Personal Log: Ben Versteegt

Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker and known for his somewhat radical ideas here in the Netherlands, is dead. Shot to death when he was on his way to his work, I believe. The assailant has been caught after he had examined the body to see if his target was truly dead, and after he had pinned a note to the body with a knife and ran away.

Not much is known at this point, since this all happened this morning, but it is rumoured that the person who shot Van Gogh is a man with Moroccan looks, skin colour, etc. Now we have to be careful here. Theo van Gogh was both praised and hated for him controversial stances on the Islam. It is, to be sure, far from logically valid to say that the attacker is a Muslim. And even if he is, it is still an unsubstantiated assumption to say that Theo van Gogh was killed because of his radical ideas on the Islam. Still, unsubstantiated or not, this is the assumption most people cling to.

I must admit, I tend to see this assumption as the most likely as well. Whether it's true or not, whether it's terribly racist of me or not, this is the assumption I will hold in this article/blog/whatever I decide it to be. Actually, it doesn't matter one bit. There are other (reasonably) famous people who were killed for their ideas. The assumption that Theo van Gogh was killed because of his ideas, only brought me to writing this article. If this assumption proves to be invalid, the points I'll make here will still stand.

So, I'm continuing on the assumption that a man was killed in the middle of the street because he had some radical ideas that someone else found offensive enough to kill for. Now, I don't agree with Van Gogh's ideas at all. He talks -- talked -- about the Islam in a way that bordered on racism. His articles in newspapers often showed, in my opinion, a generalist view of the Islam. He even went so far as to ridicule the religion. I must say I know close to nothing about the Islam, but even I could see that his generalist statements were meant to provoke people (or so I thought, at least).

He provoked at least one person, all right.

Other people have made radical statements about the Islam or about other controversial subjects, and they have received death threats, and some have even been killed. Apparently -- and this is the main point I want to make in this article -- you have to be very careful what you say or write, since someone might decide he or she finds your statements so offensive that you have to die for them. This is supposed to be a free society, a democracy, where one of the foundations is the right to express one's opinion. Well, it seems you still have the right to express your opinion -- if you don't mind dying a bit sooner than you had expected. If you have radical ideas, or ideas that some may find radical, you'd do well not to express them. If we all just think alike about a subject, or at least form a silent majority, none of us will get killed -- and none of us will be inspired to think about controversial subjects either.

It is a sad truth that, to prevent running the risk of being killed for what you believe, you have to stay silent. Preferably, you'd have to think the same as everyone else: if a majority all thinks the same and stays silent about it, no one in that majority will be killed for what they believe. This is not how a society is supposed to work. While I agree that some opinions might be better left unspoken, people do have the right to speak their minds. It should not be up to a single other person to decide that the speaker should be silenced. But this is what is happening.

And what happens when a person is killed for what they believe? They become the closest thing there is to a martyr. Their ideas will live on, and more and more people will think that the person who was killed was on to something. In the case of Theo van Gogh, it could very well be the case that more people start to think that his ideas have merit. That all Muslims are evil, and that the Islam is a weird religion. If anything, this murder could very well lead to more racism -- something the murderer was trying to prevent by killing Van Gogh.

Killing a person for what he or she believes is thus clearly not the answer. In fact, it only adds to the problem that the killer was trying to solve. All it takes to see this is simple reasoning. Surely even those blinded by hatred must be able to see that their actions will get them nowhere. Then why do it? Why kill someone for what they believe, when that action clearly leads to the spreading of those believes? I honestly don't know the answer to this question. Maybe it's the hate and desperation that drives the killer to perform this despicable act. Maybe the killer is a lunatic, incapable of simple reasoning. Maybe it's a combination of both. I don't know.

Another example of people who got killed for what they believed in, is so-called "senseless violence", maybe better translated as "pointless violence". This leaves me wondering what the point is in other kinds of violence, but that's another subject. When a man is killed on the evening before he was to get married, only for telling a couple of guys that they shouldn't throw a bike in the canal, it is referred to as pointless violence. When a man gets beaten to death, only because he called a couple of guys to order, it is referred to as pointless violence. In the last example, there was even a whole crowd of people who simply watched the man getting beaten and kicked to death. This is the silent majority I was talking about; the crowd that is afraid to get beaten themselves, that may be too stumped or too afraid to react. When one man has the guts to stand up to a couple of wrongdoers, because he know that what he does is the right thing to do, and when he is then kicked to death... This is pointless violence. And the silent majority just watched.

I have asked myself many times what I would do if I saw an old lady being threatened by a bunch of guys my age in front of the supermarket. Would I go over to those men and tell them to stop? Would I have the guts to do what I know is right? If someone else was being beaten to death, would I intervene? Would I risk my life to save another?

To be honest, I don't think I would. I'm ashamed of it, but I would most probably be part of the Silent Majority of watchers. I would be appalled at what was going on, sure. But I would be too afraid, too surprised and too much of a coward to intervene. It is safe in the comfortable Majority. Nobody sees you there, because you are one of the many. You are less of a target in a majority where nobody does or says anything than you are when you face the wrongdoers alone. The Silent Majority is ruled by fear, which results in nobody daring to do anything to help the lone hero who stayed true to his principles and values. The rest of us here in the Silent Majority are all just a bunch of traitors: traitors to our values, our principles and our morale. We claim to be an enlightened bunch, ready to take action and to defend those values we believe in. But in the end, we are too frightened, too much governed by fear, to act. We all just sink into the Silent Majority and hope nobody notices we're there.

Whether you stand up to others in the theatre of politics or on the streets, you always run the risk of being seen as a target. But without these people to point us at controversial topics in our society or to show us that standing up to wrongdoers is a morally good thing -- Without people to stir us awake, our society would stagnate and grow complacent. But most of all, we would all be silent. Controversial issues wouldn't be addressed easily and we would all be terrified to voice a new idea. Sadly, this is already happening. Death threats and political murders make sure that people get more and more afraid to speak up. What if I had a radical idea? Would I become a target too? If I write books later in my life, will some people find the contents offensive? Will they shoot me for voicing my thoughts? It is a scary idea, and that fear is what drives me and others into the Silent Majority.

Sure, you can think what you want. This is a free country, after all. Free up to a point, that is. Never say what is on your mind: someone might find it offensive and kill you. Freedom of speech is a great thing -- but apparently, it comes with a price.

Categories: Ben's Logs