In the face of fundamentalism / Sunday Herald, 18 February 2007
http://www.sundayherald.com/arts/arts/display.var.1200715.0.0.php
Torcuil Crichton
"WHEN THEY come to writing up the death of multiculturalism in Western Europe, the murder of Theo Van Gogh will make for a large punctuation point. Two years ago, the maverick Dutch film-maker was shot eight times in an Amsterdam street by an Islamic extremist. As he lay on the pavement in broad daylight his throat was slashed and the knife was then used to pin a note to his chest.
The bloodstained letter was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch MP. Hirsi Ali had written the screenplay for Van Gogh's film Submission 1 in which lines from the Koran, detailing a man's right to beat his wife, were projected on to the semi-naked body of an actress posing as a victim of domestic violence.
The murderous reaction - and the incoherent letter, promising that nowhere was safe for critics of the Koran - blew apart the liberal Dutch consensus on immigration and integration."