One of my plans was to, before the year is over; translate some of the most salient bits from Theo van Gogh’s website, De Gezonde Roker or in English: The Healthy Smoker. He covered lots of topics and although not following the exact format, his site essentially was a blog. It was born out of necessity as almost every major Dutch media outlet where he worked terminated the columnist Van Gogh before his contract was over, in most cases for having offended someone or having transgressed the boundaries of good taste which he did regularly. It was not something that really bothered him, it proved his point about traditional media and prevailing attitudes, and as a result he ended up with his own outlet.

It’s hard to put Van Gogh in a political frame but if I had to do it, it would be what some these days call a radical centrist. He was pro-Bush but that support was qualified by his sincere dislike of the president’s socially conservative attitudes and Van Gogh considered the outcome of the 2000 election to be questionable. He had a deep disdain for the left and for Michael Moore and his ilk. Van Gogh pulverized the Dutch political elites, especially those of the left, in his many essays and interviews. He was relentless in his pursuit of those who he felt contributed to Pim Fortuyn’s death, notably some left-liberal newspapers and politicians. And of course he pointed to the age of darkness that was about to visit Europe and he wished he was younger for he would have definitely immigrated to America to escape it all. Not able or willing to do that, he tried to instill that opportunity in his young son who he hoped would really make trek across the ocean one day. I think Van Gogh had figured out that there was little hope for Europe and that there was no political will to turn things around. With that in mind you might as well leave.

When you read through his stuff you get the impression that he had accepted the role of the lone warrior, especially after Fortuyn's death, who realized that the outcome might not be favorable but that it was best to charge ahead and accept whatever risks that might entail. Americans complaining about the New York Times and the liberal media should realize that there’s a parallel conservative or radical centrist universe with newspapers, blogs and think tanks in the US that presents an alternative outlet for news and views. Hey, even Canada has a conservative tradition. Nothing of that nature exists in the Netherlands, and Van Gogh was therefore a lonely voice, ostracized, yet he soldiered on: in the wake of Fortuyn’s killing, during the war in Iraq and taking up Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s cause when she started receiving serious death threats. He even managed to secure financing to produce and direct a movie about Fortuyn’s death without having to apply for government subsidies, which is the usual approach in Holland if you want to make a film. Despite his rebellious attitude Van Gogh was a capable and very bright guy and it wasn’t a surprise that some would be willing to take a chance on him to make this movie, which was released yesterday.

So here are some excerpts that I found worth translating, there’s a lot more on his site (a lot of it wouldn't make sense to foreign audiences) but this will give you an idea. On Amsterdam Mayor Cohen:

“The police in Amsterdam has no interest to help out the original inhabitants of this city that are threatened by an increasingly aggressive minority. And least of all Cohen. When Mr. Jahjas’s soul mates killed nearly three-thousand Americans in the World Trade Center the first point of action for our mayor was a visit to the mosque. At schools, mosques, everywhere in Amsterdam there were parties celebrating this great victory on Satan. Cohen kowtowed for the believers and stated: “you’re all part of us!”, rather than asking the question “what the hell are you doing here?”. Cohen is acting like a wartime mayor, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.” (Van Gogh refers to the many Dutch mayors that collaborated with Nazi occupiers during WWII - Ed.).

On America’s perceived superficiality:

“The dead poor sheep farmers on Sicily at the turn of the century argued that America must be heaven on earth as emigrated family members relayed messages of having meat for dinner everyday. That was a mouthwatering experience for people who could enjoy that privilege maybe once in a lifetime. You can argue that particular instinct to be ‘ordinary’ or ‘superficial’ like so many do here, but it is way beyond me to look down on it. America is hated because it embodies the hope of people that yearn for a better life, to have meat everyday, but also to believe in the God they choose, or not. To say what you want without being persecuted. To be a woman without a veil, with the right to vote, free expression and adultery, without being stoned.

On the impact of his site:

When I started the Healthy Smoker people looked at me in amazement and to be true, I had no idea if it would lead to anything. Now, five years later more than 20,000 people read my weekly column and I am a blessing to many. The mayor of The Hague send a couple of police detectives to Maastricht to arrest a 17-year old man who (without linking to me) had quoted an offending piece about our Queen from my site and let this offender of our Trix (the Queen’s nickname- Ed.) spend a night in jail. They’re a busy lot, our authorities. I always wondered why they didn’t arrest me in the first place, but apparently the mayor in question was alert enough to avert a potential public relations disaster. God Save the Queen.

On Fortuyn’s killing:

Two months before that fatal May 6th I asked on this site why Pim so far hadn’t been shot. Readers were perplexed and asked if I had lost my mind, because something like that “would never happen in Holland”. Right.

And more on the fateful day Fortuyn was killed:

I am too old to emigrate to America, that beacon of light in an ever darkening world. What else can you do here in Holland but to watch in amazement at the collusion of politically correct politicians with that underworld of women-hating Imams, Moroccan gay-bashers and anti-American demonstrators? You can not in Holland congratulate on TV the leader of the Green Left Party with the successful murder of May 6 at the risk of being called depraved or being cast as a village idiot. “Please let’s keep things nice and cozy”. My problem is: I don’t see anything remotely nice or cozy.

To keep things nice and within pre-defined rules of engagement is a typical Dutch instinct and it serves a politically correct debate well. Both Van Gogh and Fortuyn ignored it completely and spoke from their hearts. That approach also applies to the way he described his support for the invasion of Iraq:

Suzan – to whom I would love to devote some passionate words as being one of my great lovers – called me from Sydney, Australia, drunk, to tell me that Bush was the greatest threat to world peace. You shared a bed with someone like that, you had an enormous amount of fun with her, a year ago you shared an elephant in Thailand, and now you have to endure the complete nonsense she dispenses and you tell yourself that really, Western civilization is built on the right to disagree with one another. It is a paradox though that a fifth column of peace birds, in which all the Suzans of this world march along compliantly, provide the exact proof that the values that are defended by Bush and Blair are of a higher standard than those of Saddam. How decadent do you have to be as a free person in the West to happily applaud at your own grave by protesting against America and not against the butchers in Baghdad?

It’s a coincidence that the Belmont Club last week discussed the tendency of many European justice systems to punish victims of crimes for taking action against criminals themselves rather than wait for the overburdened and ineffective justice system to deal with it. In Holland last year tech mogul and ex-Compaq executive Roel Pieper was attacked with a knife in his home by a deranged anti-capitalist activist and Pieper's approach was – what else to expect from a tech millionaire – to take on the perpetrator, landing both him and his wife in hospital (I actually blogged about it here). Of course Van Gogh weighed in sensing that a dislike for success contributed to the attack and the lamentable reactions to it:

The Dutch police finds it very strange that there are people that dislike it when their wives are being stabbed by a nutcase. Even stranger is the fact that someone whose wife is threatened decides to chase down the terrorist in order to track him down and have him arrested. It’s better to let your wife be stabbed, call the police and wait for the police to turn up.

Even the Telegraaf (a conservative newspaper) thought that Pieper had gone too far and that serves as evidence that fools have essentially taken over this country.

It’s a pity that Pieper didn’t kill the man that attacked his wife. Do you really think that millionaire Roel would have been let off the hook because of self-defense? Absolutely not.

This particular column ended with Theo asking who was next in line to be killed in The Netherlands. It turned out to be him. Rest in peace Theo.