Wednesday, November 10, 2004

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I meet representants of both groups as well. It's annoying to experience how quite intelligent people use the different meanings of the word 'understand' to justify their stance. The more distance they seem to take, the more abstract their logic and the more often they get away with their 'understanding'.

I gladly join you in your offer.

Iwan (ip:83.116.176.60) 10 November 2004 - 23:25 uur

In Mourning Slain Filmmaker, Dutch Confront Limitations of Their Tolerance

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/europe/10dutch.html?pagewanted=print&position=

p (ip:208.54.95.129) 10 November 2004 - 23:51 uur

Why is it that wherever Islam shoulders up to another culture/religion, blood is shed?

Perhaps the problem lies with the Muslims?

Paul (ip:24.91.29.47) 10 November 2004 - 23:51 uur

P: please don't post full articles anymore. It clogs the reaction panels. Also, it constitutes a copyright infringement which according to recent jurisprudence, I may be liable for. I have edited your post so the url remains.

Arjan (ip:82.161.93.35) 10 November 2004 - 23:57 uur

Paul, this same topic was raised by nobody less than Gen. Musharaf, ruler of Pakistan in front of a Worldbank meeting early this year...

My point is - it's the immigrant who has to act to be welcomed not the other way round. If I have vacation in a muslim country I better adapt to their manners and ways otherwise the consequences might be draconian. Do they erect a church or an Internet café for me there to facilitate my freedom of expression ? I do not exactly think so.

But we do. In fact all this self-criticism is only fostering this strategy of victimization. While setting mosques on fire is no solution to the problem, closing them down by means of executive power surely is.

rgrds
MAXX (from Austria)

MAXX (ip:80.108.31.227) 10 November 2004 - 23:58 uur

Murder Inspires Wave of Dutch Attacks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40566-2004Nov10.html?nav=headlines

peachtree (ip:208.54.95.129) 10 November 2004 - 23:59 uur

Peachtree, please stop posting full articles. It is illegal to do so and it could cause me troubles. Besides, it's not the right thing to do. I have asked you once before, please don't do it again.

Arjan (ip:82.161.93.35) 10 November 2004 - 0:13 uur

i'll do links next time; i didn't know about the copyright stuff.

the violent reactions in the public debate in holland do not surprise me much. it is a direct result of the 30+ years attack on the soundness of dutch secondary and higher education, which has constantly lowered its standards. sound knowledge and intellectual discipline have been exchanged for all kinds of nonsense, such as the comprehensive system (basisvorming) and political correct new subjects (in the "studiehuis).
the educational system has ceased to provide students with a sound sense of history (one of the subjects that is considered superfluous). and when people don't know where they have come from, they'll also not know where they are going. this explains in part the crassness of the public debate. what we don't have in holland -- as opposed to the USA -- are independent public intellectuals on ALL sides of the political spectrum, who give direction to the public debate. on the left we have a lot of them (not so independent though), but they're all way too politically correct. on the right we don't have real good thinkers. it's either just angry populism, or short sighted commentary. what we'd need are some good american style thinktanks like the heritage foundation, the am. enterprise institute, the cato institute etc., with people of ability to staff them.

peachtree (ip:208.54.95.129) 10 November 2004 - 0:16 uur

Peachtree, now you've posted the same item five times over a period of three minutes. I've deleted the other four, but editing comments is not exactly my hobby.

Arjan (ip:82.161.93.35) 10 November 2004 - 0:24 uur

had some trouble with my wireless connection. as you may understand, i don't post items 5 times on purpose :)

peachtree (ip:170.140.65.63) 10 November 2004 - 0:49 uur

I join you in the raised middle finger to both groups! These two groups between them have the potential to bury Dutch Democracy, if they attract enough people to support them.

David All (ip:141.116.55.25) 10 November 2004 - 0:56 uur

@Peachtree, I understand. I was just trying to finish up all the editing so I could catch some sleep, when I saw all the comments flowing in... ;-)

Arjan (ip:82.161.93.35) 10 November 2004 - 1:02 uur

I stand by my comments to Bill Eldridge, reposted here for emphasis and because of the operative word "but" which seems to give free license to now say what one truly believe without apology or showing one's true colors (beliefs):

"Maybe not justifying for execution, BUT what was he calling for?"—Bill Eldridge

Maybe not?!?

