Theo van Gogh Commemorations

Tomorrow evening, the 2nd November - the day big, cuddly, terrible Theo passed out of our lives - there will be candle light vigils held in remembrance at a number of Dutch embassies and consulates.

In England the coordinates are as follows:

At 19.00 London time a ceremony will be held in front of the Dutch Embassy, 38 Hyde Park Gate, London SW7 5DP. (MAP)

Flowers will be laid in front of the embassy building.

Hat tip: SIOE England, Stephen Gash (site also provides the lyrics of "I vow to thee my Country").

For other countries and territories you are advised to contact the Dutch Embassy in the capital city.

_______________________________
"Een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht
zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen,
dan dooft het licht."

*H.M. van Randwijk (1909-1966)

* Free translation:
"A nation that bows before tyrants
loses more than just life and wealth,
the light will cease".

Hurray! A Veritable Treasure Trove of Sheer Relativist Madness

We don't know anything, do we? Total empathy would make life in Europe impossible, but sometimes I can understand the mind-set of those Americans that see the government as the enemy.

When I first returned to The Netherlands from Greece in 1989 it was silently rumoured that - we live in a multi-cultural society, don't we? My conclusion was that must have happened gradually in my absence, while I was dancing the bouzouki with a Greek dude who didn't know how to spell women's lib. I took multi-culturalism to mean what most people believed it meant, being nice and tolerant to immigrants and buy an occasional Turkish loaf in the old quarter from time to time.

In the course of the happy nineties multi-culturalism developed into a real policy and got official status. Laws were introduced and regulations appeared. Being nice and tolerant to immigrants was no longer a form of politeness, but an imperative. Politicians surfaced to tell those that dissented that they had no choice, as the multi-cultural society simply was "a fact"; so they had better deal with their negative attitude and get used it.

I don't think anybody was ever asked permission despite the country being a free democracy, or that a referendum was put to the vote "Do you want to transform your country into a multi-cultural laboratory? Yes/No, strike what's not applicable". It just happened and nobody was ever told what the consequences would be, besides having to be nice and tolerant, and hire foreign if you want to be seen as an ethical employer.

The problem is, like immigrants, multi-culturalism doesn't come alone, but brings an entire family of pseudo-philosophies and destructive world views. Because, if you really want to be nice to immigrants - even if they murder loud-mouthed intellectual liberals, or threaten them to the point of them being taken into protracted protective custody - you really need to become a cultural relativist as well.

One who jumped the public discourse entirely after the ritual slaughter of Theo van Gogh, was the Liberal philosopher Professor Paul Cliteur, who has since re-merged with a article Falling Prey to Relativism. I condemned him for being spineless, but he may have known what I at the time was still blissfully unaware of, namely that a discussion with relativist multi-culturalists on the one hand, and a bunch of unhinged radical Muslims on the other, doesn't get you anywhere, intellectually speaking.

By the time I made the return journey to Greece in the spring of last year - between the aforementioned, and the majority of expletives hurling barbarians that don't know any better for their lack of a proper education - they had transformed the country into a living hell. As far as I can see from a distance, little has changed.

The readership can look forward to a series of posts on this subject, as I have just unearthed a veritable treasure trove of sheer relativist madness to dissect. By the way, for some time now I've been sitting on a really, really nasty picture ... I mean, they hardly come any more gruesome: do you want to see it?

Of a Jumbo Sized Caliphate and the Jaws of Hell

Since Pope Benedict's visit to Turkey in November I have been staunchly resisting any temptation to write about Islam or - to be more precise - Islamo-Nazism, meaning unabbreviated Islam-inspired National Socialism (it is very apt, if you think about it - more later). First of all, how many times can you write khafir while still being remotely funny, original or informative? I'll leave that to the specialists, my intrepid co-bloggers at Gates of Vienna and The Gathering Storm, collectors of these up-beat news items.

Secondly, I think the subject is over-exposed: my mother used to tell my over-indulgent father "leave the child, the more attention you give her, the more she'll come asking for it".
I also think our salvation lies more in educating our own misguided relativist, multicultural idealists that have produced the capitulating mind-set of Down With Us, rather than with the guys who glorify death, blood and violence in the service of Islamic hegemony.

