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Theo van Gogh | |
|---|---|
 Van Gogh in 2004 | |
| Born | Theodoor van Gogh (1957-07-23)23 July 1957 The Hague, Netherlands |
| Died | 2 November 2004(2004-11-02) (aged 47) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Cause of death | Murder (gunshots andstab wounds) |
| Monuments | The Scream |
| Years active | 1980–2004 |
| Notable work | Blind Date,Interview,Submission,06/05 |
| Children | Lieuwe van Gogh |
| Relatives | Vincent Willem van Gogh(grandfather) Theo van Gogh(great-grandfather) Vincent van Gogh(great-granduncle) Henk Vonhoff(uncle) Johan Witteveen(first cousin once removed) Willem Witteveen(second cousin) |
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By religious figure |
Bibliographies |
Theodoor "Theo"van Gogh (Dutch:[ˈteːjoːvɑŋˈɣɔx];[a] 23 July 1957 – 2 November 2004) was a Dutch film director. He directedSubmission: Part 1, a short film written bySomali writer and politicianAyaan Hirsi Ali, which criticised the treatment ofwomen in Islam in strong terms. On 2 November 2004, he wasmurdered byMohammed Bouyeri, aDutch-MoroccanIslamist who objected to the film's message. The last film Van Gogh had completed before his murder,06/05, was a fictional exploration ofthe assassination of Dutch politicianPim Fortuyn. It was released posthumously in December 2004, a month after Van Gogh's death, and two years after Fortuyn's death.
Theodoor van Gogh was born on 23 July 1957 inThe Hague to Anneke and Johan van Gogh.[1] His father served in the Dutch secret service (AIVD, then calledBVD). He was named after his paternal uncle Theo, who was captured and executed while working as aresistance fighter during theNazi occupation of the Netherlands duringWorld War II.[2] Theo van Gogh was a great-grandson ofTheo van Gogh, an art dealer who was the brother of painterVincent van Gogh.
After dropping out of law school at theUniversity of Amsterdam, Van Gogh became astage manager. His self-proclaimed passion was filmmaking, and he made his debut as a director with the movieLuger (1981).
He was awarded aGouden Kalf forBlind Date (1996) andIn het belang van de staat ("In the Interest of the State", 1997). For the latter, he also received a "Certificate of Merit" from theSan Francisco International Film Festival. As an actor, he appeared in the film,De noorderlingen ("The Northerners", 1992). He made numerous films (see below), many on political themes. From the 1990s, Van Gogh also worked in television.
His last book (2003) wasAllah weet het beter[3] ("Allah Knows Best"), in which he strongly condemnedIslam. He was a well-known critic of Islam, particularly after theIranian Revolution and theSeptember 11 attacks. He supported the nomination of writerAyaan Hirsi Ali for theDutch parliament, who was elected. Born inSomalia, she had immigrated to the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage. She became a writer andsocialist (former PvdALabour Party) politician.
In the 1980s, Van Gogh became a newspaper columnist. Through the years he used his columns to express his frustration with politicians, actors, film directors, writers and other people he considered to be part of "the establishment". He delighted in provocation and became a controversial figure, frequently criticising Islamic cultures. He used his website,De Gezonde Roker ("The Healthy Smoker"), to express harshcriticism of multicultural society. He said the Netherlands was so rife with social turmoil that it was in danger of turning into "somethingBelfast-like".[4]
Working from a script written byAyaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh created the 10-minute short filmSubmission. The movie deals withviolence against women in Islamic societies; it tells the stories of four abused Muslim women. The title,Submission, is a translation of the word "Islam" into English. In the film, women's naked bodies, with texts from theQur'an written on them in henna, in an allusion to traditional wedding rituals in some cultures, are veiled with semi-transparent shrouds as the women 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 newspaperDe Volkskrant reported that the journalist Francisco van Jole had accusedHirsi Ali and Van Gogh of plagiarism, saying that they had appropriated the ideas of Iranian-American video artistShirin Neshat, whose work used Arabic text projected onto bodies.[5]
Following the broadcast, both Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali receiveddeath threats. Van Gogh did not take the threats seriously and refused any protection. According toHirsi Ali, he said, "Nobody kills thevillage idiot", a term he frequently used about himself.[6]
Van Gogh was a member of the DutchRepublican Society movement, which advocates theabolition of themonarchy of the Netherlands. He was a friend and supporter of the controversial Dutch politicianPim Fortuyn,[7] who wasassassinated in 2002.[8]
| Murder of Theo van Gogh | |
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 Demonstrators. The sign, translated, says "Theo has been murdered". | |
 Interactive map of Murder of Theo van Gogh | |
| Location | 52°21′32.22″N4°55′34.74″E / 52.3589500°N 4.9263167°E /52.3589500; 4.9263167[9] Amsterdam East |
| Date | 2 November 2004 9 am |
| Target | Theo van Gogh[10] |
Attack type | Murder byshooting andstabbing,assassination |
| Weapons | HS2000 pistol |
| Deaths | 1 (the target) |
