The name "Van Gogh" calls up visions of sunflowers and starry nights. But in Europe -- especially in the Netherlands -- "Van Gogh" recalls the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a distant relative of the 19th-century painter, who was brutally, obscenely murdered by an Islamist terrorist in broad daylight last year in Amsterdam.
Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, the attacker who shot him, stabbed him, slit his throat and spiked a five-page manifesto to his chest with a dagger, was sentenced last week to life in a Dutch prison. The son of Moroccan immigrants showed no remorse: "I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet."
Like the London terrorists, he was homegrown and educated in the country where his parents sought a better life. The murder highlights how one of the most "tolerant" countries in Europe, proud of its multicultural diversity, has not only not brought about an appreciation for assimilation but has instead fostered the differences that encourage hatred. The Europeans, like the English after the bus and subway bombs of July 7, have begun to fear the Muslims in their midst, opening debate from left and right over their permissive immigration laws.
Germans from both ends of the political spectrum, for example, ask whether "Jihad behind the dikes" could spread across the continent. Der Spiegel, the weekly newsmagazine, says the episode "has unleashed a debate on immigrants and cultural values that will continue to simmer in Holland and Europe for years to come." An editorial in the newspaper Die Welt warns that the Dutch must face the reality that their "liberal and tolerant society has often been too passive in defending its own values -- so much so, in fact, that it has allowed a parallel society to be built."
Pressure is at last exerted on moderate Muslims to speak out forcefully against terrorism, to re-examine what it is in their religion, however misguided it may be, that encourages violence. Theo van Gogh's offense, for example, was making a movie called "Submission," a 10-minute film about the suppression of Muslim women. In it he portrayed an abused woman in a transparent chador, her naked body covered with excerpts from the Koran prescribing punishments for women who don't obey strict Muslim law.