But now things are piling up a bit. And some of it is even interesting. Let's start with the good news, with the caveat for those with a bit of an off day, that from there on things will go down faster than you can say Fall of Constantinople.

NewsMax' January issue (keep reading! remember PMF #11. Good things, bad people say) carries an article which I was hoping I could legibly scan, but technology let me down once again. Obviously I cannot reproduce the whole item here, but this is the gist: Muqtader Khan, author and assistant professor Political Science at the University of Delaware responds to Bin Laden's call for "martyrdom operations" with a letter carrying the subject title "Go to Hell". A similar memo can be found on the site of Islam For Today. The moderate Muslim community in America is taking the action Europeans have long asked and vainly waited for, which is another thing to think about for the boys in Brussels!

National Catholic Reporter's John Allen on 18th January wrote an article on an inter-faith meeting, held recently at the U.N. The Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr was his own usual optimistic self, declaring "We are standing on the edge of a precipice", and "We may well fall into the jaws of Hell". But then - I've noticed this more than once - the Shiites are the Calvinists of the Islamic world, a conclusion that sadly doesn't help us one iota.

But we're drifting off-topic ... what we are up against with the Islamo-Nazist mentality is exemplified by a post on the site of the Dutch leading Elsevier Magazine, to the effect that Folia, a University of Amsterdam weekly, is reporting Muslim death threats against a young law student - ironically the son of an Arabist of some repute - who, moonlighting as a stand-up, happened to do some innocent jokes on Islam. But he should have known, there's no humor beyond the pillars of Hercules. Enquiries at one of the local mosques learns that it only stands to reason. A spokesperson, asked if death threats are condoned, replies: "Yes, a Muslim is obliged to act, if it's too much he (the perpetrator) can be put down (meaning, be killed). Insulting Islam is not allowed". Referring to the ritual slaughter of cuddly enfant terrible and film producer Theo van Gogh, he adds ominously that he (Theo) didn't heed the warnings either. So that we know ... But what else is new? By now it is no problem to easily fill a hundred blogs a day with reports of Muslim aberrations, as measured against the post-modern Western norms and values that have lost so much of its backbone that it no longer can stand up straigtht.

Another reason I don't like writing about this subject is, that it is utterly fruitless: the discourse doesn't go anywhere. After 9/11 everybody still wondered bewilderedly why these people hated us and went to raide the bookshelves for an explanation. Now we know what's dhimmitude and what they want is a jumbo size caliphate from Jakarta to Reykjavik - we don't - full stop. An excellent article by Henryk Broder, "Hurray! We're Capitulating!" on the site of the German Magazine Der Spiegel sums it up nicely: "At issue is freedom of opinion, one of the central tenets of the Enlightenment and democracy. And whether respect, consideration and tolerance are the right approach to dealing with cultures that, for their part, behave without respect, consideration or tolerance when it comes to anything they view as decadent, provocative and unworthy ...".

That things are not nearly as innocent and spontaneous as they seem is highlighted by the Mohammed cartoon row, that was carefully stage-managed and directed by the forces of Islamo-Nazism. Let me wrap this up by stressing the following paragraph from the article:

"Nowadays acts of terrorism are not committed for their own sake, but in the name of an ideology one could call Nazi-Islamism," Romanian-American author Norman Manea told the German daily Die Welt in March 2004. The only difference, in Manea's view, is "that this ideology invokes a religion, whereas the Nazis were mythical without being religious." Manea believes that what he calls a "World War III" has already begun. "The Europeans are putting off the recognition - as they did in the 1930s - of the tremendous tragedy that awaits them and that has, in fact, already arrived ... The willingness to submit to self-deception is as widespread today as it was (then)"

... so we have no such an excuse ... what's ours ...?

