Ten hours after the news of van Gogh's murder, 20,000 people came together on Amsterdam's main square. They stood in shock, hoping this was not the beginning of chaos and the end of free speech. But incidents in the following weeks seemed to prove the opposite.

The Dutch finance minister, Gerrit Zalm, spoke of a "war on extremist Islam," although he renounced that a few days later after the prime minister responded that stirring up public opinion might not be the wisest thing to do right now. Zalm subsequently said he meant "the fight against extremism" and not "war." An Islamic school in the south of the country was damaged by a bomb attack, but no one was hurt. After that, two churches in another town were hit by fire bombs.

A message from the Islamic group Tawhid Brigades was then posted on a fundamentalist Web site, stating that the Dutch government and the general public would become targets of terrorist attacks if the assaults on Islamic institutions didn't stop. The group is little known and security services are having a hard time judging the actual threat. At the same time, though, the Moroccan consulate in Rotterdam was covered in feces. A few hours earlier, a party for the premiere of "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" was evacuated because the manager noticed some suspicious uninvited guests at the party.

Today, a somewhat uneasy calm has settled over the country. The day after van Gogh's brutal murder, the secret service arrested eight people, all suspected of being part of a radical Islamic network. Police and intelligence services have increased their efforts to find terrorist cells and uncover international networks financing terrorist activities. Moroccan groups organize gatherings and even bike rides to show that they are of good will and that the murder suspect was a loner or at best belonged to a small group of religious zealots.

Police have revealed that Bouyeri, van Gogh's killer, the son of Moroccan immigrants, was raised and educated in Amsterdam. A quiet man living in a poor residential area on the outskirts of town -- even his Moroccan neighbors didn't know him -- he did volunteer work for a local community service. He turned to the radical right in front of his friends and teachers, and in 2001 started going to a mosque run by a controversial Egyptian, who had praised suicide attackers as martyrs. The Wall Street Journal reported that Dick Glastra van Loon, the community center coordinator, recalled that Bouyeri, "who had never seemed particularly religious, banned alcohol and then tried to bar mixed-sex meetings" at the center. There has been speculation about the seed of Bouyeri's radical fundamentalism, including suggestions that the death of his mother triggered him to develop a fixation on a society based solely on Islamic Law.

In her letter to a Rotterdam newspaper after van Gogh's murder, politician and "Submission" screenwriter Hirsi Ali, who is rumored to be soon returning to public life, wrote: "Theo and I amply discussed the possible consequences of Submission. He said: 'The moment these considerations stop you from speaking out, that's the moment freedom of speech stops and that is exactly what the fundamentalists want us to do.'"

In a society that tries to offer equality and fundamental rights to all its citizens, van Gogh always called himself "a fundamentalist when it comes to free speech." On a public radio show in May, he said: "People always tells me I cross the line. But free debate is a war of ideas. It's a place where we should be able to hurt each other."

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