Ian Buruma：中国的负担

“不进行民主革命这种周而复始就永无尽头，因为暴力是没有言论自由的人典型的表达方法。这个规律不仅适用于西藏，也适用于中国的其他地方。只有全体中国人都得到了自由，西藏人才能自由。如果从这个意义而不是其他意义上讲，全体中国公民是休戚与共的。”

中国的负担
by Ian Buruma
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma24/Chinese

中国官员对这个有纪念意义的年份（天安门事件20周年）显然非常警惕。今年三月，我正在四川成都，那里生活着许多西藏人。就连对纪念日一无所知的外国旅游者都在街上被警察拦住查找叛乱迹象。色彩斑斓的藏区被警戒线隔离开来。那里不仅不允许拍照，甚至连穿行都十分困难。

而中国媒体则在纪念日当天刊登热情洋溢的评论描述西藏人摆脱数百年封建农奴制度的喜悦。如果按照《中国日报》的说法，“解放前”的西藏简直是一个人间地狱，而西藏人现在则因为身为中华人民共和国公民充满了兴奋和感激。

有些人可能的确如此。但也有许多人不是这样。可如果中国的宣传攻势把西藏的过去描绘得过于黑暗，同情西藏事业的西方人则常常显得太过感情用事。

达赖喇嘛的个人魅力以及超越精神智慧的喜马拉雅气质，描绘了一幅神秘、智慧、热爱和平的人们被野蛮帝国镇压的漫画。但许多受过教育的西藏人曾经在20世纪 50年代欢迎中国共产党也不为无因。藏传佛教被视为守旧和暴虐的象征也绝不是无缘无故。而中国共产党则承诺实现现代化。

中国政府在过去几十年中的确实现了自己的承诺。拉萨这个短短30年前还睡意朦胧、污秽不堪的穷乡僻壤，现在却拥有了大型的公共广场、购物中心和高层建筑，并通过高速铁路线与中国其他地方联通。现实情况是在地方政府中代表力量较弱的西藏人可能不像汉族人那样受益良多，有大量汉族人在拉萨等城市充任士兵、商人和妓女的角色，以致于人们开始担心西藏文化除作为官方的旅游景点，会逐渐陷入到灭绝的境地。

尽管如此，西藏城镇在电气化、教育、医疗和其他公共设施领域的现代化程度远远超过以往却是一个不争的事实。这个理由不仅被中国官员，而且也被几乎所有的中国民众广泛用作证明西藏与大中华融合的理由。

这种说法历史非常悠久。西方（事实上还有日本）帝国主义在20世纪初期把这当作自己支持当地人“文明化”或者“现代化”“使命”的理由。台湾在日本的统治下，事实上比中国其他地方更加现代化。而英国则把现代化的管理、以及铁路、大学和医院带到了印度。

可是除一小撮怀旧的沙文主义者之外，绝大多数欧洲人和日本人都不再如此坚信现代化足以证明帝国主义统治的正确。现代化应该由自治民众来领导，而不是由国外的力量强加。换句话说，应该允许西藏人实现自身的现代化。

但中国人还有另外一个论据，而且听上去更加真实可信（也更加现代化）。他们为中国民族的多样性感到自豪。为什么要根据语言或者种族情况来划分民族？如果要允许西藏人从中国分裂出去，为什么不允许威尔士人脱离英国、巴斯克人脱离西班牙、库尔德人脱离土耳其、克什米尔人脱离印度？

在某些情况下，答案可能是：没错，也许应该这样做。但把种族作为民族主要划分标志的理念既模糊又危险，在一定程度上因为这种做法把一切少数民族都排斥在外了。

那么人们支持西藏事业错了吗？难道我们应该把这当作一种感情用事的胡言乱语弃之不顾吗？那倒也不一定。这个问题无关于西藏文化、也无关于西藏信仰，甚至无关于民族独立，而是有关于政治共识的。

从这个角度讲，西藏人不比中华人民共和国的其他公民境况更差。中国到处都有历史的纪念碑以发展为名被推倒。文化正在被消毒、被同质化、被剥夺独立性和自主性，这在所有中国城市是普遍现象，而不仅是在西藏。无论汉、藏、维吾尔还是蒙古，没有中国公民能投票让执政党下台。

因此，主要问题不是民族或者歧视，而是政治。中国政府说西藏人非常满意。但如果没有言论自由，没有选举权，就没有办法知道是否真的如此。偶发的群体性暴力事件引来同样暴力的镇压，这表明许多人并不那样满足。

—————————————————————————————————————————————————
不进行民主革命这种周而复始就永无尽头，因为暴力是没有言论自由的人典型的表达方法。这个规律不仅适用于西藏，也适用于中国的其他地方。只有全体中国人都得到了自由，西藏人才能自由。如果从这个意义而不是其他意义上讲，全体中国公民是休戚与共的。
—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Ian Buruma，著有《阿姆斯特丹的谋杀：提奥·梵高之死和容忍的限度》一书。巴德学院民主、人权和新闻学教授。他最新的著作是《中国爱人》。

版权所有：Project Syndicate，2009。
www.project-syndicate.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Buruma

Ian Buruma From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ian Buruma
Ian Buruma talks with an attendee at the 2006 Texas Book Festival.
Born	December 28, 1951 (1951-12-28) (age 57) The Hague, Netherlands
Occupation	Writer, Lecturer
Nationality	Dutch
Genres	Non-fiction
Subjects	Japan, Occidentalism, Orientalism
Official website

Ian Buruma (born December 28, 1951) is an Anglo-Dutch writer and academic. Much of his work focuses on Asian culture, particularly that of 20th-century Japan.