| Perpetrators | Mohammed Bouyeri |
| Motive | To oppose the controversial filmSubmission |
At approximately 9 a.m. on the morning of 2 November 2004, Van Gogh was shot several times and had his throat slit while cycling to work.[11] The perpetrator, 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan citizenMohammed Bouyeri, also injured some bystanders and left a note pinned to Van Gogh's stomach with a knife containing death threats toAyaan Hirsi Ali, who went into hiding.[12] The note also threatened Western countries andJews, and referred to ideologies of theEgyptian organisationJama'at al-Muslimin.[13][14]
Bouyeri was apprehended by police after a chase. Authorities alleged that he hadterrorist ties with the Dutch IslamistHofstad Network. He was charged with theattempted murder of several police officers and bystanders, illegal possession of a firearm, and conspiring to murder others, includingHirsi Ali. He was convicted at trial on 26 July 2005, and sentenced tolife in prison with no chance ofparole.[15]
The murder sparked outrage and grief throughout the Netherlands. Flowers, notes, drawings and other expressions of mourning were left at the scene of the murder.[16]
Thecremation ceremony took place on 9 November. Fearing he might not survive a planned flight to New York, Van Gogh had spoken about his funeral wishes with friends shortly before his death.[17]Maarten van Rossem was asked by Van Gogh's relatives to speak, something he found difficult in that he wanted to avoid sounding apocalyptic.[18] Van Gogh's father suggested that his son would have liked the media attention provoked by his murder.[17]
The day after the murder, Dutch police arrested eight people allegedly belonging to a group later referred to as theHofstad Network. Six detainees wereDutch-Moroccans, one was Dutch-Algerian, and one had dualSpanish-Moroccan nationality. The Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet (MDI) received many complaints about websites allegedly praising the murder and making death threats against other people.[1]
At the same time, starting with four attemptedarson attacks onmosques in the weekend of 5–7 November, there were retaliatory violent incidents against Muslims,[2][19] including a bomb that exploded at a Muslim school inEindhoven.[20] The Dutch Monitoring Centre on Racism andXenophobia 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.[3] An arson attack destroyed a Muslim primary school inUden in December 2004.[4] By 8 November,Christian churches were reported as targets of vandalism and arson attacks in turn. A report for theAnne Frank Foundation and theUniversity of Leiden, accounted for a total of 174 violent incidents between 2–30 November; it said that mosques were the target of violence 47 times, and churches 13 times.[5]
The murder widened and polarised the debate in the Netherlands about the social position of its more than one millionMuslim residents. It also put the country'sliberal tradition further into question, coming only two years afterPim Fortuyn's murder.[20] In an apparent reaction against controversial statements about theIslamic,Christian, andJewish religions—such as those Van Gogh had made—the Dutch Minister of Justice,Christian DemocratPiet Hein Donner, suggested Dutchblasphemy laws should either be applied more stringently or made more strict. The liberalD66 party suggested scrapping the blasphemy laws altogether.
Geert Wilders, at the time an independent member of theHouse of Representatives, advocated a five-year halt toimmigration from non-Western societies, saying: "The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long. We should not import a retarded political Islamic society into our country".[21]
Wilders andAyaan 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's sonLieuwe van Gogh claims he has been attacked on several occasions by young people ofMoroccan andTurkish descent, and that the police did not provide him with help or protection.[22] The police denied receiving any report of attacks.[23][24]
On 18 March 2007, asculpture honouring Theo van Gogh, entitledDe Schreeuw ("The Scream"), was unveiled inAmsterdam. It is located in theOosterpark, a short distance from where Van Gogh was murdered.[25][26][27][28] A private trust, the Foundation for Freedom of Expression, was established to help fund protection for critics of Islam and Muslims.[29]
In the English-speaking world, controversy arose afterRohan Jayasekera's article on Van Gogh was published inIndex on Censorship. The Associate Editor of the magazine 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 filmSubmission 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 ofPim Fortuyn's life is ready to screen. Bravo, Theo! Bravo![6]
Both left- and right-wing commentators criticised the article. In December 2004,Nick Cohen ofThe 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 thatIndex on Censorship was againstcensorship, even murderous censorship, on principle—in the same way asAmnesty International is opposed totorture, 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.[7]
Cohen's account of the conversation was repudiated by the editor of theIndex on Censorship, who responded with a letter toThe Observer.[8]
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{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) (originally fromIndex on Censorship)
About the movieSubmission
Articles about the murder
