WORM'S EYE

Theo van Gogh: his views; and after
Freedom of speech - 08.11.2004 17:48

Theo van Gogh, murdered in Amsterdam. Was he a hero, anti-Semite, misogynist, or Islamophobe? To find out, we have to look at his own words, translated for English speakers. What will be the consequences of this murder?

Theo van Gogh: hero, anti-Semite, misogynist, or Islamophobe? His own words

The murder of Dutch film maker and columnist Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004 in Amsterdam shocked many people. Not only in The Netherlands, but also abroad, reactions were, understandably, often emotional. Many of them described Van Gogh as a martyr for free speech. That leaves the question: free speech for himself and people of his views, or also for his targets?

Many reactions by people in, e.g., England, were by people who didn't know the writings of either Van Gogh or his critics first hand in Dutch.

I will try in this article to help provide this information, necessary for a rational assessment.

So, first, the murder is terrible, should be condemned, and everyone should make an effort to prevent violence like this from happening again.

However, if I would keep saying that one plus one makes three; and then someone murders me; I hope no one will write that I was a mathematics genius (as at least some people seemed to do on Van Gogh; not mathematics, but you get the point).

Theo van Gogh's inspiration were films like A Clockwork Orange; and French author Louis-Ferdinand Céline (a supporter of Hitler during World War II), both with human depravity as central theme.

So let us see, from what Van Gogh himself said:

1. Van Gogh on Jews

2. Van Gogh on women (including MP Ayaan Hirshi Ali)

3. Van Gogh on war and socialism

4. Van Gogh on immigrants from Muslim countries

5. Who killed him and why?

1. Van Gogh on Jews

"fornicating yellow stars [which Jews had to wear during Nazi occupation] in a gas chamber ... What a smell of caramel today. Today the crematoriums burn only diabetic [in Dutch literally: sugar-sick] Jews". Van Gogh, in Moviola magazine, 1991. The court then fined him 1000 guilders for anti-Semitism.

He pictured Jewish TV presenter Ms Sonja Barend in a concentration camp. Jewish author Leon de Winter he pictured in "Treblinka [camp] style fornication with barbed wire around his dick."

When Jewish historian Ms Evelien Gans criticized Van Gogh, he wrote in Folia Civitatis magazine: "I suspect that Ms Gans gets wet dreams about being fucked by Dr Mengele [Nazi doctor at Auschwitz]." He hoped (Volkskrant, February 1995) Ms Gans would sue him: "Because then Ms Gans will have to explain in court that she claims that she does not get wet dreams about Dr Mengele."

2. Van Gogh on women (including MP Ayaan Hirshi Ali)

Van Gogh’s last, a few minutes long, film, was written by a Dutch MP, Ms Ayaan Hirshi Ali, naturalized refugee, from the ex-royal family of Somalia. See on her, in Dutch, http://www.tijdschriftlover.nl/artikelen/artikelen_islam.html an article by Surinamese Dutch Black (not Islamic) feminist Troetje Loewenthal.

On http://www.sp.nl/include/sh_opinie.php?code=406 another critical article on Ms Ali; this one by Anja Meulenbelt; arguably the best known Dutch feminist and now Socialist Party Senator.

Ms Ali is MP for the VVD party: in government; the most openly pro- capitalist party in Parliament. Arguably, they are the Dutch equivalent of the British Tory party (though more "secular" than especially the Christian fundamentalists in the Tories). The VVD, and Ali, and Van Gogh, enthusiastically support all wars of George W. Bush; and government expulsion of ten thousands of refugees from The Netherlands; including Somali women refugees from female circumcision; who now have to fear it if the responsible VVD minister succeeds with her expulsion plans.

Female genital mutilation, by the way, is not an Islamic custom, as it happens in Somalia and among Christians in Kenya. Not among Turks or Moroccans, the biggest groups of immigrants from Muslim countries in The Netherlands. Ms Ali proposed in a Parliament speech to give the African continent not a cent of aid any longer.

Anja Meulenbelt quotes Theo van Gogh, who said that feminists should stop campaigning against husbands' violence in marriages: "Gentlemen who give a tough hiding are quite attractive to some ladies really." That remark was on women in general, not especially on Muslim women. But as we know, about a hundred years ago, Lord Cromer was the boss of the anti-women's suffrage league in Britain; and in colonial Muslim Egypt, sounded very "feminist".

The theme of Ali’s and Van Gogh’s film was Islamic wives beaten by their husbands; said to be inspired by the Koran. Beaten Muslim women reacted very angrily to the film on Dutch TV: "I was beaten by that no good husband. Not by the Koran! Making this a Koran issue will just give them an excuse." The film was sort of soft porn David Hamilton-Emmanuelle style naked [Christian Moluccan actress playing an Islamic woman] woman in see through clothes with Koran verses written on it. The women said this cheapened and sensationalized their extremely real issues with their husbands.