He was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, to a Dutch father and English mother. He studied Chinese literature at Leiden University, and then Japanese film at Nihon University in Tokyo. He has held a number of editorial and academic positions, and has contributed numerous articles to the New York Review of Books. He has been noted as a "well-regarded European intellectual."^[1]

He has held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C and St Antony's College, Oxford. In 2003 he became Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights & Journalism at Bard College, New York.

Since 2005 he has resided in New York.

In 2008 Buruma was awarded the Erasmus Prize, which is awarded to an individual who has made "an especially important contribution to culture, society or social science in Europe."^[2]

[edit] Works

The Japanese Tattoo (1980) with Donald Richie
Behind the Mask: On Sexual Demons, Sacred Mothers, Transvestites, Gangsters, Drifters, and Other Japanese Cultural Heroes (1983)
Tokyo: Form and Spirit (1986) with James R. Brandon, Kenneth Frampton, Martin Friedman, Donald Richie
God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey (1989)
Great Cities of the World: Hong Kong (1991)
Playing the Game (1991) novel
The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and in Japan (1994)
Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art (1998) with Jodi Cobb
Voltaire's Coconuts, or Anglomania in Europe (UK title) (1998) or Anglomania: a European Love Affair (US title) (1999)
The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West (2000)
Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing (2001)
Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle 1853-1964 (2003)
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (2004) with Avishai Margalit
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (2006)
The China Lover (2008)

[edit] Notes

^ Backbone, Berman, and Buruma: A Debate that Actually Matters by Peter Collier
^ ianburuma.com

[edit] External links

Official Website, with curriculum vitae
Ian Buruma's monthly op/ed commentary series, "Crossing Cultures" for Project Syndicate
Ian Buruma discusses A Murder in Amsterdam [Video]
Journalisted - Articles by Ian Buruma
Buruma article archive from The New York Review of Books

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Buruma"

http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2008/11/03/ian-buruma-to-deliver-three-lectures-at-princeton-university/

Nov 3 2008

Ian Buruma to deliver three lectures at Princeton University

by Jessica Pellien | Filed in: Events - Religion | 8:27am EST

Princeton University Press and the Stafford Little Fund of the University Public Lecture Series are pleased to sponsor a series of lectures by Ian Buruma. Buruma’s lectures titled “No Divine Right: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents” will be presented at 8 p.m. Mondays, Nov. 3, 10 and 17, in McCosh 10 at Princeton University.

Ian Buruma, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, will address not only differences between Europe and America, but also the conflict between Islam and secularism in “Eurabia,” a term used to describe a Europe that some believe is being transformed into a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world. Lecture one: “Empty Churches and Full Tents.” Lecture two: “Wisdom From the East.” Lecture three: “Enlightenment Values.”

Buruma has been cultural editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong (1983-86) and foreign editor of The Spectator in London (1990-91). He has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and St. Antony’s College at Oxford University, and senior visiting fellow at the Remarque Institute at New York University. From 2000 to 2004 he was chair of the Humanities Centre at the Central European University in Budapest.

In 2008 Buruma won the Erasmus Prize, a Dutch award for contributions to European culture, and the Shorenstein Journalism Award. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and The Guardian, among other publications. He also is the author of numerous books including “Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies,” with Avishai Margalit (2004), “Conversations With John Schlesinger” (2006) and “Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance” (2006), which won the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Current Interest Book, and a novel, “The China Lover” (2008). He has taught at Bard College since 2003.

Princeton University Press will publish a book based on these lectures.

Iaan Buruma in media and magazines

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-173703051.html
PR Newswire Europe
International Prize for Ian Buruma.
PR Newswire Europe; January 23, 2008 ; 600 words ......has awarded the Erasmus Prize 2008 to the Dutch...political commentator Ian Buruma. The official...the prestigious Erasmus Prize will take place...Cosmopolitan'. Ian Buruma (1951) a new...Book. In 2004 Ian Buruma received a honorary...in Leiden. The ...

Getty Images
Dutch Crownprince Willem-Alexander (R) hands over the Erasmusprize...
Getty Images; November 7, 2008 ; 87 words ......Willem-Alexander (R) hands over the Erasmusprize to British/Dutch writer and journalist Ian Buruma in Rotterdam, on November 7, 2008. The Erasmus prize is an annual award that is awarded to people that have made an important contribution for...

