Murder in Amsterdam

In Murder in Amsterdam, Ian Buruma asks the question, is multiculturalism dead or is it thriving? While he does not answer this question fully, he leads us further to the point that multiculturalism is a dying practice. To begin, Buruma's discussion of the lives of Van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Mohammed B. point to the fact that multiculturalism is dead. Van Gogh sparked his own death when he released Submission which is an anti-Islamic 11 minute short film. This short film was intended to stir the muslim extremist and did its job. The story of Van Gogh is simple. He released a film which was meant to make confrontation and in turn disrupt multiculturalism. Furthermore, Buruma looks at the life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was the co-writer of Submission. Born into a muslim family, she separated herself from the practices of Islam and its culture. Now, she is a female activist who fights female circumcision and the right for women to date whoever they want. To pick such a controversial figure for in depth analysis is done by choice, further establishing his belief that different cultures getting along in this world seems far fetched. Last is Mohammed B. who ended the life of Van Gogh. During his trial he states, regarding the killing of Van Gogh, "I made it clear that if it had been my own father, or my little brother, I would have done the same thing" (Buruma 189). This shows that its not people who can't get along but the cultures in which they have grown so attached to. Mohammed B. had nothing personally against Van Gogh, it was just the ideas that Van Gogh stood for. In the end, Buruma points to the fact that multiculturalism might be ruined by the radical ideas on both sides that hinder our world.