Theo Van Gogh Research Articles

The impact of dramatic events on public debate concerning accommodation of Islam in Europe

Using the data of the EURISLAM project, this article investigates the impact of dramatic events on the public debate with regard to Islam in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. It assesses the extent to which dramatic events such as 9/11, the bombings in Madrid and London and the murder of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam impacted on the debate on multiculturalism, notably the accommodation of Western-European institutions to Islam. In this contribution, we analyse the overall evolution of public debate in the written press on Muslims, and more particularly Muslim rights, for the period 1999–2009. Our aim is to empirically analyse the transitions that the public debate on Islam in Europe has undergone in the wake of the most dramatic terrorist acts perpetrated by Muslim extremists during the last decade. We hypothesize that dramatic violent events involving Muslim extremists had an impact on the number of claims about Muslims and Islam in general, but not on the debate about religious rights for Muslims in Europe. Descriptive analysis and time series plus intervention analysis were undertaken to test these hypotheses.1

LOOKING FOR HOME IN THE ISLAMIC DIASPORA OF AYAAN HIRSI ALI, AZAR NAFISI, AND KHALED HOSSEINI

On November 8, 2007, Anglo-Dutch writer Ian Buruma delivered a lecture titled Radicalism in Europe.1 His claim: Muslim thinkers are the key to diffusing a potentially explosive politics of radical religious separatism in Europe. A small but powerful minority of Islamic radicals resides in Europe, according to Buruma, and they remain an unassimilated and thus, dangerous force to be reckoned with. He cites the 2004 slaying of Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, as evidence of this Islamist radicalism. Van Gogh's 2004 film Submission exposed the psychological and physical violence levied against women in Islamic societies, and it was in response to this production that Islamic-Dutch citizen, Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh as retribution for his critique of Islam.2Buruma suggests two paths for suturing what he reads as an ever-growing divide between mainstream Europe (and the Western world at large) and its radical Islamic minority. The one lies with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (script-writer for Van Gogh's Submission). A self-proclaimed ex-Muslim, Ali represents for Buruma the radical alternative to radical Islam - renunciation. She is, thus, not the icon he would select for keeping what he calls non- violent Muslim minorities in favor of Western secular democracy3 Rather, he posits so-called thinker Tariq Ramadan as the optimal symbol of Islamic, pro- Western thought. Buruma argues that it is precisely Ramadan's embodiment of moderate Islam that makes him a sound solution to the increasingly dangerous divide between mainstream Europe and its radical Islamic minority. Where Hirsi Ali is, for Buruma, a risky figure because she renounced Islam, Ramadan represents a middle road, a pragmatic alternative that encompasses both Orthodox Islam and a pro- Western politics. Buruma champions him as the salve for an ailing political/religious situation in Europe.Just one month later, on December 7, 2007, Ayaan Hirsi Ali published an editorial in the New York Times under the title, Silent Moderates.4 She defines Islam's Moderates by invoking their opposite, the Radicals. According to Ali, the Radicals constitute proponents of Islamic justice. She cites the case of a twenty-year-old Saudi Arabian woman who was abducted and raped by several men, only to be sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes by bamboo cane. The rape-victim's crime? Mingling, or the association with a male unrelated by blood or marriage.5 Saudi Arabia's enforcement of sharia (Islamic law) marks it, in Hirsi Ali's eyes, a radical Islamist state against which moderate Islamic thinkers should rally. But where are the moderates? asks Ali:Where are the Muslim voices raised over the temble injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say... that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal, and bigoted- and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?6Hirsi Ali is no Boazian or Herskovitzian relativist. She writes, We in the would be wrong. . .to elevate cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life.7 According to her, then, the job of a moderate Islamic thinker is to resist the temptation of cultural relativism, to dare to declare Western democratic law morally superior to Saudi Arabian sharia} Ali closes her opinion piece with an invocation of Tariq Ramadan: I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan.9 Ironically, both Buruma (who writes Ali off as an extremist because she renounced Islam) and Ali invoke the moderation of Ramadan in the name of bridging the non-violent/radical, Western/non- Western Islamic divide. There is, then, on the part of both Buruma and Ali, an attempt to negotiate diasporic Islam's relationship to the West as both a geographical region and an ideological influence. …