The Press
The moderator
The Press; February 7, 2009 ; 110 words ...IAN BURUMA TALKS TO BEN NAPARSTEK FROM BOTH SIDES...chic, discuss the origins of evil with Ian Buruma. Amis slouches low inside his black leather...DETAILS SEE HARD COPY). THE CHINA LOVER by Ian Buruma Atlantic Books, $37...
NPR All Things Considered

Interview: Ian Buruma and Avisahi Margalit place the September 11th attacks into a broader historical context
NPR All Things Considered; January 10, 2002 ;     700+ words ...00-00-0000 Interview: Ian Buruma and Avisahi Margalit place the September...broader historical context. For writers Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit that context...stand it on its head. According to Ian Buruma, Occidentalists reduced the West...
Talk of the Nation (NPR)

Interview: Ian Buruma discusses the roots of Islamic extremism as told in his book "Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies"
Talk of the Nation (NPR); March 17, 2004 ;     700+ words ......the Nation (NPR) 03-17-2004 Interview: Ian Buruma discusses the roots of Islamic extremism...their motivation. In a new book, author Ian Buruma traces the historical roots of Islamic...989-TALK. Or e-mail us: to...@npr.org. Ian Buruma is the co-author of "Occidentalism: The...
The Scotsman

Book reviews: Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing: Broken in China
The Scotsman; July 27, 2002 ;     250 words ...Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing by Ian Buruma Weidenfeld & Nicolson, GBP 20 AFTER five years of research...values, which are themselves undermined by rampant consumerism. Ian Buruma is at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Tuesday...
The Stranger

Bicycle Drive-Bys
The Stranger; October 26, 2006 ;     700+ words ......Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma (Penguin Press) $24.95 Ian Buruma on the Murder of Theo van Gogh by Brendan Kiley...that the U.S. excels at-integrating newcomers. Ian Buruma, who was born in the Netherlands, knew Van...
The Independent - London

Books: Thick-headed John Bulls made for the constable's bludgeon
The Independent - London; March 14, 1999 ;     700+ words ...Voltaire's Coconuts, or Anglomania in Europe By Ian Buruma Weidenfeld pounds 18.99 Englishness is wasted on the English...at least as far as the 18th century, are the subject of Ian Buruma's thoughtful and entertaining book, which - for good measure...
The Scotsman

Goodness gracious,great balls of wool
The Scotsman; April 17, 1999 ;     700+ words ...Voltaire's Coconuts, or Anglomania in Europe By Ian Buruma Weidenfeld & Nicolson, GBP 18.99 IT TURNS out that Englishness...and baffle even the brightest, most elegant essayists. (Ian Buruma is certainly one of those, as well as a fine reporter...
Commonweal

Europe at the crossroads.(Books)(Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance)(Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics from the Great War to the War on Terror)(Book review)
Commonweal; April 20, 2007 ;     700+ words ......Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance Ian Buruma Penguin, $24.95, 288 pp. Sacred Causes...leading Dutch historian to journalist Ian Buruma, that we should be offering social welfare...and birthrates plot cultural destiny. Ian Buruma's examination of this subject is unusually...
The Spectator

Three men and a singer
The Spectator; November 22, 2008 ;     495 words ...THE CHINA LOVER by Ian Buruma Atlantic Books, 15.99, pp. 392, ISBN 9781843549048 12.79(plus 2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Ian Buruma's latest book, The China Lover, is a fictionalised take on themes previously examined in his impressive body of non-fiction...
Jerusalem Post

Lure of the Lotus
Jerusalem Post; March 20, 1997 ;     700+ words ......MISSIONARY AND THE LIBERTINE: Love and War in East and West by Ian Buruma. London, Faber and Faber. 308pp. 16.99. The countries grouped...national identity. Among more recent travelers in Asia is Ian Buruma, a writer whose keen insight and skillful prose raise his...
The Washington Post

Jonathan Yardley
The Washington Post; April 25, 1999 ;     700+ words ...ANGLOMANIA By Ian Buruma Random House 575 pp. $27.50 As a boy brought up in Holland, the son of a Dutch father and an English mother, Ian Buruma positively venerated his British grandfather, whom he saw not merely as a beloved member of his own...
The Independent - London

A Japanese diva on the set of history
The Independent - London; December 5, 2008 ;     471 words ...The China Lover By Ian Buruma ATLANTIC Pounds 15.99 (394p) Pounds 14.39 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 Reading Ian Buruma's novel is like your first visit to a sushi shop with a knowledgeable friend. Everything is unfamiliar, some of it unpalatable...
The Boston Globe

Portrait of an outsider in two different worlds
The Boston Globe; August 14, 1991 ;     676 words ...PLAYING THE GAME. By Ian Buruma. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 232 pp., $19 Baseball as a cultural...America has its counterpart in cricket as an image of England. Ian Buruma's poignant novel, "Playing the Game," portrays a legendary cricketer...

http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2008/1/23/international-prize-for-ian-buruma/
01/23/08 17:21 International Prize for Ian Buruma

http://thelowcountries.blogspot.com/2008/11/of-old-and-new-cosmopolitans-ian-buruma.html
Monday, 17 November 2008

Of Old and New Cosmopolitans: Ian Buruma and the Erasmus Prize

Rotterdam has ignored the life of one of its famous citizens for a long time. Research in 2003 showed that many Rotterdammers believe Erasmus was the designer of the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. That would possibly imply he was also the architect of the Brooklyn Erasmus Hall in NYC. So let’s put this straight right here: the Erasmus Bridge was designed by Ben van Berkel and completed in 1996, the Erasmus Hall Campus High School on the east side of Flatbush Avenue was built after a design by C. B. J. Snyder, New York City's school architect, and Erasmus himself was – as Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote in his A History of Christianity (1953) – ‘the crowning glory of the Christian humanists’.

