Lebell

Well, what would you consider a guy that took a nine year old girl for a wife?

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Aladdin Sane

You are right, Martinguerre, I have overstated my case. I just hope no one here believes that van Gogh's murder is a good reason to limit free speech. Any person who believes in civil liberties should make it clear to one and all that those who use murder in response to unpopular speech will be treated with the full wrath of the law. I am reminded of the artist in Holland who put up a sign that said "Thou shall not kill" as a memorial to van Gogh. "But because the head of the nearby mosque complained to the police that this was 'offensive' and 'racist', the cops came and sent in city workers to sandblast the mural. A local journalist, Wim Nottroth, who wanted to protest against this by standing in front of the mural was arrested." This kind of response sends the message that we have no confidence in our own civil values. It says we can be intimidated.

__________________
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Pacifier

Like I said
Of course this would in no way justify the murder
I'm just wondering what kind of "critic" he was.

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Aladdin Sane

This is no different than arguing that "that slut provoked me into raping her."

As for the "we kept them in poverty" hypothesis, it simply doesn't hold up under careful examination. The world's best known terrorists, Usama and Yasser (RIP) are multimillionaires. The 19 Jihadists who hijacked the planes on 9-11-01 were from middle and upper class families. Then there's the actual research:
"In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism, as previous studies have shown, but perhaps more surprisingly also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin." For the entire article go to http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/...05-terror.html

__________________
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Tarl Cabot

I like that challenge. Here's the flip side:

Would someone please demonstrate that these quotes are not accurate?

“They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly in Allah’s way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper … Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikûn (Jews) wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.” (Sura IV.89)

“Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them.” (Sura IX. 5-6)

"Fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (Koran 9:5)

"Murder them and treat them harshly" (Koran 9:123)

They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected
(Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one
another). So take not Auliyâ' (protectors or friends)
from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allâh (to
Muhammad SAW). But if they turn back (from Islâm),
take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find
them, and take neither Auliyâ' (protectors or friends)
nor helpers from them (Koran 4:91 )


You will find others that wish to have security from
you and security from their people. Every time they
are sent back to temptation, they yield thereto. If
they withdraw not from you, nor offer you peace, nor
restrain their hands, take (hold) of them and kill
them wherever you find them. In their case, We have
provided you with a clear warrant against them. (Koran 8:60)

Tarl Cabot

If it wouldn't justify the murder, why would the type of critic matter?

Pacifier

because i'm curious.

curious about how dragonlich sees him and I want to if my information is correct.
Is that so difficult to understand?

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Tarl Cabot

No, I think I understand perfectly. I doubt that anyone else is having difficulty understanding where you're trying to go, either.

roachboy

interesting responses yesterday...thanks...i'll post a more detailed reply when i have some more time to devote to it....

whatever i will say will presuppose an attitude toward the idea of nation---toward nationalism--at bottom that will shape everything else. if you take seriously the idea of nation as an formation that is like an object, that is determinate, therefore necessary both in itself and as a framework through which you think about collectivitie or communities or identity, then you will think maybe one way about how nationalisms come to define themselves; if you do not see nations in these terms, you will think another. this is the political core of the question.

whatever conversation is either prompted of snuffed out by a more detailed response will turn on this question anyway--it will be the point across whihc positions may be unable to talk in the same register to each other, so i figured i might as well say it up front.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Dragonlich

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.

roachboy

ok...this may be late in the game of this thread.

north african folk were welcomed into most western european countries through most of the period of heavy industrialization to deal with labor shortages primarily at the assembly-line level of production. they also had the advantage of not participating easily in already existing unions, so there was a political motive from the outset. and you see something of the pre-history of current stuff in this: in france, algerian workers formed seperate political organizations that played an important role in the earlier phases of the anti-colonial movement in algeria: the political focus of these organizations was algeria; the politics that informed it drew heavily on what was going on in the french left in general.

