Jihad vs Potato Eaters

My new homeland has gone crazy. On Tuesday, Theo van Gogh, a descendant of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh was murdered by a Moroccan 26-year old. The killer ran a few bullets through Van Gogh and afterward slid his throat with a nife. He then left a note attached to Van Gogh's body with a smaller nife. The note proclaimed jihad on those who hate muslims and on those muslims who have gone astray from the right path of Islam. How is that for surreal, it happened nonetheless.

Theo van Gogh was a journalist and a film maker. By his looks you wouldn't find him particularly appealing, big, fat, unwashed hair, sloppy outfit, cigarette hanging from his lips. I suppose you could liken him to Michael Moore, a modern vagabond, one with a mission, one who says exactly what he thinks and when he thinks it, and one who is not particularly appreciated by significant public others. Van Gogh was a fervent defendant of free speech, which may sound ridiculous in a modern democracy like the Netherlands but which makes perfect sense if you know the context.

The hot issue is of course muslim terrorism and more generally the integration of muslim immigrants in Dutch society, and free speech is no less than addressing freely the problems which relate to minorities and their mostly poor integration in Dutch society. And eventhough there has been more free debate on this issue going on since 9-11, Van Gogh still often complained about the persistence of the stifling political correctness of the Dutch media which tend to label allusions to the issue as racism and xenophobia.

Van Gogh was very clear about it. It's no shades of grey. You either respect equal rights for men and women or you don't. You either obey the law and respect basic human rights or you don't. You either make an effort to make your immigrant country a new home by learning the language or you don't. As simple as that. By all accounts he hated inequality and oppression of all sorts. In the summer he made a short film together with a Somali female MP, herself a former refugee and feared victim of ritual family revenge for escaping a pre-arranged marriage. The film is called Submission and shows images of women, their bodies bearing scars of violence and their genitals mutilated by circumcision. In the film, these women painted their bodies with texts from the Koran. Apparently the letter left on Van Gogh's body referred to this short film and promised death to this woman MP who participated in making it.

We already had one political murder, on 6 May 2002. The victim, Pim Fortuyn, was a star politician on meteoric rise to power, and the murder took place just ten days before the elections which he was expecting to win. After the assassination of Van Gogh they mentioned in the news that the number of days between the two murders is exactly 911 - is there any symbolism there with 9-11? Whatever it may be, it is clear that two years ago everyone was reliefed to hear the killer was a white man of Dutch nationality. Now we are dealing with a Moroccan national with a Dutch passport, who dresses in traditional Moroccan clothes, commits a ritual murder and according to the latest news has links to a terrorist network operating in the NL. It's almost like it can't be true.

So today I went to see Van Gogh's latest film. Never saw any of his previous films, didn't read his columns either, he only published on the internet and in a newspaper freely distributed in the trains, no national daily had wanted to employ him for his outspoken views, as it turns out now. As a matter of chance, but probably simply due to its recent release, this film titled COOL is playing in one of the cinemas in my town this week and it wasn't even sold out which surprised me, given the acuteness of the situation and all the media attention that the case is receiving (why is it the tragic fate of artists to receive most recognition only after their death? I thought this went for the 19th century, past times, but not here and now.)

COOL was amazing. It told the story of a youth gang from Amsterdam suburbia, Turkish, Dutch Antilles, Moroccan, and even native Dutch, engaging in petty crime and ultimately robbing a bank which went terribly wrong. The rationale of the movie was to keep your head cool, no matter what happens and to stay who you are, no matter what happens, just keep your head cool. This message is so very ironic, now that the film director is dead only months or maybe even weeks after the film was released. It almost gives you this eerie feeling like he was expecting it to happen and this is his message for the whole nation, to just stay cool and stay who we are, not let us be frightened by the threat.

But can this country really keep its head cool? It won't be easy.