Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence by Ian Buruma

Nov 05, 2011

Chris rated it

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Shelves: 2011, netherlands-beligum, crime-related, kindle

I believe in freedom of speech. Tom Cruise has the right to sound like an idiotic jerk, and I have the right to refuse to see anything he's in. My local paper can publish those cartoons, and people can protest outside the paper's building and write strongly worded letters. The KKK can march in Grey's Ferry, and the mayor can say, "go ahead, but we don't have enough cops, just so you know."

And if everyone isn't happy all the time, at least we're taking turns being miserab...moreI believe in freedom of speech. Tom Cruise has the right to sound like an idiotic jerk, and I have the right to refuse to see anything he's in. My local paper can publish those cartoons, and people can protest outside the paper's building and write strongly worded letters. The KKK can march in Grey's Ferry, and the mayor can say, "go ahead, but we don't have enough cops, just so you know."

And if everyone isn't happy all the time, at least we're taking turns being miserable.

The right to speak your mind is a very important right.

Therefore, when someone gets killed for saying something, no matter how hateful or stupid (think of how many stupid things Hollywood people say) or gets threatened or the paper/publisher gets firebombed, I get angry. Yes, I can understand how those cartoons are hurtful; yes, if you feel its necessary march, protest, and boycott. But why are you killing that guy who had nothing to do it? Why firebomb the newspaper? And no rape or death threats. And leave children out of it.

When Theo Van Gogh was murdered, it made the news even over here. I had vaguely heard of both Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I followed the case in a haphazard way, interested in how the Netherlands I had visited twice before would change after the murder. Eventually, I read Ali's work. I picked this book up for much the same reason, and it was one sale.

Buruma seems to be moved by much the same question of change, and he is far more knowledgable than I because he was raised in the Netherlands. The intent behind this book seems to be a desire to examine the culture and society both before and after the murder. To look at causes and effects. At times, Buruma seems to dance close to the line of blaming Ali and Van Gogh, especially when discussing the film Submission which is seen as the spark. But to see this book this way is too facile an assumpation. Buruma might disagree with Ali on some, if not all, of her points, but he seems to respect her immensely.

Buruma, at times, seems a bit conflicted in a thesis for the book. It is more than a cultural war, he seems in part to argue that in some ways it is a cultural vaccum. He links in some ways Van Gogh's murder to Pym's murder (Pym was a Dutch politican who was murdered. He seems to be a mix of both what Americans would consider Conservative and Liberal. At one point, Buruma describes him as a giant walking penis). Feeliing conflicted seems to be a good thing. If anything, Buruma seems to feel that the problems are caused by a "welfare state" that for good or bad intentions, sections off a part of its society. He seems to interview anyone who is connected to the question and reveals some intersting ideas - perhaps American society is better suited for immigrants, Dutch schools are not required to treat national history. The best part of his book is the last section, where the people he seems to interview offer the best analysis. These include the Dutch historian Geert Mak and Ahmed Alaulteb, a politican and a Muslim.

I'm not quite sure if I believe in the link to the guilt over World War II (Cohen's speech in the last section is very interesting), but the comparsion to football (soccer) fans is apt, considering what recently happened at a game - a fan ran on to the field, punched a player, and then took on the rest of the team. (Here, we have streakers who get tasered. Unless it's Basketball, in which case the team goes into the stands).

Buruma's book is a thought provoking and good analysis.(less)

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Jul 15, 2008

Tallharrell rated it

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This book provides a lot of context for "Infidel," the bestseller by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In fact, that's a lot of what this book is: context for the religious rift that's working its way through Western Europe. The book poses many good questions about just how far the West is willing to take its tolerance, and also how far Muslims are willing to assimilate. I would have liked to see more analysis from Buruma. When he chimes in, he's quite astute and perceptive; there's just not enough of ...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

The well-traveled Ian Buruma, a Bard College professor, previously published Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (2005) and The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (2002), among others. Buruma's account of Theo van Gogh's death was first published in the New Yorker in January 2005. The book, an expanded version of the magazine piece, is timely. Buruma receives much praise for his writing and reporting skills, though several critics comment on the book's lack of st

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Jan 06, 2009

Chris rated it

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Buruma does a good job discussing the personal histories and thoughts of those who have shaped the debate about modern multiculturalism and tolerance in the Netherlands: Pim Fortunyn, Theo Van Gogh and Aayan Hirsi Ali. This is essentialyy a piece of long and detailed journalism with very little of his own thoughts on the subject, akin, I suppose, to his pieces I have read in the New York Review of Books. Still, a clear and well told explanation of the cultural climate in present day Holland, whe...more

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Dec 28, 2008

Lightreads rated it

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Shelves: nonfiction, politics

