Van Gogh’s killing revealsanger at Islam

AMSTERDAM — Two weeks after the brutal slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, many Dutch are saying their normally staid society has been transformed just as the United States was altered by the September 11 attacks.

Polls taken in the hours immediately after Mr. van Gogh was fatally shot and nearly beheaded showed that 80 percent of Netherlands residents think their country has been changed forever.

The change is not immediately evident in the quiet East Amsterdam neighborhood where the killing took place. The police tape and markings have been removed, as have the piles of memorial flowers that covered the sidewalk in front of the BCC appliance store, where Mr. van Gogh drew his last breaths.

“A few days after he was killed, everyone was looking at everyone suspiciously,” said Kim Fischer, a 23-year-old art student, as she perched on her bicycle outside a marijuana shop in the “ethnic” neighborhood, not unlike Washington’s Adams Morgan.

“The atmosphere is a bit down now, but it might be because it is the beginning of winter,” she said.

Cennet Gogen, a Muslim woman shopping at an outdoor market in the area, agreed.

“The killing was terrible. It was terrible. Yes, [Mr. van Gogh] was insulting, but that was his opinion,” she said, adjusting her head scarf.

Mr. van Gogh was killed in apparent retaliation for the release of a film that harshly criticized the treatment of women by Muslims. An Islamic extremist has been arrested in the slaying.

The Nov. 2 killing of the filmmaker, newspaper columnist and social commentator is still daily fodder for Dutch television and magazines, and leading politicians including Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm have called the slaying a declaration of war.

Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of citizens favor a crackdown on Muslim extremists, who are estimated to number as many as 50,000 in the country.

“It was a great shock. A wake-up call,” said Theo Kwakman, a construction foreman restoring an ancient building along the old Warmoesstraat. “I’m afraid that there will be more Muslims here soon than Christians.

“I don’t worry about the atheists. They won’t do anything. [Muslims] are not all bad. But … I’m afraid someday one of the tunnels [into Amsterdam] will be blown up.”

The main suspect in the killing is Muhammad Bouyeri, a 26-year-old Dutch citizen of Moroccan origin who is now in police custody.

Witnesses said Mr. Bouyeri shot Mr. van Gogh eight or nine times as he begged for his life, then slit his throat and pinned a five-page declaration to Mr. van Gogh’s chest with the knife.

The declaration called for Muslims to rise up against the “infidel enemies” and threatened death to several politicians, including the Jewish mayor of Amsterdam, all of whom have taken on security guards or gone into hiding.

Story Continues →