The State of Malcontent V

The anti-authoritive streak of the Dutch is exemplified by a now deceased but still enormously popular author of children's books, Annie M.G. Schmidt. Her protagonists are usually naughty children of the type that doesn't react particularly well to discipline, but is good hearted to the core. The Dutch, anarchist as they are, identify with Annie's heroes through all the seasons of their lives. Now that anything goes and all is permissible I fail to see how being naughty can still be fun! But it's an attitude. One that approves of some things and is against some other, be they in themselves positive or negative. On the pro side we find freedom, progressiveness (not to be confused with progress or progression), tolerance, underdogs of any description, teachers in pullovers, individuality, commonality, the lower middle classes (the bourgeoisie excluded), platitudes, dillitants, kids permitted in the streets till all hours, prostitutes (honest women), the police, vulgarized versions of great works, mediocrity under the guise of averages. On the anti side we find authority, conservatism, boarding school, nuns, rules, etiquette, neck-ties, fatherhood and perception of God as The Father, brussels sprouts, The Truth, uniforms, well-behaved children (gravely suspicious), well-dressed children (the pits!), Popes, foreign situations (American, Belgian, Italian, etc. "toestanden", situations descriptive of whatever disagreeableness We Would Never Do!), the aristocracy, organised religion, accomplishments requiring study, practice and discipline, the armed forces, to excel ... I could go on forever - but you get the picture.

It is therefore deeply ironic that Holland is one of the most regulated countries in the world, in which everything is managed, from the official spelling rules (which change on average every seven years when they are considered out-dated and no longer reflect the P.C.-ness of the day) to the landscaping of towns and countryside alike. And to conform is basic rule number one for everyone across the board, from crown prince to cannabis grower.

The above makes on the whole a pleasant enough picture if you like that sort of thing, but all isn't well in paradise. Since the assassination of Pim Fortuyn it has become the rage for all and sundry to have an uneducated opinion and express it uninhibited by civility in any way, shape or form. Acidity levels are reaching over NAP (New Amsterdam Water Level). Who wants to take the temperature could check out any forum webpage of any media outlet; the tone is simply crushing and the content is even worse. In one such discussion a mother who has just lost a child, was told to shut it, she and her self-pity! That kind of thing. Worst of all, all other participants think it's quite a normal thing to do.

There's other trouble too in the form of relativism, of which the Dutch are dedicated followers. This means that any point of view is freely interchangeable with another. So should you by a delicate rational process have come to a certain conclusion that happens to go against the current of popular opinion, such is at best frowned upon, but at worst simply not tolerated. Because by the same token you could just as well have said something less contentious. You did that quite deliberately so no measure is considered out of bound to express displeasure and that includes the anonymous, lethal kind. Antagonizing Muslims is increasingly hazardous, as that is looked upon as putting society as a whole at risk of bombs and throat-cutting exercises of the kind that killed the film director Theo van Gogh.

The afore mentioned situation is in the end far more hazardous, as there are politicians and intellectuals who no longer dare speak their minds. Those who do are day and night accompanied by an army of security personnel to ensure their safety. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has spend time in protective custody and Geert Wilders has lived on air force bases for weeks on end. And so it happened that we are at risk of dictatorship, no more nor less!
This is a society in deep trouble. Not least because - as an odd-sounding domestic proverb says "one gets used to everything, even hanging" and that's exactly where the danger lies, the anomaly gets to be the norm.

___

Een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht
zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen,
dan dooft het licht. *
H.M. van Randwijk (1909-1966)

* Free translation:

"A nation that bows before tyrants
loses more than just life and wealth,
the light will cease".

For the last time: Ayaan and Theo van Gogh

I am sick and tired of having to pay so much attention to the emancipatory throes of the Sons of Peace on their long, winding road to humanity. Frankly, they just don't deserve it anymore! In fact it may even encourage their miserable behaviour. But since present item concerns two heroes of mine, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh, and the murder of the latter will not be forgotten in a long time, here's the latest upheaval.

A Dutch newspaper (De Volkskrant) today published a sermon by a Muslim cleric, shaikh Fawaz of the Al Sounna Mosk in The Hague, pronounced just prior Van Gogh's barbaric killing. The curses, which - due to it's shocking content - I shall not go into right here, may even have led to said crime. The Justice Dept. is investigating, the outcome of which is entirely predictable (we've been here many times before). In an interview with Nova TV tonight shaikh Fawaz explains his hate sermon, as

1. part of the Arab (or Islamic? he does not clarify) culture,
2. he was letting off steam (he may in fact have prevented worse),
3. there is no love lost between him and this group around the killer of Van Gogh,
4. he has no problem with the Justice Dept.,
5. the Justice Dept. has a problem, as they will have to sanction free speech if they want to prosecute,
6. in view of the above he's looking forward to hear from them.

To be continued ...