the pre-history is in the seperation. i do not know exactly how it came about: if it was the french unions and/or political organizations that refused to mobilize north african workers, of if it was north african workers who chose to form seperate organizations: either way, the political seperation was evident in the choice of "home" as an orienting point.

keep in mind that alot of these folk were and are citizens.
but they maintain ties, personal, political, religious, to north africa.
and then there is the question of ethnicity.
and the association of maintaining a connection with family history through teaching arabic.
none of these features is necessarily a sign of a refusal to integrate into the nation-state. rather they can be seen as a particular frame of reference within which the process of integration unfolds--a kind of syncretism in operating that includes these elements. you can easily see it either way.

the preamble to this is meant to state that the far right did not invent the distinctions between the modes of integration particular to north african communities and those elaborated by other groups in parallel situations. rather, they took advantage of them and reframed them in a particular way. which required a political argument be floated and that it resonate for these elements to be framed as indices of non-integration. that is what, starting in the early 1980s and continuing today, the front national did.

what is the problem?

first there is nothing necessary about the front national's argument. they chose for particular political purposes to route their definition of frenchness through categories of religon and race. they did it in order first to use for tactical advantage tenisons between communities generated by the implosion of the labor market that drew most north african workers to france in the first place. it resonated in part because the ideology recoded (misdirected) resentments about the consequences of economic reogranization. it turned outcomes of this economic reorganization into matters of religion and race.

second, it presented an idea of nation that appeared stable and more or less trans-historical. this functioned as reassurance in a situation where not only were there economic problems being generated by the processes associated with globalizing capitalism at the local level, but more importantly the notion of the nation-state was itself coming under significant pressure as a function of the e.u. this can be seen as setting into motion a crisis of identity at some levels. the front national ideology is an attempt to react--i use the word deliberately--to this anxiety, and to defend the notion of nation precisely by shifting how it is understood away from any historical role into the realm of the transcendent.

one way of seeing the consequences of this is that it shifts the question of national identity into a register that is not open to feedback loops. it then also builds a logic of racism, covered by arguments concerning religion, into the centre, and uses these elements to generate a sense of inside and outside "the nation"....it situates these racist elements by linking them to a pseudo-history of the nation which reinforces the tendency to eliminate feedback loops and writes the race/religious war dynamic into the center of how an entire far right community defines itself.

once people start to act in the basis of this way of thinking, you get a situation that looks alot like what you saw in germany during the 1930s with reference to the jews getting under way. you can see entire histories of integration wiped out, the sense of being-part of a national community erased on the basis of race and religion. you would maybe understand if this would prompt a defensive reaction on the part of the folk who now find thsemvles written out of any sense of belonging to the space where they live. but any defensive reaction can be interpreted as confirmation of the racist/religious war dynamic the right itself puts into play--the right forces the debate into this area, uses it for its own political ends--it generates responses from the communities it attacks--it uses these responses to reinforce its intitial argument--and because the premises of the argument have functioned to eliminate feedback loops up front, it sets into motion an entirely self-confirming dynamic.

is the far right's ideology "true"? does it speak about nation in "accurate" terms?
no. what is "true" in a political context? what matters is how compelling the arguments presented are: how they resonate with people---but this resonance needs have no relation to accuracy--it can just as easily speak to a vague sense of unease or dislocation. it can speak to ways of thinking that understand religious belief as teh central set of dispositions around which a sense of being-in-the-world is articulated--which means that arguments about nation would resonate because of formal symmetry with religious arguments, rather than resonating because the content of those arguments is "correct"---so no, this kind of nationalism is not "accurate" is not "true"---what makes it dangerous is the process outlined above" the centrality of a particular way of defining the nation that sets in motion a self-confirming logic of racism and religious dsicrimination set up in a framework that eliminates dissonant information by eliminating feedback loops altogether, if possible.