Ethnic Minorities and Integration Process in France and the Netherlands: An Institutionalist Perspective

Introduction During spring of year 2005, both French and Dutch voters rejected project of European Constitution. A few months later, French riots shed light on plight of children from immigrant backgrounds. It seems that these young people, most of them second-or third-generation immigrants, do not feel to fully belong to society. Likewise, in Netherlands, murders of politician Pym Fortuyn in 2002 and film-maker Theo Van Gogh in 2004 highlighted same issues. Fortuyn and Van Gogh's harsh criticism of Islam made them infamous by proclaiming failure of Dutch model. These events left a deep impression in France and Netherlands. They led columnists and scholars to question challenges for two models of integration. The goal of this article is thus to explain evolution of attitude of French and Dutch governments toward of ethnic and religious minorities. This issue is a fundamental matter of Western societies because it plays a key role in social process. As Allan Gruchy argued, institutionalism is precisely the science of social provisioning (Gruchy 1987: 21). In this respect, I provide an analytical framework to highlight what underpins changes of last years relying on North's views on institutions and institutional change. Indeed, despite fact that it could be said to be close to standard theory (Milonakis and Fine 2007), new institutionalism of North indisputably deals with aforementioned process insofar as it endogenizes institutions. From this viewpoint, French and Dutch experiences are very worthwhile to be studied as they illustrate relationships between beliefs and institutional scaffoldings in maintaining relatively smooth functioning of social order. The transformation of scaffolding of both countries is significant too. Although initial conditions of France and Netherlands were different, their experiences over time made them adopt rather similar policies. This theoretical framework has been applied successfully to economic subjects (see, for instance, North 1990, 2005) while, to my knowledge, it has not yet been applied to issue of of migrants and their offspring. This article aims at filling a void in field of ethnic minorities integration. It uses a narrative approach (see McCloskey 1990) to provide a reading of French and Dutch institutional trajectories: economic analytical tools are therefore used to tell a story about a sociopolitical subject. The article is divided into three sections. The first one sets out issue and main theoretical concepts used in study. The second states doctrinal background of French and Dutch models. The third part analyzes, adapting an institutional perspective, French and Dutch trajectories. It also sets out recent evolutions of policies in these countries. Institutions, Integration, and Institutional Change: Clarifying Issue From an institutionalist perspective, this article aims at scrutinizing changes regarding policies in France and Netherlands. In this respect, idea of institution and institutional change must be clarified. What is more, word integration is often used to allude to problems associated with ethnic and cultural diversity at national level. Despite fact that it has been widely used both by general public as well as scholars, it remains, however, difficult to embody a unanimous definition. The main purpose of this section is thus fourfold: 1) to describe four levels of social analysis that shape background of study; 2) to lay out method of analysis; 3) to give a theoretical framework that centers upon institutional change; and 4) to give a theoretical clarification of idea of integration. Four Levels of Social Analysis Institutional change can be studied within four main levels of social analysis identified by Oliver Williamson (2000). …

Intellectuals and cultural trauma

As opposed to the intelligentsia, a historically specific group, and the professions, those who perform intellectual labor, the intellectual is here understood as the performance of a social role, one which involves the articulation of ideas communicated to a broad audience. This implies at least two distinct ways of speaking about and studying the intellectual. The first is to look at the way various social actors take on the task of articulating ideas in public discourses. The second is to study how particular persons aspire to the intellectual, a role whose meaning they inherit as part of a tradition which must be interpreted and reinvented. Through an analysis of six assassinations, the article shows how intellectuals can act as carrier groups in what is called a cultural trauma, a public discourse in which the foundations of collective identity are brought up for reflection. The six assassinations are Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the United States, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands and Olof Palme and Anna Lindh in Sweden. The article concludes with reflections on the changing nature and position of the intellectual in contemporary society, especially in the light of the prevalence of the media and the new digital age.

