JustWonders wrote:Then again, I can't believe you'd agree that it's the Dutch (or any country's) intolerance of Arabs that's responsible for this.
Depends what you mean by "this".
Like I said, there seem to be two things separately going on right now. A Jihadist-inspired political murder. And an explosion of tit-for-tat attacks on schools and mosques and churches. The second was triggered by the first, but is about something else, really - imho.
Jihadism is here, apparently. (Oh, did I tell you yet about the scandal surrounding the intelligence documents? Turns out that friends of van Gogh's murderer had classified intelligence reports about their group. Apparently they had a mole within.)
And these Jihadists do not fundamentally care how tolerant we are - theirs is a religious-political passion beyond immediate reason, and yes, for that reason they would have been looking to do something of the sort sooner or later. There's no way to enter into any "dialogue" with
them - they despise us. Police action is the only way left to deal with the extremists themselves - flanked by dialogues with the mosques here, the Islamic organisations, the spokespersons and "neighbourhod fathers", because only with their co-operation and continued condemnation of the extremists do we even have a chance of getting to them. They need to be isolated and/then clamped down on.
But this insane explosion of retaliatory violence between, I assume, radicals in both (Dutch and ... Moroccan?) population groups has a background that goes much further, to something that has been brewing wholly regardless of some Jihadist weirdos coming in. In a way it's also a larger problem - less acute, obviously (arson is no murder) but more widespread.
Some, like HofT, will argue that it was long brewing because of the way we have been pussyfoooting around on the danger of mass immigration, especially from Muslim countries. I think they have a point somewhere, in the sense that immigration has had an enormous impact, resulting into such great cultural change in our cities that it has left many Dutch people (eg those who used to live there) feeling alienated and resentful. And that is now translated, I think, in these violent attacks on islamic places by, I'm guessing, skinheads or rightwing extremists. But I think that the irresponsible escalation of the political and media's verbal assault on the Muslims/Moroccans of the last few, post-Fortuyn years (anything goes, basically) has in turn also bred resentment among
them, which would now just as easily erupt into retaliatory attacks and the occasional common street fight between the groups as described above.
(Not that any of the arson attacks have been solved yet - so we dont know who's behind them really. Only thing I read was about some arrested white kids who were preparing an attack on something muslim. I do know that as a target for retaliatory attacks by angry Muslims, churches are a stupid choice. If there is one player on the Dutch side thats still been trying against the fashion to keep an open mind about Muslims its been the churches.)
JustWonders wrote:Ephimenco seems to realize that those responsible for Van Gogh's murder will simply kill any artist who exposes their evil or dares to criticize.
And he's right.
Yes, in the sense that that is the only reason Van Gogh was murdered - for what he said about Islam, about Mohammed, the Koran, etc. Murdered because he dared to criticize (in his typical, provocative manner.)
No, in the sense that he's been the first to be killed - I mean, I don't know whether Mohammed B. and his mates would have
liked to "kill any artist who exposes their evil or dares to criticize", but until a week ago, not a single of the myriad artists, writers and politicians who have "dared" to criticize Muslims have been attacked like this. Hell, there was little "daring" about it, thus far - it was the fashion of the year. Only for Ayaan Hirsi Ali - who reneged her own faith, and is a woman at that - was the danger already clear.
Now, of course, different story. So far noone has toned down any criticism of Islam, if anything the opposite. But meanwhile Hirsi Ali has been in hiding for over a week, unable to come out and participate in the parliamentary debate about Van Gogh's murder, and Wilders went temporarily underground too. That is scandalous.
To add more twists of the why and when and how: the Syrian and other (partly foreign) lynchpins that seem to be being identified now behind the extremist cells are veterans - veterans of the Jihad I mean. They've turned zealot a long time ago. But people like Mohammed B., the murderer, or those two editors of that unrepentantly fundamentalist website I quoted above (the ones who called the muslim spokespersons condemning the murder all "whores"), they're recent recruits. Those editors never even thought about the muslim cause until 9/11 came along. Apparently, 9/11 and its many aftermaths here and in the world, have really created a seachange.
JustWonders wrote:I hope his movie is being shown over and over there. Everywhere.
Two regional TV stations and a national TV station were going to reboradcast it. But the national TV station - the VPRO, the station that had broadcast it in the first place (being a libertine-leftist station with a provocative tradition to uphold) decided it was only going to rebroadcast it in the context of the original longer programme, and the two regional broadcasters were denied the rights at the eleventh hour by the producers of the film.
Taliban. 