The Erasmus Prize, on the other hand, is an annual prize awarded by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, a Dutch non-profit organization, to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science. The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation was founded on 23 June 1958 by the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.With its 150,000 eurosthe Prize is one of the biggest and most important cultural awards in Europe.

This year the Erasmus Prize celebrated its 50th birthday with a special 2008 Erasmus Festival and in such a festive year it was only apt to award it to someone like Ian Buruma. An Anglo-Dutch writer and academic, Buruma was born in The Hague in 1951, to a Dutch father and English mother. He studied Chinese literature at Leiden University, and then Japanese film at Nihon University in Tokyo. He has held a number of editorial and academic positions, has contributed numerous articles to the New York Review of Books, and also sits on the Advisory Committee of our yearbook The Low Countries. After having held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C and St Antony's College, Oxford, he became Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights & Journalism at Bard College, New York. His book Murder in Amsterdam on the murder of film director Theo van Gogh was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Current Interest Book. In 2008 he held the Cleveringa-chair at the University of Leiden and spent time as a professorial fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden.

Max Sparreboom, director of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation called Buruma a true example of the ‘new cosmopolitism’. Just like Erasmus, who called himself a citizen of the world and was at home wherever his books were, Ian Buruma (who incidentally also wrote a personal essay in the 2005 issue of the yearbook The Low Countries about how he himself as a child and the country where he grew up digested the Holocaust) crosses national and mental borders and demonstrates undogmatic thinking, a critical broadmindedness and a desire to stimulate human dignity. The board of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation stated it very eloquently in its citation: 'The oeuvre of Buruma is nourished by a fascination for the world on yonder side of bourgeois narrow-mindedness.' Or to quote from Buruma's acceptance speech: 'I do not believe that we need to conform to a common culture, or a common faith, to make liberal democracy work. What is needed in a cosmopolitan society is an agreement to abide by common rules of the democratic game. We must agree to obey the laws, created by our elected parliaments. We must learn to accept one another as equal citizens, whatever we choose to wear on our heads. This will not always be easy. But one thing is sure; without tolerance we are doomed to failure.'

Photos: statue of Desiderius Erasmus in Rotterdam, and Ian Buruma's acceptance speech in November 2008.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/01/erasmus_prize_for_ian_buruma.php
Readers' comments

What does that statement mean hit the headlines? And why does it take the Dutch sooooooooo long to recognize just about anything? Iam Buruma has been famous for years, renowned academic for thirty years or so in America and Japan. What's the fuss?

By elise krentzel | January 31, 2008 1:55 AM

http://www.ianburuma.com/curriculum_vitae.htm

IAN BURUMA curriculum vitae

Born on December 28, 1951, in The Hague, The Netherlands, to a British mother and a Dutch father.

Based in New York City since 2005.

Higher Education and Degrees

Kandidaat in Chinese Literature and History at Leyden University, 1971-75.

Postgraduate Scholarship in Japanese Cinema at Nihon University, College of Arts (Nichidai Geijutsu Gakko), Tokyo, Japan,1975-77.

Honorary Doctorate in Theology, University of Groningen, 2004.

Professional Experience

Worked as a documentary filmmaker and photographer in Tokyo (1977-80).

Cultural Editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong (1983-86).

Foreign Editor of The Spectator, London (1990-91).

Chairman of Humanities Centre, Central European University, Budapest (2000-04).

Board Member of The Einstein Forum, Potsdam, since 2005.

Board Member of Human Rights in China, New York, since 2006.

Faculty Member, Salzburg Seminar, Salzburg, Austria (March-April, 2007).

Curator, "Gamblers, Gangsters, and Other Anti-Heroes:The Japanese Yakuza Movie", Asia Society, New York (March-April, 2008).

Since 2003, Ian Buruma is Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights & Journalism at Bard College, NY. In this function, he has:

- offered courses in War Crime Trials, Modern Japanese History, Great Dictators, Intellectual Currents against the West, Religion and Democracy, and WWII from US and Japanese Perspectives.

- also taught in the Bard Prison Programme, at Eastern Correctional Institution, NY, Spring 2004.

Fellowships and Prizes

Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, 1991-92.

Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., 1998-99.

Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow, St. Antony's College, Oxford, 1999-2000.

Senior Visiting Fellow, Remarque Institute, New York University, Fall 2000.

Thr 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Current Interest Book for Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance.

The 2008 Erasmus Prize.

The 2008 Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Books

The Japanese Tattoo (Weatherhill, Tokyo, 1980), text Donald Richie, photographs Ian Buruma.

