Theo Van Gogh Murder: Filmmaker’s murder may spell end of Dutch tolerance

No ear jokes, please

Dutch police have apprehended eight suspects (all young Moroccans and Algerians) in the killing of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (yes, he is related) on Tuesday morning outside his flat in Amsterdam, an act which horrified Dutch citizens. Earlier this summer, Van Gogh caused an uproar among Dutch Muslims (1 out of 16 million people in Holland) with a short television film, “Submission,” that was critical of the treatment of women in Islam (it also depicts a Muslim girl in a mosque with her naked body visible through a transparent gown). The gruesome murder included another death threat (cinematically pinned to Van Gogh’s body with a knife) threatening Somali-born MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote the script to Van Gogh’s film and has herself been a target by extremist Muslims for her outspoken rejection of forced marriages (she now considers herself an ex-Muslim). The murder highlights the polarity of extremes common in Holland today, unlike the low-level simmering of religious conflict in neighbouring countries. “In France or Belgium, you don’t have this same kind of very Dutch cabaret-like figure who rages about goat-fuckers,” says one commentator of Van Gogh. The anger has escalated in recent years (along with Muslim immigration), more notably since the murder of Pim Fortuyn in 2002 (although the revelation that his killer was an environmental activist, and not a Muslim, spared further hostility). Foretelling the future, the main suspect in Van Gogh’s killing had with him a death list of leading right wing Dutch politicians and personal exhortations to jihad (well, we all struggle a bit sometimes). Although Dutch Muslim groups immediately condemned the murder as “cowardly” and “despicable,” anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments (and extremist violence) are expected to rise. “Why has this happened in the Netherlands?” asked Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. “Have we built a culture in which extremes clash more violently precisely because tolerance and freedom of opinion are such fundamental values?”

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com.  He is based in London, England.