The Dutch and the failure of social analysis

The last couple of years have been hard on Dutch society. Various political opinion have manifested themselves through murder. On the 6th of May 2002 Pim Fortuyn, who was running for parlement, was murdered by Animal-Rights activist Volkert van der G. On the 2nd of November 2004 Filmmaker and Column writer Theo van Gogh was murdered by Musilm-Fundamentalist Muhammed B.



Now, both of these events followed a certain pattern, concerning the public opinion and attention. At first people were shocked. As usual the politician were shocked on a larger scale then the people. But nevertheless the public opinion was fierce and the social pressure on reaction was high.

I think that the dutch, being an overwhelmingly urban population, are suffering from media-anxiety. This effects the overall well-being of the country. The Politicians feel they are able to respond to this anxiety, but offcourse themselves are as dutch and as full of opinion on everything as the rest. The media hope they can put the truth on the table through endless debates and discussion with even more people with even more expert opinions.

Look, i see no harm in discussion between people. I do see harm in extensive discussion in national media, on daily basis! It is possibly so that the multicultural society needs better integration statewise. By learning the ways of the native dutch, the immigrants might have better job-prospects and maybe they will have better participation, but this is not achievable by sending the rotten ones home without an excuse (this method actually closely resembles terrorism). This is only achievable by peoples own actions's and words.

The assassins of the politician with a fresh view and the film maker with a pessimistic view are part and parcel of the dutch illneed in society. Taking matters into your hands can be heroic in some historical contexts. This depends on the motives. In the dutch case the motives are vague and abstract. The muslim-fundamentalist is easily linked with obscure terrorist networks and the Animal-Rights activist has also declared he wanted to protect the dutch society.

These murderers stepped beyond an obvious boundary, but this same type of boundary is crossed by thousands or millions of dutch people on a daily basis through their 'Freedom of speech', but have they ever considered 'Freedom of thought before speech'. This would make the debate less anxious and more helpfull. This method of 'societing' should be stimulated.