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You are here: Home Life in News Focus We won't be scapegoats for Van Gogh killing

23/11/2004We won't be scapegoats for Van Gogh killing

Expatica speaks to non-Dutch residents to gauge their reactions to the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh earlier this month.

Van Gogh's killing shocked the nation.

"All Moroccans here are being blamed. I was already discriminated against, but the situation became worse after 11 September [the terror attacks in the US in 2001] and it has worsened again. Some people go out of the way to avoid me on the street or quickly look away, but not everyone is like that."

Mohamed, 51, has lived in the Netherlands for 30 years. He was very disappointed to learn a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan man had been arrested for the brutal assassination of Van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November.

Mohamed says he is not opposed to freedom of speech. "People can say anything about me — they can abuse me for being a 'rotten Moroccan' — but they must stay away from my religion."

"It is all about respect," he says.
 
The individual murderer must be punished, argues Mohamed, but all other Moroccans in the Netherlands should not be made to suffer.

"Mind you, are young people like the murder suspect Mohammed B. — who were born here — really Moroccan? They feel Dutch, but they are discriminated against and we have seen the result of their rage."

Home-care nurse Asra has also encountered discrimination and admits some people will not let her into their house because she wears a headscarf. "And I now notice the tension between myself and my colleagues; they can't talk freely if I am around. Sometimes I hear very insulting remarks made behind my back."

Submission

Van Gogh's short film Submission — made together with Somali-born critic of Islam Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali — is believed to have been the prime motive for his murder. It denounces domestic violence in the Islamic community.

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