In 2004, Theo van Gogh (great great something or other of Vincent), filmmaker and professional polemicist was murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist. This book is partly about him – about what led to his death and what came after – but it’s mostly about the Netherlands as a microcosm of the intellectual and political friction of European ideals and Islamic fundamentalism. The book profiles notable Muslim critics – the racists, the atheists, the culturalists, the feminists. Van Gogh rates the titl...moreIn 2004, Theo van Gogh (great great something or other of Vincent), filmmaker and professional polemicist was murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist. This book is partly about him – about what led to his death and what came after – but it’s mostly about the Netherlands as a microcosm of the intellectual and political friction of European ideals and Islamic fundamentalism. The book profiles notable Muslim critics – the racists, the atheists, the culturalists, the feminists. Van Gogh rates the title, but for my money this is mostly a book about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the broader intellectual context for the tensions arising as Muslim immigrants continue arriving in Europe.

A brilliant book, and nothing short of riveting. It made me angry; it made my head ache; it exhausted me; it frustrated me. There’s so much perspicacity packed into this slim volume. Buruma spends most of it recounting significant social movements with pithy accuracy, and the rest casting an unflinching eye over scholars, politicians, critics, activists, fundamentalists, and bystanders. He talks about immigration, he talks about religion, he talks about violence, he talks about activism, he talks about culture and multiculturalism and the pushback and racism. He is deliberate and lightly mocking throughout, and absolutely no one is spared.

He does have a tendency to treat minority groups as one uniform body, but even this is done with deliberate irony. It’s only appropriate, after all, when characterizing how Turkish and Moroccan immigrants are differently perceived. No, my real problem with this book was Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh was, well. How do I put this delicately? I hated him. He firmly believed that it’s impossible for the children of the Enlightenment to live in peace with Islamic fundamentalists, but more importantly the way he expressed that opinion was nothing short of loathsome. Buruma does his best in showing that Van Gogh was a more general dissident than a specifically offensive one, and to place him in the context of the rhetoric of abusive criticism (it’s an honest-to-God thing, really), but for once he seems to have missed the essential point. Van Gogh once said of a Jewish critic who had come to the defense of a friend he’d attacked that she, “has wet dreams of being fucked by Dr. Mengele.” That’s one of the more mild comments. Buruma comes right out and says that Van Gogh was not a racist, but I’m sorry, propounding hate speech makes you complicit in hate. Full stop.

Anyway. I’m getting sidetracked. That’s one wobble of perception in a book otherwise painfully clear-sighted, fearlessly willing to face complication head-on. It didn’t quite address the question of criticism in the way I was anticipating – someone, somewhere has written an intelligent, insightful piece on the seemingly inextricable knot of racism and anti-multiculturalism/cultural criticism, and the problem of how cultural insiders and outsiders can collaborate in criticism. This is not that book, but that’s okay because the book it is will be lingering with me for a long, long time.(less)

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Jan 30, 2011

Jay Connor rated it

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Ian Buruma gives us a fascinating rumination on the context, conflicts and potential causes of the murder of Muslim-critic, filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004 Amsterdam.

First, I must thank my son, Patrick, for giving me this book for Christmas. Not only did this gift recognize my love for books, but also tapped into my preferred blend of philosophy, morality and suspense. But unlike my usual mix of Stuart Woods and Michael Connelly, this nonfiction account of the cultural stew on post...moreIan Buruma gives us a fascinating rumination on the context, conflicts and potential causes of the murder of Muslim-critic, filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004 Amsterdam.

First, I must thank my son, Patrick, for giving me this book for Christmas. Not only did this gift recognize my love for books, but also tapped into my preferred blend of philosophy, morality and suspense. But unlike my usual mix of Stuart Woods and Michael Connelly, this nonfiction account of the cultural stew on post-911 northern Europe actually is more consonant with my recently reviewed “Moral Landscape.”

The crux of the dilemma confronting the liberal governments of Europe is, most likely, a precursor to the cultural conflicts we will face in the United States, with our growing Muslim population, if we fail to find a course that reconciles the clash between the secular and “God’s laws.” It is ironic, yet no less telling, that the crucible for this debate in Europe is the Netherlands, liberal home of Spinoza and others of the Enightenment who first sowed the seed of separation between Church and State. The church, to be kept separate, then was Christian – be it Catholic or Calvinistic – today it is Islam. Of further caution, is that in the US, unlike the adamantly secular societies of post-War Europe, we have seen the resurgence of God in State. Will that make it harder for us to parse the line between the majority god and the growing minority god and thus the inherent clash of civilizations?

America needs to figure out this puzzle, not only to rescue our foreign policy, but to also preserve our unique freedoms as a country. For if we recreate the naïve mistake the US government made in supporting the Taliban against the Soviet Union in traditional geopolitical gamesmanship, only to see the true believers bite back and destroy the Twin Towers, we run the risk of loosing much more than our innocence this time around.

