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Don't let the goat-fuckers win! 2005-11-02
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Today it is a year ago that Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered for
his points of view, his ideas, his complaints and for what he stood
for, by an islamic-extremist, or in other words, by a goat-fucker.
On July 23 1957, Theo van Gogh was born in The Hague. It is a
well-known fact that his great-grandfather was art dealer Theo van
Gogh, brother of Vincent van Gogh. After dropping out of law school
he became a stage manager and his passion was in the making of
movies. He debuted as a director with the movie Luger (1981). As an
actor he appeared in the production De noorderlingen ("The
Northerners", 1992). After that, he worked for television and wrote
provocative columns for Metro and other newspapers.
Van Gogh was a virtuoso writer of polemic prose. His often
scandalous tone and personal animosities got him involved in a
number of public law suits against other writers and public figures
and got him fired as a columnist of a succession of magazines and
periodicals, forcing him to seek refuge in his own website, called
De Gezonde Roker ("The Healthy Smoker"). This, also being the title
of one of his books, was an allusion to his notorious chain smoking
and to the 'politically correct' negative stance towards smoking in
society. In general, Van Gogh had a strongly nihilistic outlook on
life, displayed, amongst others, by episodes of heavy drinking, his
open use of the drug cocaine and a cynical view of love
relationships. Although he seemed to enjoy his life, he said he
wouldn't mind dying. His last book was Allah weet het beter ("Allah
Knows Best", 2003) in which, in his typical cynical, mocking tone,
he presented his views on Islam. He was a well-known critic of
Islam, especially after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
He supported the nomination of the liberal, Somalian-born female
politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali for Dutch parliament. As of 2004, she is
a Member of Parliament for the classical-liberal VVD party, which
advocates limits to the admission of immigrants into the
Netherlands.
Van Gogh was a member of the Dutch republican society Republikeins
Genootschap which advocates the abolition of the Dutch monarchy,
and a friend and supporter of the controversial Dutch politician
Pim Fortuyn who was assassinated in 2002. He was also a staunch
supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Although Van Gogh was generally known as a friendly, tolerant
character, there were those who saw a venomous side to him as
well. When he fell out with someone he tended to respond with
hurtful prose. In the 1980s, he became a newspaper columnist, and
through the years he used his columns to vent his anger at
politicians, actors, film directors, writers and other people he
considered to be part of "the establishment".
Van Gogh rejected every form of organised religion. In the late
1990s he started to focus on Islam. He caused widespread resentment
in the Muslim community by consistently referring to them as
geitenneukers (goat-fuckers), which he justified by reference to
alleged remarks on the permissibility of bestiality in a book on
Islamic law by the Ayatollah Khomeini - although it is not clear
whether Van Gogh actually coined the term geitenneukers, he
certainly popularized it. He felt strongly that political Islam is
an increasing threat to liberal western societies, and said that,
if he'd been younger, he would have emigrated to the U.S.A., which
he considered to be a beacon of light in a darkening world.
One of the few politicians who seemed to be exempt of Van Gogh's
criticisms was the conservative leader Pim Fortuyn, who was
assassinated in 2002. Van Gogh usually referred to him as the
"divine baldhead'. After the death of Fortuyn, Van Gogh continued
attacking the remaining members of the Lijst Pim Fortuyn as he did
other politicians. His political idol from then on was Ayaan Hirsi
Ali.
Working from a script written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, van Gogh created
the 10-minute movie Submission, part 1. The film is about violence
against women in Islamic societies. It shows abused naked women
wearing see-through dresses with Qur'anic verses unfavourable to
women painted on their bodies. After the movie was released, both
van Gogh and Hirsi Ali received death threats. Van Gogh did not
take these very seriously and refused any protection. The movie
shows the false image about Islamic teachings that many muslims
have.
Van Gogh was murdered in the early morning of Tuesday November 2,
2004, in Amsterdam in front of the Amsterdam East borough office on
the corner of the Linnaeusstraat and Tweede Oosterparkstraat
streets. He was shot with eight bullets from a HS2000 (a handgun
produced in 2000 in Croatia) and died on the spot. His throat was
slit and he was then stabbed in the chest. Two knives were left
implanted in his torso, one pinning a five-page note to his
body. The note threatened Western governments, Jews and Hirsi Ali.
The murderer Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old man of Dutch and
Moroccan nationalities, was apprehended by the police after being
shot in the leg. Although born in Amsterdam, well-educated and
apparently well-integrated, Bouyeri became a muslim extremist and
has alleged terrorist ties with the Dutch Hofstad Network. He was
also charged with attempted murder of a police officer and
bystander, illegal possession of a firearm, and conspiring to
murder others, including Hirsi Ali. He was convicted on July 26,
2005 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Until his murder Van Gogh was working on a movie about the
assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. The film was
officialy released on the internet on December 15, 2004 and had its
cinema premiere on January 30, 2005.
