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Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerenceby Ian Buruma |
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A revelatory look at what happens when political Islam collides with the secular West
Ian Buruma ?s Murder in Amsterdam is a masterpiece of investigative journalism, a book with the intimacy and narrative control of a crime novel and the analytical brilliance for which Buruma is renowned. On a cold November day in Amsterdam in 2004, the celebrated and controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot and killed by an Islamic extremist for making a movie that ?insulted the prophet Mohammed.? The murder sent shock waves across Europe and around the world. Shortly thereafter, Ian Buruma returned to his native land to investigate the event and its larger meaning as part of the great dilemma of our time.
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An Introduction to Modern Europe -  |
Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence Review |
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Like many Dutch, Ian Buruma probably found himself at a loss to describe the roots that led to the death of provocateur filmmaker Theo van Gogh. He returned home for a time and reimmersed himself in modern Holland. `Murder In Amsterdam,` the result, is an easy-to-read introduction to the rifts within modern Islam, the plight of immigrant states in Europe, and the cultural skirmishes and uneasy peace that defines the relationship between the two.
The author sets the stage with a bit of Dutch postwar history and a series of relevant interviews, and Buruma makes it clear that he is out to sanctify no-one. Van Gogh uses colorful unprintables to describe Christians, Jews, and Muslims. His murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri, sees Holland as the cradle of a new Islamic Revolution (because of its civil liberties, which he despises). The Dutch establishment is overwhelmed and directionless, as well as racist; the Moroccans and Turks who comprise nearly 40% of the population of the Netherlands are almost too free: cut loose from their traditional culture, they drift in a world full of overwhelming choice and no direction. Some Muslims are for assimilation; others are see the former as apostates. Yet they all are still mostly rejected from society at large by those invisible chains of education, class, and race. Over 250 pages, the only answer Buruma gives is that there is no easy answer. Buruma attempts to balance himself on the knife-edge that is the middle ground, and mostly succeeds. Yet despite his best attempts at a reporter`s objectivity, between the lines one can still see the author`s muted sorrow at the plight of men like Ahmed Aboutaleb, the city councillor who works hard to be a bridge in a society separated by an ever-widening gulf. For an overarching look at the issues of assimilation and cultural respect facing many countries in Europe today, Ian Buruma is a good place to start. |
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Dutch tolerance? - |
Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence Review |
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In November 2004 Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered in the streets of Amsterdam. With the murder in 2002 of the prime-minister to be, Pim Fortuyn, the Netherlands was stunned by two horrendous crimes. Nothing comparable had happened in 300 years. Holland was such a peaceful little country, famous for its tolerance and liberalism. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - everything seemed permissible.
Ian Buruma was raised in the nicer parts of the Hague. He has been active in Oxford, Tokyo and Washington. Since 2005 he lives in New York. Following the two murders he went back to the Netherlands to try to come to grips with this new situation in his native country. His inquiry resulted in this book. He knew some of the people he interviews from back then. With one of them he had been playing in the sandbox; the future professor of Philosophy, Herman Philipse, the guy who seduced Ayaan Hirsi Ali both to a personal relationship - and to Atheism. Buruma thought of him even then as a somewhat pompous child. I suppose you have to be Dutch to be able to picture him heaving a rubber spade in his Oxford tweed jacket...(note that I'm actually a fan of his). Ian Buruma tries to expose the background for the two murders. Historically he illustrates this with the famous `Regenten'- paintings by Frans Hals in Haarlem. `Regenten' were representatives from the republican merchant elite who opposed both the royal House of Orange and the Calvinist church. In these gloomy but superb paintings, we, as present-day tourists, are haughtily and coldly observed by these members of the board - men as well as women. Sends shivers down your spine. Pim Fortuyn was certainly no Calvinist and only a lukewarm royalist, but Buruma contrasts his populism with the might of the Left Church; social democrats, liberals and the Green Party. Fortuyn was friendly with Theo van Gogh who also wrote some of his speeches and used to call him `the divine baldy'. Van Gogh was an astounding enfant terrible. Unlike Fortuyn he grew up in an upper-class family. In high school he started a magazine which he christened the Dirty Paper. The topics were typically puberal in the toilet-humor vein. His partner in crime was a certain Johan Quarles van Ufford. The magazine only ever appeared twice, but it gives a nice idea of Van Goghs shock-tactics. He loved to provoke all and sundry. Some of his utterances are probably not fit for printing, although he would punch my nose for saying so, but they are of the caliber of describing Jesus as a `rotten fish' and famously - and fatefully - calling Muslims, well, something I apparently can't reveal here although it's all in the book. Many felt he actually deserved to die. But what about freedom of speech? Is it absolute and without any restrictions whatsoever? Isn't there something in the constitution about discrimination and harassment ? The law forbidding heresy had not been used since the sixties, when a well-known author portrayed God as a donkey. He was acquitted. Now this law has been revived and passions run high. The subtitle of the book is `Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance' but Buruma only lightly touches on this. You would probably need yet another book to seriously address such an ambitious agenda. A scary thing I wasn't aware of, is how the soccer-fans of Rotterdam greet AJAX Amsterdam when they come to town. Apart from the customary `filthy Jews' or `cancer Jews', they collectively let out a hissing sound which slowly grows stronger. Buruma didn't know what to make of it until a friend explained: they are mimicking the sound of escaping gas. Who said that the Netherlands was so very tolerant? |
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Blaming the victims -  |
Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence Review |
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This book, by a Dutch ex-patriot, does a good job of pretending to be fair-minded and even-handed in trashing all the parties involved. But it won't stand up to careful examination.