Did the Murder of Theo van Gogh Change Europeans' Immigration Policy Preferences?

To what degree are preferences determined by fundamental and stable value orientations, or are they vulnerable to exogenous shocks to issue saliency? We exploit that the second round of the Europea ...

Emerging Migrant Churches in the Netherlands: Missiological challenges and mission frontiers

Abstract Emerging migrant churches in the Netherlands are a visible sign of a changed society. These changes demand rethinking of missiological challenges and “mission frontiers”. In this process sentiments of the Dutch population towards immigrants need to be addressed. Since the murders of right‐wing politician Pim Fortuyn and film producer Theo van Gogh, existing tensions in society and feelings of fear can neither be neglected nor downplayed. Referring to three examples of newly emerged multicultural churches, the author comments on how these communities shape their church and mission. He argues that migrant churches are missional by definition in their focus on internal, external or common mission. In discussing the response to migrant's theologies, he argues that true dialogue is often precluded by reductionist tendencies. More opportunities for theological training of the leadership of migrant churches, on their own terms, are mentioned as an important challenge. Defining one's own Christian identity anew in the changed context is seen as vital for true dialogue and connectedness.

Islam in Europe

The firestorm of controversy over the recent vote in Switzerland to ban the building of minarets on mosques highlights the perilous and contentious state of Islamic community, culture, and religion in Europe. Finding reliable and current research and resources on the many threads that informs the debate surrounding the European Islamic community, Western perceptions, and the tensions between factions can be difficult. Jessica Adamick offers a comprehensive and up to date survey of resources that can aid reference and collection development librarians when working in this subject area. Adamick received her MLS from the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University Bloomington, with a specialization in Digital Libraries in May 2009 and currently works as the Ethics Clearinghouse Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is working on a National Science Foundation-funded project to build the Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse Beta (ESENCe--www.ethicslibrary.org), a subject repository on the responsible conduct of research. Adamick developed her interest in the topic of Islam in Europe when she studied in Amsterdam as an undergraduate. She subsequently explored the topic at Earlham College, where she graduated with a BA in Women's Studies in 2007.--Editor Over the last three decades, events involving the conflict between European Muslims and secular or Christian European states have been highly visible. Protests of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses dominated the media in 1989, following a denied appeal by the United Kingdom Action Committee on Islamic Affairs for the British government to ban the book's release. Also in 1989, the Affaire du Foulard (the Headscarf Affair) began in Creil, France, when three Muslim girls wearing headscarves were sent home from school. A national controversy ensued that led to the passing of a law in 2004 that banned obvious signs of religious affiliation in French schools. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, debates that associated Islam with violence became widespread. The murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by Dutch Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri and the Al-Qaeda bombing of trains in Madrid only fueled the flames of the heightened rhetoric. In response to these events and their political aftermath, there has been an enormous increase in publications on the topic of Islam in Europe. This annotated guide includes relevant, informative, authoritative, and influential reference sources, databases, periodicals, books, and websites that focus on Islam in Europe during the last three decades. Readers should note that in addition to this guide, several comprehensive bibliographies have been published on the subject: Jochen Blaschke's Muslims in Europe: A Bibliography (Berlin: Edition Parabolis, 2002), Robert Goehlert's Muslims in Contemporary Europe: A Guide to Selected Resources in English (Bloomington: Center for the Study of Global Change, Indiana Univ, 2006), and Jurgen Jensen's Africans in Europe: A Bibliography, Interethnische Beziehungen und Kuhurwandel, Vol. 51 (Munster: Lit, 2002). None of these, however, are annotated. It should also be noted that the current political environment in much of Europe supports the conflation of Islam with Islamic fundamentalism and the conception of all Muslims in Europe as immigrants. Researchers should be aware that some of the materials available reflect this confusion, and they should find sources that account for the level of diversity among Muslims in Europe. Several methods and tools were employed in the identification and selection of the items for this guide. Reference sources were located by browsing the shelves of Indiana University Bloomington libraries and using standard reference sources such as American Reference Books Annual, Booklist, Choice, College & Research Libraries, and Reference & User Services Quarterly. Books were identified using Choice, Public Library Catalog, WorldCat, and book reviews in scholarly journals, and were selected on the basis of their relevancy, their citation count according to Arts and Humanities Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index, the number of library holdings, favorable reviews, reputation of the publisher, and date published. …