Behind the Mask: On Sexual Demons, Sacred Mothers, Transvestites, Gangsters, Drifters and Other Japanese Cultural Heroes (Pantheon, 1984), entitled A Japanese Mirror (Cape, 1983) in the UK.

God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1988).

Playing the Game (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1990).

The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Japan and Germany (Farrar, Straus, Giroux,1995).

The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West (Random House, 1996).

Anglomania: a European Love Affair (Random House, 1999), entitled Voltaire's Coconuts, or Anglomania in Europe (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999) in the UK.

Bad Elements: Among the Rebels, Dissidents, and Democrats of Greater China (Random House, 2001).

Inventing Japan: 1853-1964 (Modern Library Chronicles, 2003).

Occidentalism: TheWest in the Eyes of its Enemies (Penguin USA, 2004).

Conversations with John Schlesinger (Random House, 2006).

Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance(Penguin, 2006).

The China Lover (Penguin, 2008)

Other Publications

Regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and other publications in the Americas, Europe, and Asia .

Languages

English, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese.

Named Lectures, among others:

Van der Leeuw Lezing, Groningen University (1993)

Lionel Trilling Lecture, Columbia University (1998)

Huizinga Lezing, Leyden University (2000)

Takahashi Lecture, Stanford University (2002)

Olin Lecture, University of Chicago (2003)

Robert B. Silvers Lecture, New York Public Library (2004)

Annie Sonnenblick Lecture, Wesleyan University (2006)

Numerous other lectures and keynote speeches at: Princeton; Harvard; UCLA; New School, New York; New York University; University of Pennsylvania, City University of New York; Trinity College; University of North Carolina; University of Toronto; University of Michigan; Kenyon College; Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin; Frankfurt University; St.Antony's College, Oxford; London School of Economics; Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC; University of Notre Dame, Indiana; Berkeley Journalism School; SAIS Johns Hopkins, Washington DC; Emory University, Atlanta; Council of Foreign Relations, New York; Asia Society, New York; Japan Society, London and New York; Mount Holyoke, Mass; Rubin Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/246

Ian Buruma on Project Syndicate

Ian Buruma is the author of Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. He is a professor of democracy, human rights and journalism at Bard College. His latest book is the novel The China Lover.

Date	Title / Authors	Available Languages
April 2009	China’s Burden by Ian Buruma
March 2009	How Free is Speech? by Ian Buruma
February 2009	The Jewish Conspiracy in Asia by Ian Buruma
January 2009	China’s Best Hope by Ian Buruma
December 2008	The Last of the Neo-Cons by Ian Buruma
November 2008	Obamamania by Ian Buruma
October 2008	Fear and Loathing in Europe by Ian Buruma
September 2008	The Wrong Lesson of Munich by Ian Buruma
August 2008	The Death of a Nation by Ian Buruma
June 2008	Football Nationalism by Ian Buruma

June 2008	The Empire of Human Rights by Ian Buruma
May 2008	Send in the Clowns by Ian Buruma
April 2008	The Last of the Tibetans by Ian Buruma
March 2008	Liberty and Music by Ian Buruma
February 2008	A War on Tolerance by Ian Buruma
January 2008	The Year of the “China Model” by Ian Buruma
December 2007	Legislating History by Ian Buruma
November 2007	Lucky Little Countries? by Ian Buruma
October 2007	Revolts of the Righteous by Ian Buruma
September 2007	The History Man by Ian Buruma

June 2007	Embracing the Empire by Ian Buruma
April 2007	The Strange Death of Multiculturalism by Ian Buruma
September 2001	The Second Life of Chairman Mao by Ian Buruma

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS80273+23-Jan-2008+PRN20080123