Buruma gives us some comfort in a conversation with the Dutch Historian, Geert Mak, when Mak insists: “the problem is not Islam, or religion as such. It is more sociological. What we are witnessing is nothing new. Just the usual tensions that occur when uprooted rural people start new lives in the metropolis.”

This comfort, though, fails the test of Buruma’s earlier exploration of the disaffected generation of Muslim immigrants. There is something different about their alienation than the familiar “country mouse” rite of passage in the city describe by Mak. For example, Theo Van Gogh’s killer, like many of the terrorists before, was well educated with social connections. In the past, successive generations used to climb the ladder of assimilation (think the Irish in New York or Boston or Chicago), but in the Netherlands, the second and third generation show deeper psychosis than their parents. Where their parents were depressed (dealing with the maze of the city), the children are schizophrenic. “A young Moroccan male of the second generation is ten times more likely to be schizophrenic than a native Dutchman from a similar economic background (emphasis added).” This points to something more than complexity of the new society; it has more to do with the adaptation of a strictly regulated society to a freer, more open one. Just the traditional cultural strictures on Muslim women, make for a profound cultural clash.

This cogitative dissonance – well beyond adjusting to the pace of a urban life – often times creates a desire for strict religious rules as a form of nostalgia. This is true, even when you weren’t raised under those rules. To remain sane, these successive generations long for the security of a paradise lost. Here, the “stabilizing factor” might in fact be religion -- as a bulwark to stand between the cacophony of choice and the extremism of certainty.
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Aug 03, 2010

Rowland Bismark rated it

"Buruma, who was born in the Netherlands in 1951 and has lived mostly abroad since 1975, is less interested in the details of the killing than in what followed: the ideologies vindicated or discredited, the prejudices revealed and the doubts cast on the workability of what only 10 years ago was considered Europe’s most easygoing society."

The murder in Amsterdam at the centre of Ian Buruma's book is that of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004 by the Dutch son of Morocca...more"Buruma, who was born in the Netherlands in 1951 and has lived mostly abroad since 1975, is less interested in the details of the killing than in what followed: the ideologies vindicated or discredited, the prejudices revealed and the doubts cast on the workability of what only 10 years ago was considered Europe’s most easygoing society."

The murder in Amsterdam at the centre of Ian Buruma's book is that of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004 by the Dutch son of Moroccan immigrants, acting "out of faith" because he felt obliged to "cut off the heads of al those who insult Allah and his prophet" (in other words, the act of someone entirely deluded and misguided). Buruma offers an interesting account of what led up to the crime and the parties involved in what is one of the most striking examples to date of the clash of cultures being played out especially in western Europe, where what likes to consider itself a tolerant and open society has to deal with the children of the (often Islamic) immigrants that have settled there en masse in recent decades.

The provocative and often deliberately insulting filmmaker van Gogh is presented very much as a child of his times -- and his confrontational (if, in a sense, good-humoured) approach as something that was (more or less) understood and accepted in tolerant Holland. Meanwhile, his murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri, was a youth who for a time seemed to have some potential to become a productive member of society but instead became radicalized, embracing Islam, and coming to take it very, very seriously -- arguably because he could not find his place in Dutch society (although he seems always to have had what can be called anger management issues -- i.e. he was quick to react with violence).

Buruma offers a good portrait of Holland and the changing conditions there: long priding itself as a centre of the Enlightenment and a tolerant society, the close-knit Dutch world has nevertheless had trouble adapting to some of the recent rapid changes, specifically in integrating the large influx of foreigners. (In 1999 45 per cent of Amsterdam's population was "of foreign origin", and Buruma says projections suggest it will be 52 per cent in 2015 -- though he doesn't look at the demographics more closely, not making clear how 'foreign' that population really is (i.e. are these EU citizens, or those from beyond EU-borders, etc.).) Some ghettoization has occurred, and Buruma makes a good case that it is especially the displaced second-generation -- the children of the original, often poorly educated immigrants who were made to feel at home in neither their parents' culture, nor in Holland itself -- that have the most difficulty in finding a place for themselves (and hence in some cases act out in unacceptable ways). (Some of the evidence, however, requires more explanation, as when he repeats a psychiatrist's claim that: "A young Moroccan male of the second generation was ten times more likely to be schizophrenic than a native Dutchman from a similar economic background", a claim that at the very least requires a clear definition of what is meant by 'schizophrenic'.)

The appeal of the ultimate irrationality, religion, -- and especially Islam, which has so readily been abused for the most intolerant and outrageous actions in recent times -- to those who can not find a hold elsewhere comes as no surprise, but proves very dangerous in an open society. In each country the situation is a different one, both from the approach to those who choose to live there to the outside influences they bring with them: alone the Islamic immigrants in a variety of European countries -- say Britain (with the large South-East Asian contingent), France (Algerian), Germany (Turkish), and Holland -- each make for a very different immigrant community, and in each case the state's treatment of the foreigners (including how readily to allow them to become citizens) also varies widely. Buruma's book describes the special Dutch conditions and circumstances, and while it is illuminating -- even just in the questions it raises (offering, as it does, few answers) -- hardly allows for larger lessons that are applicable throughout Europe (much less America, where the immigrant-experience (and the immigrant-related issues) tend to be completely different ones).

