The back story on the victim remembered today is this: Theo van Gogh was a provocative filmmaker whose short film “Submission” about the normal cruelty experienced by Muslim women outraged Islamic men. (Van Gogh’s collaborator on the film, member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has lived with armed guards and in secret locations ever since.) The killer Mohammed Bouyeri said at his conviction that he would gladly headchop anyone who disrespected Islam.

Five hundred gathered in Amsterdam to remember the [4] murder of van Gogh. Politicians bemoaned the social division the killing had exacerbated, as if Dutch citizens should ignore the growing danger of the fifth column caused by unwise immigration.

A recent survey showed that a “big majority” of Dutch in the largest cities view relations with Muslims as negative. More ominous is that free speech has been chilled as critics of Islam have increasingly received bullets in envelopes.

As Josef Stalin observed, the murder of millions is a statistic while the murder of one person is a tragedy. In the same way, the brutal jihadist killing of an individual artist riding a bicycle on the streets of Amsterdam shocked Europeans as little else could. In the last year, multiculturalism has been on the ropes in Europe, even condemned as a failure by the elites who had once promoted it.

To its credit, the Netherlands has toughened up on its cultural expectations, particularly with Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk’s recent recommendation that the burqa be banned, a proposal that strikes into the heart of Islamic oppression.

Closer to home, George Bush has finally named [5] support terrorists? Someone could remind him there’s no right to immigrate.