Posted on 11/10/2004 2:52:53 AM PST by teezle
I have read several comments by FReepers about the slaugthering of Theo van Gogh and see a lot of half truths about it. Therefore I will write this short report from Utrecht (The Netherlands).
Theo van Gogh was a very famous film maker and columnist in The Netherlands. His movies were about several topics including a remake of Romeo and Julia with a Dutch girl and a Morrocan immigrant. He was a very generous guy as all his friends mentioned at the funeral and a good citizen (working for his son's sportclub). His other side was his fun in provoking people. He has provoked almost every well-known person in the Netherlands. For instance, there has been a lawsuit against him for commenting: "It smells like caramel, they must be burning the Jews with diabetes". He just loved to create conflicts.
He has been sacked as a columnist numerous times and the last few years he used the free newspaper in public traffic and his website www.degezonderoker.nl (thehealthysmoker) for his insults. Last years a lot of his insults were pointed against Muslims which he always mentioned as goatf*uckers. And yes, that is possible in the NL. I read an article about a NYT reporter who was thinking how he was going to translate that. I read in the NYT that he finally used "bestiality with a goat". :-)
Another person in the NL who is trying to start a discussion about Muslims and the Koran is Ayaan Hirsi Ali (House of Representatives for the liberal party). She is originally from Somalia and when she was told to marry a guy she fled to the NL. She asked Theo van Gogh to do a short film about Mulims women surpression and he did. Ayaan has been threatened so many times (she is someone who is not Muslim anymore, don't know the word for that) that she got police protection 24/7. Theo did not want protection.
Last week Theo van Gogh was cycling through Amsterdam and Mohammed B. shot him several times, slit his throat and than stabbed two knifes in him. One was sticking a letter to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to his body.
That night 20.000 people were making a lot of noise on the Dam (square) in Amsterdam to make a statement that this will not be tolerated. Also several Muslim demonstrations have been held after Tuesday. And a few rightwing extremist (neo nazis) were having demonstrations but these were aborted by the police.
A few more people were arrested in the aftermath and police are searching Mohammed B.'s religious teacher. They both had contact with Samir A., the guy who was arrested for planning attacks against the House of Rep.
Mohammed B. was raised in the NL and was a normal (read: moderate Muslim) until two years ago. He started visiting more radical mosques, got a beard and started wearing djelaba's. People around him say that he started becoming radical after his mother died of cancer. But when he got radical they lost contact.
Since Theo van Gogh was not a normal guy his friends organised a party the day before his funeral. They even had a corner with goats behind a fence with a sign above it: "For people that have the urge". :-)
Since last Tuesday a few attacks have been commited against Islamic schools and mosques. This ranged from small fires to thrown-in windows. Apart from two other attacks: A bomb attack at a Islamic school in Eindhoven and yesterday a fire that burned down a Islamic school in Uden. Also several churces have been under attack in recent days and yesterday night (I cannot believe it) the church in the village I grew up at (Boxmeer) was set on fire (small one though).
This morning I woke up and learned that the terrorism police squad tried to enter a house in The Hague and got a grenade thrown at them. Three police men were hurt. The police is trying to prevent the thing that happened in Madrid (exploding house when they entered) and are still waiting to enter the house. It is now even prohibited to fly over The Hague.
I can tell you guys this. Living in the Netherlands at this moment in time is very unreal. The song I keep having in my head this morning is "We gotta get out of this place.." I am starting to think more and more that we are on the edge of a major conflict within the NL (as some of you guys have been telling al along), but I am not ready to give up on the Muslim community in the Netherlands.
If it happens I probably have move to another country (perhaps to America like Theo van Gogh was going to do when his son finally got 18, is now 12 I believe). We'll see...
Btw. People were questioning my Dutch decent because of my English but I lived in England for half a year so that's why.
If anyone has any questions about the Netherlands or the situation as of now, please feel free to ask.
Best, Teezle
Good post. I wouldn't exactly call goons from the National Socialist's party "right wing extremists" tho...
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=33371
List of attacks since Dutch filmmaker killed
AFP: 11/10/2004
THE HAGUE, Nov 10 (AFP) - Here is a list of attacks on mosques, churches and Islamic sites in the Netherlands since Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered on November 2, by a man believed to be motivated by radical Islamic views. The murder has fuelled ethnic tensions in a traditionally tolerant society. There have been no victims from the attacks.
- Nine mosques have been either vandalised or attacked by arsonists.
- Seven of the mosques have been attacked by arsonists: Ijsselstein (centre), Utrecht (the centre), Huizen (west), Breda (south), Rotterdam (south west), Groningen (north), Heerenveen (north).
- Two other mosques have been vandalised: Rotterdam and Groningen.
- Two Islamic schools have been attacked.
- An Islamic primary school in Eindhoven in southeastern Netherlands was firebombed on Monday, November 8.
- An Islamic primary school was burned down on Tuesday, November 9.
- Five churches have been attacked by arsonists: in Utrecht (centre), Amersfoort (centre), two in Rotterdam and in Boxmeer (centre).
