclass in Britain, France’s nights of vandalism and destruction, the ever-increasing demands of the ever-increasingly sensitive immigrant Muslims who cannot tolerate even the public images of pigs, Spain’s race riots and the deaths at the fence it erected to keep out illegals. Exclusion and suspicion on one side; grievance-driven demands for entitlements on the other. And both sides trapped in the conflagration caused when truth — which whispers in private — dare not speak in the public square.
And now…even now, the Netherlands proves how little it has learned.
| The Dutch authorities are not going to annul the so-called samenlevingscontract or “cohabitation contract,” a civil union registered before a notary, which a man recently concluded with two women whom he now considers to both be his wives. Piet-Hein Donner, the Dutch minister of Justice, responded in the negative to a request of the Dutch parliamentarian Cees Van der Staaij to annul the “trio marriage.” |
Such a small blip on the radar — just one man and two women. What can be the harm “as long as no one is hurt by their behavior”? Right?
It doesn’t seem as though it’s been a year since Theo van Gogh’s slaughter. His death is such a benchmark, such a defining moment that it has quickly entered a timeless place. Senseless murder —its waste and horror— often does. This crime should never have happened. In the best of all possible worlds he should have been free to express his contempt. But he lived in a very dangerous world — it seethed all around him — and he hadn’t the eyes to see it.
We will never know from what well he drew his willful refusal. What should his epitaph have been? Perhaps it might read “But I Wasn’t Serious”? Unfortunately, Islamist utopians are very serious indeed. Dead serious. As his murderer proved at the trial, with his contempt and vicious hatred for his victim and the family.
Peter Drucker said that “communication is the act of the recepient.” If he’s right — and I do think he is — then each time we want to talk, negotiate, or otherwise dither with a culture that holds us in contempt, we are doing nothing but shoveling out one more spadeful of our own grave.
Has Europe learned yet how truly lethal politically correct multiculturalism is? Have we? More than a year ago, Theodore Dalrymple told us why it won’t work:
| Multiculturalism rests on the supposition—or better, the dishonest pretense—that all cultures are equal and that no fundamental conflict can arise between the customs, mores, and philosophical outlooks of two different cultures. The multiculturalist preaches that, in an age of mass migration, society can (and should) be a kind of salad bowl, a receptacle for wonderful exotic ingredients from around the world, the more the better, each bringing its special flavor to the cultural mix. For the salad to be delicious, no ingredient should predominate and impose its flavor on the others. |
As he says further, any good cook knows this is a recipe for disaster. Some ingredients predominate and some should barely whisper their names. Otherwise you have a mess, one that can neither be eaten or metabolized. And he reminds us what happens to those who follow the dicta of the mandarins and the grievance-driven:
| Reality has a way of revenging itself upon the frivolous. |
Mr. van Gogh learned that fatal lesson. Europe disdains his memory by refusing to heed the example.
Update: It seems I forgot Denmark‘s rampaging Muslim underclass young males.
And mercy me, my hat tip re Theo van Gogh, which belongs to an early morning email from PeakTalk.
Interesting post. It is hard to believe it’s only been a year. So much has happened and it feels like the whirlpool is swirling faster.
It was never my impression (somewhat superficial) that Mr. van Gogh was operating from “stellar ignorance.” In fact, quite the opposite. I always understood that Mr. van Gogh and Ms. Ayaan Hrsi were well aware of what they were doing, which made it that much braver.
I would appreciate any items you could point to to help me understand this better. One of my favorite stories about Ms. Hrsi has her challenging a would-be Jihadi to go ahead and kill her while she sat in a restaurant. She even gave him a knife to do it (I think it was a butter knife. The article from which this comes is now in the Times Select archive for all time).
I think their work deserves more credit. We need brave men and women to stand up and speak about the growing threat. That’s why I have been a lurker here for a long time. I admire the writing and the bravery of you all here at this site (the Jamaat ul-fuqra work is very interesting).
