It was a demonstrative crime. On a November day, a young angry Muslim shot and killed Dutch film director Theo van Gogh for daring to make a sharp anti-Islamic film, along with black immigrant and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which was broadcast on Dutch television. The murder of the well-known cultural provocateur for ideological and religious reasons shook the peaceful and traditionally tolerant Netherlands and sparked a wave of angry protests around the world. Ian Buruma, a professor at an American university, returns to his native Netherlands to investigate through a series of interviews with Muslims, cultural and public figures the circumstances and motives that lead particularly young Moroccans (or other immigrants) to reject European culture and its democratic values, and why they succumb to the allure and guidance of fundamentalist jihadists who wage a 'holy war' against the liberal West.
