Liberal Holland suffers its second political assassination in two years

For the second time in two years the country that boasts of its tolerance and liberalism has been shaken to its core by a political assassination: the brutal killing of one its well-known film producers. Yesterday morning (2 November 2004)Theo van Gogh was on his way to his office to put the finishing touches to a film about the assassination of Pim Fortyun by an environmental zealot when he was approached by a twenty-six-year-old man dressed in Arab attire.

The young man who holds Dutch and Moroccan passports shot and stabbed van Gogh. Van Gogh managed to stagger across the road. He was followed and shot and stabbed numerous times. Having checked that his victim was dead, the young Muslim left two knives protruding from the body with a message attached to one. He then made off. Fortunately, witnesses were able to give police enough information for the assassin to be tracked down. After a fierce gunfight, during which a motorcycle policeman survived only because of his bullet-proof vest, the young Muslim was captured. Investigations are in full swing.

This year Theo van Gogh and outspoken parliamentarian (VVD), Ayaan Hirsi Ali, received death threats from Islamic terrorists because they cooperated in producing a film entitled 'Submission'. This film was about the manner in which, according to these two, Islam mistreats women. Ms Hirsi Ali has long been an outspoken critic of Islam and a defender of liberal values.

Why was Van Gogh's assassin so clearly and deliberately dressed as a Muslim? Why did he pick a busy street in peak-hour Amsterdam to carry out his murderous plan? This is something that Western societies are going to have to face sooner or later. That young Moroccan Muslim was not only proud of what he was doing, he knew that he would have the approval and admiration of many of his Muslim brethren right through the Islamic world - and beyond. In all Islamic communities in the West there will be significant numbers of Muslims who harbour sympathy for his actions.

Why do people think that Osama bin Laden and other psychopathic Islamic terrorists evade capture for so long? There answer is simple for those who want to look. The Islamic terrorists are protected by their own - adherents to a body of belief that is as much a cultural and political framework as a religion. Perhaps more.