Theo Van Gogh and Theocratic Terrorism

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for providing this link to the short film Submission, by Theo Van Gogh. Van Gogh was murdered last week by radical Islamic thugs in the Netherlands, presumably because of this film, which depicts the brutal oppression of women in fundamentalist Islamic culture. In the context of the war on terrorism and our battle with Al Qaeda, it's easy to see the entire thing as a big abstract, but the truth remains that we are locked in a battle with the most reactionary and theocratic force in the world today and there are real victims of their oppression. I just finished reading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran. I strongly urge everyone to read this book to put a human face on the struggle against theocracy. If we are going to rail against theocratic movements here at home, let us be consistent in opposing them everywhere, especially in their most brutal forms.

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Thank you so much for this comment: you are one of the very, very few people on the web who is at least trying to be as hard on Islamic fundies as you are on Christian Fundies. Generally, one has to read the right-wing sites to hear about Muslim atrocities and the left-wing ones to hear about Christian censorship campaigns.

While it IS important to keep in mind that Muslim fundies are more prone to violence than Christian Fundies, the fact that the coverage of the overall problem is so polarized is a symptom of the same problems that lead to Van Gough's death AND Bush's re-election.