I do agree that Europe (and many in the U.S.) refuses to heed these warning signs. It seems such a large, unsteerable tide that it is easy to lose faith. Anyway, keep up the good work.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
— The Second Coming , W. B. Yeats
My problem with Mr. van Gogh was not his bravery, nor do I call that into question. But sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor. He would have been better off, and his message better served, had he acted less flagrantly dismissive toward those that did warn him.
So I ask:
what should be his epitaph?
And has the Netherlands learned one damned thing from his death?
Pride goeth before a fall and all that…his death makes me *angry* at his carelessness and furious that the Dutch just sail along, right over the edge of the world.
Look at Dalrymple’s last sentence in that post.
As for MS. Hrsi, she too was brave. But I think she was also more wordly-wise and knew better than to leave herself open. She is willing to pay the price of life-long quasi-imprisonment for what she has to say.
Mr. van Gogh paid a different price.
I would also say she chooses her venues: a public restaurant with a butter knife? She saw her opponent’s bet and upped it.
I wish I were going to be around to read the eventual definitive biography of this woman. I figure if we’re not all living in dhimmitude it will be an amazing book. But that’s about 50 years off.
Eric Hoffer, over fifty years ago wrote in the True Believer,
“In the past, religious movements were conspicuous vehicles of change. The conservatism of a religion—its orthodoxy—is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.”
In Matthew, 5:13(NIV) we find Jesus saying:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”
In this respect, Baron, Islam never really brought any salt at all to the table. We can point to no positive events associated with its’ advent or spread.
With respect to the later secular religion of Marxism, it may have been relevant to an extent during a very short period during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution but it has become “inert coagulum” and has been such for years. Its’ peppery taste went stale long ago in a decay to orthodoxy that could be presented, and has been thus presented, in a comic book.
Therefore the anonymous French youth in the streets in the 1960’s could honestly say, “I am a Marxist–of the Groucho tendency.” Since Marxism had become a joke.
I believe that a more fertile field for understanding the Islamic threats and the threats posed by it’s fellow travelers is in psychological analysis. And the kind of mixed analysis done by people like Hoffer, the great proletarian philosopher who was anything but the kind of proletarian messiah the Marxists expected.
Silly people.
You are in Dar al Harb, what do you expect?
Besides, any fool voting his own laws cannot be following God’s, right?
Why are you all complaining, there is no compulsion, right?
Besides, these people you mention are ungodly, right?
I mean, why is there shock that those who openly express contempt for the immutable and perfect find oblivion?
……………………….
Find the teachers of this utter garbage, and introduce them to life in solitary for inciting the end of the world.
It’s the teachers
Oh my goodness, wrong attribution in my comment. A thousand pardons Dymphna. No excuse beyond carelessness.
Hey, Andrew S — no problem. Sometimes I post comments in The Neighborhood of God that I meant to put in Gates…
You’re welcome here anytime…especially when you come toting Matthew 5, the heart of it all.
Oh Gawd – another quote from the Yeats poem. You know, the most over-quoted poem in the English language? Sheesh. Seems one can’t go to a blog anymore without somebody abusing poor Yeats to make a point by now obvious.
But what I really wanted to say, Dymphna, was that despite his pathetic “can’t we just talk?” plea in extremis, I don’t think van Gogh was oblivious, or frivolous, or any of the other adjectives you advance to describe his admittedly mysterious behavior.
I think what he was is what’s called “crazy brave.” You know, the one guy on the edge of the “peace” demo with a sign saying “more war.” The guy who stands up in the middle of a biker bar and yells that bikes are for wussies and every real man rides a horse.
I think he saw himself surrounded by PC nonsense every day and said to himself, “I’m not going to duck my head for these idiots.”
We need more like him. We need Romans who, when captured by the enemy, stick their hands in braziers full of burning coals and assure their enemies that there are hundreds, thousands more exactly like them who are just itchin’ for a fight.
And then, at long last, at some point in the not all too distant future, we need to actually fight.
Old Cato–
Two quibbles:
First, that poem gets quoted a lot because it says succinctly what our yearnings and fears are. If you can improve upon it, in fewer words, and more eloquently, please do. It has held its own since 1920…would that any of my words will be around 85 years from now.
