Pat Sajak, of all people, highlights exactly what I was getting at in I Wish the Terrorists Were Christians,
Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? ItÂ’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.
So IÂ’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.
. . .
The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh’s body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van GoghÂ’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from HollywoodÂ’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!
Sajak appears to think that the reason is that Hollywood liberals don’t want to align themselves with the Bush administration, but I think its a deeper animus among left wing elites that priveleges non-Western religions and ideologies, even when they are out-and-out fascist in nature.
Source:
A Hush Over Hollywood. Pat Sajak, Human Events Online, November 30, 2004.