![Riots in Spain](http://chromatism.net/current/images/spainfire.jpg)
No doubt Mr van Gogh’s film was clever, edgy, graphically compellling. But here, a year later, you have to wonder: what in the world was he thinking? Or was he thinking at all? Did he, as so many “celebrities” do, think his fame insulated him from danger? He actually laughed once when a Muslim man warned van Gogh that he was going too far.
This anniversary recalls the original mixed feelings that emerged with the details of his slaughter. He is purported to have asked his killer if they could “talk about this.” Or words to that effect. If true, what stellar ignorance drove Mr. van Gogh's political/artistic work? How could he have failed to see how useless talk is? Was he blind to the rage "Submission" invoked? Was this hubris or simply a person willfully ignorant of the times in which he lived?
So many questions. Such a babble of thunderous silence.
![No Left Turns Flattened](http://chromatism.net/current/images/noleftturn.jpg)
And now…even now, the Netherlands proves how little it has learned.
The Dutch authorities are not going to annul the so-called samenlevingscontract or “cohabitation contract,” a civil union registered before a notary, which a man recently concluded with two women whom he now considers to both be his wives. Piet-Hein Donner, the Dutch minister of Justice, responded in the negative to a request of the Dutch parliamentarian Cees Van der Staaij to annul the “trio marriage.” |
It doesn’t seem as though it’s been a year since Theo van Gogh’s slaughter. His death is such a benchmark, such a defining moment that it has quickly entered a timeless place. Senseless murder —its waste and horror— often does. This crime should never have happened. In the best of all possible worlds he should have been free to express his contempt. But he lived in a very dangerous world -- it seethed all around him -- and he hadn't the eyes to see it.
We will never know from what well he drew his willful refusal. What should his epitaph have been? Perhaps it might read "But I Wasn't Serious"? Unfortunately, Islamist utopians are very serious indeed. Dead serious. As his murderer proved at the trial, with his contempt and vicious hatred for his victim and the family.
Peter Drucker said that "communication is the act of the recepient." If he's right — and I do think he is — then each time we want to talk, negotiate, or otherwise dither with a culture that holds us in contempt, we are doing nothing but shoveling out one more spadeful of our own grave.
Has Europe learned yet how truly lethal politically correct multiculturalism is? Have we? More than a year ago, Theodore Dalrymple told us why it won’t work:
Multiculturalism rests on the supposition—or better, the dishonest pretense—that all cultures are equal and that no fundamental conflict can arise between the customs, mores, and philosophical outlooks of two different cultures. The multiculturalist preaches that, in an age of mass migration, society can (and should) be a kind of salad bowl, a receptacle for wonderful exotic ingredients from around the world, the more the better, each bringing its special flavor to the cultural mix. For the salad to be delicious, no ingredient should predominate and impose its flavor on the others. |
As he says further, any good cook knows this is a recipe for disaster. Some ingredients predominate and some should barely whisper their names. Otherwise you have a mess, one that can neither be eaten or metabolized. And he reminds us what happens to those who follow the dicta of the mandarins and the grievance-driven:
Reality has a way of revenging itself upon the frivolous. |
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Update: It seems I forgot Denmark's rampaging Muslim underclass young males.
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And mercy me, my hat tip re Theo van Gogh, which belongs to an early morning email from PeakTalk.
11 comments:
My problem with Mr. van Gogh was not his bravery, nor do I call that into question. But sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor. He would have been better off, and his message better served, had he acted less flagrantly dismissive toward those that did warn him.
So I ask:
what should be his epitaph?
And has the Netherlands learned one damned thing from his death?
Pride goeth before a fall and all that...his death makes me *angry* at his carelessness and furious that the Dutch just sail along, right over the edge of the world.
Look at Dalrymple's last sentence in that post.
As for MS. Hrsi, she too was brave. But I think she was also more wordly-wise and knew better than to leave herself open. She is willing to pay the price of life-long quasi-imprisonment for what she has to say.
Mr. van Gogh paid a different price.
I would also say she chooses her venues: a public restaurant with a butter knife? She saw her opponent's bet and upped it.
I wish I were going to be around to read the eventual definitive biography of this woman. I figure if we're not all living in dhimmitude it will be an amazing book. But that's about 50 years off.
Hey, Andrew S -- no problem. Sometimes I post comments in The Neighborhood of God that I meant to put in Gates...
You're welcome here anytime...especially when you come toting Matthew 5, the heart of it all.
Oh Gawd - another quote from the Yeats poem. You know, the most over-quoted poem in the English language? Sheesh. Seems one can't go to a blog anymore without somebody abusing poor Yeats to make a point by now obvious.
But what I really wanted to say, Dymphna, was that despite his pathetic "can't we just talk?" plea in extremis, I don't think van Gogh was oblivious, or frivolous, or any of the other adjectives you advance to describe his admittedly mysterious behavior.
I think what he was is what's called "crazy brave." You know, the one guy on the edge of the "peace" demo with a sign saying "more war." The guy who stands up in the middle of a biker bar and yells that bikes are for wussies and every real man rides a horse.
I think he saw himself surrounded by PC nonsense every day and said to himself, "I'm not going to duck my head for these idiots."
