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.
Themes
European Enlightenment Traditions: Secular Culture versus Dogmatic Adherence
The most central theme present within Murder in Amsterdam is the legacy and tradition of the European Enlightenment, which dominated the salons of the elite and educated European Aristocracy from the late 17th through the 18th century. Seen as a return to the classical values espoused by ancient democratic Greece, thinkers of the Enlightenment, like Voltaire or Rousseau, championed rationality, science, debate, and reason above blind, dogmatic adherence to any type of moral, religious, or social code. It was the goal of the Enlightenment philosophers to advance European culture through rational thinking and the scientific method—hypothesis, experimentation, result, conclusion. Their writings and beliefs set the bedrock upon which modern European secular society rests, and their thinking laid the foundation for the modern, liberal, elected governments that are the norm in the Western world.
One of the major tenets of the Enlightenment was tolerance, the belief that no group should be persecuted based on religious or ethnic background, and that all should have equal protection under the law. Another major tenet of the Enlightenment was freedom of speech, and thereby extension freedom of the press to say and write anything without fear of government reprisal. Thus, governments and those in power could be held accountable by the people, and a strong press could allow the voice of those either consenting to or dissenting of government policy.
In modern times, the principles of the Enlightenment still form the basis for the discourse on government and public policy in Western civilization. However, the current problem facing many liberal Western societies is how to merge the ideas of tolerance with freedom of speech, as it is seemingly impossible to be both tolerant and completely honest when one fundamentally disagrees with the customs and values of a “foreign” group. In Europe, especially, where many do not wish to echo the nationalist rhetoric of the past that led to the horrific events of World War II, this discourse seems to have been stunted, precisely by the tenets of the very historical period that helped to create modern European society.
Moreover, the current political climate in Western Europe is a conflict between an “Enlightened” society and one that has yet to undergo its own self-secularization (Muslim/Islamic society). Thus, two groups of people are living side-by-side while having completely different social customs, norms, and understandings of what it means to be a good citizen of the world. Because of this, there has been a great strain created, not only between the native-born Europeans and their immigrant neighbors, but also within the European governments, whose left- and right-wing parties differ wildly on how they should approach handling the situation.
Some, like the French scholar of Islam Olivier Roy, argue “that Islam must be accepted as a European religion. The only chance for a peaceful future is for European Islam to accommodate itself to liberal democracy” (259).Others believe “social life […] 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 from your own, trust can no longer be sustained” (126). Contemporary Europe finds itself at a crossroad that serves as the catalyst for Buruma’s study, one which is still far from completed and whose outcome is far from decided.
Historical (White) Guilt
It is impossible to discuss the current state of Europe, European politics, and European social order without first understanding the history and fallout of the European 20th century, particularly the Second World War and the Holocaust. Beginning in the 1960s, the generation of children during the conflict began to question not only their place in the world, but how and why their parents were either complicit or negligent during the Nazi occupation of Europe and the deportation of Europe’s Jewish population to Concentration Camps. Furthermore, it was during this time that the last vestiges of European colonialism were coming to an end, often following bloody resistance on the part of many European states to keep their control over their overseas possessions. As such, many raised during the post-War years developed a specific type of liberalism. They believed it was the responsibility and duty of the state to not only protect its citizens but also whatever minority might live within the nation as well. Because of this, a doctrine of cultural relativism and multi-culturalism arose, which stated that one culture could not comment on the practices of another because all cultures, though inherently different, were equal. It also expressed that these cultures could live in harmony, side-by-side, regardless of their differences.
The post-WW II years saw a massive influx of “non-European” workers to Europe during the 1950s to 1960s due to the need to compensate for the manpower that had been lost during the war. Another factor was that many European nations opened their doors to citizens of their former colonial possessions to come and work or to flee regimes that they might have either politically or militarily opposed. However, as Buruma notes, not all immigrants are created as “equals” (19). While many European nations felt a responsibility towards those that had formerly been under their colonial rule, they took a different approach towards those “guest workers” (22) whom the governments never expected nor wanted to stay. When they did, however, “the government took the benevolent approach that they should be joined by their wives and children,” such that “slowly, almost without anyone’s noticing, old working-class Dutch neighborhoods lost their white populations and were transformed into ‘dish cities’ linked to Morocco, Turkey, and the Middle East by satellite television and the Internet” (21).
Spurred on by the “shame” that “71 percent of all Jews in the Netherlands ended up in the death camps, the highest percentage in Europe outside Poland” (19), the Dutch government has taken a paternalistic approach to those who have come to work and reside in the Netherlands, feeling as though they owe these people social welfare and protection from those modern day fascists on the far right who would have the Netherlands be the domain of the Dutch, and only the Dutch. However, in recent years, this has given rise to much internal strife and conflict within both the Netherlands and Europe as a whole, due to the fact that many of the second guest worker generation have not fully assimilated into European culture and exist on the margins of society in parallel communities that have little desire to be seen as European or to take part in European national discourse.
Dutch Cultural Identity
Cultural identity also plays a central role in Murder in Amsterdam. Many immigrants, especially second-generation, struggle with aspects of cultural identity, as they are often seen as neither full members of their native countries nor of their adoptive ones—despite often being born within them. Asking what is means to “be Dutch” is also a fundamental question for many Europeans, in this case those residing in the Netherlands. Additionally, citizens may question what morals, values, and customs set them as Dutch apart from their neighbors in Western Europe and the rest of the world.
For many second-generation immigrants who have no direct ties to their ancestral homelands—and who for reasons of race, culture, or religion are seen as outsiders in a country that they have lived in since birth—it is very difficult to find a solid understanding of who they are. In this sense, although they have tried to find a way to “make-it” in Dutch society, when they are denied chances and opportunities they often become embittered and further alienated from mainstream Dutch society, choosing instead to fall back on the traditions and customs of their ancestral homeland and thereby exacerbate the divide between the native-born Dutch and those born of immigrant parents. Bellari Said speaks of this when he talks of the large proportion of second-generation immigrant men who suffer from “schizophrenia” (121).
For the native Dutch, the question is more metaphysical. The question— What does it mean to be Dutch?—has less to do with one’s national and ethnic history as to how one chooses to behave to those around them. Is to be Dutch to be welcoming, progressive, and inclusive to all, regardless of their own cultural proclivities? Or is to be Dutch to resist the outside, like those freedom fighters of World War II resisted the German occupation, and to make sure that the fundamentals of Dutch democracy and the history of the Dutch Enlightenment are not overtaken by a foreign, fascist, conservative force? For many on both sides, there are no clear answers to these questions, and the debate continues to play out currently both in the public and private sphere. Ultimately, the question of cultural identity is more than a simple question of one’s personal mindset and is more about where one’s true loyalty lies.
