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Originally Posted by Pacifier
A question to dragonlich, I've just read some more informations about Theo van Gogh and do you think he was a fair dealing, constructive critc of islam?
From what I've read o far I would call him a racist asshole (he called Muslims "goatfuckers" and Mohammed a paedophile). But perhaps this was just his way of "artistic provocation".
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He was not a fair dealing constructive critic of Islam. He also wasn't a racist asshole. He had a tendency to go waaaaay overboard with his columns, but that was his role - he was the court jester, so to say. He was equally brutal to Christians, Jews, and basically anyone that deserved to have some sense slapped into them. It is interesting to note that nobody besides Muslims ever threatened him with anything but a lawsuit...
If you look closely at his columns, movies, and other works, one sees the deeper meaning. When he blasts Muslims, he does so for a reason - he wants to show their hypocracy over certain central issues.
The Mohammed/Paedophile comment was used at a time when certain (Dutch) Islamic clerics were claiming that Western people were degenerate because of our sexual livestyle; Homosexuality was a disease, that sort of thing. Van Gogh replied with his comment about Mohammed, to show that the supposedly holy father of their religion was in fact (by modern standards) a paedophile... That makes the core of their culture just as degenerate, or more so, as ours was supposed to be.
So yes, that was indeed "artistic provocation". Many people who knew him personally (including Muslims, by the way) called him friendly, open, caring and extremely funny; not a racist asshole at all, in fact. It just seems that many Muslims are unable to accept any criticism of their religion at all, no matter how minor. And of course, the Dutch are notoriously brutal and blunt; he was a prime example of that culture.
