Theo van Gogh

Twenty years after his murder we are still unable to make immigration and integration work

It was the day of the US presidential elections, November 2, 2004, and the world was bracing for the runoff between George W. Bush and John Kerry. The backdrop then was the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War. When I opened my laptop that morning on the west coast my inbox was inundated with messages from the home front, nine hours ahead. A violent celebrity murder had turned the Dutch nation upside down.

While riding his bike after dropping of his young son at school, Dutch moviemaker Theo van Gogh was shot and while lying on the ground the murderer slit his throat and pinned a note on his lifeless body. It was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then a member of Dutch parliament who had come to The Netherlands as a Somali refugee and in the process had renounced her Muslim faith. She had collaborated with Van Gogh on a short movie that focused on the role and submission of women in Islam. The killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, was a Dutch resident with a Moroccan background, and more importantly, a Muslim fundamentalist. Dutch police released the note a few days after the murder, in Dutch, and I quickly translated it and put it on my then blog after which my site counter registered record traffic, mostly from US sites. Here is the final paragraph of that note:

I know for sure that you, Oh America will go under;

I know for sure that you, Oh Europe will go under;

I know for sure that you, Oh Holland, will go under;

I know for sure that you, Oh Hirsi Ali, will go under;

I know for sure that you, Oh unbelieving fundamentalist, will go under.

The Dutch had already entered troubled waters following the murder of Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant gay professor whose anti-immigrant rhetoric had made him the frontrunner in the 2002 elections. His life was cut short by an animal rights activist days before the elections that year. The Van Gogh murder however was the manifestation of the deepest fears the Dutch had over the likely downside of their multicultural society: the killer’s ethnic and religious background was potentially explosive. For Amsterdam’s then Jewish mayor Job Cohen it was a harbinger of potentially violent religious strife including resurgent anti-Semitism.

For Hirsi Ali it heralded her exit out of the Netherlands, the Dutch establishment was all too happy to see her cross the ocean to the US where she became a prolific writer and activist, she is now also on Substack. For Europe’s most famous anti-Muslim politician, Geert Wilders, it represented the launch of his political career which now, twenty years on, has given him the power behind the throne of the first real right-wing Dutch government. For most western societies, in particular those with sizeable immigrant populations, it was the wake up call of the lethal forces that were slowly eating away at the post-war social consensus. For Theo van Gogh it was the end, at age forty-seven.

Now, it was not just the movie production with Hirsi Ali that ended Van Gogh’s life, he had been at it for a while. Apart from making multiple thought-provoking and creative movies, he had been on a mission criticizing how imported religious fanaticism was negatively impacting Dutch liberal society, in particular free speech. And by the way, Christians and Jews were also not safe from his unrestrained commentary, any religion was a legitimate target for him. He waved away concerns over his ruthless and boorish attacks on Islam which were, in particular twenty years ago, on the fringe of the political spectrum. He was however marinated in the Dutch liberal tradition and always saw himself as the jester, the joker, who could easily escape the consequences and suffer no harm.

One of Van Gogh’s closest friends however witnessed the emerging danger. At a public event where Van Gogh would debate some of his opponents, the Muslims in the room were looking at the discussion in a very different light as to them it was no joke, they took it seriously. The red-haired moviemaker from Amsterdam had deeply offended their most sacred religious beliefs. A debate would not solve the matter, in fact from their perspective there probably was nothing to be discussed.

We should also not forget that in the year 2004 the world was still reeling from the September 11 attacks in New York, the Iraq War, the Madrid train bombings and the intensive search for al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden. Islamist terror was spreading onto Western streets and that is why I entitled the post about Van Gogh on that day ‘Al-Zarqawi on Clogs’ after the man who was in charge of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the nemesis of American forces before they killed him in 2006. It was a dark period and it not only left a gaping hole in Dutch society, it left politicians both clueless and divided. Muslim immigration and integration as issues were conveniently kicked down the road while Van Gogh’s blood was washed off the streets.

Twenty Years On

So what happened since that fateful November day? George Bush won the election, but he never really won the Iraq War. The parallel war in Afghanistan eventually became a total debacle. The Dutch, much like other countries, never really figured out how to manage increasing immigration and more importantly failed to really understand it was all about integration. And what then was perceived to be a Sunni threat has now somehow morphed into a Shia driven war, initiated by Iran across multiple fronts. No one talks about al-Qaeda anymore, ISIS came and went, but Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah have equally spilled their rhetoric and violence onto the streets of London, New York and Amsterdam. Somehow we are in the same bind as we were twenty years ago.

Not much has changed for the Dutch either. Where Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali claimed the limelight with their critical notes on Islam, a young writer of Turkish descent has now claimed media success. Two widely acclaimed books about her life growing up in a strict Muslim family and her journey to a liberated and secular lifestyle are Dutch bestsellers and are now translated into English. In the process Lale Gül, who was only a six-year old kid at the time of Van Gogh’s murder, broke with her family and has had to endure serious levels of intimidation and threats on her life. But she is braving it while defending her own journey. In a recent interview she lamented the weakness of the left-wing parties who have mostly abandoned and shunned her, but also that she could not find anything useful in Wilders’ anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Yes, the right-of-centre forces have successfully translated concerns over immigration into political power, but they have still to prove they can sketch out a way forward for multicultural societies. This at a time where left-leaning parties somehow cozied up to the Islamist fringes as we now see on an almost weekly basis as the streets are flooded with anti-Israel protests. What we are seeing is how western societies fray into extremes such that they are ripping apart the consensus model upon which, in particular the Dutch, democracies were based. The US election this coming week is so much more divisive than the Bush-Kerry spat of 2004 and it is largely because of immigration. The confrontation with newcomers, in particular those with different religious and cultural backgrounds has divided us deeper than ever.

Yet it may be those very immigrants to lead the charge to create a new consensus. The Dutch are the frontrunners here, again. As a writer Gül is now a force of influence, but so is Iranian-born academic Afshin Ellian who is an important Dutch voice for change. His son Ulysse Ellian sits in Dutch parliament for the right-of-center liberal party which is led by Dilan Yeşilgöz who is of Turkish-Kurdish descent and is now working closely with Wilders’ anti-immigrant party. These are the immigrants who adapted and realized the precious values that free and liberal societies have to offer and which have to be defended at all costs. They are echoing Van Gogh in a way and they often have a far better sense of it than the native Dutch.

The Journey

For all his bravado and raucous behaviours, Theo van Gogh was perceptive enough to realize that something was amiss with the way free and liberal societies operated. Confronted with new influences they lost their foundational confidence and became lethargic and complacent, unable to deal with the darker forces in their midst. Van Gogh was maybe not the best person to articulate that in a way that would have gained him the necessary influence and respect. But he did ignite a debate and it accelerated dramatic political changes after his death. That said, we haven’t really progressed since that November morning, although the emergence of immigrant voices in defence of democracy and western values is something that is incredibly encouraging. Somewhere the joker with the famous name is smiling.

Photos: Theo van Gogh (1957-2004) and Lale Gül.