Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
by Ian Buruma
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ian BurumaEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-09-07
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Book Reviews of Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
Book Review: Dutch tolerance?
Summary: 4 Stars
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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Summary of Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
A revelatory look at what happens when political Islam collides with the secular WestIan 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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