***Having seen this short I have to say that it is as pointless as his death and equally offensive. I completely agree with this review of it.***

The Day I Became a Martyr: Islam Protest Brings Fatal Fatwa

The movie that led to the death of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh lasts 11 minutes and is unlikely to influence anyone's views on its subject—the treatment of women in traditional Islamic society. As fatwa triggers go, Submission: Part 1 (available at ifilm.com) is no Satanic Verses, and its laziness as both art and protest is precisely what gives this short its unsettling, unwitting power. It's depressing to think that this morsel of glib effrontery could pass as a serious critique of conservative Islam—and horrifying to realize that it provoked someone to murder.

Van Gogh, who was shot and mutilated on an Amsterdam street November 2, made occasional appearances on the festival circuit, where most knew him simply as the great-great-grand-nephew of Vincent van Gogh. (His only U.S. release remains 1994's quirky phone-sex drama 1-900.) At home, he was most famous for being a radical-libertarian loudmouth. A political columnist who got fired from almost every newspaper in the country, he delighted in blurring the line between free speech and hatemongering—he insisted on calling conservative Muslims "goatfuckers."

For what became his best-known work, van Gogh teamed with another polarizing figure, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a glamorous Somali-born refugee who was elected to the Dutch parliament last year. A self-proclaimed "ex-Muslim," Ali has had round-the-clock protection since denouncing the prophet Muhammad as a "pervert." Given its makers' pedigree, it's no surprise that Submission is hardly subtle: As a burka-clad woman begins to pray, a shock cut reveals that the fabric draping her body is see-through; Koranic verses are inked on her skin, Pillow Book–style. It's chilling to absorb these images with the knowledge that van Gogh's killer, a Dutch Moroccan man, devised his own grisly version of bodily calligraphy, impaling his victim's corpse with death threats.

Submission's narrator fleetingly assumes the roles of a woman punished for adultery, a woman forced into arranged marriage, a woman beaten by her husband, a woman raped by an uncle. Ali's writing is alternately abstract and florid, even lapsing into dear-diary swoon: "On a sunny day, while at the souk, my eyes were caught by those of Rahman." There's a taunting late-night-Cinemax flash to the filmmaking—kinetic camerawork, emphatic cutting, and on the soundtrack, muezzin crescendos and a lashing whip (matched with close-ups of bruises and scars).

Artists from Abbas Kiarostami to Shirin Neshat to Ousmane Sembene have confronted the misogyny of conservative Islam in ways that are at once more damning and less willfully profane. Van Gogh's film, which aired on Dutch TV in August, plainly hopes to inspire not argument but anger. Submission and its dire aftermath are symptomatic of a contradictory culture where the official myth of multiculturalism has finally collapsed under the weight of street-level racism and long-simmering hatreds on the part of both the white and non-white populations. As a cycle of retaliatory attacks on mosques and churches rages on in the Netherlands, American neocons, smugly gleeful at the so-called war on terror's decisive entrenchment on European soil, are clamoring to install van Gogh as a martyr. (Weirdly enough, his last completed work was a biopic of his fellow anti-immigration advocate, the assassinated libertarian leader Pim Fortuyn.) In death, van Gogh is a painful symbol for what he so stridently called for in life: the end of tolerance.

Dear Fellow Activists,

NJ Indymedia is currently in its sixth day of being offline.  We are in contact with the global indymedia technical team and have received the following message:

"It was a disk failure on the server. It is being worked on. The global
site is still having a problem (with the admin interface and
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which is why it is up at the moment. Please be patient."

One way or another, we will be back online.   Thank you for your patience and understanding.