- The offices of two Moroccan organisations were attacked by vandals in Amsterdam.
Police have arrested five suspects, three of them for the arson attempt at Huizen, one for the attempted arson at Ijsselstein and one for the mosque attack in Rotterdam.
Excellent article:
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/10/do1001.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/11/10/ixopinion.html
"Now, with the manifestation of a violent form of intolerance in their midst, the iron has entered their souls. After decades of welcoming immigration and preaching multiculturalism, they now propose to expel failed asylum-seekers and to assimilate those who settle, rather than permit de facto religious segregation. If neo-conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, the Dutch are fast becoming a nation of neo-conservatives.
While the Arab-European League accused the Dutch immigration minister of giving a "Hitler speech" at a rally in protest at van Gogh's murder, the Dutch know who the real Hitlers are. Even the most liberal society is illiberal when it is a question of survival. The Dutch see those who dream of Europe under a revived caliphate as a threat to their way of life. The prospect of Islamist imams imposing sharia law on Dutch cities amounts, they feel, to a new Nazi occupation."
Bttt! Bttt! No more lefties! They'll allow their countries to fall into anarchy, then run here when things get too hot over there. I guess they hadn't heard our lefties were looking to leave. This goes to show that WTSHTF American might is so right.
Socialist government programs and low birthrates will result in the demise of the Netherlands as you have known it. It is only because of immigration policies that Socialism works in modern day Europe. That is probably OK for senior citizens but your children and grand children will suffer the real consequences of this short sighted social scheme.
Holland and the rest of Europe is finished. Most of this end will be accomplished with likely few shots being fired.
Poor Pit Bulls....LOL
What specific plans would people, such as yourself, have regarding the best way to protect our country, ourselves, and indeed, the entire world from the evil we know as Islamic terrorism? Do you agree with Bush's assessment of the situation? I know that many Freepers consider themselves experts on the Constitution, so what is the concensus on our freedoms regarding religion and how that applies to Muslims?
Too late. Legend says it was the little boy who stuck his finger and saved Holland from the flood. Liberal Dutch have OPENED the floodgates for invasion.
What goes around, comes around! When Serbs were fighting against the same islamic onslaught in Bosnia and Kosovo, Dutch allowed illegal kangaroo kourt to be set up on Dutch territory to persecute Serbs. Mabel Wisse Smit set up a mock humnaitarian operation to smuggle weapons for islamists and Dutch government sent F-16s to kill Serb civilians.
Hey Chena,
When I was a young engineer I worked on the rockets shot into the Aurora (Northern Lights) from the Poker Flat range. Your post made me nostalgic...
So you're one of the folks we can thank for all the information we now have on the Aurora. Hey, thanks! Did you enjoy Alaska?
Ah yes, the northern lights. I know some people who can write about them so eloquently, but words always escape me. I should know better than to check the night sky anytime I get up during the night, but it's a habit I just can't break. When the lights are out, you just have to stop and enjoy the beauty and wonder. Our sons didn't share my enthusiasm when they were teens though. LOL
The Killers
The Dutch hit crisis point.
Mohammed B., the man accused of killing Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam last week, was born and bred in the Netherlands, "known as a relaxed, friendly and intelligent young man," a good student, a volunteer social worker, and a serious student of Information Technology. He came from a close family, and the death of his mother three years ago hit him very hard. He began to devote more time to religious studies, and in the last year became increasingly fanatic. He abandoned his social work because he refused to serve alcohol, and because the foundation where he volunteered organized events where both sexes were present. He was on welfare when he killed van Gogh.
We have seen this sort before; Mohammed B. is the Dutch-Moroccan version of the British-Pakistani killer of Daniel Pearl. Both came from good families that had to all appearances successfully assimilated into Western society. Both were well educated and upwardly mobile. Both had money and opportunity. Neither suffered unusual discrimination. Both lived in politically correct, meticulously tolerant societies that permitted no intrusion on their private lives. There was no apparent reason, either psychological or sociological, why either should have become a killer. Yet each freely chose — freely chose — to become a terrorist.
Each also chose to perform a ritual murder. Both beheaded (or, in the van Gogh killing, all-but-beheaded) their victims. This has long been a trademark of radical Islamist terrorists, whose videos of beheadings were used recruit new jihadists to their ranks long before they were broadcast around the world. The recruits join the jihad precisely because they want to behead the infidels and crusaders who are the objects of their hatred. Mohammed B. added a macabre twist: he left a message of hatred for Jews, Christians, Europeans and Americans impaled to van Gogh's chest with the murder weapon, a bloody dagger.
Mohammed B. was no lone wolf; within a few days, Dutch police had arrested seven other members of what they claimed was a terrorist group, and Spanish authorities said they believed the order for the ritual murder had come from terrorist leaders in their country. If that is correct, the van Gogh slaughter wasn't merely the result of local circumstances, but rather the product of a continental network of like-minded fanatics.
