Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance

Departing from the theme of using an individual as the central figure of a chapter, Buruma uses Chapter 4 as a means to take the social temperature of a wide array of people living in the Netherlands. He opens the chapter with a synopsis of a Dutch melodrama Najib and Julia, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story directed by Theo van Gogh. The series tells the tale of a Moroccan immigrant young man and his native Dutch love interest. Ending tragically, it was broadcast in 13 episodes in 2002 as a means by which to indirectly address notes of stereotypes and prejudices deemed prevalent in the Netherlands.

Buruma continues on by interviewing Farhane el-Hamchaoui, a young Moroccan-Dutch actor who described what is was like growing up in the Netherlands as the son of immigrant parents. Although successful and a self-proclaimed “exception” (113) to the norm, Farhane describes how the demeaning conditions suffered by the parents of many immigrants lead their children to feel an anger “with the Dutch state” (115), which he felt “let us come here without explaining how things work. They […] were too proud to show their humiliation. So their children felt it more.” (115) His statement is a telling insight into the psychology that affects so many second-generation immigrants.

Following his encounter with Farhane, Buruma meets with Bellari Said, a noted psychiatrist and “another Moroccan success story” (120). Said explains how his research has shown how a disproportionate number of second-generation immigrant men suffer from schizophrenia and how the women suffer from depression, which he believes is a problem that “lies in the adaptation of a strictly regulated society to a freer, more open one” (121).

Next, Buruma maintains his trend of questioning Dutch individuals on their views of the current political climate by speaking with Paul Scheffer, a “former leftist who had turned against the multicultural faith” (125). Scheffer believes that society “has to be based on a certain degree of trust, on being on the same wavelength. When you have too many people whose cultures and values are utterly different than your own, then trust can no longer be sustained” (126). Scheffer continues to tell Buruma a story of how one time, while waiting in an international airport in Istanbul, he was in a line of 10 Dutch citizens, but he was the only one who could speak Dutch. This, he says, “was a deep sense of betrayal” (127). Scheffer is of the mind that in order for the Dutch to extend their hands to the immigrants that come to the Netherlands, those immigrants must renounce values that are not compatible with Dutch society.

At this point in the chapter, Buruma departs from the academic circles of Amsterdam and The Hague to bring his discussion on religion and culture to everyday people. He begins with two young Muslim women, M.L. and B.F., whose names are given false initials to protect their identities, a telling sign in-and-of-itself. The young women discuss what it is like to be a woman in Muslim culture, one dominated by a patriarchal code that requires a purity of women: “The most important thing is virginity. We [women] carry the family honor” (132). The two young women have seeming disdain for both the native Dutch women, who easily attract immigrant men because they are viewed as “easy,” and the “mountain goats”—women brought from Morocco for immigrant men to marry: “Moroccan guys […] prefer them because they want to marry virgins” (133). It is often these women who end up either alone or in battered women’s shelters.

Not content to leave his examination of the lives of Muslim women just yet, Buruma concludes the chapter by meeting with a devout young Muslim named Nora. Nora is a university student in Leiden, a Young Socialist, and a woman who is anti-Shariah (Islamic Law) “because it doesn’t fit in this country [the Netherlands]” (138). Although she is a driven and ambitious young woman, she is afraid that all her hard work may be for naught if the door to opportunity should be “slammed in [her] face” (139). Ultimately, Nora says that she would like to work a government job, but this poses a problem to her as it is not possible to work for the city government “if you wear a Jewish kippa or a Muslim headscarf” (139).