Buruma offers an interesting account, and a lot of insight into the Dutch world, but ultimately the van Gogh case isn't all that revealing. The case is too clear-cut: no matter what van Gogh's provocation, the murder was beyond the pale, and though Buruma is able to trace the evolution of Mohammed Bouyeri to the point where he committed this act there's no excuse or even any real explanation for what he did. Bouyeri is a weak, pathetic thug who couldn't channel his personal failure any other way than to harm another human being. The Allah-excuse is a feeble one; Bouyeri's belief that his act was in some way the 'right' thing to do nothing more than a delusion. His acting out fortunately remains an extreme example and certainly there's an interest in keeping those from similar (or, indeed, any) circumstances from following down the same path, but given his unique circumstances it's not clear what the solutions might be.

Buruma suggests many of the reasons there is friction, problems, and the potential for disasters (such as the murder of Theo van Gogh), as well as the difficulties of remaining 'tolerant'. There are useful reminders of how intolerant parts of the Dutch model were until relatively recently: the separation by religion, or the fact that: "Until 1954, women in government jobs were automatically fired when they got married". Islamic fundamentalism poses a particular problem -- or at least is one which has garnered a lot of attention at the moment --, especially since it seems (at least in many of its currently popular manifestations) to be irreconcilable with European norms of tolerance. Still, given rapidly changing circumstances (economic, social, educational, and others) it's unclear what lessons can be leant -- or might be applicable -- from this even in just the near future.

An interesting social-historical account, but not entirely satisfying as a discussion of the issues.
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Sep 01, 2009

Marilyn Matheny rated it

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Before reading this book, one should read Ayan Hirsi Ali's book "Infidel."

Buruma investigates and attempts to understand the reaction of his native country, the Netherlands, to the murder of famous Dutch artist and personage, Theo Van Gogh, who is murdered for his role in making an inflammatory, anti-Muslim film with Ayn Hirsi Ali. The film shows naked women who were abused and with words from the Koran shows how Islam allows or recommends that abuse.

The autho...more

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Jul 22, 2009

Irwan rated it

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Shelves: finished, 2009

This book is mainly about the murder of Theo Van Gogh, its implications towards the tolerance and freedom in Holland and also a few dimensions of the heated conflicts between Islamic values brought by the Muslim Immigrants with the Dutch (Western) ones.

Islam Vs the West is not a new topic for me. I am quite familiar (or rather bored) with each other's claims and accusations. The author wrote it as it is, verbatim quoting harsh words from each side. Not so open-minded readers (from e...moreThis book is mainly about the murder of Theo Van Gogh, its implications towards the tolerance and freedom in Holland and also a few dimensions of the heated conflicts between Islamic values brought by the Muslim Immigrants with the Dutch (Western) ones.

Islam Vs the West is not a new topic for me. I am quite familiar (or rather bored) with each other's claims and accusations. The author wrote it as it is, verbatim quoting harsh words from each side. Not so open-minded readers (from either side) might be offended or taking sides too early on the debate presented. I am trying to read this story in its context, trying to empathize on how those people come to say or behave the way they do.

I also learn from the book about the problems of integration. I have experienced how complex it is (or feels) to integrate in a new society totally different from your origin. I have seen many complications towards individuals dealing with the issues, both from the immigrants and the host people. Taking from my experience and stories in this book, I am tempted to say that it is you who are in charge on how you want to perceive yourself in the new situation. But the "you" here varies greatly and influenced by many factors which may result in extreme cases like Mohamed Bouyeri and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or even Theo Van Gogh himself being the host people.

Bouyeri, the murderer, showed the same symptoms as, for example, Imam Samudra (the Bali bomber) in his attitudes and utterance. Both did not regret their action and did not submit to the law against which they were being tried. Both said given the circumstances they would do the same thing all over again. Bouyeri believed that the knights of Islam will come from the Netherlands! I would suppose that Imam Samudra would also think that the revival of the Islamic Caliphate would begin in Indonesia (at least I remember this rhetoric being preached when I was in high school). The last point shows that no matter how much global your claim is, local factors (Bouyeri's childhood is in the Netherlands) have some say too. Having read Imam Samudra's handwritten memoir, I also doubt his comprehensive understanding about the West whom he hated so much.

The book ends without conclusion after portraying the murder, Theo, Mohammed B, and several figures related to the issue such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Fortuyn, Job Cohen, etc. The portrayal is sharp, although may not complete. It shows the edges that collides between the two sides. Maybe it is just the way it is, the discourse about "Muslim in the West" or "Islam versus the West" is still to be continued.

