Monday, March 19, 2007

A Scream in the wind for Theo van Gogh


On the 2nd of November 2004 Theo van Gogh - a Dutch film and TV maker, writer and much loved pain in the butt was viscously slaughtered by a home grown radical Moslem. This event changed the Netherlands for good and in many respects it will never be the same again.
Luckily one thing has not changed - the immense inertia of the much-cherished Dutch bureaucracy. After two and a half years of nation-wide disagreement, debate, discussion, court cases, bad tempers and general unpleasantness a monument to Theo, his life, his work and above all his championship of free speech was unveiled just a stones throw from where he was murdered. This was obviously another attempt to strike while the iron is just rusting away.

The sculpture, created by Jeroen Henneman, represents the layered profile of a scream. The outside layer is screaming whilst the innermost layer is silent.

Big Up to Theo

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