International Prize for Ian Buruma

Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:00am EST
AMSTERDAM, January 23 /PRNewswire/ --
    - Erasmus Prize 50 Years
    In 2008 the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation celebrates it 50th
anniversary. His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands founded
the Prize in 1958. The Prize is awarded annually to a person who, within the
cultural traditions of Europe, has made an especially important contribution
to culture, society or social science in Europe. The prize money is a sum of
EUR 150.000.
    The Board of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation (Amsterdam) has awarded
the Erasmus Prize 2008 to the Dutch/British journalist, author and political
commentator Ian Buruma.
    The official award ceremony of the prestigious Erasmus Prize will take
place on 7 November in Rotterdam. The theme of the Prize in this jubilee year
is 'The New Cosmopolitan'.
    Ian Buruma (1951) a new cosmopolitan. After studying Chinese in Leiden
and Japanese film in Tokyo, he became cultural editor of The Far Eastern
Economic Review and foreign editor of The Spectator; since 2003 he is Henry
R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College,
New York. He was chairman of the Humanities Centre of the Central European
University in Budapest, fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and the
Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington. He is member of the scientific advisory
council of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam and member of the board of Human
Rights in China in New York. Ian Buruma has written about Japan, China, Asia
and their often problematic relationships with the West. He is one of the
leading international essayists on East-West relations. Ian Buruma is a
regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. His book Murder in
Amsterdam on the murder of Theo van Gogh was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles
Times Book Prize for the Best Current Interest Book. In 2004 Ian Buruma
received a honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen. In 2008 he is
holding the Cleveringa-chair at the University of Leiden and will be
professorial fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)
in Leiden.
    The Erasmus Prize derives its name and inspiration from the Dutch
humanist scholar, Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536). Renowned theologian and
teacher, Erasmus was a true world citizen; his view of life was universal:
knowledge must prevail over ignorance, order over chaos and humaneness is of
greater value than any dogma. Erasmus defended the integrity of the intellect
and pleaded for moderation and tolerance. Praise of Folly is one of his best
known works.
    'The New Cosmopolitan' is a citizen of a new world, in which boundaries
of all sorts are easily transcended; where people of diverse cultures work
together readily and economic and cultural exchange as intrinsic. The new
world citizen likes to picture a world without hindrances, but is forced to
confront societal realities, where identity is frequently defined by
traditional differences such as nationality, culture, religion or ethnic
origins. With this thematic the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation raises the
issue of the tension that exists between a cosmopolitan attitude and the
responsibility for one's own social environment.
    Previous laureates of the Erasmus Prize include Charlie Chaplin (1965),
Henry Moore (1968), Claude Levi-Strauss (1973), Vaclav Havel (1986), Bernard
Haitink (1991), Jacques Delors (1997), Hans van Manen (2000) and Alan
Davidson (2003).
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Note for the Editor
http://www.erasmusprijs.org
    For more biographical information and an extensive survey of publications
by Ian Buruma please refer to http://www.ianburuma.com
SOURCE Stichting Praemium Erasmianum

For more information: Prof. dr Max Sparreboom, Praemium Erasmianum Foundation,
Jan van Goyenkade 5, 1075 HN Amsterdam, Tel.+ 31-20-6752753, E mail
s...@erasmusprijs.org

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/magazine/04ramadan.t.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/magazine/04ramadan.t.html?pagewanted=print

February 4, 2007

IAN BURUMA: Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue

Tariq Ramadan, Muslim, scholar, activist, Swiss citizen, resident of Britain, active on several continents, is a hard man to pin down. People call him “slippery,” “double-faced,” “dangerous,” but also “brilliant,” a “bridge-builder,” a “Muslim Martin Luther.” He wants Muslims to become active citizens of the West but four years ago was himself refused permission to enter the U.S. He could not take up the teaching position he’d been offered at the University of Notre Dame. Oxford University took him on as a visiting fellow instead.

To his admirers, he is a courageous reformer who works hard to fill the chasm between Muslim orthodoxy and secular democracy. Young European Muslims flock to his talks, which are widely distributed on audiocassettes. A brilliant speaker, he inspires his audiences, rather like Black Power leaders did in the 1960s, by instilling a sense of pride. A friend of mine saw him last year in Rotterdam, talking to a hall packed with around 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. To them he had the aura of an Islamic superstar. Even my friend, an Iranian-born Dutchman with entirely secular views, was impressed by the eloquence of this Muslim thinker, who wishes to press his faith into the mainstream of European life. His critics see things differently: they accuse him of anti-Semitism, religious bigotry, promoting the oppression of women and waging a covert holy war on the liberal West.

I first met Ramadan last year in Paris. The French news magazine Le Point had organized a debate between the two of us on Muslims in Europe (or “Eurabia,” as some fearful people are now calling my native continent). I was instructed to “really push him.” But if the hope of Le Point was for sparks to fly, they were disappointed. Ramadan is much too smooth for sparks. Slim, handsome and dressed in a very elegant suit, he spoke softly in fluent English, with a slight French accent. His first languages were French and Arabic, but he heard English at home in Geneva, spoken mostly by visiting Pakistanis.

Perhaps I didn’t push hard enough. We agreed on most issues, and even when we didn’t (he was more friendly toward the pope than I was), our “debate” refused to catch fire. So when I set off for London a few months later to talk to him again, I felt that I had seen the polished Ramadan, the international performer who, in the words of Reuel Marc Gerecht, an expert on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute, sounds “like a British diplomat at the U.N.,” the kind who leaves you with “a strong impression that prevarication is in the DNA.”

So who is Tariq Ramadan? What does he stand for? Even physically, he proved a hard man to pin down. We had made an appointment, but fixing a time was a challenge. His Oxford college had no idea where he was. A home number could not be provided. E-mail messages went unanswered. Perhaps he was in Rotterdam, where he holds a chair in “Identity and Citizenship” at Erasmus University. Perhaps he was in France, or maybe somewhere else, appearing on a television talk show, signing books, speaking at a conference. Finally, a secretary from his office in Paris was able to make a connection. He was in Stockholm. We managed to meet the next day at the house of a friend in London. Ramadan, beard neatly clipped, was dressed, as always, in a smart suit and an open shirt.

