Taken from Index for Free Expression 19 November 2004

The internet's bloggers soon got to grips with Rohan Jayasekera's diatribe against the legacy of murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. A reaction and some of the comments received by the website follow. A statement by the Editors and Board of Index on Censorship was released on 19 November. My outburst against the legacy of Theo van Gogh drew furious responses. I wanted to comment about how his style had helped reduce political discourse in Holland to a baying dogfight, and the damage that had been done to free expression there as a result. And to deliberately provoke a debate on the internet, I wanted to be as hard on van Gogh as he had been on his critics in life. I realised that I was sailing close to the edge to make that point, but I believed that my article fell short of actually blaming van Gogh for his own murder. Plenty of people, though not all, think I didn't fall short enough

"'De mortuis nil sini bene'. (Speak only good of the dead.) That is a maxim which Van Gogh violated consistently," argued Dutch poet Remco Campert in his own article about van Gogh's murder. "I think I would insult him if now I would say sugary nice things (about him)" Campert, after reviewing van Gogh's comments on the Jews, concluded that they were "not really the words of a true hero of free speech." You can read what I think in my original item. Yet our opinions of his style didn't mean van Gogh should have been censored – much less that he should have been killed for his views. That should go without saying.

It just means that I shouldn't have to condone what he says. Nor that his death should change my view of his words – that would be hypocrisy. And it should open a wider discussion about where the lines are being drawn. The article could have been done differently, true. One correspondent suggested writing a piece on the "...Rawlsian conception of civility and civic respect, particularly in relation to the polarisation of political discourse which has come to a head as a product of the debate on the Iraq war..."

Well that's one way of going about it, but we are talking about the man who commented on the death of Green Party leader Paul Rosenmöller: "May he get joy from his brain tumour. Let us piss on his grave". Or when writing in Folia Civitatis magazine in reply to criticism by Jewish historian Evelien Gans: "I suspect that Ms Gans gets wet dreams about being fucked by Dr Mengele.” He later told the Volkskrant newspaper that he hoped Gans would sue him, so he could make Gans prove in court that she doesn't have wet dreams about Dr Mengele. Was that “theatre?” Yes. Free expression? Yes. Did he deserve to die for it? No. No-one deserves to die for their views, not matter how reprehensible. Murder is the most abhorrent of means of censorship.

Does that mean van Gogh's words were beyond accountability? No. Not in the real world anyway.

Otherwise you degrade a person's First Amendment rights in the way that routine abuse has degraded the Fifth Amendment. You reduce it to a non-committal reply and a quick way to try and circumvent accountability. The right to free speech does not trump all. It does not provide you with immunity against responsibility. It's the start point of every debate about free expression – is it an abuse of free speech to shout ‘fire' in a crowded theatre? Maybe the same applies to shouting ‘goatfucker' at a Muslim on TV? It needs to be discussed. Whatever you think it is I think abuse hardly counts as ‘constructive' debate. It marginalises and silences those who cannot shout as loudly.

Theo van Gogh was murdered by an enemy of free speech, but you can't discuss Theo van Gogh without considering the other results of how he chose to use his own free speech rights while he was alive. We can only hope to retain our rights to free expression if we are prepared to understand this. No right can be absolute, especially if exercised at the expense of others. That's one of the most fundamental of the UN's list of fundamental human rights.

I do though regret making presumptions about Ayann Hirsi Ali. The film Submission was probably the best thing that van Gogh ever did, provocative or not, so that should be taken into account. To me something seems not right about her association with a political party with policies that are so inimical to her fellow Somalis in the Netherlands, as well as to so many others. But in speaking for her for the purposes of my own argument, I think I was treating her no more fairly than van Gogh did.

Anyway, I got plenty of abuse in reply. Plus plenty of intelligent opinion - for and against my position - as well.

That's free speech for you.