it is a dangerous, dangerous ideology. it is very close to american conservative ideology. except that in the states, you have no residual left that functions to name it neofascism. here, it is common sense for many. and that is terrifying.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

inkriminator

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2655656&refsite=6721

This is his film

Dragonlich

A small update:
- The guys arrested in the Hague the other day (with the grenade throwing) included two *DUTCH* converts to Islam. Turns out they and their friends wanted to kill Hirshi Ali (the woman that made the "Submission" movie with van Gogh), and Mr. Wilders (A rather right-wing member of the Dutch parliament, known for his criticism of Islam).
- There have been a few attempts to burn Mosques and Islamic schools (one school was burned to the ground), and a few attempts to burn churches.
- There is more and more proof that most recent Islamic terror strikes (including 9-11) were planned in Spain, and there is a definate link between terrorists there and people recently arrested in the Netherlands (including van Gogh's killer).
- The Dutch secretary of Justice announced that he wants to make more use of the existing Dutch laws against Heresy (which hasn't been succesfully used for decades!), to protect religious people from insults. The Dutch secretary of Integration is angry at those comments, and says that would be akin to rewarding Muslims' reduced tolerance. Other Dutch people, including comedians and artists are protesting. I'd say most Dutch people disagree with the comments.
- The Dutch secret service and police fucked up dramatically before the murder of van Gogh. The secret service didn't bother to keep an eye on the murderer, even though he was a known extremist, linked to other terror suspects. The police didn't bother to check the source of threatening letters send to various newspapers, and van Gogh himself.

and no, there's no civil war yet.

Kalibah

*GASP*!!!


ISLAM! THE RELIGION OF PEACE!?

/end sarcasm

As I mentioned before- maybe there is a problem with the religion as a whole...

Dragonlich

I'd say that the problem is a bit more complex than that. There's a problem, but that problem is with the fundamentalist, backwards version of Islam.

I hate terrorists as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to blame every single Muslim for the actions of a few extremists. I do blame them for not speaking out against these people, and to an extend for not stopping them.



By the way, there is more and more evidence of links between terror groups all over Europe. Everyone seems to be connected in some way... This is indeed a sure sign that we're dealing with a real, tangible enemy here, not some abstract concept ("terror") at all... (And that means we're not going to stop terror by trying to understand them, or by stopping our "hostile" actions.)

roachboy

what kind of connections? letters exchanged? email traffic? i am not sure that communications between "groups" amounts to anything organizationally. i have studied revolutionary marxist groups in france for years and know from that context whereof i speak...

just saying.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Ustwo

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_...arms%20Germany

Perhaps the rest of Europe is waking up too Dragonlich, for your sake, and Western Civ, I hope its sooner than later.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

joeshoe

Such finatics really hurt their cause more than they help.

Closing borders to immigrants isn't a good way to deal with this problem. That's like imposing protectionist tariffs to suppress economic competition. Everyone ends up losing.
Greater effort in compelling them to acculturate might be a more viable solution.

irateplatypus

in what way could you compell them to adopt a culture?

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

trickyy

there is a higher res version of the video at www.suprnova.org under the movies section.

very disappointing that this has to happen in NL. i do think it takes a special kind of zealot to kill in this manner. sure all religions have their problems, but the jihadists are causing some particularly serious problems. i never hear much about any muslims against terrorism group (there has to be more than a few by now)...it would be great if a large scale muslim org made meaningful progress. the gov'ts can only become more invasive or restrictive, barring some genius idea.

speaking of ideas, now the reputed capital of tolerance is considering a revival of blasphemy laws.

maybe nothing will happen, but this seems to be pandering to the murderers.

Dragonlich

Yeah, trickyy, the justice minister wants that. Unfortunately. most of the other ministers don't. Most Dutch people disagree with the idea too. Furthermore, a majority of the Dutch parliament want the law struck down, and an official vote has been scheduled.

In other words: it ain't gonna happen.

stevo

Well, it looks like there is finally reaction from the Dutch. About time.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...type=printable

roachboy

http://observer.dev.gul3.gnl/magazin...364733,00.html

part one of a long article in today's guardian--last time i checked, the link to part 2 was not working..