In light of the ongoing attacks against the independent media center by the U.S. Government, It is worth considering the following with regard to our current technical problems:

Governments Use "War on Terrorism" to Threaten Civil Liberties  

In times of crisis, whether real or manufactured, national governments often find it expedient to eliminate or abridge the rights of activist citizens in an effort to "maintain order." Ongoing incidents concerning surveillance and repression of citizens by their own governments take place almost everywhere on Earth -- recently, for example, throughout Europe, in Argentina, India, Slovenia and Italy. Now, the "War against Terrorism" has served to intensify this dynamic. In France, in order "fight terrorism," the government is weighing a series of exceptional security amendements, part of the "Loi Securite Quotidienne" ("Day-to-day Security Law") that would infringe upon constitutional rights. Human Rights activists are protesting such measures. In Germany, police officers broke into the homes and office of the group 'Libertad!, confiscating computers, hard disks, CD-ROMs and documents. 'Libertad!' had mobilised in protest of the deportation of refugees by the airline 'Deutsche Lufthansa AG'.


In the United States, where so much is made of freedom and democracy, measures that threaten civil liberties like former President Clinton's Executive Order #12919 have been in place, or intended to be put in place for years. There is a relatively long history of repression against progressive activists in the United States and the countries the U.S. influences worldwide, both during peace time and war. Civil libertarians are strongly protesting creation of the Office of Homeland Security along with the debates surrounding the US Anti-Terrorism Act. Some call "Orwellian" the increasingly sweeping proposals that are being put forward.

In the present atmosphere of war, many are calling for measures that will further restrict civil liberties and human rights. Both on the ground and in cyberspace national security is being used as an excuse to question free speech. U.S. government surveillance techniques as Carnivore and Echelon as well as encryption crackdowns are finding even more support than they did before the September 11 attacks, when surveillance by governments and private corporations was already on the rise worldwide. Likewise, in real space workplace surveillance, face recognition technology, national ID cards, fingerprint tracking and Social Security number schemes are being seriously considered in government and corporate circles. Many who rely on the freedom to dissent are preparing to protect themselves, wondering if appeal to government is still viable. Some are taking their fears, inspiration, and creativity to the streets.
...JH,10/30 

"SUBMISSION"

Was it worth dying over, Theo Van Gogh?

An Exchange with Roosevelt and Stalin at Teheran
November 29, 1943

…Stalin…indulged in a great deal of “teasing” of me, which I did not at all resent until the Marshal entered in a genial manner upon a serious and even deadly aspect of the punishment to be inflicted upon the Germans. The German General Staff, he said, must be liquidated. The whole force of Hitler’s mighty armies depended upon about fifty thousand officers and technicians. If these were rounded up and shot at the end of the war, German military strength would be extirpated. On this I thought it right to say: “The British Parliament and public will never tolerate mass executions. Even if in war passion they allowed them to begin, they would turn violently against those responsible after the first butchery had taken place. The Soviets must be under no delusion on this point.”

Stalin however, perhaps only in mischief, pursued the subject. “Fifty thousand,” he said, “must be shot.” I was deeply angered. “I would rather,” I said, “be taken out into the garden here and now and be shot myself than sully my own and my country’s honour by such infamy.”

At this point the President intervened. He had a compromise to propose. Not fifty thousand should be shot, but only forty-nine thousand. By this he hoped, no doubt, to reduce the whole matter to ridicule. Eden also made signs and gestures intended to reassure me that it was all a joke. But now Elliot Roosevelt rose in his place at the end of the table and made a speech, saying how cordially he agreed with Marshal Stalin’s plan and how sure he was that the United States Army would support it. At this intrusion I got up and left the table, walking off into the next room, which was in semi-darkness. I had no been there a minute before hands were clapped upon my shoulders from behind, and there was Stalin, with Molotov at his side, both grinning broadly, and eagerly declaring that they were only playing, and that nothing of a serious character had entered their heads. Stalin has a very captivating manner when he chooses to use it, and I never saw him do so to such an extent as this moment. Although I was not then, and am not now, fully convinced that all was chaff and there was no serious intent lurking behind, I consented to return, and the rest of the evening passed pleasantly…

From:
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 5, Closing the Ring (New York: Bantam Books, 1962), 319-20.