With the exception of tedious and repetitive interludes, MURDER IN AMSTERDAM is finely detailed and informative.

It is also terrifying, notably for those of us who fear that Ayaan Hirsi Ali may be more right than right-wing. ( )

A sobering book that could not be more frighteningly prescient in light of yesterday’s attempted murder of a police officer in Philadelphia or the story of a member of ISIS beheading his own mother. This story of two murders is very eye-opening—mostly because it will cause an American reader’s eyes to see the United States through a pair of Dutch glasses. Buruma’s theme is reflected in a sentence occurring late in his book: “Collective sentimentality is the easiest way to deal with matters we would rather not face head-on.” To that I’d add Flannery O’Connor’s line, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it,” which applies equally well to the harrowing events—and interviews—in Baruma’s book. Recommended. ( )

Mohammed Bouyeri was 26 years old when he not only shot Theo van Gogh several times but slashed his throat with a machete as well. He ended his assault by stabbing a note into Van Gogh's lifeless body - however the final insult was kicking the corpse before calmly walking away. The note, oddly enough, wasn't addressed to Van Gogh (rightly so since the dead man couldn't read it) but to anti-Islam politician Hirsi Ali who claimed the Koran was the source of abuse against women. That's not to say there weren't plenty of folks in Holland who wished Van Gogh dead. He thrived on being controversial to the point of revolting. Buruma knew Van Gogh in certain circles so I can only imagine what it was like to write about his death as an acquaintance. But, the actual crime is only the centerpiece for the much wider topic of controversies surrounding what happens when nonconformist immigrant populations with differing religions and cultural politics clash against other stringent societies. ( )

«Asesinato en Amsterdam» utiliza como pretexto el asesinato el día 2 de noviembre de 2004 del director de cine holandés Theo van Gogh por los disparos de un holandés marroquí, Mohamed Bouyeri, para repensar, en un reportaje desesperanzador, conceptos como tolerancia y multiculturalidad en una población en la que un 45% es inmigrante.

Por convencimiento, formación y profesión soy tolerante; es más, si estuviera en mi mano, promovería el intercambio cultural y el libre tráfico de personas, pero ante los integrismos (y más si son violentos, especialmente ahora el islámico o, en su día, la Inquisición) tengo que hacer un esfuerzo para no renegar de mis principios.

¿De qué sirven todos los siglos de civilización, de Humanismo, si al final son los animales islamistas o de cualquier otra creencia los que son capaces de ponernos patas arriba? Simplemente me parece que en esas cabezas no hay cerebro y el envase sólo les sirve para ponerse el sombrero, el turbante o el pasamontañas… también para llevar el pelo si no están calvos.

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Buruma, Ian. Asesinato en Amsterdam : la muerte de Theo van Gogh y los límites de la tolerancia / Ian Buruma ; traducción de Mercedes García Gamilla. – 1ª ed. – Barcelona : Random House Mondadori, 2007. – 234 p. ; 23 cm. – (Debate Historias). – Mención de editor en port.: Debate. – ISBN 978-84-8306-704-8

I. García Gamilla, Mercedes, trad. II. Título. III. Tít. ser.: Historias (Debate). 1. Pluralismo cultural. 2. Integrismo musulmán-Holanda. 3. Islamismo y cultura-S. XX. 4. Aculturación. 5. Emigración e inmigración. 6. Intolerancia. 7. Gogh, Theo van.

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821.112.5-9"19" ( )

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 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. ( )