Ian Buruma in his book Murder in Amsterdam accounts the brutal murder of the provocative fil maker that happened in Amsterdam. This book helps us to have an understanding on the place the Islamic religion stands in Europe today. Buruma helps us to understand the rise of popularism among the Dutch in Europe. It also helps on exploring how mass immigration of Muslims to Europe has impacted the Dutch culture though the illustration of the murder of the film maker. With the murder of the controversial film maker it helps us to clearly see the populism in Europe where the Dutch community disregard other cultures specially the Islam’s and don’t value them as fellow Europeans and thus causing retaliation by the Muslims.
The book Europes long century by Di scala aims at helping us see the patterns of europe between the 1900- 2000 in order for us to see the histories that shaed it to be the modern Europe (Di Scala, 2013). This essay aims at illustrating how immigration has caused populist challenge to the multicultural, liberal democratic narrative of European integration.
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In November seeking in the year 2004, the controversial Dutch film maker known as Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered on his way cycling to work. The murderer shot him in the stomach, and shot him several times thereafter and then slept his throat. The murderer identified as Mohammed Bounyeri then pinned a letter illustrating the reason for killing him was because of his film that he had made previously that insulted the Islamic religion (Buruma, 2007). This murder was a shock to many, however Buruma in his book murder in Amsterdam he helps us to gain a deeper understanding of this killing to the various factor’s immigration and the populist challenge present in Europe that prevents people from different cultures integrate and live together in harmony (Buruma, 2007).
In the book murder in Amsterdam, Buruma gives us statistics of the population in Amsterdam to help us understand the level of immigration in the city of Amsterdam. According to Buruma 45% of the population that was living in Amsterdam in the year 1999 were immigrants from foreign origins. The number of immigrants has been increasing with time and in 2015 a whooping 52% of the whole population living Amsterdam were form the foreign origin (Buruma, 2007). With the increased member of immigrants in Europe the country question Buruma poses in his book is how can Europe make the immigrants feel at home when most of the European culture and values tend to mock the culture of the immigrants.
Buruma dives deep on Theo Van Gogh, the film maker who used to describe himself as the village idiot who basically used to say the unsayable things because he quite never understood on what he meant. Theo Van Gogh in his work, was very controversial per say and he wrote against all most religions including Christianity Jews and mostly he was really against the Muslim religion and used to refer to them as:” Goat Fuckers” (Buruma, 2007). He made a particular movie known as Submission with the help of the Dutch politician known as Ayaan Hirsi where Theo Van Gogh portrays some of the Koran verses on naked women. The aim of this film was to illustrate how the Muslim religion oppresses the women and women in the Muslim community do not have a voice and are subjected to submission. The film submission was the reason why Mohammed Bounyeri killed the film maker as the film was an insult to the Islam religion.
Buruma, in his book, shows how the friends to the film maker, after his death tried to portray him as one who did stand for modern values that aimed at enlighten the society. Such values include having equality in opportunities between men and women, secularism, having freedom of speech and to criticizes without fear of violence and more other enlighten values (Buruma, 2007). This shows how there was a popularist challenge in Dutch because the friends of Theo did not see the how Theo has insulted the Islamic religion through the film that showed verses of the Koran on naked women showing the oppression of Muslim women however what they saw was Theo standing for enlighten values of equality between men and women. Also, Buruma illustrates another popularism that existed among Europe through the famous politician Pim Foytuyn who was known because if how vocal he was against the immigration of foreigners in Europe (Buruma, 2007).
Pin Fortuyn was also killed because of his sentiments against having immigrants in the Dutch community and in Europe in general. Pim Foytuyn was once asked on the reason for being harsh towards the Islamic community where he responded by saying that he did not want to get into liberation of women and homosexuals again (Buruma, 2007). Implying that the Islamic religion were oppressing their women and the homosexuals which shows that the European conservatives have a populist mindset where they don not want to accept the cultures of the immigrants.
In his book, Buruma uses these examples to show how such sentiments by politician Pim Fortuyn and those of the film maker Theo can show the reason for these killings. These negative sentiments against the Islamic religion are one of the reasons to be blamed for the increased hostility and retaliation from the other cultures. Conservatives in Europe due to the populist challenge they were not able to accept the multiculturism which have been brought about by immigration and therefore leading to increased hatred against their cultural practices (Buruma, 2007).
The high level of immigration in Europe has been one of the main causes of the populist challenge in Europe especially in the Dutch community (Buruma, 2007). When people immigrate to a country, they bring their cultures and values with them to the new country. This is the same case with what was happening in Europe in the early 2000 where Buruma shows the increased level of immigrating with almost 50% of the population living in Amsterdam being immigrants. Popularism in Europe was very common where some of the conservatives in Europe were against immigration because they did not like the cultures of the immigrants. Buruma shows us that the conservatives used to hide resentment against immigrants’ cultures especially the Muslims in the name of enlighten values. Enlightment values were used by conservatives who thought that multicultural, in Europe had gone too far and and those who wanted to show that they had a commitment not want to lose the European culture.
In the book, Buruma shows how there are two competing cultures that of the Muslim community and that of the western community. this was being shown in particular by the European conservatives through their Enlightment values being justified such as equality among men and women secularism, having the right to criticize among others. In his book he shows that the young Muslim who murdered the Theo had already being conformed to the western culture and was already living the secular life. Mohammed Bounyeri has already abandoned his Islamic way of dressing and basically had conformed to the western culture. However, he changed all that, stooped using alcohol, stooped the secular life from the western culture and committed the murder because of the huge disrespect that the conservatives such as Theo Van Gogh disrespected the Islamic religion through the firms (Buruma, 2007).
Buruma helps us to understand the root cause of such murders that were taking place in Europe. He argues with the example of the murder of Theo Van Gogh by the Mohammed Bounyeri shows the failure of the European society and in particular the Dutch community to recognize the immigrants especially the Muslim community as members of their community (Buruma, 2007). according to Buruma the Dutch community should accept the community they way they are and have a community that accepts each culture as it is where it is the Christian community, the Jews and the Islamic community. But from what we saw the conservatives in Europe were against the Islamic way of life and making Islam religion look evil and disrespecting the Islamic community. The increase in disrespect against the Islam religion was the main cause of the hostility as it put the Islam and the western cultures against each other creating resentment and hatred among the community. According to (Buruma, 2007). in order to be able to solve this dilemma then the European conservatives have to treat the immigrants as Europeans too and respect their culture. That is the only way to avoid such hostilities.
Conclusion
This paper shows indeed that immigration played a very important role in leading to a populist challenge among the European community. it has been illustrated effectively through the statistics that shows the level of immigration particularly in amestdun where almost 50% of the population were immigrants,. Immigration brought in different cultures to Europe and amon5g them was the Islamic religion where we have seen various conservatives who were against it including Theo Van Gogh and politician Pim Foytuyn. Theo Van Gogh though his film submission he Criticizes the Islamic religion for oppressing women and the politician Pim Foytuyn criticizes the region for enslaving women and homosexuals. This shows how the European had a challenge in accepting the immigrants and their culture which was the main cause of their murders. Buruma in particular uses the murder of the film maker Theo Van Gogh by the young Muslim to help us understand the root of the conflict which was not treating the immigrants as our fellow Europeans and not making them feel safe and respected. According to Buruma in order to be able to solve this dilemma then the European conservatives have to treat the immigrants as Europeans too and respect their culture. That is the only way to avoid such hostilities.
References
Di Scala, S. (2013). Europe's Long Century: Society, Politics, and Culture, 1900-present. Oxford University Press.
Buruma, I. (2007). Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam and the limits of tolerance. Penguin.
