From Zacht Ei, an interview with a Muslim from Amsterdam, following a sermon in which the imam of a local mosque denounced the Islamic assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh: “Murder is normal.”

Third man: This man (the imam) has given his personal response. He’s not expressing everyone’s point of view. I say, if he (Mohamed B., the murderer) wouldn’t have done it, I could have done it, or somebody else would have done it. Because, that man (Van Gogh) went too far. He had all the possibilities.

Interviewer: You mean, it’s self-evident that it has happenend?

Third man: It’s very self-evident. He had his freedom of speech, but he has never tried to start a discussion or debate. He called Muslims goat f-ckers. He received all attention to express that Muslims…

Interviewer: So the murder was in fact a just act?

Third man: That’s my opinion. Not everybody’s opinion, but that’s my opinion. It is just.

Interviewer: But you do agree this doesn’t fit the way we think in the Netherlands?

Third man: It’s not about the way we think. I’m married myself to a Dutch woman. I have five children who have been raised here in the Netherlands. If you try to insult their mother, then this reaction is very normal.

Interviewer: But don’t you think that murder can’t ever be considered normal?

Third man: Murder is normal. Why wouldn’t murder be normal? What happens in Iraq? What do the Americans do to the Iraqis? Did the Iraqis ask for that? That’s murder as well, and everone has accepted that. Everyone thinks that’s ‘deadly normal’.