Islam in the Spotlight: The Mediatisation of Politics in an Amsterdam Neighbourhood

Conflicts over the presence of migrants and Muslims in Western societies have become increasingly ‘mediatised’ in recent years. Interactions between governments and migrants are now subject to constant scrutiny and the media have become a prime battle ground for political struggles. This paper investigates the effects of mediatisation on the relationships between the government and civil society associations in one Amsterdam neighbourhood before and after a Muslim extremist assassinated film maker Theo van Gogh in November 2004. With the help of field theory, it is shown that media representations do not just reflect local realities, but in fact are a part and outcome of struggles between actors unequally invested with discursive power. Mediatisation thus transforms the logic of politics and alters the balance of power between different actors.

Are children’s views of the ‘‘enemy’’ shaped by a highly-publicized negative event?

In the beginning of the first decade of this century, some highly-publicized extremistic acts of terror occurred. A hostage tragedy in a school in Beslan (North Ossetia) was followed in the Netherlands by the brutal murder of the controversial Dutch filmmaker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh, bomb attacks in Bali and Madrid and other acts of terrorism between 2002 and 2005. The aim of the present study was to examine whether these events have resulted in the emergence of a collective enemy in the Netherlands, and whether this is reflected by the enemy images and understanding of enemy with Dutch children and adolescents aged 7—13. For this purpose, information about children and adolescents’ enemy images and understanding of enemy prior to (i.e., 2000 and 2002) and following these events was compared. In the pre- and post-studies, the participants were presented with a free-association and drawing task, as well as a short questionnaire. The findings revealed considerable shifts in the way children thought about and drew enemies. Whereas prior to these events an enemy with Dutch children and adolescents was an abstract, undefined entity, it now obtained more definition and a concrete reality, albeit without any specification of the identity of the enemy nor as being part of a collective enemy.

Reductie van negatieve stereotypen over Marokkanen door een speelfilm

Reduction of negative stereotypes about Moroccans through a movie Reduction of negative stereotypes about Moroccans through a movie A. Vrugt, M. Jacobs & R. Meertens, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 23, March 2010, nr. 1, pp. 0-00 This study investigated whether looking at the movie 'Cool' of Theo van Gogh would reduce secondary school students' negative stereotypes about Moroccans. The results showed that appreciation of the movie contributed through empathy with the Moroccan protagonists in the movie to small attribution of negative stereotypical traits to Moroccans in general. Before looking at this movie the participants ascribed negative stereotypical traits to a greater extent to Moroccans in general than to young people in general. After looking at the movie the participants less strongly ascribed negative stereotypical traits to Moroccans in general than before. Moreover, after looking at the movie negative stereotypical traits were ascribed to a greater extent to young people in general than before. After looking at the movie there were no longer any differences between the attribution of negative stereotypical traits to Moroccans in general and young people. Furthermore, empathy had a negative relationship with the attribution of undesirable behaviour to personal dispositions, and the undesirable behaviour of Moroccan young people was attributed less to personal dispositions after looking at the movie than before.

Neoliberal Xenophobia: The Dutch Case

This article argues for the need to identify and grapple with the complexities of the relation between xenophobia and neoliberalism. In the case of the Netherlands, the rise of xenophobia is part of a larger process of a mostly market-controlled reclaiming of symbolic forms of collectiveness in an increasingly atomized society. The 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker-provocateur Theo van Gogh played a crucial role in cementing a “culturalist,” anti-Islam regime of truth. The analysis of the van Gogh murder informs about how, in the atomized market society, the search for new forms of togetherness has translated, in the Netherlands, into a turn to the ethnos, with fantasies of purity and the moralization of culture and citizenship. Where the neoliberal project has, largely unnoticed, abolished the collective standards and solidarities of the post-World War II era, the faces of immigrants have served as ideal, identifiable flash points for new repertoires of belonging and othering.

