Seven Lessons from the Murder of Theo van Gogh

It was six years ago this month that Theo van Gogh was murdered. Here are seven lessons that his murder taught us.

1. 9/11 was not our fault. After 9/11, I was hoping that there would be debates in our newspapers and schools about the motives of the terrorists, but alas nothing like that happened. They quickly decided that it was all our fault and never paid any attention to any evidence that suggested anything else. But the murder of Theo van Gogh blew that theory out of the water. Or at least it presents serious counter-evidence. What his murder showed was that Muslims are willing to use violence for reasons other than what liberals and leftists believe. Theo van Gogh was not in the Middle East meddling with their affairs, nor was he a supporter of Israel. He was an ordinary Westerner living in the West who criticized the treatment of women by Muslims.

Unfortunately, the view that 9/11 was all our fault leads leftists to bend over backwards in being kind to Muslims, while the view that it wasn’t our fault and that it was part of a long battle to impose shari’a on us leads us to act in almost the exact opposite way.

2. Muslim reactionaries will go after leftists, too. There’s nothing to suggest that Theo van Gogh was a conservative who generally supported conservatives like Bush, so the strategy of the left, which as I just mentioned is to bend over backwards in being kind to Muslims, will not in the long run work.

3. Multiculturalism won’t work. If people with very different lifestyles and beliefs are going to be at each other’s throats for things they say or do, there’s no reason to believe that multiculturalism is a viable or sensible policy.

4. The Muslims have made inroads into our society that not even the communists managed to do. I never heard of any Americans during the Cold War who worried about what they said in public about the communists. The only incident I can remember that comes close to resembling the murder of Theo van Gogh was a reporter who had traveled to Romania and who, having talked to ordinary people there, was warned that those people would be harmed if he published what they had said to him. Notice that this wasn’t a threat against the reporter himself, but against people in Romania.

5. We let our culture be taken over by people who won’t even stick up for their own values. After the murder of Theo van Gogh, I expected leftists to be outraged, but they generally weren’t. Instead, to the extent that they had any reaction at all, they were worried about a backlash against Muslims.

6. The picture we are being fed by the mainstream media of immigrant Muslims is wrong. That picture is of a people who are under siege by racists and who in case are integrating into our society. Obviously, not all are integrating and if they are under siege they seem quite capable of retaliating.

7. It's hard to beat the chilling effect of a murder. The frequent mentions in our society of chilling effects – generally of mere statements or pieces of legislation – are pathetic compared with the chilling effect of a murder. Yet, liberals and leftists who talk about chilling effects aren't willing to recognize this in this instance and complain about the racism of anyone who complains about Muslims in the West. I’ve already talked about this here, but it’s worth repeating.