Assassination of Theo van Gogh

Eyerman Ron Eyerman

Description

In November 2004, the controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed on a busy street in Amsterdam. A twenty-six-year-old Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent shot van Gogh, slit his throat, and pinned a five-page indictment of Western society to his body. The murder set off a series of reactions, including arson against Muslim schools and mosques. In The Assassination of Theo van Gogh, Ron Eyerman explores the multiple meanings of the murder and the different reactions it elicited: among the Amsterdam-based artistic and intellectual subculture, the wider Dutch public, the local and international Muslim communities, the radical Islamic movement, and the broader international community. After meticulously analyzing the actions and reputations of van Gogh and others in his milieu, the motives of the murderer, and the details of the assassination itself, Eyerman considers the various narrative frames the mass media used to characterize the killing.Eyerman utilizes theories of social drama and cultural trauma to evaluate the reactions to and effects of the murder. A social drama is triggered by a public transgression of taken-for-granted norms; one that threatens the collective identity of a society may develop into a cultural trauma. Eyerman contends that the assassination of Theo van Gogh quickly became a cultural trauma because it resonated powerfully with the postwar psyche of the Netherlands. As part of his analysis of the murder and reactions to it, he discusses significant aspects of twentieth-century Dutch history, including the country's treatment of Jews during the German occupation, the loss of its colonies in the wake of World War II, its recruitment of immigrant workers, and the failure of Dutch troops to protect Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Países Bajos
• Cultural studies
• Netherlands
• History of Europe
• Activism

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 28 août 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822391449
• Langue: English

Extrait

THEASSASSINATION  OF THEO VAN GOGH

Ron Eyerman

FROM SOCIAL DRAMA TO CULTURAL TRAUMA

T H E A S S A S S I N A T I O N O F T H E O V A N G O G H

POLITICS, HISTORY, AND CULTURE A series from the International Institute at the University of Michigan

SeriesEditors George Steinmetz and Julia Adams

SeriesEditorialAdvisoryBoard Fernando Coronil Mamadou Diouf Michael Dutton Geo√ Eley Fatma Müge Göcek Nancy Rose Hunt Andreas Kalyvas Webb Keane David Laitin Lydia Liu Julie Skurski Margaret Somers Ann Laura Stoler Katherine Verdery Elizabeth Wingrove

Sponsored by the International Institute at the University of Michigan and published by Duke University Press, this series is centered around cultural and historical studies of power, politics and the state—a field that cuts across the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and cultural studies. The focus on the relationship between state and culture refers both to a methodological approach—the study of politics and the state using culturalist methods—and a substantive one that treats signifying practices as an essential dimension of politics. The dialectic of politics, culture, and history figures prominently in all the books selected for the series.

THE ASSASSINATION OF THEO VAN GOGH

From Social Drama to Cultural Trauma

Ron Eyerman

Duke University Press Durham and London 2008

∫2008 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Quadraat by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

To Johanna

C O N T E N T S

Acknowledgments ix

1. Assassination as Public Performance: The Murder of Theo van Gogh 1

2. Mediating Social Drama 24

3. Perpetrators and Victims 56

4. The Clash of Civilizations: A Multicultural Drama 102

5. A Dutch Dilemma: Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Multicultural Tolerance 141

6. Cultural Trauma and Social Drama 161

Notes 175

Bibliography 203

Index 215

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Thanks to Yale University’s generous sabbatical program, I was able to spend the spring of 2006 in Amsterdam at the Institute for Social Research (assr). I thank Je√ Alexander, Wendell Bell, Nicolas Demertzis, John Dickson, Joke Esseveld, Al Hadi Khalaf, Lisa McCormick, Dick Pels (who also opened his vast network of contacts), Justus Uitermark, and Frederic Vandenberghe for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this book. No one could ask for better criticism than that provided by Marc de Leeuw and Sonja van Wechelen, to whom enormous gratitude is due. Thanks go to the participants of the Workshop at Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology and the other Yale colleagues, including those at the ‘‘Senior’s Seminar,’’ who listened to my presentations and o√ered their comments. I am grateful to Nadine Casey, whose creative secretarial assistance included wonderful advice on my artwork. I appreciate the assr’s hospitality during my sabbatical, its wonderful secretarial sta√ and to the participants at the sta√ seminar for their comments and criticisms of my work. I am especially thankful to Dutch friends and colleagues Hans Sonneveld, Dick Pels and Baukje Prins, Mohammed Baba, Nico and Mah- mod, and Marja and Hans Schoonhoven. Nadine Mignoni and Hans Hoogendoorn helped arrange interviews I never thought possible. Thanks also to Irene Stengs, who allowed me to read her manuscript on the art of mourning. Finally, I want to acknowledge the support of my family spread over the Netherlands, Sweden, England, and the United States.