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| Europe | |
| Free speech fundamentalist on a martyrdom operation (sick) | |
| 2004-11-19 | |
If maverick Dutch journalist and moviemaker Theo van Gogh was a fundamentalist believer in the right to free expression, his 2 November murder may have been his very own 'martyrdom operation'. Rohan Jayasekera comments on the disturbing legacy of a man who believed in free speech, whatever the consequences.
The word only works in Holland, and then only when spoken by 'native' Dutchmen. It doesn't work so well for hundreds of thousands of Dutch citizens of Arab and Muslim descent. Dutch white folks' gezellig reliance on gedogen to manage uncomfortable realities took a knock with the violent death in May 2002 of maverick anti-immigration campaigner Pim Fortuyn. On 2 November it took another with the stabbing and shooting of film director Theo van Gogh, a descendant of the mad genius Dutch painter. | |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #13 Laura Croft or Emma Peel,she doesn't nesecarly have to kill them.Just stomp a mud hole in thier ass and leave them whimpering on the ground. |
| Posted by: raptor 2004-11-19 5:23:51 PM |
| #12 Make her a psychopathic serial killer with a fetish for removing male genitalia. That's sorta been done already... |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-11-19 4:31:43 PM |
| #11 I think killer has a kind of negative conotation Seafarious, I prefer terminal Director. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-11-19 1:46:04 PM |
| #10 Fair enough, moose, I see your point. I would only add that Van Gogh, unlike his great-granddad, was one of those idiotarian untalented non-artists who specialize in insulting people of faith. His life was devoted to spiteful, snide attacks on catholics, jews, muslims alike. An equal opportunity abuser, if you will. Nothing justifies his murder, of course. But I still doubt that a movie like his would be made here-- unless of course it took as its target evangelical Christians.... |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-19 1:34:24 PM |
| #9 lex: what is offensive to you may not be what is offensive to others. In the example I suggested a girl is driven to crime by having been victimized. Now, in the US, murderous wives are sometimes pardoned for killing vicious husbands; and you would hardly be offended by their having a right to self-defense. In fact, you might even applaud it. And yet, a woman refusing to be beaten by a man, or even fighting back, is a horrible, repulsive, objectionable and frightening prospect for many Moslem males. And so, when I say a "horrifyingly offensive" movie, it has a very interesting meaning: to many Moslems, human rights, the abolition of slavery, criminalizing child and wife abuse, outlawing 'honor killings' and the murder of apostates is "horrifyingly offensive." And it's about time somebody made a movie that shows how REPUGNANT these "cultural traditions" are to civilized people. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-19 1:24:13 PM |
| #8 True, CF-- note how african-americans like Condi are now fair game for crude racist insults from the "left." They're becoming indistinguishable from the McVeigh crowd. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-19 12:31:13 PM |
| #7 lex, Except if you are part of the Left like Mike Al-Moore - then the MSM 'celebrates' it as a grand achievement and heap on the awards. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-11-19 12:24:47 PM |
| #6 It’s a fact of life. The right to free speech includes the right to freely speak crap. Truer words were never spoken. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-11-19 12:17:39 PM |
| #5 why hasn't someone in the US made a horrifyingly offensive anti-Islam movie? Because we're not like Europeans. As annoying as the PC movement is, it has nonetheless made raw racial hatred intolerable, and no-BS American leaders like Giuliani have zero tolerance for hate crimes no less than for other crimes. Not even Howard Stern would make a "horrifyingly offensive anti-Islam" production. Ann Coulter lost her job for her dumb remarks after 9/11. When it comes to real tolerance and pluralism, we get it. Many Europeans still do not. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-19 11:52:28 AM |
| #4 Make her a psychopathic serial killer with a fetish for removing male genitalia. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-19 11:51:55 AM |
| #3 This actually raises a very interesting question: why hasn't someone in the US made a horrifyingly offensive anti-Islam movie? And I don't mean this in the way of propagandistic shlock like "Der Ewing Jude", but something like van Gogh's movie, that while seemingly not that offensive or crude, pushes their hot bottons? Imagine how much pure enjoyment was to be had if some anonymous film maker made a movie about a young Moslem girl who is driven mad by abuse and turns into a vicious killer of abusive Moslem men. Make her ultra-orthodox, so you never see her face, so she could be *any* Moslem girl. Maybe give some of the girls ideas. I bet the Imams would freak out at the idea. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-19 11:47:29 AM |
| #2 Crap from the international socailist left. Move on nothing to see here. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-19 11:44:44 AM |
| #1 ...his 2 November murder may have been his very own ’martyrdom operation’... I suppose that's why Theo begged for mercy and begged for his life as his killer approached with the beheading knife. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-11-19 11:37:17 AM |