42 pages • 1 hour read
Ian BurumaMurder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Healthy Smoker”
Buruma devotes Chapter 3 to introducing the reader more fully to the late Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Descended from both Vincent and Theo van Gogh, Theo came from a line of prominent figures in Dutch culture. Apart from his great-granduncle being the world renown painter, his uncle was a partisan during the German occupation who was ultimately executed by the Nazis. Chapter 3 offers the reader much of Theo van Gogh’s upbringing and influences, including his formative years in The Hague, which came on the tail end of much of the radical “provos” (75) protestations against the way in which many of the war generation handled the German occupation of the Netherlands.
Moreover, Buruma goes on to show how much of van Gogh’s artistic and philosophical influences were well-known Dutch practitioners of irony and satire, art forms he, himself, would later make central elements of his work.
Parallel to the biopic of van Gogh, Buruma also uses this chapter as a way to briefly inform the reader about the radical transformation of Dutch society during the 1950s and 1960s. It was as if “the veil over the dark side of Dutch history was beginning to be lifted” (81) and as though “the postwar generation needed to make up for the failure of their parents” (83). Whether this be an honest reckoning of the history and violence of Dutch colonialism or the lack of action undertaken by Dutch citizens on the part of their Jewish neighbors being deported by the Nazis, the nation would never again allow a “group to be singled out for murder and would fight the new dictators” (83). It was also during this time that calling someone an “NSBer” (79)—a reference to those who had collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation—came into common usage during political discourse.
Buruma also takes time to further highlight the strange development of how, by 1964, “Jews” and “Jewish” (79) also became a common political slur uttered by the Dutch, despite the fact that the Netherlands had a long history of welcoming and protecting Jews, especially in the city of Amsterdam.
Chapter 3 Analysis
If Murder in Amsterdam is to have a “hero,” then Theo van Gogh serves this role—though he is more aptly cast in terms of the “anti-hero.” Without him, Murder in Amsterdam would only be a series of loose points that lacked a glue to hold them together. Chapter 3 allows Buruma to trace the development of Theo van Gogh’s politics so that the reader has a full picture of why he believed what he believed. Moreover, if considered with Chapter 6, it can be argued that Buruma is tracing the way two people can each become “radicalized,” but in diverse ways and with totally different understandings of what it means to be “radical.” In this sense, the author also examines the ways in which one should enact their radicalism.
Chapter 3 shows how Theo van Gogh and his views are firmly in keeping with the ideas of the Enlightenment. Radical though he might appear, he firmly believes in the right of freedom of speech to foster direct and honest debate, regardless of whom it may offend. He maintains the position that offense is required if one is to debate things honestly. Nothing can be hidden away and nothing can be excused. Hypocrisy must be exposed and done away with if one is to inhabit a truly progressive society where all are equal, and it is the job of artists to step in and be vocal when they view politicians shirking their duties.
Both Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn were believers that in a secular, liberal democracy—although words might be pointed and barbed—disagreement remained in the academic sphere. They both believed it was their right to provoke in order to find a greater truth and to better society. However, they both were naïve in that the world they lived in was vastly changing around them, due to fanatical factions on both the left and the right, which viewed them not as the paragon of what one should hope for in a liberal democracy but loathsome examples of those who personified everything that was wrong with the decadence of Western Civilization.