The headscarf and ‘resistance identity-building’: A case study on headscarf-wearing in Amsterdam

Drawn on qualitative research, the aim of this article is to give voice to headscarved Dutch Muslim students of Turkish origin in Amsterdam and to arrive at an understanding of their perceptions and experiences of the headscarf and the headscarf issue in the Netherlands, particularly after 9/11 and the murder of film director Theo van Gogh in 2004. It is believed that restricting the headscarf issue only to the oppression of Muslim women and cultural differences negates understanding of how the headscarf is utilized as a symbol and an instrument of ‘resistance identity-building’ in the Dutch context where an exclusive ethno-cultural notion of Dutch identity has become increasingly pronounced.

Victimization of Muslim Women in Submission

Shortly after Submission, a film critiquing the treatment of Muslim women, aired on Dutch television, a Muslim fundamentalist murdered the film's producer, Theo van Gogh. While the murder brought Islamic extremism worldwide attention, the film itself escaped critical scrutiny. Analyzing the depictions of Muslim women in Submission, this essay discusses the intricacies of Muslim women's struggle. Surrounded by the oppressive discourses of Islam and patriarchy on one hand, and of the “global sisterhood” and Orientalism on the other, Muslim women today labor to achieve equality both with Muslim men and Western women.

Eyerman (Ron), The Assassination of Theo Van Gogh. From Social Drama to Cultural Trauma

Eyerman (Ron), The Assassination of Theo Van Gogh. From Social Drama to Cultural Trauma

The Headscarf and Emancipation in the Netherlands

In this article, I draw on qualitative research on headscarf wearing among Dutch students of Turkish origin in Amsterdam. The aim was to give voice to Muslim girls and to critically revisit the emancipation discourse with regard to the headscarf issue in the Netherlands after the murder of the film director Theo van Gogh in 2004. My main argument is that the issue of the Muslim headscarf in the Dutch context – in which there is a growing tension between the Muslims and the non-Muslims1 – has been used to perpetuate prejudices and stereotypes about Muslim women and this issue, as a ‘cultural control’. These prejudices and stereotypes shape the discussions around headscarves in Holland, and can be seen strikingly in the views of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian refugee who is a former member of the Dutch Parliament and the author of the script of the sensationalist 2004 film Submission, and Cisca Dresselhuys, the ex-editor-in-chief of the leading Dutch feminist magazine Opzij. Both contend that the headscarf is a symbol of Muslim women’s oppression and that principles of Islam and women’s emancipation are incompatible (Dresselhuys, 2001; Hirsi Ali, 2006). They offer a single (universal) path for the emancipation of Muslim women through removing their headscarves. I hope that by capturing the voices of Muslim women on the sources of their ‘oppression’, this research article will make a contribution to feminist and liberation psychology that focus on the ‘causes of oppression laying in the structures and ideologies that create discrimination and prejudice as the manifestations of oppression’ (Martin-Baro, 1994 cited in Moane, 2003). This research argues that the forced removal of the headscarf is an imposition of ‘universal emancipation’ that further deepens social and cultural inequalities and causes these women’s further oppression rather than their emancipation.

Visions of Islam in Europe: European attitudes towards Muslim Asians

CESAA 16TH ANNUAL EUROPE ESSAY COMPETITION 2008 HONOURS CATEGORYThis essay argues that the public discourse surrounding Muslim Asian immigrants in Europe frequently presents them as enemies to stability, democracy and human rights in Europe. Beginning with early-modern descriptions of Muslims by Alexis de Tocqueville, and his perception of Muslims as “deadly”, this essay argues that although his language may seem antiquated today, his principle idea retains acceptance in discussions on Islam in Europe today. In particular, the public reactions to the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the 2004 assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the Jyllands-Posten cartoons scandal and the potential ascension of Turkey to the EU have spurred political speeches, voting patterns and newspaper reporting expressing the notion that Islam and Muslims were dangerous to Europe. This essay concludes that not only do these events undermine European senses of security, the also subject Muslims to continuing suspicion and prejudice in Europe.