“I want to be an activist professor,” he told me. This means that he spends more time writing, speaking and advising everyone from Tony Blair to the elders of mosques than on university teaching. Ramadan, who is 44, also lives the life of a devout Muslim, praying five times a day. The main thing, for him, is to find a way for Muslims to escape their minority status and play a central role as European citizens. “The fact that Western Muslims are free,” he said, “means that they can have enormous impact. But it would be wrong to claim that we are imposing our ways on the West. New ideas are now coming from the West. To be traditional is not so much a question of protecting ourselves as to be traditionalist in principle.”

Traditionalist principles, for Ramadan, apply to politics as much as to religion. Muslims, he says, should not try to create a “parallel system” to Western democracy, let alone aspire to building a Muslim state. “There is no such thing,” he says, “as an Islamic order. We have to act to promote justice and inject our ethics into the existing system.” According to Ramadan, the global order of neoliberal capitalism allows the wealthy West to dominate the world. Resisting this order is part of his task as an activist professor, who derives his “universal principles” from his Muslim faith. This message not only provides educated European Muslims with a political cause but is also pushed with considerable success at such international leftist jamborees as the World Social Forum, where the world’s antiglobalists meet.

I asked Ramadan what it was like to grow up as an Egyptian Muslim in Geneva. And not just any Egyptian Muslim: his maternal grandfather was Hassan al-Banna, founder in 1928 of the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to resist what it regards as Western domination and create an Islamic state. Al-Banna was murdered in 1949, by Egyptian government agents, following the assassination of the Egyptian prime minister by a Muslim Brother. “Difficult,” Ramadan replied, “very difficult, and full of tensions. There were very few Muslims in Geneva in the 1960s, apart from a few United Nations people and some North Africans. Some of my brothers were attracted by Western life, and one of them even rejected everything to do with religion. But our parents were very liberal about it, never forcing me to pray, always open to dialogue and discussion.”

“Liberal” was a surprising description of Ramadan’s father, Said Ramadan, al-Banna’s favorite disciple and a tireless promoter of political Islam. He had to escape from President Nasser’s Egypt, after the Muslim Brotherhood was banned there in 1954 (a Muslim Brother was accused of trying to kill Nasser), and settled in Geneva. The youngest of six children, Tariq was named after Tariq Ibn Ziyad, the North African Muslim who conquered Spain in 711. Ramadan denies being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood — one of whose credos is “God is our goal, the Prophet our model, the Koran our law, holy war our way and martyrdom our desire” — but is proud of his illustrious background. To many Muslims al-Banna is still a very great man. When I met Ramadan later in the week at the gigantic East London Mosque, I heard him being introduced, with a tone of reverence, as al-Banna’s grandson. “With older people it lends authority to what I’m saying,” Ramadan told me, as we walked through the mosque, where the main languages were Bengali and Urdu, apart from quotations from the Koran, which were in Arabic.

Even though Ramadan’s father represented the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, promoting the cause of Islamic government, Ramadan went to a mainstream Swiss school, where he got a solid grounding in French literature and European philosophy. He graduated a year early and studied philosophy, literature and social sciences at University of Geneva. By age 24, he was already dean of a high school and later lectured in religious studies at a college in Geneva and the University of Fribourg. I was fascinated to learn that of all European philosophers, Ramadan chose to study Friedrich Nietzsche, who had anticipated the death of religious faith. He even wrote his doctoral thesis on Nietzsche. Had he ever experienced any doubts himself?

“Doubts about God, no,” he replied. “But questions, yes. Nietzsche raised strong and accurate questions about religion, on how religious identities are built, and how believers use victim status to become killers themselves. I also read everything by Dostoyevsky, whom I liked from the very beginning. That was my universal frame of reference. It was not easy, growing up in a committed Muslim family while dealing with people outside who were drinking, and all that. But I was protected on ethical grounds, as a religious person, first of all by playing sports, every day, for two hours or more — football, tennis, running. And reading, reading, reading, five hours a day, sometimes eight hours. My father warned me that life was not in books. But it meant that even though I stayed away from drinking, I got respect from the people around me. I was known as ‘the professor,’ ‘le docteur.’ ”

The notion of the bookish grandson of Hassan al-Banna reading Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky is arresting but not entirely surprising. Like them, he was wrestling with the idea of a disenchanted world that appeared to be falling into nihilism. In his teens and early 20s, Ramadan says, he “felt lonely in Europe, facing racial discrimination, and all that. So I idealized Egypt. My body was in Europe, but my heart was over there. I wanted to go back ‘home.’ ”

In 1986 Ramadan married a Swiss woman, the sister of one of his football buddies who had converted to Islam. She took the name Iman, and they moved with their young children to Cairo in 1991, where Ramadan studied Muslim philosophy with scholars from Al-Azhar University. Their stay in Egypt deepened his understanding of Islam but also turned him into a convinced European. “I felt I had been misled,” he told me. “The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong. Everything I am doing now, speaking of connections, intersections, universal values we have in common, this was already there in history.” At the same time, he realized that “home” was actually in Europe, that while Islam was his faith, his culture was European. Ramadan’s intellectual struggle to bridge different traditions was a personal one too.