Besides, it was written after the pain of the Easter Rebellion, which for many of us, is still quite fresh.
Second quibble: there is a difference between courage and fool-hardiness. I have nothing against Mr. van Gogh, but he caused his country and his family much pain with his “crazy brave” behavior. What did it accomplish or change? Give me, any day, Ayaan Hrsi’s “wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove” approach.
There were two collaborators on that film, Submission. One is alive and one is not. The irony is that the one that was — and remains — most despised is still here. She lives to fight another day.
Van Gogh’s act was hubris because he was alone — in a concerted effort to make change his film would have been another thing entirely. But his life was not one of co-operation or planning. He lived decandently and he died horribly. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, but like a character from Shakespeare, say Hotspur perhaps, he brought down the fates on his head.
And now his family grieves because he was neither cunning nor wise.
BTW, I approve of crazy brave as in esprit de corps. Go for it. But not in mockery or edgy art.
But those are *my* reseverations.
Sometimes people die horribly and unreasonably but their death has meaning. Try reading the intro to “Ripples of War” — I personally can’t get thru it without a box of kleenex, but that stupid attack on Okinawa had more sense than van Gogh being pulled off his bike and stuck like a goat.
What is there to admire in that?
Napoleon I is rolling in that magnificent tomb at Les Invalides. The Emperor, he of the “whiff of grapeshot” that disposed of the royalists would have known what to do about rioting foreigners in the French slums — same thing he did to the rabble in Cairo when they made trouble.
A curse to live in such times ! Europe populated by idiots and governed by mushrooms; like a third of the American population deadwood that the rest of us have to carry.
No reason to despair,we, the heirs of Pericles, Christ, Caesar, daVinci, the Bourbons, Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Washington, Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt shall triumph over the multi-cultis yet, their pygmy allies and apologists here; as well as all the barbarian stew the Muslim world in its death-throes can spew up.
Cato: In the Sioux alliance, when a village was attacked, the withdrawal of the women and children were covered by warrior societies. If things really got bad, some of these warriors would shoot arrows or use lances to pin their sashes to the ground indicating their willingness to engage any who came their way. From these circles they shouted encouragement to their brothers and, in some cases, sang their death songs. It was considered cowardly to try to bypass these warriors without engaging them or counting coup.
They would shout, “Currahee!” (I Stand Alone).
Recently, the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the Band of Brothers, was reconstituted. Their battle cry based on their WW II training site and the number of men from the Dakotas in the unit is, “Currahee”.
The US military fights as fiercely as any Roman Legionnaire and their reach is somewhat greater. Our women warriors, when they get the chance to engage the enemy fight, and sometimes die, as courageously as any historical warriors you care to name. Sometimes you have to go back to back with one of your brothers with no ammo and just a bayonet or an entrenching tool and it may be that Good Day to Die. But nobody I know is going down negotiating. In fact, at an autopsy they’d had to surgically remove the corpse’s knee from his opponents crotch. Letting a guy who wants to stick you get close enough to do it is dumb.
I’ll take real bravery, that is engaging the enemy at any distance up to Listerine range, over “crazy brave” any day. Pop on over to Blackfive and read his archive, especially the posts entitled, “Someone You Ought to Know.”
Good thoughts that I must postpone addressing till the morrow, all.
And to all a good night.
Vdhanson:
It may be the teachers, but think about these contributing factors:
– school curriculum and education in general is under the influence of passe psychological beliefs and the political election cycles.
– teacher education programs and Education Majors in college are creating people who can deliver content, but have not studied their own area of teaching very deeply.
– as an ex-teacher, for some of the same irritations that are in the content on this post, I can attest to the “culture of teaching” and it aint pretty. Kids have more rights than teachers, parents threaten legal action regularly, and administrators dont want to rock the boat. And teachers, as a population are no differnt than any other corporate culture – there leaders, followers and those taking up space.
and as far as the cultural sensitivity and PC elements of this seeping to people’s heads, that is a battle that has to be fought in the public – policymakers can only change what is taught in public schools and what the rules are. Scholars are not innocent, but the lack of a intelligent opposition allowed many ideas to spread – e.g. Deconstructionism and Freud.