On a British Internet forum, a comparison was made between “Van Gogh making films vividly critical of Islam and the likes of Bunuel or Scorsese who made films that challenged the basis of catholicism”. However, there is a difference. Bunuel and Scorcese came from a background were Catholicism/Christianity was the dominant religion, at least during their childhoods. While never-a-Muslim Van Gogh called all Muslims, most of them in The Netherlands a lot more poor or powerless than he was "goatfuckers". Not once: probably a hundred times or more in writing (I did not count).

The Internet message continued: “There is therefore no comparison with the BNP or NF, whose staple diet is attacks and violence by Black men against White women, not intra communal violence.”

However, even though Van Gogh, contrary to Ms Ali, was no party politician: intra communal violence, including hypocritical pity about female circumsision, WAS the staple diet in party political broadcasts by the now defunct Centrumpartij, then the Dutch sister party of the British extreme Right, over 10 years ago.

When, in 2002, Pim Fortuijn (he himself preferred the more “aristocratic” spelling Fortuyn) founded an anti-immigration party, with 4 other people, one was ex Centrumpartij leader J. Boiten (when his past came out after Fortuijn’s death, Fortuyn's [their spelling] party dismissed Boiten as parliamentary assistant. Boiten claims Fortuijn knew all on his Centrumpartij past).

Van Gogh helped Fortuijn write political speeches. Fortuijn wanted him as an MP for his party; but Van Gogh refused, as he hated other prospective candidates.

Can a fascist party be led by an open gay in some individual cases, even though gay bashing is a main point of the extreme Right? Yes it can. Michael Kühnen, leader of the National Socialist Action Front of Germany was openly gay and had a macho theory to justify it. He died of AIDS in 1991. Right now, Dutch Michiel Smit (see photos on http://www.geenstijl.nl/paginas/michielsmit/ ) the leader of Nieuw Rechts, New Right, is openly gay. Though Fascist competitors used and use that against both.

3. Van Gogh on war and socialism

Van Gogh strongly supported George W. Bush's wars, and opposed all socialism in his columns. Van Gogh wrote on Paul Rosenmöller, ex dockworker, then Green Left party leader: "May he get a joy bringing brain tumor. Let us piss on his grave".

4. Van Gogh on immigrants from Muslim countries

As I said, Van Gogh routinely substituted “goatfucker” for “immigrant to The Netherlands from an Islamic country.” Including in his book Allah knows best, 2001: "There is a Fifth Column of goatfuckers in this country, who despise and spit at its native people. They hate our freedom." "Soon, the Fifth Column of goatfuckers will hurl poison gas, diseases and atomic bombs at your children and my children.”

However, nothing justifies the murder of Van Gogh. The main immediate effects of it were further racist backlashes in The Netherlands, with an Islamic primary school in Eindhoven firebombed for the fourth time; mosques and buildings of secular Moroccan immigrant organizations attacked at night. Very many Dutch Moroccans participated in, and/or organized, protests against the murder of Van Gogh. However, that did not impress bigots. Vice Prime Minister Zalm (VVD) declared, in George W. Bush style, “war on extreme Islam.” Though one murderer, however terrible, is not a state’s army in any dictionary. Neither Van Gogh nor his attacker were in military or other state service.

5. Who killed him and why?

The arrested suspect wrote a rambling five page letter and left it at Van Gogh’s body.

Though his parents were from Morocco, he was raised in The Netherlands in Dutch and apparently did not know Arabic. The letter had nothing on Van Gogh. It was a long ramble on purported quotes from the Jewish Talmud. The suspect was said to be upset by his mother's death and TV footage of US soldiers killing wounded Iraqi civilians. There is not any proof that he did not act alone. So, an INDIVIDUAL killed Van Gogh. Not "Islam". Not even "political Islam."

Again: not, NEVER ANY excuse for this terrible murder. It seems murderer and victim had something in common: both fairly intelligent but mentally disturbed. Van Gogh often had depressions, according to Dutch daily NRC. So, indeed, he certainly cannot be equated to a calculating racist politician, who is never alcoholic or takes drugs.

Dutch poet Remco Campert wrote: "De mortuis nil sini bene. [Say only good things on people after they die.] That is a maxim which Van Gogh violated consistently. I think I would insult him if now I would say sugary nice things on him." Campert continued his article with Van Gogh's quotes on Jews. Then: "These are not really the words of a true hero of free speech."

This weekend, Ivory Coast erupted. First, nine French peacekeepers (and one American aid worker) were killed during a bombing raid against rebel forces--the latest move in an on-again, off-again civil war that has split the West African nation since 2002. Then, French troops retaliated by destroying most of Ivory Coast's small air force. In response, thousands of Ivorians grabbed their machetes and took to the streets, protesting France's actions in its former colony.

Until recently, Ivory Coast was a West African success story, a relatively peaceful and prosperous plot in an otherwise deeply troubled place. The papers say that changed two years ago, when mainly Muslim rebels seized control in the north. True enough. But we're here to tell you the Ivorians' issues--with each other, and now with the French--have deeper roots.