As the outstanding Italian journalist Magdi Allam sadly noted in the Corriere della Sera a few days after the event, the murder of van Gogh probably marked the end of Europe's multicultural utopian dream, because it forces politically correct Europeans to face an identity crisis that is eerily symmetrical with the same sort of crisis that has been afflicting Muslims for the past 30 years. Both were provoked by Western victories: The humiliation of Arab armies by Israel in 1967, and the defeat and dissolution of the Soviet Empire.
The Six-Day War and the ensuing collapse of the dream of a pan-Arab empire catalyzed a resurgence of fundamentalist Islam and its intense intolerance of social, religious and political freedoms. In Allam's neat formulation, al Qaeda represents the privatization and globalization of Islamic terrorism in its crudest and most hateful form. Yet it appeals to many Muslims, including some living and even born in the West, because they find it spiritually fulfilling, and also because there is no spiritual force in Europe capable of challenging it.
As things stand, the Europeans are so enthralled by cultural relativism and political correctness that they are totally unwilling to challenge any idea, even the jihadists' program of creating a theocratic state within Western civil society. The terrorist groups consider themselves autonomous, a community of believers opposed to the broader community of unbelievers and apostates.
The killing of Theo van Gogh is a textbook case of what happens when a tolerant but confused society takes political correctness to its illogical extreme. For Mohammed B. did not choose terrorism all by himself. He was indoctrinated and recruited in a mosque where he was pumped full of the Wahabbi doctrine "predominant in Saudi Arabia." The murder of van Gogh was an instant replay of the many murders carried out by Zarqawi and his followers in Iraq, extolled by fanatical Muslim Imams. As Allam reminds us, not all mosques are fundamentalist, extremist, or terrorist, but all the fundamentalists, extremists, and terrorists got that way in mosques.
The Dutch — like every other European society I know — were unwilling to recognize that they had potentially lethal enemies within, and that it was necessary to impose the rules of civil behavior on everyone within their domain. The rules of political correctness made it impossible even to criticize the jihadists, never mind compel them to observe the rules of civil society. Just look at what happened the next day: An artist in Rotterdam improvised a wall fresco that consisted of an angel and the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The local imam protested, and local authorities removed the fresco.
That's what happens when a culture is relativized to the point of suicide. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked of an American politician, "he can longer distinguish between our friends and our enemies, and so he has ended by adopting our enemies' view of the world." This has now befallen Europe, which cannot distinguish between free societies — their natural friends — like the United States and Israel, and has ended by embracing enemies such as the radical Islamist regimes and elevating Yasser Arafat to near beatific stature.
The process by which the Europeans arrived at this grave impasse has been going on ever since the late 19th century, when the intelligentsia revolted against "bourgeois society" and its values, and sought for deeper meaning in acts of nihilistic violence, in fascism and communism, and in vast wars that engulfed the rest of the world. The Europeans might have confronted their spiritual crisis after the Second World War (some brave souls, like Albert Camus, tried), but the Cold War tamped it down. With a huge enemy on their borders, the Europeans finessed the issue, opted for a soulless materialism (that has given them a nanny state and a birth rate that promises to extinguish them in relatively short order), and pretended that the core of Western civilization was irrelevant to their lives.
When the Cold War ended, the crisis was still there, but they projected it onto us. The United States "needed an enemy," they scoffed, because otherwise we could not define our mission. But they were the ones who had lost their enemy, and thus had to face their own terrible contradictions and moral failures. Now they deride us because of our presumed archaic faith. They even equate American religion with the fundamentalism that now menaces them inside their model cities and threatens their enormously self-satisfied secular utopia.
Holland is now in the grips of violent reaction. Mosques and religious schools are firebombed. Emergency legislation granting new intrusive powers to security services has been enabled. The Dutch are groping for a "solution," but they are still ducking the real problem, which, to their consternation, we are dealing with more effectively and far more self-confidently. "The multicultural crisis," Magdi Allam wisely reminds us, "should teach us that only a West with a strong religious, cultural and moral identity can challenge and open itself to the 'others' in a constructive and peaceful way. And that the goal must be a system of shared values within a common identity."
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200411101620.asp
bookmark, succinct and powerful point
The Constitution does indeed provide freedom of religion. I don't think the founders envisioned a religion that kills people by the score. I guess a "moderate" solution might be to give them a choice; renounce Islam or leave peacefully. There are many Islamic paradises they can go to. They can't have ours.
They knew VERY WELL about the Barbary pirates, the Saracens and the Turk. They just did not envision that these characters will be invited to America.
Wow, Barbary pirates, Saracens, Turks...I never thought of it that way. True, they're not invited. Take their knives and go home.
Is there really such a shortage of laborers in Europe that you need to import people from Muslim countries? Perhaps the United States could encourage some of the millions of illegal (mainly Mexican) immigrants to consider settling in Europe to reduce the need.
I'd prefer to see us diversify our mix of immigrants by bringing in people from Asia or India as the economy needs them. Muslims simply do not seem to mix well with any culture, anywhere in the world.
BTTT
Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting. Islam is not a religion of peace
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