I’m dismayed. Your post misses the point entirely. A vile murder and then mutilation of the body was committed publicly on the streets and you try to explain to us there was semi-justification for such depravity? Liking or not liking the victim is irrelevant! Blatant murder to silence a point of view is heinous in and of itself. But more importantly this act and its apparent motive threatens the existence of civil society itself. That can hardly be said of Mr. van Gogh’s opus.

mcj (ip:68.209.214.4) 10 November 2004 - 1:36 uur

I have to wonder how many of Theo's new-found admirers approve of his incredibly offensive jokes about the Holocaust (e.g., "It smells like caramel here -- they must be burning the diabetic Jews.")

In a climate where the merest whisper of antipathy toward Ariel Sharon is instantly construed as anti-Semitism, does the absolute right to free speech extend to tasteless Holocaust jokes too?

vaara (ip:195.86.124.243) 10 November 2004 - 9:46 uur

Yes, I think it does. It also gave Van Gogh the right to make absolutely tasteless jokes about anything else as well. Which Van Gogh did with great frequency. He called gays 'chocolate knights' and politician Boris Dittrich the 'appeasing lubricant of D66' (Dittrich's political party. Yes, he was referring to the kind of lubricant used during sex.) He tried to provoke Christians and Muslims regularly as well.

Anyway, the quote you're referring to, comes from a feud Theo van Gogh had with Leon de Winter, the writer of the article you're referring to at http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005855 (it was automatically removed from your entry since my installation of Movable Type ignores HTML tags such as href.) De Winter is a regular contributor to the same weekly, Elsevier, I write for, and in Elsevier he defended Van Gogh's right to say what he said. Even though Van Gogh blasted him and his wife, Dutch author Jessica Durlacher.

I think there's a lesson there about what real tolerance constitutes.

To summarize, for me the point is not whether you approve with what he said, I think the point is what you do with your disapproval. Quite a few Dutch vehemently disagree with what he said and how he said it, but think he had a right to say it, and feel that if someone had a problem with him, he should have taken it to a court. It's up to a judge to decide what is and isn't acceptable, and not up to mob rule, individual citizens or fundamentalist predilections. That's what this is about.

Van Gogh, by the way, was by no means exceptional in this sense. We've had similar writers in the Netherlands making equally tasteless jokes and remarks about Christianity (Gerard Reve, a famous Dutch writer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Reve - talked about having sex with God and entering 'his secret orifice' three times, in the early fifties, when the Netherlands were still predominantly Christian.)

Yet Reve is still alive.

Arjan (ip:82.161.93.35) 10 November 2004 - 10:01 uur

"It's up to a judge to decide what is and isn't acceptable, and not up to mob rule, individual citizens or fundamentalist predilections. That's what this is about."

You're absolutely right. And here's an interesting question: Was Theo's assassination a hate crime? It was clearly motivated by hate, but according to many on the right, the very concept of "hate crime" is liberal PC bullshit. The easy way to dodge this question is to call it terrorism, but is every politically- or religiously-motivated murder a terrorist act?

vaara (ip:195.86.124.243) 10 November 2004 - 11:24 uur

"In a climate where the merest whisper of antipathy toward Ariel Sharon is instantly construed as anti-Semitism..."

I'm not sure what "climate" you're living in, but in the climate where I live (cold, Northern European) Sharon is almost never mentioned except in a very critical context. On the other hand, saying a positive word about Sharon is virtually taboo and construed as some kind of racist fascism.

moray eel (ip:217.231.100.3) 10 November 2004 - 11:54 uur

Well, I actually meant the "climate" here in blogworld.

vaara (ip:195.86.124.243) 10 November 2004 - 12:45 uur

I forgot the obligatory disclaimer: Arafat was a murderous, corrupt, evil, ugly, barbaric Muslim terrorist, and I'm very glad he's dead.

vaara (ip:195.86.124.243) 10 November 2004 - 12:52 uur

Vaara, there's a world of difference between disapproval of Van Gogh's crass jokes and beheading him for them. Van Gogh insulted Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; only one of those religions pulled a scimitar our from beneath its djellaba.

Nabil (ip:194.129.60.10) 10 November 2004 - 16:03 uur

"only one of those religions pulled a scimitar out from beneath its djellaba"... You make it sound as though every single Muslim was personally involved in murdering Theo. In fact, most Muslims don't even WEAR djellabas!

vaara (ip:195.86.124.243) 10 November 2004 - 16:33 uur

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