One thing to note, many references to Indonesia, Dutch colonial era, Moluccas rebels are made when discussing about immigrants and Dutch history. The Dutch apparently refer to the colonial era (Dutch East Indies) as their Golden Era. Hmmm... (less)

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Jan 24, 2012

Williwaw Wilson rated it

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This book is an engaging, but ultimately frustrating read. Buruma's subject is compelling: on the surface, it's about the murder of provocative Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was senselessly gunned down and slashed by a young Muslim extremist in 2004. On a deeper level, Buruma writes about the plight of the Netherlands, which has a rapidly growing ethnic population that tends to take refuge in Islamic customs and beliefs. Buruma seems to be asking whether this ethnic population will ultimate...moreThis book is an engaging, but ultimately frustrating read. Buruma's subject is compelling: on the surface, it's about the murder of provocative Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was senselessly gunned down and slashed by a young Muslim extremist in 2004. On a deeper level, Buruma writes about the plight of the Netherlands, which has a rapidly growing ethnic population that tends to take refuge in Islamic customs and beliefs. Buruma seems to be asking whether this ethnic population will ultimately succeed in adapting to Dutch culture. I think that his answer is, in part, that the Dutch need to accept moderate Islam as a new "pillar" of their own culture.

Buruma shows how, instead, some very prominent members of Dutch society, including Van Gogh and foreign-born Hirsi Ali, have spoken out with uncompromising intolerance toward Islam. Both Van Gogh and Ali claimed that Islam and Holland's democratic institutions were fundamentally incompatible. Van Gogh was murdered. Ali, a Dutch MP at the time of the murder, thereafter traveled only in the company of security guards.

Buruma claims that Amsterdam's population was 45% foreign origin in 1999; and also claims that statisticians expect this number to rise to 52% by 2015. Apparently, a majority of this projected majority population will be Muslim in 2015 (Buruma is unclear about the size of the Muslim component).

Buruma convincingly shows how this rapidly growing "foreign" population, through exposure to one of the most permissive cultures in the world, finds itself in a state of culture shock. That shock leads the "foreign" population to retreat into an Islamic "shell" of familiar customs and restrictions. Buruma cites some statistics which show that male immigrants from Islamic cultures have a high rate of schizophrenia. He suggests that this illness is brought on by the daily necessity of navigating between the cultural antipodes of Islamic repressiveness at home and Dutch permissiveness on the street. (Muslim women, who lead a more sheltered existence, don't get exposed quite so readily to the cross-cultural conflict.)

Simultaneously, the traditional population finds itself also in a state of culture shock. It's understandable: when whole neighborhoods transform themselves into ghettos; when Muslim teenagers dance for joy in a park to celebrate the World Trade Center tragedy of 9/11/2001; or when Theo Van Gogh gets gunned down for dissing Islam in his films and television shows. After all, this is the Netherlands. We can say whatever offensive thing we want, right?

This book contains fascinating portraits of Van Gogh, Hirsi Ali, Pim Fortuyn, murderer Mohammed Bouyeri, city councilor Ahmed Aboutaleb and many others. Buruma originally wrote parts of this book as New Yorker essays. If you are familiar with that style, you'll know what to expect.

It's a fascinating book, but (whether for good or ill I'm not sure) it leaves the reader with more questions than answers.

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Dec 19, 2009

Scott rated it

Shelves: sociology

With the murder of the controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh in the streets of Amsterdam, Hollanders are seriously assessing their liberal viewpoints and policies. Particularly those pertaining to the Isalmic community, since this brutal murder was caused by a Moroccan Dutchman named Mohammed Bouyeri, an extremist. This assassination becomes the focal point of the challenges of Islamic assimilation into a liberal western society. Writer Ian Buruma superbly constructs the arguments by intervie...more

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Sep 28, 2011

Patrick McCoy rated it

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Shelves: current-affairs, non-fiction

