Dear America

Dear America,

It has been some day, huh? Not only because of your elections, but also because of “the murder that was comitted in Amsterdam, the Netherlands”:http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=613650&section=news, while at your place the first voters entered their booths. You might not have heared about it, because you were in line at the time, though.

Is murder a new concept in the Netherlands then? No, but this is the second murder in the past few years that was commited because some guy, or some group of people, didn’t like the opinions expressed by that person. A couple of years ago the right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn was killed, because of the somewhat extremist opinions he conveyed. Yesterday, Theo van Gogh (indeed, a descendant of Vincent), a famous dutch columnist, film maker and TV personality, was killed because of the same reason. Theo was one of the people that criticized the Islam. He had very clear opinions on things related to the Islam and what he thought was wrong about it. But the most important thing he advocated was freedom of speech.

And now he’s dead.

From what we’ve heard, it was a rather gruesome murder aswell. First he was shot, then his throat was slit with a knife and after that he was stabbed and left with a note. So far the police hasn’t released what the note said, but it is rumoured that it was a segment of the Koran, the Islam bible. The murderer is said to be an Islam extremist.

America, you are often criticized for being an unsafe country without moral, but things like these don’t happen with you, right? When was the last political murder in the USA? John F. Kennedy in 1963? At our place people always talk about how insane the American culture is. But look what’s happening over there in the Netherlands…

After hearing the news yesterday, I thought: “Let’s just forget about Europe and focus our efforts on the USA. ” That was until I got up this morning and heared the prelimitary results of your election held yesterday. Bush… won? Kerry… lost? Over here everybody seemed to have the idea we’d be better off with Kerry as USA president, but apparantly you thought otherwise. And that’s fine, you know you best. We’re just your host. We don’t own you. You ought to make the best decission. But… Bush? Really?

Just promise us one thing: if you decide, for whatever reason, to invade another country, don’t get us actually involved after but before and listen to what we have to say.

Promise?

Your sincerely,

The World

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004 at 16:20 by Zef You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • erm, sorry, here is what I intended to post:

    Until I heard the news about Theo, I didn't know that Vincent had live relatives that still used the 'Van Gogh' name.

    Also, I can see why Islam extremists would be angry with such things, but to kill someone because of it is just wrong.

    I can even empathise with Osama, but not with what he has done.
  • As I have said before: Screw America before it screws you!

    (As a note, I don't mean Americans, I mean the American Govt.)
  • Marten: you really have no idea how wrong you are. Bush had the greatest number of votes since decades. Also he had a majority, which is better than last time (when he had a minor minority), and a lot better that the percentage of popular vote needed to become president (<22% (no kidding, see http://www.squarefree.com/archives/000621.html
    ). I'm actually somewhat glad that someone won fair and square and that there isn't such a debate about it like last time. I myself ain't really in favor of Bush, otoh, what do i know, i don't live in the US.
  • Jake
    Zef, many people I know (including myself) were just as shocked about the results of this election as you were. I am disappointed about the opinion of America many people have, and all I can ask in our defense is that you realize a lot of us are infact good people. I guess the freedoms we enjoy attract a lot of crazy, corrupt folks aswell.
  • Harold
    In the nineties there were attacks on two politicians, left-wing Kosto and right-wing Janmaat, propably by left-extremists. Some rich industrials have been kidnapped - one was actually killed - by criminals in the last decades. And I remember two train sieges in the seventies by Maluku people. Just to name a few extreme actions in the past. I don't think such terrorism is a new concept in The Netherlands. Some extremist people or groups will always find a target and a reason (opinions, position) to attack. And extreme actions will always have a great impact on society - there's nothing new about that. It's just that the authorities must focus on dangerous movements and not ignore or deny the existence of extremism in some parts of society. That will at least help to prevent another murder in the future.

    Ow, and Bush is president for the next four years. Well, Bush, Kerry, what's the difference. People cannot use fraud or less popular votes as an argument against Bush anymore, but I already see a new argument: 49 percent is against Bush :). Ever been to Germany? There the coalition parties have a majority of seats in parliament with a popular vote of just 47 percent. And I hear no one complain ;)...
  • Personally I quite like it, all tech is not everything either.
  • Bas Westerbaan
    See it from the bright side, at the moment Zef is posting slightly more than once a day; most of it is tech, and even without the politcal posts he is posting more than he used to post quite a while ago.
  • Zef
    It didn't sound so much like a question, more like a reproach. "Hey, you're here to talk tech, so keep it to that, will you?"

    That's not how it works. I post about what I like, and most of the time technical stuff is what I like. :)
  • No, I don't have a problem with it. I was simply asking a question as you seem to post only technical-related entries.

    If you have a problem with my commenting, then that's fine. I'll just choose to ignore that feature.
  • Zef
    If with "you" you mean me (and I think you do): may I please, for once? It's not that I'm whining about it all the time. If you don't like it, ignore it.
  • Did you really have to go and get political on all of us?
  • I think I'll cite "Dunstan Orchard":http://www.1976design.com/blog/archive/2004/11/03/us-presidential-election/

    bq. "America hasn’t just elected a monster in George Bush, in doing so it’s turned its back on a genuinely good and decent man."

    I'm not sure if either should have become the next president of the United States, but I'm absolutely positive no-one should be made president after winning with a majority of 51%. That's 49% of the population *against* you, Mr. Bush. Keep that in mind.
  • I can write a lot about this, but here I'll just keep it to this oneliner.
    It's a f*cked up world we live in.
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