***

What a crass, vile and insensitive piece about Theo Van Gogh. You seem to forget that he was murdered - shot and then near-decapitated - in the street, as a result of making his film Submission. Whatever the worth of the film, you seem to be saying that his murder was justifiable. This piece - particularly your intemperate last few lines - brings the whole rationale for your journal into dispute. As usual in such polemics, yoru piece parrots the 'complex issues' to 'poverty and racism'. You skate over the more dificult task - which is to unpack the over-heated clash of values in what is a dense and small country. Your use of words like 'bullshit' shows the poverty of your argument. And can it be true, or your own spin, that "Somalia-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose terrible personal experience of abuse has driven her to a traumatizing loss of her Muslim faith"? As to their working relationship being "exploitative" - that's your spin, too. Why don't you believe that she can come to her own conclusions? Is it because she's female? No wonder your comments box for this crap piece is closed. Or perhaps that should be 'Censored'. Oliver Bennett.

Dear Sir: Theo Van Gogh did not die of natural causes: he was murdered, but you know this, and yet you describe his brutal murder as 'a marvellous piece of theatre'. As the author of this marvellous theatre, the Islamofascists will no doubt wish to repeat their performance on other artists, whose views they dislike. One would think that an organization opposed to censorship might be concerned about this development, but then in Europe nowadays the resurgence, within in its culture, of its ancient anti-Semitic habits appears to be accompanied by a resurgence of its affinities for fascist and communist points of view. Brian Murphy.

Rohan, This has to be one of the most ill-judged and ill-timed pieces you have ever written. That your own frustrations have been allowed to provide cover for an 'explanation' of Theo Van Gogh's murder must surely cause you to take a breath and ponder the wisdom of such sweeping vitriol that serves so little purpose. Disappointingly, Dr Christopher McDowell, Director, Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees. London.

Are you one sick bastard? Not a question, but a statement. Are you so perverse that Van Gogh's work is considered one sided and then implicate him that he has been murdered to coincide with Fortuyn's biopic? What an abhorrent self-belief that you are a believer in "free expression". Mind you, you probably think Michael Moore's irrational and unsubstantative movie was a model of expression. Your fucking point of view is purely political, coming from a point of view, that demonises those who, you sense, aren't as open minded as yourself. How the fuck can you rationalise a man's cold blooded murder with what you describe as a low grade movie and political statement. As they say in the US , you're just as bad as the terrorists. You're not housing the terrorists but you're ideas support them. May you live to meet your own ends. Best, John Soppe.

No, I'm not from Holland, but I think your original article was well written and deals with important points. If I wander into a crowd of minorities at 3am and hurl out obscenities, I don't have the police to protect me, only the kindness of those I'm attacking. The anonymity and detachment of positions of power, blogs, media, media allow us to accuse without confronting, to stir the shit without getting it on us. Or so it goes usually. Unfortunately, Mr. van Gogh has seemed to show how the murder of one man is really the expression and behavior of all Moslems, dark-skins, or whatever large umbrella we want to describe. Hey, let's head back to our colonies and do it right this time... Your most important focus is on dialog, and that hate-speech does not further it. Were van Gogh just another ranter on the edge of irrelevance, few would have noticed, but when it gets tied up in national politics, one should not be surprised that someone took him seriously. Deadly serious. It's nice to have free speech, but it certainly seems that this freedom is very unevenly distributed. Perhaps those who are told to shut up and listen get frustrated at this. Anyway, I liked your balance on the story, but of course even balance will produce a horde of critics. Bill Eldridge.

It's always all right to kill someone who criticizes you. Idiot. Christopher Coulter.