Ian Buruma is one of my favorite public intellectuals. In his career he has written on a number of subjects from Japanese history/culture to the fundamental problems of contemporary society. Expert scholarship, an engaging literary style, and a density of ideas distinguish his books. Recently he has written about the growing strain between the East and the West, often identified as a clash of Enlightenment values and the severe dogma of Islam (see Occidentalism). In his latest book, Murder In Am...moreIan Buruma is one of my favorite public intellectuals. In his career he has written on a number of subjects from Japanese history/culture to the fundamental problems of contemporary society. Expert scholarship, an engaging literary style, and a density of ideas distinguish his books. Recently he has written about the growing strain between the East and the West, often identified as a clash of Enlightenment values and the severe dogma of Islam (see Occidentalism). In his latest book, Murder In Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gough and the Limits of Tolerance, he travels back to his native Netherlands to analyze the situation between the historically liberal and open Dutch and the Muslim population that has largely failed to integrate into Dutch society. Much like several other European countries the Netherlands invited guest workers to come there to perform the jobs no one wanted to do, thus the settlers were often uneducated and were expected to return to their native countries. But instead many of them brought their families over and settled in insular communities that were connected to other Middle East countries and their home countries via satellite TV-hence the term “dish cities”. They weren’t expected to assimilate, because they weren’t expected to stay. Thus these communities became insular openly practicing the customs of their respective countries. The children are in an in between nether world since they cannot commit to their traditional culture nor do they feel comfortable in Dutch society. Sometimes this results in schizophrenia. It is this pressure of these two worlds that led the misguided Mohammed Bouyeri to shoot and stab the outspoken contrarian, filmmaker, public intellectual, critic of Islam, and distant relative of Vincent van Gough. There are a lot of issues analyzed in this text, and it would seem as though there are a complex set of issues compounding this problem that has the usual tolerant Dutch citizens up in arms about he Muslim situation. One that is exacerbated by the culture of pride and respect that is often represented in the women of Islam, who must remain pure and modest and obey the will of the family, by staying inside, hidden by scarves, and often married to strange men in another country via forced marriages. Van Gough was targeted for a film called Submissions that he made with Somali Muslim critic and feminist Ali Hirst that was considered blasphemous. One of the more eye-opening suggestions is that the paternalistic welfare state policies of Europe and the Netherlands in particular allow Muslims to live in these insulated societies, whereas in America they are forced to integrate into society since they are given limited aid and most join the work forced and integrate through daily interaction. A perfect example can be found in What Is The What where the Lost Boys all work and go to school in America, which keeps them in apposition of having to negotiate with mainstream American society. It is a fascinating and thought provoking book that uncovers layer after layer of gray. It is a more complex situation than most commenters would have you believe, and there are no easy answers to the question of how society should deal with this growing polarization of Muslim communities from the European governments they live in.(less)

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Sep 01, 2010

Cwn_annwn_13 rated it

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Shelves: from-public-library

This goes into the situation in Holland preceding and after the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by Mohamad Bouyeri. It profiles Bouyeri, Van Gogh, another murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and the Somalian woman turned anti-Islam activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

While I support their commitment to free speech Van Gogh and Fortuyn don't seem particuarly heroic to me. The homosexual Fortuyn, who admitted that he enjoyed having sex with "Moroccan boys" before he was kille...moreThis goes into the situation in Holland preceding and after the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by Mohamad Bouyeri. It profiles Bouyeri, Van Gogh, another murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and the Somalian woman turned anti-Islam activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

While I support their commitment to free speech Van Gogh and Fortuyn don't seem particuarly heroic to me. The homosexual Fortuyn, who admitted that he enjoyed having sex with "Moroccan boys" before he was killed, only took an anti-immigration stance after seeing gays being hassled by Morrocan youth in Amsterdam. Van Gogh was one of these narcistic attention whore types that could only make himself the center of attention by being obnoxious and offensive. I think Fortuyn only saw the Muslims as a threat to his own personal hedonism and Van Gogh saw them as a threat to his eternal obnoxious infantilism. Neither one were exactly Blood and Soil types. They as well as the author of this book seemed to have no clue as to the real reasons for and who is behind this mass immigration into "the west", seeing it all as some grand accident that was accelerated by naive liberals. They were way too immersed in the Amsterdam scene and their own personal narcissism to see the big picture.

As far as Ayaan Hirsi Ali she comes off as self important and in love with being chauffeured around, pampered and recieving attention. I would imagine she's being funded by some Zionist neo-conservative faction of the new world order. I have no faith whatsoever in any of these right wing anti-Muslim political parties that in some cases have quite a bit of power whether it be Geert Wilders political party in Holland, the Dansk Folk Party in Denmark, the BNP, Le Penn in France, etc. Anti-Muslim sentiment is the one form of racism from white people that is tolerated by the world order as long as they get to control it, it serves their purposes and real root causes of the problem is not named.

This book is good for getting background information and basic history on the situation in Holland but at the end of the day the author and the people profiled in it are more or less clueless. I did learn that the Dutch are possibly more guilt ridden over WW2 than the Germans. Everytime the Dutch would make a step in the right direction or look out for their own self interests the Holocaust and Anne Frank are invoked. So if your white and your not celebrating the death of your culture and race then you must be an evil little Hitler.(less)

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Jan 07, 2010

Jennifer rated it

The author interviews a bunch of his activist/journalist friends about the social problems with immigration, multiculturalism and "political Islam" in the Netherlands and Europe writ large. It's actually a book about liberalism and the arguments for or against. Parts of it were fascinating to me, but I felt like I was slogging thru much of the book. It just doesn't flow very well or something. It's very anecdotal with not much extra guidance beyond the absolute basics, so you can't alw...more

