Murder in Amsterdam - A Reflection

After reading Ian Buruma’s Murder in Amsterdam I took away with me a longing for strengthened multiculturalism and curiosity about my countries history. If you had asked me a few weeks ago how I felt about multiculturalism, I would have immediately made an argument about its importance, about how the world is a global village that should be intertwined. Yet, my oblivion to the Dutch cultural issues presented in Buruma’s book proved that I wasn’t even close to following through with my own beliefs. It is easy for me to hope for peace and love for the world, for everyone to get along and accept each other, but I rarely take the time to think of the ramifications and complications that come along with doing so? Dutch society was gradually broken down by the infestation of immigrants in their country, and though I hold tolerance to be of the utmost importance, doesn’t tradition matter as well? Are we breaking down the communities that we grew up with, that we know? It is in this sense that I have realized the difficulties that come with acceptance and finding a balance between old and new. Where do you draw the line between tolerance and submission? I can’t answer these questions, I don’t know nearly enough, but it seems to me that the more we push others away, the harder they will push back. The world is moving towards each other at unprecedented speed. We are woven together by culture, technology, and politics. Unless we find this balance, and seek to accept others while keeping our origins alive, the world will crash into a detrimental clash of cultures. I believe the best way for us to do this is to further educate our youth about other cultures and parts of the world in an unbiased fashion. In the United States, I believe much of the resistance to other cultures and tolerance stems the nationalism that we are presented with. I’ve always learned about my country’s triumphs in schools, our good doings. But, it seems that our educational systems lack thorough discussion of our faults, as does every other country. Buruma’s discussion of memorialize in the book parallels with this idea. The Dutch emphasize their positive association with Anne Frank and the Holocaust, yet ignore the fact that Dutch Men were one of the most prevalent groups enlisted in the Nazi forces. The house were Anne Frank and her family lived has been preserved in the exact state at which it was at the time of Anne Frank’s life, yet the jodenhoek, or the Jewish ghetto was knocked and replaced with new modern housing. Buruma explains, “To reach for examples from the Holocaust has become a natural reflex when the question of ethnic or religious minorities comes up. It is a moral yardstick, yet at the same time an evasion. To be reminded of past crimes, is never a bad thing. But I can confuse the issues at hand, or worse, bring all discussion to a halt by tarring opponents with the brush of pass murder. “Yes, we memorialize the good things in our history, but memory cannot be selective. Maybe if we shed light on our history as a whole, we would be more accepting of the cultures around us, allowing us to take part in a growing multicultural world.