November 2nd, 2004

I told you so...
A quote from an entry in this same journal:
But the thing that scares me the most... the thing that terrifies me is that people don't learn ANYthing from history. Not ONE thing.

Two years ago I wrote about the murder of politician Pim Fortuyn; this morning film-maker Theo van Gogh was murdered.
He wasn't my type of guy, not by a long shot, but he DID have some interesting controversial points. And he wasn't afraid to expose them to the public. And that's what killed him: exposing his opinions to the public.
He was currently working on a documentary about the islam, which also contained parts about how disrespectful females are treated by the males.
Theo van Gogh had already received several death threats, saying that if he wouldn't stop with this documentary, he would be killed.
The threats were taken — in my eyes — only semi-serious. Police couldn't do anything, because there were no concrete leads as to where the threats were coming from and apart from some extra surveillance in the area where Theo van Gogh lived, there was nothing that they did.
Van Gogh was killed by a Moroccan man; first shot several times, and after that stabbed several times to make sure the job was done thoroughly. In broad daylight, in the middle of Amsterdam.

Democracy? Democracy my ass! Constitutional freedom of speech? Yeah, right! These things don't exist any longer in today's society.
I had an interesting discussion about this matter with an American guy and he hit the nail on the head. Not to be taken too litterally, but crudely said, it came down to this: you can screw a guys woman and it's ok; you can scold a man and tell him his mother's a bitch, and it will all be alright, but the moment you touch a man's religion you step onto death-row.

And what do we do about it? Read the other story... The moment it's actual, it's a terrible thing. But it will fade away come time...
But I have the feeling that this thing will escalate first, big time, before it will fade. And then it will take another period of time before something alike will happen.
And then I'll say again: I told you so...