About two years ago I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir “Infidel” and was immensely moved by her story, particularly the atrocities she suffered during her childhood in Africa and the how he struggled to escape an oppressive life. At the time, I could not imagine that anyone (except fanatical Muslims), let alone the victims of his own oppression, would not share his feelings and opinions. However, reading Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma sheds light on larger, darker components of this story, which clearly influenced some people to disapprove of his behavior, even Islamic women. As in the story of Hirsi Ali, Ian Buruma also identifies nuances in the main episode of the book – an episode that at first glance could be described as the murder of a fierce critic of Islam, Theo van Gogh (Hirsi Ali's friend). , by a Muslim. extremist, Mohammed Bouyeri. According to Buruma, although the common theme is immigration – involving two guests, Hirsi Ali and Bouyeri, and one guest, Van Gogh – there is no single explanation for what happened. Instead, each of these three characters, he explains, was influenced by a combination of personal experiences and external forces. It was therefore the clash between their different cultural values ​​and personal identities that led to the tragic morning of 2 November 2004, the day of Van Gogh's murder. Theo van Gogh, for example, was strongly influenced by the political and cultural context where he lived. He was born and raised in the Netherlands, a country that has gone from a peaceful, racially homogeneous society to an overly open multicultural home for immigrants, including Muslims. To understand this historical transformation, however, it is necessary to look back sixty years, when 71 percent of a... means of paper... it clearly appears that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh and Bouyeri had indeed highly divergent interpretations of different issues , including the relationship between Church and government and gender equality. Bouyeri, for example, a Muslim immigrant unable to assimilate into a secular, Western nation, seemed unable to identify with either his original culture or his host culture. His fanaticism, therefore, was apparently more a remedy for his feeling of isolation than a real identification. Ironically, the country that should host the most tolerant civilization in the entire world was the scene of an excellent example of intolerance: the murder of Van Gogh. Clearly, the contrasting perceptions of the three characters, added to the effects of globalization highlighted by Huntington (modernization economic and social change) made them fall - even if Bouyeri more visibly - into the "trap" of the clash of civilizations..