Today's KnowledgeIvory Coasting

Portuguese slavers and ivory traders first explored what is now Côte d'Ivoire (French for "Ivory Coast") in the 15th century, but rugged coastline and a shortage of sheltered harbors mostly kept Europeans out to sea until the mid-19th century. Knowledge about life in Ivory Coast before then is sketchy, but we know that Islam likely arrived long before Europeans. As far back as the 11th century, a series of powerful Muslim empires dominated major trade routes in West Africa, and by the 17th and 18th centuries, a handful of Muslim states were flourishing in Ivory Coast's north. Dense rain forest in the south kept villages there more isolated and likely limited the spread of Islam.

We also know that in the 17th century there were plenty of elephants around, since Côte d'Ivoire got its name from a booming 17th-century ivory trade. Sadly, pachyderm profiteering ran amok, and most of the trade was gone--along with most of the elephants--by 1700.

French Coasting

By the mid-19th century, the French were making inroads in West Africa. They moved slowly at first, cutting deals with local rulers who allowed them to build fortified trading centers in exchange for a few francs a year. Disputes over such deals were frequent, but the French wanted to keep at least a toehold in the region--in part to check the expanding influence of their old adversaries, the British. In the 1880s, French colonization efforts picked up steam, as they joined in the "Scramble for Africa," a sort of mad European dash to establish spheres of influence on the continent. In 1889, Britain recognized France's sovereignty over the coastal areas of Ivory Coast. Four years later, Côte d'Ivoire officially became a French colony.

Agreements with neighboring Liberia in 1892 and Britain in 1893 set the colony's eastern and western boundaries. But the northern boundary remained undetermined for more than 50 years as the French tried out different schemes for administering all of "French West Africa," which also included colonies in Benin, Guinea, Niger, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania.

French Roasting

From the start, a sizeable portion of the Ivorian population resisted French colonization, especially as the French military pushed inland to establish new posts. Then, in 1906, Paris appointed a new governor who decided that the colony needed "pacification." On the positive side, the repression that followed stopped illicit slave trading. On the negative, it led directly to the conscription of Ivorians to work on plantations, in mines, and on public projects for the French. In what amounted to taxation-by-manual-labor, French colonial policy actually required every adult male in Ivory Coast to work for the state for ten days a year without compensation. The law was widely abused--and not surprisingly, thoroughly despised.

Colonial policies briefly became even more oppressive (and racist) after 1940, when Hitler's wehrmacht blitzkrieged across France. But before World War II was over, Charles de Gaulle's Free French government had recognized the need to alter the relationship between France and the colonies.

Ivory Coasting

One of the African groups lobbying for such an alteration was the African Agricultural Union, a group co-founded by Ivorian planter/physician Félix Houphouët-Boigny. After a period of mutual animosity with the French, Houphouët-Boigny began to cooperate with the colonizers in the 1950s.

In 1958, Côte d'Ivoire became a republic within the French Community. The following year, Houphouët-Boigny became the republic's premier. Finally, in 1960, Ivory Coast achieved full independence. That year, Houphouët-Boigny was elected president, an office he would keep until his death in 1993.

Generally conservative, pro-business, and pro-French, Houphouët-Boigny ruled Ivory Coast autocratically but efficiently. During his reign, democracy suffered, but Ivorians enjoyed political stability and strong economic growth. While much of West Africa went to war, they went to work, building the fourth largest economy south of the Sahara around cocoa and coffee. Immigrants poured into the country looking for work, especially in the north, where they now account for up to 40 percent of the population.

Ivory Roasting

In 1993, Houphouët-Boigny died in office. His successor, Henri Konan Bédié, quickly moved to change the nation's election laws to exclude a Muslim northerner, Alassane Ouattara, from the upcoming presidential ballot. He also began exploiting anti-Muslim feelings in the south for political advantage. In protest, opposition groups boycotted the 1995 election, and President Bédié easily won reelection.

Then, in 1999, amid cries of corruption, General Robert Guei overthrew President Bédié in a bloodless coup and assumed the role of president. Like his predecessor, President Guei ensured that Ouattara (and other Islamic candidates) were excluded from elections in 2000. But despite doing his best to rig the election before the fact, Guei realized halfway in that he was losing it to another candidate, Laurent Gbagbo.

Not to be held back by anything as airy as an actual vote count, Guei dissolved the election commission and declared himself the winner. But a popular uprising soon swept him out of office, and Gbagbo in. Two years later, Muslim-dominated groups in the north rebelled. Despite French efforts to broker a peace, and a UN-sponsored peacekeeping mission, it's been civil war on and off ever since.

Steve Sampson

November 9, 2004

Want to learn more?Brush up on African geographyhttp://www.africaguide.com/afmap.htm

Download the full Ivory Coast report http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/citoc.html

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