| Theo van Gogh | |
|---|---|
Theo van Gogh in 2004 |
|
| Born | Theodoor van Gogh July 23, 1957 The Hague, Netherlands |
| Died | November 2, 2004 (aged 47) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Cause of death | Assassination |
| Occupation | Film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor |
| Known for | Submission |
| Religion | None (Atheist) |
| Children | Lieuwe (born 1992) |
| Website | |
| www.theovangogh.nl | |
| Part of a series on |
| Criticism of Islam |
|---|
| Issues |
| Antisemitism · Domestic violence · Islam · Muhammad · Quran |
| People |
| Irshad Manji · Ayaan Hirsi Ali · Maryam Namazie · Tarek Fatah · Daniel Pipes · Ibn Warraq · Geert Wilders · Oriana Fallaci · Pamela Geller · Robert Spencer · Theo van Gogh · Afshin Ellian · Salman Rushdie · Turan Dursun · Wafa Sultan · Magdi Allam · Anwar Shaikh · Walid Shoebat · Taslima Nasrin · Mark A. Gabriel · Brigitte Gabriel · Christopher Hitchens · Pat Condell · Nonie Darwish · Mosab Hassan Yousef · Bruce Bawer · Bat Ye'or · Necla Kelek · Debbie Schlussel · Srđa Trifković · Pastor Terry Jones · Fjordman · Pim Fortuyn · Efraim Karsh · Ehsan Jami · David Wood · Martin Bosma · Tommy Robinson |
Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈteːjoː vɑnˈɣɔx], 23 July 1957 – 2 November 2004) was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.
Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims. On 2 November 2004 he was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim.
The last film he completed before his death, 06/05, is a fictional version of the assassination of the politician Pim Fortuyn.
Contents |
Theo van Gogh was born in The Hague, Netherlands. His father, Johan van Gogh, was a member of the Dutch secret service ('AIVD', then called 'BVD'). Theo's uncle, also named Theo, was executed by the Germans as a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Theo's great-grandfather was the art dealer Theo van Gogh, brother of the artist Vincent van Gogh.
After dropping out of law school at the University of Amsterdam, van Gogh became a stage manager. His self-proclaimed passion was filmmaking, and he debuted as a director with the movie Luger (1981). He received a Gouden Kalf ("Golden Calf", the Dutch equivalent of the Oscar) for Blind Date (1996) and In het belang van de staat ("In the Interest of the State") (1997). For the latter, he also received a "Certificate of Merit" from the San Francisco International Film Festival. As an actor he appeared in the production De noorderlingen ("The Northerners", 1992).
After that, he worked for television. Van Gogh also wrote provocative columns for Metro and other newspapers. He wrote polemic prose. His website was called De Gezonde Roker ("The Healthy Smoker").[1] The site's name, which is also the title of one of his books, was an allusion both to his notorious chain smoking and to the "politically correct" negative stance towards smoking in society.
His last book (2003) was Allah weet het beter (Allah Knows Better) in which he strongly condemned Islam. He was a well-known critic of Islam, particularly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He supported the nomination of the liberal (former PvdA Labour Party), Somalian-born female politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali for Dutch parliament.
Van Gogh was a member of the Dutch republican society Republikeins Genootschap, which advocates the abolition of the Dutch monarchy. He was a friend and supporter of the controversial Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated in 2002.
In the 1980s, Van Gogh 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". He was a controversial figure who delighted in provocation. He filled his website, "De Gezonde Roker" ("The Healthy Smoker"), with harsh criticism of multicultural society. He said the Netherlands had such social turmoil that it threatened to turn it into a "type of Belfast" in a few years.[1]
Working from a script written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, van Gogh created the 10-minute movie Submission. The movie deals with violence against women in some Islamic societies; it tells the stories, using visual shock tactics, of four abused Muslim women. The title, Submission, is a translation of the word "Islam" into English; it refers to Muslims' submission before God. In the film, women's naked bodies are veiled with semi-transparent shrouds as they kneel in prayer, telling their stories as if they are speaking to Allah.
In August 2004, after the movie's broadcast on Dutch public TV, the newspaper De Volkskrant reported that the journalist Francisco van Jole accused Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh of plagiarism. He said they had appropriated the ideas of Iranian-American video artist Shirin Neshat, whose work used Arabic text projected onto bodies. After Submission was broadcast, Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali received death threats. Van Gogh did not take these seriously and refused any protection. According to Ali, he said, "Nobody kills the village idiot", a term he frequently used in self reference.[2]
Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh as he was cycling to work in the early morning of 2 November 2004, in front of the Amsterdam East borough office (stadsdeelkantoor), on the corner of the Linnaeusstraat and Tweede Oosterparkstraat ().[3] The killer shot van Gogh eight times with an HS 2000 handgun, and Van Gogh died on the spot. The killer also tried to decapitate van Gogh with one knife,[4] and stabbed him in the chest with another. The two knives were left implanted; one attached a five-page note to his body. The note (Text) threatened Western countries, Jews and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who went into hiding).[5][6] The note also referred to the ideologies of the Egyptian organization Takfir wal-Hijra.
