Wilders: Mission Accomplished

Global panic has set in.

Geez, people, it's going to be probably 10 minutes.

Memo to the headchoppers: Get over it.

It is the kind of stunt that has many fearing the worst: Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders plans to release a film about Islam. Politicians worldwide are already trying to stop the project, before a single scene has been shown. Critics fear the film could lead to bloodshed in many countries.

Let us summarize what has happened to date. On Nov. 2, 2004, an Islamic fundamentalist murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a descendant of the painter Vincent van Gogh, in broad daylight on a street in Amsterdam.

The killer, a 26-year-old Dutch citizen, the son of Moroccan immigrants, shot the filmmaker at 9 a.m. as van Gogh was riding his bicycle. He then slit his throat and, using a knife, pinned a note to his victim's chest, claiming responsibility and explaining his motives. The killer's true target was politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But she, unlike van Gogh, was under 24-hour police protection. The bloody act was also a declaration of war against Dutch society, which, as the murderer was convinced, was controlled "by the Jews."

Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali had collaborated to produce a short film called "Submission," which uses four real-life examples to illustrate the poor treatment of women in Islam. The film was shown on Dutch television in the summer of 2004. Mosques in the Netherlands were unhappy about it, but their reactions were less vehement than expected. Van Gogh had already developed a reputation as a provocateur who paid little attention to what people thought about him -- a committed enfant terrible. He liked to refer to Muslims as "geitenneukers," or goat fuckers. He made fun of dead Jews by describing them as "copulating yellow stars in the gas chamber." He also had little regard for Christian values and symbols.

Even more than the deadly attack on "populist" Pim Fortuyn, who was shot to death by a "white Dutchman" in 2002, the van Gogh murder brought to an abrupt end the Dutch dream of a multicultural society, one in which everyone could live more or less as he pleased. From one day to the next, the Dutch realized that they had long ignored a significant problem. The country had more than a million immigrants, most of them from North Africa, who were increasingly isolating themselves from or feeling marginalized by society the longer they lived in the Netherlands.

Read the whole thing.

Part 2 here.