Dear Rohan Jayasekera: I am a journalist and a former Dutchman (now a naturalized U.S. citizen). I've also long served on the First Amendment Committee of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. In 1996, I was one of 50 recipients of a Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU Foundation for challenging the 1996 Communications Decency Act in court. (Newsweek called it "perhaps the most important free speech issue in the last quarter of this century.") My opposition to censorship, and my dedication to freedom of speech, is one of the main themes of my personal and professional life. I'm not mentioning this to impress upon you just how high my horse is, but I thought it instructive to let you know where I'm coming from. Hey, you and I are in the same camp, right? Not on your life. I read your article on the murder of Theo van Gogh, and find your assessment of his work and his character cartoonish and disturbing -- but not half as sickening as your conclusion that Theo somehow had it coming. Look, I won't even go into your puerile dismissal of Theo's views, and Fortuyn's -- you call them "bullshit" without even making a cursory attempt to explain them. And asserting that Theo was "the Jerry Springer of Dutch political discourse" also doesn't deserve my intellectual engagement. Schoolyard taunts never do. I do want to make this point, however. No matter how you, Rohan, try to slice it, shush it, sanitize it: Both Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh were brutally slaughtered because they dared express their thoughts. DO YOU NOT CARE? If you do, you have a very odd way of showing your outrage. If you don't, then why on earth are you collecting a paycheck from an organization that's a prominent free-speech bulwark? I am flabbergasted that Index on Censorship would run on article that, rather than rising to the defense of these victims of the *ultimate* censorship, takes the side of the murderers. I'm trying to keep this as polite as possible, but I was sorely tempted to write, as my subject line, "Dude, what the f***?!" Try as I might (and I have), I don't understand you. So "Van Gogh roared his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities"? Yes, Theo roared, as was his absolute prerogative. The people he roared against roared right back, as was *their* absolute prerogative. Under the perfectly robust Dutch constitution, everyone has the right to congregate, to demonstrate, to write, to publish, to pamphleteer, to inspire, to agitate, to preach, to march. In the Netherlands, you can probably even break a few windows in righteous anger, or burn an effigy, without necessarily finding yourself in a police cell ten minutes later. But any exchange of ideas stops, of course, as soon as someone puts a gun to an opponent's head and squeezes the trigger, in the name of some supposedly unassailable faith. Theo was shot multiple times at point-blank range. The killer then almost severed Theo's head with a knife. He plunged the blade into his victim's chest. Theo, I assure you, is now quite dead. So tell me again, Rohan: Who silenced whom? Rogier van Bakel

…And maybe we should target Michael Moore because after all, he too, plays light and loose with the facts for the sake of sensational movie making? Not to mention the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie…Your dancing on Van Gogh's grave—irrespective of what he promoted—is obscene. Rabbi Avi Weinstein

I was reading some of the comments regarding your piece on Theo van Gogh: and the most interesting comment had to be from Rogier van Bakel, who's supposedly this great supporter of free speech. But it got me thinking the way to prevent these kinds of violent outbursts by disenfranchised people is for governments to address them head-on, instead of letting them foment into hatred and even more violence. I mean free speech is all good, but even it has its limitations. Such is the case here in Canada where there are laws against inciting hate-crimes. What we need is for governments to go a step further and allow the disenfranchised communities to come up with a response. That's my thought in a nutshell, but I'm sure it needs to be refined to a much greater detail and a guide or some best practices need to be established that governments can follow in dealing with these "pre-violent" communities. For example, in the Theo van Gogh case: #1 - Due to a massive immigrant inflow of Muslim refugees into the Netherlands, the government sees a rise in hatred towards the immigrant community, in particular the Muslim community. #2 - Right-wing politicians and their supporters become vocal about their resentment of this Muslim community. #3 - The government should start reaching out to these communities to empower the individuals within -- Advise them on their rights, on what to do if they face discrimination or other forms of attack, and take proactive measures to allow the community to speak out against any form of fear, uncertainty and doubt targetted at them. #4 - When a controversy generator like Theo van Gogh comes out with a new form of attack, the government should once again reach out to these communities and offer to show them non-violent ways of protest, including providing some funding for such projects. #5 - In this case the Muslim community could have started a massive anti-misinformation campaign in the form of books and films to better their standing in the Dutch community and repair the damage caused by van Gogh's film. Perhaps I'm being a little naive in assuming these methods could work, but I already see some of these methods employed here in Canada, and I must say, I don't see much friction between the different ethnicities living here. Just my two cents. Fahad Shafique