Political Views and Controversial Statements
Van Gogh was a member of the Dutch republican society Republikeins Genootschap, which advocates the abolition of the Dutch monarchy. He was a friend and supporter of the controversial Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated in 2002.
In the 1980s, Van Gogh became a newspaper columnist, and through the years he used his columns to vent his anger at politicians, actors, film directors, writers and other people he considered to be part of "the establishment". He was a controversial figure who delighted in provocation. He filled his website, "De Gezonde Roker" ("The Healthy Smoker"), with harsh criticism of multicultural society. He said the Netherlands was so rife with social turmoil that it was in danger of turning into "something Belfast-like".
Read more about this topic: Theo Van Gogh (film Director)
Famous quotes containing the words political, views and/or statements:
“Both the Moral Majority, who are recycling medieval language to explain AIDS, and those ultra-leftists who attribute AIDS to some sort of conspiracy, have a clearly political analysis of the epidemic. But even if one attributes its cause to a microorganism rather than the wrath of God, or the workings of the CIA, it is clear that the way in which AIDS has been perceived, conceptualized, imagined, researched and financed makes this the most political of diseases.”
—Dennis Altman (b. 1943)
“It is even more grim and wild than you had anticipated, a damp and intricate wilderness, in the spring everywhere wet and miry. The aspect of the country, indeed, is universally stern and savage, excepting the distant views of the forest from hills, and the lake prospects, which are mild and civilizing in a degree.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are “shaggy dog” stories; they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)