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mojo_PeiPei

Didn't work for me

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

roachboy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

try this way--it works--i dont understand why it would not work if i pasted the article directly--but there we are. it is on the front page of today's guardian (webversion), under "top picks"...the first story...the title there is:

"Can the Dutch liberal dream triumph over fear?"

sorry about that.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Manx

Here's the URL for the article - not sure where that .dev.gul3.gnl comes from or what it is...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magaz...364732,00.html

Here's Part Two (their link is broken - I think it's probably a link to their private staging server):

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magaz...364733,00.html

Dragonlich

Update of this thread:

The self-confessed murderer of van Gogh had his first (real) day in court today. The evidence against him is overwhelming. He decided not to mount any defence whatsoever, because he says he doesn't recognize the court.

He has been charged with the murder of van Gogh and the attempted murder of various policemen. He's also been charged with attempting to disrupt the duties of a member of parliament (he planted a death threat to one of them on van Gogh's body).

All of these crimes have a maximum sentence of life in prison, and it's pretty safe to say that he'll that. And that actually *is* life in prison over here; Unless you get a royal pardon (very unlikely to happen), you're never getting out of jail.

The impression I get from the stories I hear, is that he's a really sick, fucked-up animal.
- He didn't want to come to court, but was forced to go by the judge. Today, he appeared to ignore the trial. He doesn't seem to care one bit about the family of his victim, and thinks he's doing it all for Islam. He just sits there as if it's not about him at all, even looking bored at times. At the end of the day, he walked out holding the Qu'ran into the air, to show that he/it has won.
- The prosecutor spoke about some of the evidence they found at his house, which includes cd-roms with movies featuring mutilation, murders, deadly accidents, and even <b>necrophilia</b>. Of course, there's also plenty of the regular Jihad stuff, about killing infidels.
- Although he didn't cooperate with a psychological examination, I'm pretty confident he could be labeled a psychopath. At the very least he's extremely narcissistic.

All in all, it's a chilling insight into the personality of a terrorist. Nothing more than a crazy murderer, apparently. If he had been a native (non-Muslim), he might have turned into a "normal" serial killer.

moosenose

If you take a viper to your bosom and it bites you, it's not the viper's fault. It is the nature of vipers to bite, and the viper's reasons for biting you are irrelevant.

Dragonlich

interesting. but the problem here is that the viper is an example to other snakes, who want to emulate his behavior.

In normal english: this guy is seen as a hero by a lot of angry young Muslims over here. I hope they now see how crazy he is, but I very much doubt it. To the real fanatics, all the negative evidence are lies.

Locobot

well apparently he did end up making a statement
Yeah there's really no place for these beliefs in Western society. Lock him up and let him rot I say. He also made statements about how he knows paradise awaits him in the afterlife, so padded walls and suicide watch seem appropriate. Really the death penalty seems too lenient for this guy.

Dragonlich

I very much doubt that he'd kill himself. In Islam, that's not allowed. Besides, he'll probably try to get someone else to kill him; that way, he can be a "martyr".

I think that the death penalty is indeed too lenient for him. That's why I want him locked up for life. He wanted to die, so we'll make sure he'll stay alive for a *very* long time. And judging from recent reports, he may be locked up in solitary confinement. He's been trying to recruit other prisoners to his cause, and he's been writing extremist stories. Even in jail, he's still dangerous.

Nirvana

i see powerclown and roachboy saying that UsTwo's "solutions" are brash and wrong etc. i myself see that how they might be seen as brash, but then this goes out to roachboy and powerclown - what are your solutions? what do you propose European governments do in response to these problems?

matthew330

What'd ya get booted for Nirvana?

Nirvana

i got booted?

Ustwo

Since this post we had month long + riots in France and now the 'cartoon' jihad.

Anyone waking up yet or are we still pretending this is a Marixist struggle and not a clash of cultures?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Nirvana

One thing that I notice is that a lot of people say that "they should try to help them assimilate better or there has to be a better way to end all this bloodshed", yet no one is offering a better way. the problem is that you can condemn the solutions that some people are throwing out there as bad and brash or whatever, but there really isn't any alternative.