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Dec 09, 2010

Goldenwattle rated it

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I found it an interesting read, however, Ian Buruma, in attempting to present his story fairly, made it somehow flat. I’ll give an example of what I mean. P258. “He (a Muslim) would certainly welcome it if everyone shared his faith (Islam), but then so would most Christians.” There was a lot of this, balancing out of the comments. It lacks commitment and makes for a duller read. It is as if the author does not want to take a stand, must be politically correct, be perceived as a fair thinker. He ...more

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Mar 02, 2010

Helen Mccarthy rated it

This is a very important book that explores the conflicts between the Christian majority, the historic residents of Holland, with the immigrant Moslem working class. The author, a very well known and insightful writer, explores these intense problems through the circumstances of the murder of Theo van Gogh, who has produced a controversial film on Moslems, by a young Moslem. This is an essential book for understanding the current interface of Christians and Moslems in Europe, and perhaps globall...more

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Jul 21, 2008

Patrick Brown rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

This is a fascinating and thorough look at the contemporary social/political scene in Holland, where a massive influx of rural Moroccan immigrants, some of whom practice takfir, a particularly extreme form of Islam, challenges the ulta-liberal government's policies of tolerance and multiculturalism and the country's traditions. This issue came to a head in 2004 with the famous assassination of filmmaker and provocateur Theo Van Gogh.

Buruma is very balanced, examining the issue from...moreThis is a fascinating and thorough look at the contemporary social/political scene in Holland, where a massive influx of rural Moroccan immigrants, some of whom practice takfir, a particularly extreme form of Islam, challenges the ulta-liberal government's policies of tolerance and multiculturalism and the country's traditions. This issue came to a head in 2004 with the famous assassination of filmmaker and provocateur Theo Van Gogh.

Buruma is very balanced, examining the issue from many sides and never taking one side as "right" and the other as "wrong." He's uniquely situated to write such a book, as he is Dutch by birth, but has lived abroad for the past three decades. This gives him an insider view with a bit of a detached gaze. The fundamental question of the book -- can a liberal society, one that believes in the value of diversity and of tolerance for other cultures, accept and incorporate a culture that doesn't share certain of its most important beliefs (in this case equality between men and women, acceptance of homosexuality, and separation of church and state) or are there certain things that are non-negotiable? -- seems to be something that must be addressed if we're to understand how Islam is changing Europe.

Indeed, reading this book as an American who's never been to the Netherlands, I felt I was getting half the picture, and a distorted one at that. The American idea of immigration is so different from the Dutch one, especially for this reader, who lives in Los Angeles and takes for granted that Spanish shares nearly equal footing with English in the public sphere. But Holland is different, as it harbors a level of guilt for its relative complacency during the Holocaust (Anne Frank continues to be the ultimate Dutch trump card, her name ending all debate in a moment of shamed silence), and its more recent role as colonial oppressor in Suriname and Indonesia.

This book is a fundamentally European book, just as the author argues, at one point, that Islam is now a European religion. One of the people Buruma profiles in the book, explains that "The heart of Islam is in the Middle East, but its head is in Europe," meaning that liberal European culture has given Muslims the intellectual space to feel out how it will interact with the West, with modernity, and with itself, the freedom to decide whether it will grow to reconcile life in a modern, multicultural society or whether it will ultimately reject it.

The reason I give this book only 3 stars is that it felt repetitive at times, hammering home the same lessons about
the "Dutch character" over and over, and in the end, it offered little in the way of a solution. While it isn't the author's job to find an answer to such an enormous question, I would've liked to have seen more than what he eventually concludes, that giving young Muslim men more economic opportunities to succeed and a chance to feel more accepted in Dutch society will curtail the spread of extremism. This seems like the typical leftist response to social ills, "All political strife and all crime is the result of economic disparity." It's not that I don't believe this to be true (it certainly couldn't hurt to give them greater economic opportunities, for example), but I would've liked to have seen something a bit more forward-thinking from a book that so often surprised me. (less)

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Jan 18, 2008

Benne rated it

· review of another edition

I'm still reading this (stalled halfway through). Interesting to see what the outside perspective is on the small, uninteresting country near Germany. Unsettling for me is that there are political assassinations there now. I should not be too surprised. The pater patrias William of Orange was assassinated as well, as were many of the more enlightened statesmen (van Oldebarneveld, gebr de Witt). Not that I would equate the bald headed P. Fortuyn or the obnoxious Theo van Gogh with any of these ...more

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Sep 24, 2007

Gina rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: poli-sci, terrorism/war discussion

Perfect timing for this book. Takes a very critical look at modern-day Netherlands and its so-called liberal, enlightened politics. Opens a wound with the controversial TV host/Filmmaker Theo van Gogh's murder. Includes Ayaan Hirsi Ali role along with many references to WWII guilt and inabilities to cope with looming religious/social problems.