The suspect, Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan citizen, was apprehended by the police after a chase and being shot in the leg. Bouyeri has alleged terrorist ties with the Dutch Hofstad Network. He was charged with the attempted murder of several police officers and bystanders, illegal possession of a firearm, and conspiring to murder others, including Hirsi Ali. He was convicted on 26 July 2005 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.[7]
The murder sparked a storm of outrage throughout the Netherlands. Flowers, notes, drawings, and other expressions of mourning were left at the scene of the murder.[8]
The day after the murder, Dutch police arrested eight Muslim radicals belonging to a group later referred to as the Hofstad Network. Six detainees were Dutch-Moroccans, one was Dutch-Algerian, and one had dual Spanish-Moroccan nationality. The Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet (MDI) received many complaints about websites' praising the murder and making death threats against other people.[2]
At the same time, starting with four attempted arson attacks on mosques in the weekend of 5–7 November, numerous apparently retaliatory violent incidents and arson attacks took place against Muslim targets.[3][9] The Dutch Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia recorded a total of 106 violent incidents in November against Muslim targets. The National Dutch Police Services Agency (KLPD) recorded 31 occasions of violence against mosques and Islamic schools between 23 November and 13 March 2005.[4] An arson attack destroyed a Muslim primary school in Uden in December 2004.[5] By 8 November, Christian churches became targets of vandalism and arson attacks. A report for the Anne Frank Foundation and the University of Leiden, which counted a total of 174 violent incidents between 2–30 November, notes that mosques were the target of violence 47 times, and churches 13 times.[6]
The murder widened and polarized the debate in the Netherlands about the position of its more than one million Muslim residents and how they would be affected. In an apparent reaction against controversial statements about the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish religions—such as those van Gogh was renowned for, the Dutch Minister of Justice, Christian Democrat Piet Hein Donner, suggested Dutch blasphemy laws should either be applied more stringently or made more strict. The liberal D66 party suggested scrapping the blasphemy laws altogether.
The Independent Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders advocated a five-year halt to non-Western immigration, saying: "The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long. We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country".[7] In opposition to such sentiments, campaigns for a kleurrijk Nederland ("colorful Netherlands"), such as Stop de Hetze (Stop the Witch Hunt), were started.
Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali went into hiding for several weeks. Wilders has been under the protection of bodyguards ever since and Hirsi Ali eventually relocated to the United States. Theo van Gogh's son claims he has been attacked on several occasions by young people of Moroccan and Turkish descent, and that the police did not provide him with help or protection.[10] The police deny receiving any report of attacks.[11][12]
On 18 March 2007, a sculpture in memory of Theo van Gogh was unveiled in Amsterdam, entitled De Schreeuw ("The Scream"). It is located in the Oosterpark, just a short distance from where van Gogh was murdered.[13][14][15][16]
A private trust, the Foundation for Freedom of Expression, was established to help fund protection for critics of Islam and Muslims.[17]
In the English-speaking world, controversy arose after publication of Rohan Jayasekera's article in the magazine Index on Censorship. The Associate Editor said that Van Gogh was a "free-speech fundamentalist" who had been on a "martyrdom operation[,] roar[ing] his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities" in an "abuse of his right to free speech". Describing van Gogh's film Submission as "furiously provocative", Jayasekera said his death was:
| “ | A sensational climax to a lifetime's public performance, stabbed and shot by a bearded fundamentalist, a message from the killer pinned by a dagger to his chest, Theo van Gogh became a martyr to free expression. His passing was marked by a magnificent barrage of noise as Amsterdam hit the streets to celebrate him in the way the man himself would have truly appreciated.
And what timing! Just as his long-awaited biographical film of Pim Fortuyn's life is ready to screen. Bravo, Theo! Bravo! [8] |
” |
Both left- and right-wing commentators criticized the article. In December 2004, Nick Cohen of London's Observer wrote:
| “ | When I asked Jayasekera if he had any regrets, he said he had none. He told me that, like many other readers, I shouldn't have made the mistake of believing that Index on Censorship was against censorship, even murderous censorship, on principle – in the same way as Amnesty International is opposed to torture, including murderous torture, on principle. It may have been so in its radical youth, but was now as concerned with fighting 'hate speech' as protecting free speech.[9] | ” |
Cohen's account of the conversation was repudiated by the editor of Index on Censorship in a letter to The Observer.[10]
Van Gogh contributed to various newspapers and magazines.
He published the following books:
|
|
|||||