Most importantly, none of the assertions and allegations made in this book are even documented, let alone corroborated from other sources. We are simply supposed to take the author's word for it. To show that in effect the Dutch are getting what they deserve (although the author would, of course, never put it in those terms), the author describes in lurid detail the red-light district of Amsterdam. (red herring fallacy). He also describes every incident in which a mosque was defaced, and counterposes that against the burning of Christian churches. (two wrongs make a right) To trash van Gogh, the author presents him as a loud critic of many practices and positions, as if van Gogh's personal appearance and off-beat personality justifies his assassination. (ad hominem) The author also has a go at Pym Fortuna, doing the same number on him. He was loud and brash and maybe a right-winger as well, so it's sort of okay that he was murdered. Besides, he wasn't murdered by an Islamist, so that proves that the problem is not Islam, doesn't it? The message seems to be that the Dutch are not tolerant enough! Another theme is that whole thing has been blown way out of proportion by the press and the politicians--especially the right-wing politicians. See While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. Also, read America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. [...] |
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Important book -  |
Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence Review |
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Buruma looks at the issues of religious tolerance through the lens of the Theo van Gogh murder in Amsterdam. It's a fascinating look at the limits of liberal thought in regards to embracing a foreign culture which may be antithetical -- or perhaps ambivalent -- to democratic thought, progressive politics, and full equality between the sexes. At what point does a community decide to limit the openness of its own society to this type of culture? He interviews members of both "old Dutch" and "new Dutch" communities. Although answers do not come easily -- if at all -- the far greater value of this book are the uncomfortable questions that are raised. |
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Exceeds expectations - |
Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence Review |
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I had traveled to Amsterdam twice before picking up Buruma's book with only a faint understanding of who Theo Van Gogh was or why he was murdered, but this book weaves European history, demographics and an understanding of radical Islam into a cogent explanation of why the Dutch filmmaker was murdered. I was impressed by Buruma's explanation of the motives of T. Van Gogh's assassin, the Moroccan émigré Mohammed Bouyeri, primarily because pernicious rationalizations of poverty, isolation and disillusionment were avoided in favor of focusing on Bouyeri's Muslim faith. Radical Islam, and to a large extent the entire body of `moderate' Islam, is incapable of taking rational criticism even when protestations of, say, the treatment of women are made in good faith. This is no where more clearly exemplified than the hysteria that followed the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which stills lingers as of March 2008, and the anticipatory ire which the Dutch MP Geert Wilders has aroused in the Middle East, namely Iran, upon announcing the release of a film that will be critical of Islam. Take note that Wilder's film has yet to be released, as of early March 2008, although he has already received death threats, and is under 24/7 guard, as the murder of Theo Van Gogh proved was utterly necessary.
T. Van Gogh was an implacable iconoclast whose work with the Somali émigré Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the short film `Submission' highlighted the abominable treatment and objectification of women in Islam. In `Submission', a nude female actor is covered in misogynist verses from the Koran. In the liberal democracies of the west, this is freedom of speech, but to Islam, an egregious sin. Europe is undergoing radical demographic changes today with ever increasing immigration from Muslim nations. I'd recommend Mark Steyn's `America Alone' to place Buruma's book with a larger context. |
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