Ayaan was just sent back to Holland a few days ago, as there is not enough protection for her here in NYC.
What struck me most was the aut...more

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May 08, 2007

Bill 1098 rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: nonfictionread

Very interesting read from an author who knows Amsterdam very well.

I think overall, Buruma is informed by the reality that the violence practiced by political Islam today is not unique to Islam, but rather manifests itself in all religions/ideologies. “Messianic violence can attach itself to any creed” as he illustrates through the tribal aggression of Dutch soccer fans. (p.261)
Moreover, he notes that some of the aspect of Western culture that we take for granted, and rail a...more

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Jun 23, 2010

Melissa rated it

· review of another edition

Although I found the first few chapters hard to follow as they delved deeply into the political arena of Holland, the rest of the book was fascinating as it explored the murder of Theo van Gogh. Was a good follow-up to reading Aayan Hirshi Ali's "Infidel." Made for our most explosive book club discussion to date as an American who has lived in Holland for almost 20 years went head-to-head about racism and tolerance of immigrants with a Dutch woman who's lived overseas for much of the l...more

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Feb 11, 2008

Amy rated it

· review of another edition

Utterly brilliant investigation of the tension between the liberal Enlightenment values (particularly tolerance for others' beliefs) prevalent in European government and the need for institutional response to a growing group of immigrants who do not share those values. Ian Buruma, a Dutch journalist residing in Britain, returned home in the wake of the murder of Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist to research what led to it and how his native land was dealing with with the cultural fallout.
...more

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Dec 22, 2011

Matt rated it

Having gone into this book knowing nothing about domestic Dutch politics and having only heard of Theo Van Gogh's murder in passing, I was afraid that I was not going to be able to get into the book that much. Buruma, however, does an excellent job of providing enough background on his subjects for the reader to be able to grasp how a specific event fits into the overall theme of Dutch politics and history. A quick read, for sure, but a good one and worth it for those interested in Muslim integr...more

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Apr 14, 2011

Ashley rated it

Shelves: own, non-fiction

I picked up this book after having read Hirsi Ali's memoir "Infidel" - I find Hirsi Ali particularly fascinating and thought it would be very politically correct of me to get an opinion of Theo Van Gogh's brutal murder from someone else besides her.

Overall, I'm glad I read the book. Buruma has an easy way of telling his story - his remarks are quick and to the point and still manage to hold a lot of intellect. He talked with many people, of varying opinions, and I felt ga...more

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Jun 18, 2008

Erik rated it

· review of another edition

To those unfamiliar with recent cultural clashes in Holland, or even those with a fleeting knowledge of Theo van Gogh's murder just a few years back, Dutch expat Ian Buruma's profile of modern Holland will make you cringe. His style is effortlessly fluid and nimble -- which belie his strange and uncomfortable subject matter. It's not just the crazed Muslim fundamentalist that get under your skin, but just about every native Dutch of all political persuasions that will collectively grate on you f...more

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Jul 13, 2009

Britt rated it

This was an excellent book told by someone with the perfect background for writing it. Buruma provides a thoughtful and relatively unbiased exploration of the cultural, religious, and ethnic tensions at play in 21st century Europe (the Netherlands in particular). A very interesting and important topic that is worth learning more about.

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Mar 12, 2009

Marleen rated it

· review of another edition

A Non Fiction book that gives a very scary picture of the situation in Holland around the time and since the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004. Even more so for me, since I'm Dutch. I haven't lived in Holland for 12 years and now find that the place I was reading about was not a place I could recognize.

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Jul 09, 2008

burt rated it

· review of another edition

It was very unsettling. What I found most interesting was Buruma's nuanced description of Dutch society from an "insider" viewpoint. He draws a picture of people full of class and religious differences existing way before any of the ex-colonials or Moslem immigrants arrived. The anger between elements of Dutch society, their myths of themselves, their actual histories, were all surprises to me. All of this put in perspective for me the new Moslem Dutch communities and their own gene...more

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Nov 22, 2010

Audacia Ray rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: cultural-studies, read-in-2010

Really interesting analysis of the complexities of fundamentalisms, liberalisms, and xenophobias, through the lens of the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with associated fascinating characters.

As an aside, this book reminded me how much I love the internet and access to information. The short film "Submission," a collaboration of van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is very much at the core of this book. I put the book down, looked it up on YouTube, watched all 11 minutes of it a...more

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Mar 31, 2009

Becky Bianco rated it

· review of another edition

This is a must read. Provides insight into the culteral clash of Muslim vs Dutch and the repercussions of a society that was initially willing to 'be and let be,' only to discover they lost the right to be incensed without others calling them racist. Implications abound.

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title link	preview: Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319343.Murder_in_Amsterdam?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266523448m/319343.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319343.Murder_in_Amsterdam?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence by Ian Buruma[/url]

Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence

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