This is my proudest moment working for Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer/ AFDI.
It was about a year ago that Pamela knew she wanted to make this film. There wasn’t an urgent deadline but the project was always looming in the background.
The problem with working counter-jihad is that the truth about Islam can’t be printed, it’s too grotesque. The photo of Theo Van Gogh lying on the street was rejected by everyone.
So we had to think of a way to make the violence palatable. How do you do that?
I had an idea to do a chalk outline of a body, but have the head detached with its own outline.
It was clever, but although we kept in in production I could tell Pamela wasn’t thrilled. It was a compromise.
She hates compromises.
Then one day, out of nowhere she sent the poster for Vertigo and said, absorb this and come up with something.
I didn’t need absorbing because Saul Bass is my favorite graphic illustrator.
This is the most aesthetically gratifying piece AFDI has produced and it is in TIMES SQUARE with a beheading, courtesy of the religion of peace, and BLOOD SPATTER.
How Pamela got this through the channels is beyond me. The one thing they objected to was the word “beheading” (Although it depicts one.)
I never thought it would happen, but there it f***in’ is.
10 comments:
Wait a minute! Theo Van Gogh was stabbed not beheaded. Or was he beheaded and not widely reported? I'm confused!
You have a good point. The photo I have always seen shows his body with a knife in it, but no blood running from his body. I always assumed that was some sort of staged representation of the real thing. I really don't know.
I'm worried the ads in the buses mention beheading ... In case that is not correct.
I looked it up. I think you can stop worrying:
Van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri while cycling to work on 2 November 2004 at about 9 o'clock in the morning, in front of the Amsterdam East borough office (stadsdeelkantoor), on the corner of the Linnaeusstraat and Tweede Oosterparkstraat (52°21′32.22″N 4°55′34.74″E).[8] The killer shot Van Gogh eight times with an HS2000 handgun. Bouyeri was also on a bicycle and fired several bullets, hitting Van Gogh and two bystanders. Wounded, Van Gogh ran to the other side of the road and fell to the ground on the cycle lane. According to eyewitnesses, Van Gogh's last words were "Don't do it, don't do it" or "Have mercy, have mercy, don't do it, don't do it".[9] Bouyeri walked up to Van Gogh, who was on the ground, and calmly shot him several more times at close range.[10][11]
Bouyeri cut Van Gogh’s throat with a large knife and tried to decapitate him, after which he stabbed the knife deep into Van Gogh's chest, reaching his spinal cord. He attached a note to the body with a smaller knife. Van Gogh died on the spot.[12] The two knives were left implanted. The note was addressed to and contained a death threat to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who went into hiding. It also threatened Western countries and Jews, and referred to ideologies of the Egyptian organization Takfir wal-Hijra.[13][14]
By the way, that description of the murder also explains why the photo I have seen does not have blood in it. Van Gogh stumbled across the street after he was shot, and then died on the pavement. THEN the guy put the knife in him, after his heart stopped pumping.
It was an attempted beheading.
Back on November 2, 2004 I was online reading JihadWatch.org when a comment by Martin of Amsterdam was posted relaying the event as an eye-witness. Despite having no clue about the significance of this event at that moment, I decided to copy/paste his comments into my files. As it turns out, the comments associated with threads from that time period for JihadWatch.org/DhimmiWatch.org is no longer available, not even in the way-back machine. Below, I will paste what I saved from the comments ... (continued)
martin from amsterdam | November 2, 2004 6:55 AM
The assasination happened around the corner from where I live in Amsterdam Oost. I arrived on the scene five minutes after they killed Theo, as I was on my way to buy some bread with my two year old. I saw his body, with the knives still in it, covered with white linnen. Like this:
http://www.geenstijl.nl/paginas/theolaken.jpg
I informed Jihadwatch within the hour.
I knew Theo very well. He was the nicest guy. I worked with him at a radiostation, ten years ago. He lived around the corner, and never wanted to be surrounded by body guards, like Hirsi Ali and Wilders.
The police took his son out of the class room this morning to tell his father is dead. God bless Lieuwe.
Politicians now talk about societal problems, and that society is getting more violent. Off course, they don't talk about a war that is going on for 1400 years.
The guy who did it was wearing a djallaba, and has a long beard. After he shot Theo seven times, Theo was stabbed. On the knive a letter, or holy scriptures.
Every year 30.000 muslim immigrants arrive in my country.
God bless professor Fortuyn.
God bless Theo van Gogh.
[snip]
martin from amsterdam | November 2, 2004 7:05 AM
THEY TRIED TO SEVER HIS HEAD IN BROAD DAYLIGHT !!!
The jihadist tried to cut of Theo's head! Amsterdam Daily Het Parool is reporting now. Then he pulled a smaller knive.
Again: a text was attached to the knive.
This happened after Theo was shot several times, maybe with an automatic gun. The gunner started shooting when Theo was still on the other side of the street.
This all happened at nine o'clock in the morning.
People were passing by on their way to work on their bike. Or dropping off their kids.
I was on my way to buy bread with my 2 year old.
I am still shaking.
