David 1. I'm currently reading "Murder in Amsterdam" by Ian Buruma. As a Dutch national what do you think of this book's observations about the Netherlands (if you've read it)? 2. I have not yet read it in full, but there is an interesting piece on Tariq Ramadan, the British media's favourite Islamic "reformer" by Paul Berman in New Republic at: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070604&s=berman060407 Coming from the Author of Terror and Liberalism it should be an interesting read.

Michael van der Galien Haven't read it. Describe his observations?

David The observations are too detailed to repeat. The murder which gives the book its title is that of Theo van Gogh. Buruma is a Dutch born academic who has lived in the USA since 1975. The book paints verbal portraits of van Gogh (rich, privileged, obnoxious and quite naive about any risk to himself) of Pim Fortyn (an ostentatious social climber) and various others. A few of the observations in the book that I would be interested in your comments on would be that Buruma regards the Netherlands as a quiet and religious country until the early 1960s. He says that in 1964 there was a great outrage at a parody of the 10 commandments on a satirical TV programme, yet 4 years later Amsterdam was a centre of the European counter-culture. Despite this much of rural Holland is still fairly conservative, especially in the Calvinist parts. He states that the death of Pim Fortyn was regarded a bit like the death of Princess Diana in the UK, that it led to a great national outpouring of sentimental and unDutch emotion. There is much more about the class backgrounds and accents of the people he meets. I've only just started his section on Hirsli Ali.....