I wish blogs were around when I started teaching, I would have been able to use them in class more than the textbooks.
Multiculturalism and moral relevancy run through most social studies textbooks today. As a result, Yeats’s words are today’s reality:
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
One year since Theo Van Gogh’s death? Seems like decades ago to me–so much has since happened, and is still happening.
When will the West make a united stand? Our elected officials are into the business of vote-getting and appeasing the enemy.
And Eurabia seems to have become an inevitability.
Always on Watch – “When will the West make a united stand?”
We have. Every Western government has embraced multi-culturalism. Every Western government is concerned for civil rights. Every Western government is wringing their hands over how to include Islam into their nation. Every Western government is worried about not offending muslims. Every Western government has or is in the process of instituting “hate laws” that make it illegal to criticize Islam, even in private. Every Western government is supporting the placement of Islamic centers in their cities that promote hatred and killing.
We have taken a united stand. We’re welcoming the murderers with open arms and blind eyes.
Perversely, this has become: “united we fall.” The war is over, lost. Our own governments are against us.
I had to remove tag’s comment because his URL messed up the page view. I changed it to a hotlink.
He said: “security watchtower has an entry that speaks to some of the issues included in this post. – the political football we call public education.”
link
Thanks so much for another superb post, including the Dalrymple article which somehow I hadn’t seen previously. I posted a links.
My thoughts on Van Gogh?
Was he brave, foolish, crazy-brave or full of hubris?
I don’t know, but I like to think that he knew he was taking a suicidal stance.
If he was collaborating with Hirsi Ali (sp?), then there is no way he couldn’t have an idea of possible consequences. He had the choice of how to confront those consequences.
As for his family, and the heartbreak he has left behind there, I feel for them, but I can also see where he might have decided to take his stand to the nth degree.
9/11 was a huge wakeup call for me. The Bali bombings, Madrid, 7/7, Indonesian schoolchildren, stonings in Iran (among other places) and now Paris in flames.
The more I see and read – and of course, very little in the newspapers – the more frustrated I am.
What will it take to wake up the sleeping dragon that is Western Civilisation? Is it slumbering or comatose, waiting for the plug to be pulled?
My friends and family think that I might be getting a bit obsessed until I point out a few things from the Quran. Theo Van Gogh is another example that makes them think that maybe I’m not suffering from ocd when it comes to this topic.
My copies of Spencer and Trifkovic are always on loan, and I’ve started reading the Quran to educate myself further.
If it came to taking a stand, would I be willing to do so even if it killed me? Yes.
I lived for years in an abusive relationship, and that is what Islam has with the rest of the world. The more you appease them, the greater atrocities they heap upon you.
Win or die.
There is no middle ground in this battle. If it meant that my daughter gained her freedom from my death or incarceration, it would be worth it.
She will not grow up in the shackles of Multiculturalism, Political Correctness or Dhimmitude.
/apologies for the rant.
Please note, I have no intention of going postal on the next muslim to cross my path. 😀 That would be a stupid thing to do. However, if there were some way of combatting the evil that is Islam, I am more than willing to take up arms.
For now, I keep a low profile, educate myself and attempt to educate others. That’s all I can do.
When I can do more, I will.
Nilknarf – NO!!!
It was a great post, echoing what many of us feel.
Don’t apologize!
Be a man; say what you believe and if the world doesn’t like it, to hell with them!
We should never have to feel the need to apologize for stating a position or telling the truth… dammit!
The world would be a better place if we could get over this weenie, metro-sexual idea that to be a real man means we need to be weepy and apologize for everything.
……. don’t you dare apologize…
(laughs)
Well, Bill, speaking as a woman, I fess up that I don’t know how to be a real man 😀
But that is irrelevant.
Under islam, we all lose, and I for one am not going to sit by and watch it happen. I just find it overwhelming at times, because it never seems to end.
I notice that on SBS this morning (sat am – 9.30) the french language news led with a piece about the riots in Paris. Of course, not speaking a word, all I could do was look at the pictures. It’s like something out of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger film.