THEO VAN GOGH WAS EXECUTED by a band of Muslim radicals who apparently decided to murder the filmmaker for his depiction of abused Muslim women in a recent film. Van Gogh was the great grand-nephew of Vincent.
There are gangs all around the world, most not Muslim, who also snub out innocent life and often kill people who do more than most to make humanity humane.
Tonight, I am having dinner with Cem Oezdemir, a Turkish-German politician and Muslim who was recently elected to the European Parliament. It may be unfair for me to ask him to help people like me understand what drives a group of young Muslims to commit a political assassination, which this was.
Such a question might be similar to my asking a Baptist politician to explain why young Christian thugs, who were in the U.S. military, killed Barry Winchell for being gay. That might be inappropriate as well.
But frankly, I would like to know what sort of righteousness we need to curtail that leads people to kill in the name of faith or values, perversely applied.
— Steve Clemons
