‘They don’t want to change our society, they want to destroy it’

HOLLAND is internationally famous for its tolerance.

However, yesterday's bombing at a Muslim school and last week's ritual slaughter of Theo van Gogh, one of Holland's most prominent filmmakers, by a Dutch/Moroccan Muslim, have both struck a blow for religious intolerance. Van Gogh, the 47-year-old great-grandson of Vincent van Gogh's brother, was murdered last Tuesday during Amsterdam's morning rush hour. His attacker, a 26-year-old identified only as Mohammed B, shot him first. Then, as Van Gogh begged for mercy, his attacker slit his throat from ear to ear and planted two daggers in his chest.

Mohammed B was arrested two kilometres from the crime scene after being shot in the leg, and will probably face life imprisonment.

For years, Van Gogh had denounced the growing influence of Islam in Holland.

He had labelled Abu Jajah who as president of the Arab European League wants Sharia law in Europe "Mohammed's pimp."

Fundamentalist Islam had to be confronted, not appeased, he said. His main motivation was freedom of speech. When an imam in Rotterdam said gays were "lower then pigs", and the entire country took issue, Van Gogh defended the imam's right to free speech.

The reason for his execution, it is widely thought, was his short English-language film Submission, shown on Dutch TV in August. Veiled women with Koranic texts painted on their bodies, tell how they are intimidated and beaten by their husbands.

Ironically, days before his death, Van Gogh completed a documentary about the anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn who was murdered by an animal rights activist on May 6, 2002. The two knew each other well. The film, 0605, will be shown during the Rotterdam Film Festival in January.

Although he had received many death threats, Van Gogh didn't want bodyguards, didn't wear a bullet proof vest and didn't remove his name from the telephone book. "This is a free society, I am free to raise my voice, and I am not afraid," he said.

Meanwhile, Islamic websites called for his death. "When will Allah remove this pig?" one Dutch Moroccan website wrote.

Holland has over one million Muslims, 6% of the total population, and Mohammed is the most popular name for newborn boys in Amsterdam. Increasingly, the big towns are being divided along ethnic and religious lines.

As the shock of the murder is slowly subsiding, Holland is buried under an avalanche of opinions and new, shocking evidence. With one of the daggers Mohammed B fixed a letter to his victim, threatening the deaths of Amsterdam's Jewish major Job Cohen, the leader of the Liberal Party in the parliament Jozias van Aartsen, and, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian refugee who fled to Holland to escape forced marriage and who became a Liberal MP during the 2002 parliamentary elections.

Hirsi Ali was co-author of the film Submission. She has been moved to a secret location. So has fellow MP Geert Wilders who recently left the Liberal Party because he felt it was too lax on non-integrating Muslims. After the murder, his popularity soared the new political party, which he announced just before Van Gogh's murder, would now get 18 seats in parliament out of 150.

Of the nearly 300,000 Moroccans in Holland, up to 5% are supposed to be willing to join the Holy War against Holland, Europe and the United States, which Mohammed B announced.

According to Van Aartsen, who now has round the clock protection, Holland is at war.

"These people don't want to change our society, they want to destroy it."