We need more like him. We need Romans who, when captured by the enemy, stick their hands in braziers full of burning coals and assure their enemies that there are hundreds, thousands more exactly like them who are just itchin' for a fight.
And then, at long last, at some point in the not all too distant future, we need to actually fight.
Old Cato--
Two quibbles:
First, that poem gets quoted a lot because it says succinctly what our yearnings and fears are. If you can improve upon it, in fewer words, and more eloquently, please do. It has held its own since 1920...would that any of my words will be around 85 years from now.
Besides, it was written after the pain of the Easter Rebellion, which for many of us, is still quite fresh.
Second quibble: there is a difference between courage and fool-hardiness. I have nothing against Mr. van Gogh, but he caused his country and his family much pain with his "crazy brave" behavior. What did it accomplish or change? Give me, any day, Ayaan Hrsi's "wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove" approach.
There were two collaborators on that film, Submission. One is alive and one is not. The irony is that the one that was -- and remains -- most despised is still here. She lives to fight another day.
Van Gogh's act was hubris because he was alone -- in a concerted effort to make change his film would have been another thing entirely. But his life was not one of co-operation or planning. He lived decandently and he died horribly. He didn't deserve what happened to him, but like a character from Shakespeare, say Hotspur perhaps, he brought down the fates on his head.
And now his family grieves because he was neither cunning nor wise.
BTW, I approve of crazy brave as in esprit de corps. Go for it. But not in mockery or edgy art.
But those are *my* reseverations.
Sometimes people die horribly and unreasonably but their death has meaning. Try reading the intro to "Ripples of War" -- I personally can't get thru it without a box of kleenex, but that stupid attack on Okinawa had more sense than van Gogh being pulled off his bike and stuck like a goat.
What is there to admire in that?
Napoleon I is rolling in that magnificent tomb at Les Invalides. The Emperor, he of the "whiff of grapeshot" that disposed of the royalists would have known what to do about rioting foreigners in the French slums -- same thing he did to the rabble in Cairo when they made trouble.
A curse to live in such times ! Europe populated by idiots and governed by mushrooms; like a third of the American population deadwood that the rest of us have to carry.
No reason to despair,we, the heirs of Pericles, Christ, Caesar, daVinci, the Bourbons, Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Washington, Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt shall triumph over the multi-cultis yet, their pygmy allies and apologists here; as well as all the barbarian stew the Muslim world in its death-throes can spew up.
Good thoughts that I must postpone addressing till the morrow, all.
And to all a good night.
Multiculturalism and moral relevancy run through most social studies textbooks today. As a result, Yeats's words are today's reality:
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
One year since Theo Van Gogh's death? Seems like decades ago to me--so much has since happened, and is still happening.
When will the West make a united stand? Our elected officials are into the business of vote-getting and appeasing the enemy.
And Eurabia seems to have become an inevitability.
I had to remove tag's comment because his URL messed up the page view. I changed it to a hotlink.
He said: "security watchtower has an entry that speaks to some of the issues included in this post. - the political football we call public education."
link
Thanks so much for another superb post, including the Dalrymple article which somehow I hadn't seen previously. I posted a links.
My thoughts on Van Gogh?
Was he brave, foolish, crazy-brave or full of hubris?
I don't know, but I like to think that he knew he was taking a suicidal stance.
If he was collaborating with Hirsi Ali (sp?), then there is no way he couldn't have an idea of possible consequences. He had the choice of how to confront those consequences.
As for his family, and the heartbreak he has left behind there, I feel for them, but I can also see where he might have decided to take his stand to the nth degree.
9/11 was a huge wakeup call for me. The Bali bombings, Madrid, 7/7, Indonesian schoolchildren, stonings in Iran (among other places) and now Paris in flames.
The more I see and read - and of course, very little in the newspapers - the more frustrated I am.
What will it take to wake up the sleeping dragon that is Western Civilisation? Is it slumbering or comatose, waiting for the plug to be pulled?
My friends and family think that I might be getting a bit obsessed until I point out a few things from the Quran. Theo Van Gogh is another example that makes them think that maybe I'm not suffering from ocd when it comes to this topic.
My copies of Spencer and Trifkovic are always on loan, and I've started reading the Quran to educate myself further.
If it came to taking a stand, would I be willing to do so even if it killed me? Yes.
I lived for years in an abusive relationship, and that is what Islam has with the rest of the world. The more you appease them, the greater atrocities they heap upon you.
Win or die.
There is no middle ground in this battle. If it meant that my daughter gained her freedom from my death or incarceration, it would be worth it.
She will not grow up in the shackles of Multiculturalism, Political Correctness or Dhimmitude.
/apologies for the rant.
Please note, I have no intention of going postal on the next muslim to cross my path. :D That would be a stupid thing to do. However, if there were some way of combatting the evil that is Islam, I am more than willing to take up arms.
For now, I keep a low profile, educate myself and attempt to educate others. That's all I can do.
When I can do more, I will.
Well, Bill, speaking as a woman, I fess up that I don't know how to be a real man :D
But that is irrelevant.
Under islam, we all lose, and I for one am not going to sit by and watch it happen. I just find it overwhelming at times, because it never seems to end.
I notice that on SBS this morning (sat am - 9.30) the french language news led with a piece about the riots in Paris. Of course, not speaking a word, all I could do was look at the pictures. It's like something out of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger film.
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