De schutter trok volgens ooggetuigen daarna een groot mes en sneed Van Gogh de keel door. Vervolgens stak hij een kleiner mes in zijn borst. Aan dat mes zat volgens meerdere ooggetuigen een briefje.
http://www.parool.nl/nieuws/2004/NOV/02/p1.html
Martin from Amsterdam stayed on that thread responding to others expressing condolences/concerns.
Like this one:
martin from amsterdam | November 2, 2004 8:39 AM
Tziona, Kaffir Boy: I couldn't agree with you more.
Here is a poster, that was published by an muslim website. It reads: "When is it Theo's turn?" The symbol indicates they are not talking about a dinner party.
http://www.fortuynpolitiek.nl/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8336&whichpage=7
The text on top of the page (Insha Allah ruimt Allah deze letterlijke en figuurlijke zwijn snel op! Salaam o aliekoem) is translated into: Allah willing will Allah kill this pig. Salaam O Aliekoem.
Also on this page: Theo's last newspaper column in which he attacked mayor Job Cohen for supporting Abou Jahjah, the former Hezbullah turned into AEL leader.
At this very moment: Theo's body is taken away. It's around the corner, so I'm gonna check it out.
PLEASE PRAY FOR THEO VAN GOGH TODAY
(And, America, please, win one for the Gipper, DUTCH Reagan. Theo was a friend of America, always telling how he saw this country as a beacon of hope. "If I were younger I would have moved to the US", he said often. America, do it for Theo: Vote conservative!)
*****
Later that day, this is how another comment described the news being reported on the BBC:
JTF | November 2, 2004 1:55 PM
On the BBC Van Gogh's assassination finally appears on Front Page Online (it does not appear on the World Page). Here is the headline:
"Director mourned: Controversial career of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh"
A headline reader might think he had a heart attack from hard living.
My condolences to Martin and all who knew this courageous man.
*****
Below further was this comment:
JTF | November 2, 2004 1:55 PM
On the BBC Van Gogh's assassination finally appears on Front Page Online (it does not appear on the World Page). Here is the headline:
"Director mourned: Controversial career of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh"
A headline reader might think he had a heart attack from hard living.
My condolences to Martin and all who knew this courageous man.
*******
to be continued
(continued)
Back in that time period, Hugh Fitzgerald was VP of JihadWatch.org. Here is the first response he posted to that thread:
Hugh | November 2, 2004 4:43 PM
One begins to feel, at this thread, the whiff of the 1930s. Perhaps it is the anguished report sent a few minutes after the murder Jihadwatch by "Martin from Amsterdam." One involuntarily is reminded of "Address Unknown"(Adressat Unbekannt) by Kressmann Taylor, a short but important book in shaping American public opinion before and during the war, like John Roy Carlson's "Under Cover." Though in "Address Unknown" the name "Martin" is not that of the avenging hero ("Max"), but of the Nazi villain upon whom vengeance is wreaked, I am sure the involuntarily evocation will be understood, not least by "Martin from Amsterdam" in Holland, now under steady siege.
In all of this, the Nazis and the Communists, the street violence, and the agitation, the Brownshirts of Roehm, the Balilla of Mussolini, the agitated and crazed atmosphere, from the kidnapping of General Miller by the Reds, to Willi Munzenberg and the Comintern, to Ernst Roehm, and the Night of the Long Knives, and all the propaganda put out by Goebbels, including the Prussian Junkers sent abroad to allay any fears of their fellow classmates in pre-war Oxford or Harvard -- all of this is somehow summoned up.
But there are major differences. First, this time the carriers of the crazed belief-system, can hide behind its shapeshifting qualty -- and call it merely a "religion" and pretend that it is only a "handful of extremists" who are the problem. And second, and still more unfortunate, is the failure to maintain standards in the teaching of history and literature in the Western world, which in turn means that few young people possess the knowledge, or have had training in the use of words, or in the exercise of their imagination, that close study of literary texts can sometimes provide, and that would do much to help in the right formulation of policy. Third, and most worrisome, is that many Believers in this hostile belief-system have alreeady been admitted, to live, deep behind our own, our Infidel lines -- and we, the Infidels, and those whose duty it is to instruct us, mostly refuse to see things as they are and to grasp at straws, and substitute wishes for reality. It is not the likes of Gilles Kepel who can help us, but Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, and some of those right here at Jihadwatch.
*****
The next day Martin from Amsterdam updated with the following comment:
martin from amsterdam | November 3, 2004 6:31 AM
SLAUGHTERED
reads the front page of De Telegraaf, The Netherlands' largest circulation newspaper. The picture is horrible, to say the least. It shows the two knives in Theo's body. Theo was a person with a Michael Moore physic, a big guy. The warmest of guys, the loving father of Liewe.
Papers today report on the execution style murder. An eye witness tells about the jihadist trying to cut Theo's head with both hands.
Again, I arrived on the scene only minutes later, since I was on my way to the bakery with my two-year old. 8.45 AM, broad day light, on a very busy street.
Those of you with kind words to me: thank you very. Thank you for voting Bush. We all need wisdom now. And we all need Jihadwatch.
http://telegraaf-i.telegraaf.nl/daily/2004/11/3/TE/TE_2S_20041103_1/pagina.php
*****
(end)
FWIW...Here is one link to Theo Van Gogh/Ayaan Hirsi Ali's film "Submission"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qomMvmYTLHA
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