Dragonlich

There are always alternatives, but perhaps these aren't acceptable to us modern people. We seem to be unable to deal with groups of people refusing to follow our way of life. If people misbehave and terrorize everyone else, we apparently are too civilized to put an end to it. We're always trying to understand them, to help them, but perhaps that's part of the problem? I'd say that by trying to understand and help them, we're reinforcing their idea that they're the victims?

As an example of the Dutch version of this: a couple of years ago, there were reports in the media about a group of Maroccan kids running amok in a certain area of a large city. They demanded a place to hang out (or else). What'd we do: we gave them a building to hang out in. IMO we should have send in dozens of police officers in riot gear and kicked the **** out of them...

The "we're the victim" reaction is reaching really silly levels. We've had large groups of people (Muslims) protesting because a known violent (Islamic) guy, threatening people with large knife, was shot by police. His friends and family demanded an investigation (and conviction of that police officer) because the "victim" was a good person, and hadn't done anything. They're *never* at fault, it's always the rest of us.

This seems to be the international norm with many Muslims: it's always the West, the US and/or the Jews keeping them down. It's never their own fault.

(I'm kinda frustrated about this... hence the massive generalization.)

dlish

the problem with muslim youth living in western countries is widespread i must admit. as speaking as a muslim living in a western country i can vouch for that. we've recently had the 'race riots' here in sydney between lebanese youth Vs anglo saxon youth. there needs to be a solution, but attacking them willy nilly would isolate these youths and further dislocate them from society.

so you ask, what needs to be done? im not sure..something to bring them back to mainstream i guess.. but dragonlich is right..they do blame everyone but themselves, and even i feel ashamed of that. we need to stop feeling victimised. one the other hand, any time a minor incident happens that involves middle eastern youths or islam or anything minutely related it makes the front pages, so i think some of our media outlets have to answer for some of what has been going on lately too.


for example, im nots ure if you guys are aware of the sydney race riots but it occured over a scuffle between middle eastern youths and a life guard at a beach. it eascalated after shock jocks roused people up on talk back radio which filtered to TV and in the end we had SMS messages asking for peoples heads which finally led to the riots at cronulla.

anyways enough of me for now..all im saying is we should wisen up, but so should the media.

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

Dragonlich

I think that the government of Australia is indirectly responsible for the later riots by "native" Australians. People riot for a reason. I'd say the reason is the perceived inaction by the Australian judicial system. The reasoning may have been: if the police doesn't take action, we will take action instead.

I see the same pattern over here: people are getting fed up with the fact that police are unable to stop criminals. In the eyes of many, the police spend too much time collecting fines from speeding motorists, and too little time on getting the "real criminals". People feel insecure, and nobody seems to be willing to help them; this feeling is reinforced with negative experiences (groups of youths hanging around), word-of-mouth (people they know have been robbed/attacked) and the media (reports of problems elsewhere). In such a situation, eventually they'll start helping themselves...

A possible solution:
police should enforce the law, and should arrest troublemakers, regardless of their ethnicity. They should be locked up for longer periods of time if they're repeat-offenders. Young criminals should get special attention (re-education?), to prevent them from re-offending. The idea is that criminals will have much more to gain from legal actions than from illegal ones; we should help them build up a future if they choose to uphold the law, and should punish them severely if they choose to break it.

Simultatiously, we should focus on the source of the problems: after all, criminals generally aren't born evil. Everyone should have the same opportunities in life, given the same qualifications. Of course, this is easier said than done... There are so many reasons for criminal behaviour that you can't do it all overnight.

Ustwo

I can't speak for the media in Australia but in the US it treats muslims with kid gloves. The problem is not the media in my opinion but the fact that so many muslim youths are involved in killing innocent people all around the globe. Until the rest of the muslim population who don't condone such activities start to make a real stand against these people you can expect more unlawful reaction to it.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.