Muslims in the Netherlands: Social and Political Developments after 9/11

The position of Muslims in the Netherlands and government policies regarding Muslims have been influenced not only by the attacks of 9/11, but even more by the murder of the film-maker Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004. The brutal murder activated serious political problems and perceptions that were already present; it caused authorities to panic, it was the starting point of a series of arson attacks and threats, and many Muslims experienced a feeling of exclusion. The background to these developments can partly be traced back to the socio-economic, cultural and political positions of Muslims in the Netherlands and to the perceptions that Muslims cherish regarding religion and the West. The prevailing perceptions are subject to political struggle between Muslim democrats and Muslim radicals. The development of this struggle calls for a new understanding of the attraction exerted by radicalism and extremism on a small number of Muslim youngsters in Western Europe. This radicalism shows a complicated relation with the religious orthodoxy that is usually called ‘Salafism’. A closer study reveals that Salafism manifests itself in three movements, intensively competing for domination and the recruitment of Muslim youngsters. The two non-violent varieties of Salafism claim to build a threshold against radicalism, whereas others depict it as a stepping-stone towards radicalisation. These perceptions influence policies against terrorism and especially against the spread of radicalism.

How terrorism news reports increase prejudice against outgroups: A terror management account

Three studies tested predictions derived from terror management theory (TMT) about the effects of terrorism news on prejudice. Exposure to terrorism news should confront receivers with thoughts about their own death, which, in turn, should increase prejudice toward outgroup members. Non-Muslim (Studies 1–3) and Muslim (Study 3) participants were exposed to news about either Islamic terrorist acts or to control news. When Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam by an Islamic extremist during data collection of Study 1, this event was included as a naturally occurring factor in the design. Consistent with TMT, terrorism news and Van Gogh’s murder increased death-related thoughts. Death-related thoughts, in turn, increased prejudiced attitudes toward outgroup members, especially when participants had low self-esteem, and when terrorism was psychologically close. Terrorism news may inadvertently increase prejudiced attitudes towards outgroups when it reminds viewers of their own mortality.

Terrorism and attitudes towards minorities: The effect of the Theo van Gogh murder on house prices in Amsterdam

Does fundamentalist-Islamic terrorism have an effect on the general attitudes towards Muslim minorities? We use the murder of Theo van Gogh as an event study to address this question. Specifically, we use the hedonic-market model and test for an effect on listed house prices in neighborhoods where more than 25% of the people belong to an ethnic minority from a Muslim country (type I). Relative to the other neighborhoods, house prices in type I neighborhoods decreased in 10 months by about 3%, with a widening gap over time. Our results are robust to several adjustments including using synthetic control groups. Finally, we find evidence that segregation increased. People belonging to the Muslim minority were more likely to buy and less likely to sell a house in a type I neighborhood after the murder than before.

The Dutch and British Public Debate on Islam: Responses to the Killing of Theo van Gogh and the London Bombings Compared

Since the beginning of this century, Islam has become the subject of an intensive debate within Europe. Major triggers of this debate were, in the Netherlands, the assassination of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004 and, in the UK, the London bombings on 7 July 2005. Both violent actions were committed in the name of Islam. This article examines and analyses the national debate that emerged about Islam in both countries in response to these events. Four differences — with respect to diagnoses, remedies, openness and ‘temperature’ — are noted between the debates in the two countries. A point of common ground is the weakness of the voice of Muslims and Muslim communities in both the Netherlands and the UK. The differences relate to the balance of power between the pro-assimilation and pro-multiculturalism discourse in the two countries in the period previous to these events and to the attitudes towards Muslims of the Dutch and British people during that period. These attitudes are connected to mechanisms of ‘selfing’ and ‘othering’ and are linked to factors of (un)familiarity with and fear of Muslim immigrants and a lack of trust in the national government to overcome the problems associated with these immigrants.