Murder in Amsterdam. Not any murder. The murder of a director, a public figure. Why? He made a movie not everyone agreed with. He made a movie about the Muslim faith.
We read this book in the same year as we read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Infidel: My Life" (Mijn Vrijheid). Theo Van Gogh had made the movie "Submission" together with the Somali-born feminist, activist, writer, politician. Ian Buruma, a British-Dutch writer, tries to explain the events in his book.
Most of us were glad we read the book, it contains so many thought provoking issues about so many topics. Besides Islam it gives a good view about the Netherlands and its people, how tolerant the Dutch really are. It also made us aware of our situation as a foreigner in this country.
The book gave us a good insight into Dutch culture and immigration. At the end of the day, it's all about tolerance. Faith and religion caused and still causes so many problems all over the world.
Our book club members have all lived in several countries besides their own and have come across racism. As an immigrant you feel like an outsider, you have friends from your own culture, there is always this tiny thing: where do I belong?
This book doesn't answer that, either, but gives a lot of insight into today's politics.
We discussed this in our international book club in December 2007.
From the back cover.
"It was an emblematic crime: on a November day in Amsterdam, an angry young Muslim man shot and killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, iconic European provocateur, for making a movie with the anti-Islam politician Ayaan Hersi Ali. After shooting van Gogh, Mohammed Bouyeri calmly stood over the body and cut his throat with a curved machete. The murder horrified quiet, complacent Holland - a country that prides itself on being a bastion of tolerance - and sent shock waves around the world. In Murder in Amsterdam, Ian Buruma describes what he found when he returned to his native country to try and make sense of van Gogh's death. The result is Buruma's masterpiece: a brave and rigorous study of conflict in our time, with the intimacy and control of a true-crime page-turner."
By the way, the Dutch title translates into "Death of a Healthy Smoker".
See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.
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