Dutch Film and Artists Attacked by Political Islam

NY Times: “Militant Muslims Act to Suppress Dutch Film and Art Show,” by Marlise Simons, January 31, 2005.

We have pointed many times here to the challenge of political Islam in Europe. The situation is especially explosive in the Netherlands, where the filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by a Moroccan militant 10 weeks ago for a film he and his pals considered offensive to Islam.

The article below makes clear the continued unwillingness of political Islamists to accept art they don’t like, despite the understandably angry response of mainstream Dutch society to the van Gogh slaying.

You might think these guys would take a low profile after killing someone walking along in the street. But apparently their contempt for any kind of civilized decency is boundless … hmmm … what invader of Iraq does that sound like ???

Can angry young Muslims dictate what is and is not acceptable in the traditionally open-minded world of Dutch arts? In the last few weeks, it appears, the answer has been yes.

The Netherlands’ main film festival, now going on in Rotterdam, canceled a showing of a short documentary denouncing violence against Muslim women that was made by Theo van Gogh, who was killed 10 weeks ago. An Islamic militant is accused of the crime.

The film’s producer said he had pulled the film on the advice of the police after receiving threats.

At about the same time, a Moroccan-Dutch painter went into hiding after a show of his work opened on Jan. 15 at a modern art museum in Amsterdam. The museum director said the painter, Rachid Ben Ali, had received death threats linked to his satirical work critical of violence by Islamic militants.

The two incidents have reinforced fears among many Dutch that fast-growing non-Western immigration is having a negative impact on social attitudes in the Netherlands. Newspaper columnists and members of Parliament have warned in recent days that if people capitulated to intimidation, they would only encourage Islamic militants.

Some have pointed to the recent events as signs that militants are trying to impose their agenda and are undermining the constitutional right to free speech in the Netherlands. …

But the producer, Gijs van de Westelaken of Column Films, said in a telephone interview that he had withdrawn the film because he did not want “to take the slightest risk for anyone of our team.”

“Does this mean I’m yielding to terror?” he asked. “Yes. But I’m not a politician or an antiterrorist police officer; I’m a film producer.” Those behind Mr. van Gogh’s killing, he said, had already achieved what they wanted, “to frighten the country.”

The withdrawal of the film has set off many reactions, among them a letter from several members of Parliament to the mayor of Rotterdam asking him to intervene. The producer said that the mayor had indeed called him, but that he was sticking by his decision.

“This is not a freedom of speech issue,” he said. “The film has been shown on television, fragments have been replayed, and the text has been published. It’s just the wrong moment right now.”

Ms. Hirsi Ali, who spent three months in the United States and is now back in Parliament, has announced that she will not give up her criticism of the mistreatment of women in the name of Islam. She said she was writing a new film, “Submission Part II, and perhaps even three and four.”

Pressed by her party, the conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, to tone down her work, she said she would not attack Islam as a religion. But Ms. Hirsi Ali, an immigrant born in Somalia who said she had abandoned her Muslim faith, announced that she would continue to “fight against the excesses of Islam.”