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 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Promising Boy”
In Chapter 6, Buruma tells the story of Theo van Gogh’s assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri. Beginning with a brief recollection of the trial of Theo van Gogh, where Bouyeri stated that “he was obligated to ‘cut off the heads of all those who insult Allah’” (189) to show the extent of his radicalization, Buruma then attempts to trace the path to Bouyeri’s extremism by showing how a series of frustrations led an otherwise normal youth to a violent endgame.
A relatively liberal, weed-smoking youth, Bouyeri was seen as a “positive” (199), but after butting his head against the glass ceiling of advancement for immigrants in the Netherlands, he developed “an authority problem” (205)—both with the Dutch state and with his father, whom he viewed as having little to no control over his younger sister having a boyfriend. Eventually falling under the influence of Abou Khaled, “a radical Muslim preacher who had fled Assad’s secular dictatorship in Syria in 1995” (210), Bouyeri began the process of radicalization, which, along with sermons of Khaled’s, included scouring the internet for anything jihadist.
Spurred on by a feeling of disillusionment with life in the Netherlands, a belief in something greater than himself, and the desire to take control and authority over an otherwise weak existence, Bouyeri killed Theo van Gogh, an enemy of the Prophet, on November 2, 2004.
Chapter 6 Analysis
For Chapter 6, Buruma returns again to directly discussing the assassination of Theo van Gogh, this time by recounting the life and upbringing of his assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri. By this point, it should be clear to the reader how Buruma has attempted to show how similar upbringings and situations can lead to wildly different destinations in life. For example, Fortuyn, Hirsi Ali, and Bouyeri are all outsiders in their own ways, and all have been radicalized to a certain extent. However, the difference between them lies with the dogma they have chosen to follow and the way in which they have chosen to enact that dogma in real life. While Fortuyn and Hirsi Ali have chosen to let the culture war play out in the secular, academic world, Bouyeri believes that his battle is an eternal, supernatural one where true law reigns supreme over all others and must be defended. While his radicalism is no different from his counterparts, his cosmogony is. His is a literal matter of salvation and damnation, where for Hirsi Ali and Fortuyn, life and death are couched in metaphor.
Moreover, Chapter 6 is a continuation of the conversations had in Chapter 4. Bouyeri is very much another in a long line of people like Nora, who have good intentions and originally want to be included in Dutch society, but who feel as though the society does not want them. Again, the question of identity and the desire to belong to “something” plays a strong role in forming how one will interpret culture and religion. Violent people seek out violence and frustrated people seek a way to vent their frustrations. The texts they use to justify their actions are secondary.
