March 27, 2008
The Third Dutchman
Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh, and Geert Wilders.
[I've been following the flickering in and out of Fitna for the last five days, and I'm glad to finally report that Geert Wilders has found a home for the film on LiveLeak. But the torrent has begun, and you can also see it at Hot Air, and at Jihad Watch. And Network Solutions can go suck rocks for water. At the film's conclusion, these words appear: "Stop Islamisation. Defend our freedom." Amen. God bless Geert Wilders.]
by Jerome du Bois
Three hundred and sixty years ago the citizens of the Netherlands welcomed my ancestors into their precincts. My ancestors were French Huguenots with their clothes on fire from Catholic Hounds of God on their trail. They found sanctuary in Holland. After getting their bearings and catching their breath for a few years, my people moved on to the New World of New York, but they brought some Dutch blood along with them, in the forms of husbands, wives and children. I owe them.
Three-plus years ago, right on Election Day, I posted "Seven Statements For Muslims," the first of seven postings about the shooting and stabbing murder of Dutch filmmaker and pro-freedom, anti-Islam activist Theo van Gogh, brought down by a Muslim punk. (I've posted a list at the end of this piece.) I don't know why the ghost of this irascible man haunts me, but he does; why not Daniel Pearl, or Nicholas Berg, or too many other innocent victims? Perhaps because Theo van Gogh was not likeable, even though he was a righteous gentile struggling to rise above himself.
The last piece I wrote about him, "Sorry, Theo, But Bat Boy Is In The Way," was a call for some playwright, or screenwriter (like Roger Simon, silent so far on Wilders), or filmmaker to step up and tell the story of the last twenty years in urban Holland, as the steadily rising Muslim inundation eventually, ineluctably rose above Holland's well-known tolerance and drowned Dutch society; someone to tell the story through the lives and martyrdoms of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, and the continuing struggle of the obstinately honest Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders. All three are connected; the death of one triggers decisions for the other two. Nobody has risen to that important occasion yet.
Now Geert Wilders, who has been fighting Muslim suffocation from the inside for almost two decades, has assembled a fifteen-minute video collage showing the vivid, direct, and current connection between dozens of the Koran's suras' verses, and Islamic terrorist acts. The short film is called Fitna, which means "strife" in Arabic. And I'm glad I don't have to give a mano a mano account of the hassles Wilders encountered, since December 2007, trying to broadcast or webcast the film. That fight is over. Fitna is out there right now. Damn good news, though the film itself is grimly graphic; but it also shows that words certainly do have power --evil people fill their mouths with such blasphemies against decency to justify murdering innocents, and then hold up their helpless heads for all the world to see. Other words, written in marker on signboard: "Freedom Go To Hell," and one held under a hijab that sends a chill up one's spine:
Get Ready For The Real Holocaust.
I'm glad Fitna is out there in the world, though it will increase the pressure on Geert Wilders, who already lives like a mobile prisoner or a Witness Under Protection, with armed guards at constantly changing undisclosed locations; he sees his wife, a business executive, only once or twice a month. Why is there no hue and cry about this man's tormentors walking, biking, driving freely around Amsterdam, going to mosque, eating at restaurants, sending money to fellow terrorists, shopping for dubious devices --while Geert Wilders has to duckwalk in Kevlar every time he's out in the open? He's been forced to do this for three-plus years, since Bouyeri assassinated van Gogh and threatened Wilders in print. The Dutch situation is inside out, and a warning bell; in fact, Wilders himself embodies that bell, that canary in the mine, that scapegoat.
Fitna is difficult to watch, but like the ammonia in smelling salts it sharpens your attention and brings tears to your eyes.
While the video was in limbo Catherine and I speculated about the possible venues for it in Phoenix, should Wilders's efforts be thwarted on other fronts. We certainly don't have the bandwith to stream the thing, but there are other options . . .
Two-part question: Locally, were there people or institutions with both (1) the bandwidth or technology and (2) the political sympathy to host Fitna? The answers were (1) plenty and (2) none.
Examples: Tech-savvy curators like John Spiak at ASU and Mike Goodwin at Mesa, or those whizbangs at the Herberger Intermedia lab could certainly come up with something --project it on an outside wall at Nelson Fine Arts, preceded by a screening of van Gogh's Submission. Or get Joe Baker behind it as an essential exercise in Community Engagement, which it damned sure is. I know, I sound ironic, though I'm not kidding. Or you'd think gay activist and part-time ASU professor Gregory Sale would want people to know about those Moroccan-Dutch Muslims who carry signs saying "Throw Gays From Tall Buildings." But . . . In your dreams, people.
Downtown, Kimber Lanning could screen it or stream it at Modified, or Michael Hudson at his newest hole, or Bob Nelson from Anthology; Trunk Space; Perihelion; Spirit of the Senses (?!) or the Phoenix New Times could arrange a benefit. The Arizona Republic online could host it. Or one of the eleventy-two new curators at the Phoenix Art Museum could rub a couple of brain cells together and assemble a van Gogh film night, culminating in the Wilders film and subsequent lively discussion. They have all had plenty of lead time.
But forget it: not now, not in Phoenix, not in the present political climate, which stinks of Cowardice and Fear. I always marvel when people who live here refer to the Valley as "conservative." It hasn't been that way --that strong, that principled-- for many years. Most of our cultural "leaders" are politically-correct dhimmis skimming their way through their lives, skipping around significance whenever it raises its adamantine head.
Just imagine if we had to depend on these bent bozos to find out about Fitna. Yes, reflect on that scenario for a moment, reader, and then thank human ingenuity and the USA for the internet, where you're gettting this information now. And thank Geert Wilders for his continuing daily sacrifice, which is an outrage in a civilized society.
As I was putting this post together, Catherine and I talked about it, as always; and, as usual, I asked her to consider a possible title; she often comes up with multilayered, deeply intuitive titles. But the image that came to her this time was not about the title, but this trio of men. It was the nursery rhyme, written by a man named Eugene Field in Denver in 1889, called "Winken, Blinken, and Nod."
Winken, Blinken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe--
Sailed off on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in the beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in the beautiful sea --
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish --
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fisherman three:
Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam --
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe
Bringing the fisherman home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea --
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
Winken and Blinken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoes that sailed the skies
Is the wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fisherman three:
Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
Winken and Blinken have sailed away on the wooden Ark to Heaven, and now Nod cannot afford to nod off. And he isn't; he's standing tall, unweary and unwavering. There will be, there already are, new eyes opening all over the world, unblinking and unwinking, flung open by the unstoppable drive for truth, reason, and freedom.
I'm glad to end this piece with three adventurers sailing the sea of stars, and with images evoking the gathering of stars into golden and silver nets from the twinkling foam surround them in their humble, sturdy vessel, the wooden shoe. Wherever Geert Wilders may set off from here, I'm pretty sure he has a guardian spirit on each shoulder to supplement the sadly necessary security crew.
[Postings on Theo van Gogh: Seven Statements for Muslims. Theo Rests His Case. Theo van Gogh Calls on Yasser Arafat. Theo van Gogh Calls on Mohammed Bouyeri. More About Muslims Loving Knives. One More For Theo van Gogh. Sorry, Theo, But Bat Boy Is In The Way.]