...oh van gogh, what did you write...

My head hurts - an hour and a half of debate over the merited/unmerited death of Theo van Gogh in Holland. In a statement which astounded me, and left me irate and argumentative for quite long, my father said that he should have known better, and was asking for it, by virtue of having made a movie he knew would offend.

Which begs the question of where lines should be drawn in life and in art - do we stop sharing our opinions, creating art, saying things, being who we are out of fear that we may be killed by others who are offended by our view?

No individual who holds liberty or democracy or the right to freedom of expression as a value has any moral standing to commit an action the way it was done against this director. I don't care if you are offended - express it. Stand up and say "you pissed me off, I'm angry at your film". There is absolutely no justification for the assassination of an artist or anyone else in this way.

My dad then spoke of responsible art, and says that he had a duty to create something that wouldn't offend people's sensibilities. So, are we all to act in a way so as not to offend someone's sensibilities because otherwise it's our fault if we are killed? Does this mean Pim Fortuyn was asking for it by being a homosexual politician? If Jay Leno is murdered for his jokes about Yasser Arafat, will that be justified? (He says that he wasn't surprised about Fortuyn's death, and wouldn't be surprised if Leno faced the same).

Interestingly, my usually tame and liberal aunt (who is apparently a closet devout Muslim) was just as vocal with my religious-advocate father in this regard. It led to an interesting argument - my mother and I against my aunt and father; Shahin and Nazaneen speaking intermittently but fence-sitting.

I'm angry still, but mostly disappointed. After about 20 minutes, my father had lost any semblance of logical argument, and conclusions were not even following from premises faulty to begin with. For someone who has always held her dad in such high regard intellectually, this was a let down.

Maybe I'll just be glib and say "you can't teach an old dog new tricks", but really, I'm not impressed.

And still angry.