Endnotes

1. My gratitude goes to Jeroen Beets for his useful comments and his assistance with the editing. I also want to thank Jennifer Long for her careful reading of the draft.

2. I would like to add that also the creative, individual contributions and elaborations that fit the situation as well as the deceased form a specific practice within the general ritual repertoire.

3. I should add here that Van Gogh’s death left me in quite an emotional state myself. Although Dutch politics and society had become increasingly polarised since 9/11 and the assassination of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002, it was incomprehensible that ‘we’ had suddenly now reached a stage where artists and intellectuals had to fear for their lives. So, I went to the Linnaeusstraat as an anthropologist, but at the same time as a Dutch person, an Amsterdammer, an Amsterdam intellectual and a person from the neighbourhood.

4. My research at the memorial site consisted mainly of following and recording the evolution of the memorial as precisely as possible. I thus regularly photographed the entire memorial and as many details as possible. Primary observations included how people were present at the site: the manner in which they presented their attributes to the memorial; how they moved around and behaved; how people engaged in conversations or remained silent; and the topics of conversation. Moreover, I paid attention to the presence of the media; what media, when, where and what they did (filming, interviewing, recording conversations).

5. The desk offices of several major Dutch newspapers (The Volkskrant, Het Parool, NRC Handelsblad) and several commercial broadcasting companies are located within five minutes distance from the Linnaeusstraat.

6. On the Dutch notion of ‘senseless violence’ (zinloos geweld), see Blok 1991, 2001; Stengs 2003, 2007; Vasterman 2004. On the public commemorations of Pim Fortuyn, see Colombijn 2007; Margry 2007.

7. Via the famous ‘Sunflowers’ painting by Vincent van Gogh (Theo van Gogh’s great-uncle).

8. In Dutch: ‘Ge zult niet doden’ and ‘Blijf met je rotpoten van onze rot A’tje.’

9. In Dutch: ‘Een vrijheidsstrijder is vermoord, vaarwel Theo, Hein.’

10. In Dutch: ‘Lieve Theo! 2-11-04. Vrijheid van meningsuiting…Waar gaan we heen? Durft straks niemand meer wat te zeggen…. Wanneer dringt dit écht door in Den Haag? Hoeveel moeten er nog komen? Hoeveel moeten er nog gaan?! Zinloos! See you in heaven. xxx Maaike

11. In 1672, the De Wit brothers (politically influential figures) were lynched as scapegoats during a complex political and economic crisis. The murder of Fortuyn is rather associated with the primordial political murder in the Netherlands, that of William I, Prince of Orange in 1584. William I was killed by order of Philip II, King of Spain for his role in the Netherlands’ declaration of independence from Spain.

12. During my fieldwork at the Pim Fortuyn memorial sites, this type of freedom seemed to be absent, however. I have never felt so strongly censored as in the tense atmosphere there. Any ‘wrong’ remark seemed particularly dangerous.

13. Pim Fortuyn was murdered by Volkert van der G., who is generally referred to as a ‘leftist animal rights activist’.

14. Dam Square is not just the main square in Amsterdam, but also the symbolic heart of the nation, featuring a Royal Palace for important ceremonies of state, the New Church (the scene of coronation ceremonies), and the national World War II monument.

15. Eventually, approximately 25,000 people participated in the noise wake.

16. In Dutch: ‘Hoofddoekjes af, Cohen weg’.

17. In the course of the gathering, a memorial had evolved around the national World War II monument. The memorial resembled the Linnaeusstraat memorial in many of its details: cacti, cigarettes, anti-senseless-violence messages, film containers, sunflowers, bottles of beer and wine. Even the self-nominated ‘ritual expert’ I had met earlier that afternoon was present to rearrange everything to his personal liking. With a burning torch in his hand, he seemed to be the guardian of this spot. Towards the end of the wake, a new category of attributes appeared in the memorial when many people left their signs, banners, whistles, pans and wooden spoons behind.

18. In Dutch: ‘Geen moorden in naam van mijn Islam’ and ‘Moslims tegen geweld’.

19. The speech is still available at http://www.oost-watergraafsmeer.nl/nieuws_en/nieuws/algemeen/2004-2006/dossier_theo_van.

20. In Dutch: ‘de Samenwerkende Nederlands-Marokkaanse Organisaties Amsterdam’.

21. In Dutch: ‘Fietsen voor Verbondenheid’.

22. In Dutch: ‘Vermoord om het Woord. Extremisme pikken wij niet’.

23. The Dutch and European method of noting dates as day/month/year is the opposite of the American order (9/11).

24. It is not a Dutch custom to respond to funeral speeches with applause. Public funerals are occasionally different, however. The waiting public, for instance, applauded when the hearse carrying the body of Pim Fortuyn passed by (as did the public who had come to witness Princess Diana’s funeral procession).

25. This argument is largely a revised version of an earlier article (see Stengs 2009b).

26. The memorial at Van Gogh’s house was indeed removed. After consultation with the bereaved, the objects constituting the memorial are now kept in the Amsterdam City Archives. 600 of the notes and pictures have been restored and preserved and are also on permanent display on the Archives’ website.