In his book, “Western Muslims and the Future of Islam,” published in 2004, Ramadan lists various approaches to Islam, from “political literalist Salafism” — militant, anti-Western, in favor of the Islamic state — to “liberal reformism,” which sees faith as an entirely private affair. I asked him at the mosque where he placed himself. “A Salafi reformist,” he said, which might seem a contradiction but is explained in his book as follows: “The aim is to protect the Muslim identity and religious practice, to recognize the Western constitutional structure, to become involved as a citizen at the social level and to live with true loyalty to the country to which one belongs.”

Ramadan’s favorite Muslim philosophers are the late-19th-century reformists Muhammad Abduh and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, who tried to revive Islam under Western colonial rule by rational interpretation of the holy texts. They were skeptical of religious tradition, accumulated over time, and looked for core principles in the Koran that spoke to reason. For them there was no contradiction between scientific reasoning and their Muslim faith. And female emancipation or democratic government could be reconciled with the original principles of Islam. Both had lived in Europe. Both were harsh critics of colonialism and Western materialism. In Ramadan’s words, “They saw the need to resist the West, through Islam, while taking what was useful from it.”

Speaking about his grandfather, Ramadan observed: “People say that his ideas formed the basis of Al Qaeda. This is not true.” The spiritual father of revolutionary Islam, according to Ramadan and others, was another Egyptian Muslim Brother, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated a holy war against the idolatrous West. Ramadan pointed out that “Qutb actually joined the Muslim Brotherhood after my grandfather was killed. They didn’t even know each other. My position on Hassan al-Banna is that he was much closer to Muhammad Abduh. He was in favor of a British-style parliamentary system, which was not against Islam.”

This may or may not be an accurate representation of Hassan al-Banna, but it tells us a lot about the way Ramadan presents himself. Reconciling what seems hard to reconcile is what makes him an interesting and sometimes baffling figure. It is why the University of Notre Dame appointed him as Henry R. Luce professor of religion, conflict and peace building. Prof. R. Scott Appleby, the man who did everything he could to bring Ramadan to South Bend, Ind., was hardly naïve about Ramadan’s European reputation. Over breakfast in New York recently, he told me: “He’s doing something extraordinarily difficult if not impossible, but it needs to be done. He is accused of being Janus-faced. Well, of course he presents different faces to different audiences. He is trying to bridge a divide and bring together people of diverse backgrounds and worldviews. He considers the opening he finds in his audience. Ramadan is in that sense a politician. He cultivates various publics in the Muslim world on a variety of issues; he wants to provide leadership and inspiration. The reason we wanted him is precisely because he’s got his ear to the ground of the Muslim world.”

And this may also have been the reason that the U.S. State Department revoked his work visa in July 2004. Ramadan had already sent all his family possessions to South Bend. His children had been enrolled in local schools. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Ramadan was denied entry under a provision of the Patriot Act that bars foreigners from the U.S. who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity.” After the A.C.L.U and various academic groups contested the government’s refusal to process Ramadan’s application for another visa, a federal judge ruled that the State Department had to make a decision. The State Department refused to issue another visa on the grounds that Ramadan had donated roughly $900 to two European organizations that give aid to Palestinians. The organizations were, and still are, legitimate charities in Europe but since Ramadan made his donations have been blacklisted in the U.S. for supposedly giving money to Hamas. The A.C.L.U. lawyer, Jameel Jaffer, told me that Ramadan had fallen foul of the same principle that used to bar Communists from coming to the U.S.: his politics are not welcome.

But what exactly are his politics? Ramadan explained to me what shaped his political understanding: “In my family, resistance was a key concept, resistance against dictatorship and colonialism. When I was 18, I started to travel to southern countries, in Latin America, India and Africa. The people I met were often leftists. The liberation theologists in Brazil were very important, resisting in the name of religious principles. I was at home with this discourse. I was also close to the Tibetans and spent one month with the Dalai Lama. It was the same philosophy, spiritual commitment and resistance, in their case against Chinese colonialism. Perhaps because of these personal experiences, I started to read the work of my own grandfather, who used the Scriptures, the story of Moses, against British colonialism. He was saying in the 1940s what the liberation theologists were saying in the 1960s.”

Some of Ramadan’s critics, most notably the French journalist Caroline Fourest, who wrote a sharp attack on him titled “Frère Tariq” (Brother Tariq), draw a direct line from Hassan al-Banna, through Said Ramadan and Tariq Ramadan himself, to the militant Islamism threatening the West today. Such was the disquiet in France about Islamist violence that Ramadan was barred from that country in 1995. The ban was eventually lifted. Ramadan prefers to see the family legacy in terms of “Islamic socialism, which is neither socialist, nor capitalist, but a third way.” In this reading, his father’s friendship with Malcolm X is much more significant than any Saudi Arabian connection. This is why Ramadan was a popular speaker with African-American Muslims before his visa was revoked.

“Western Muslims and the Future of Islam” throws some light on Ramadan’s idea of “Islamic socialism,” an ideology, combining religious principles with anticapitalist, anti-imperialist politics, that goes back to the time of the Russian Revolution. (Libya’s strongman, Muammar el-Qaddafi, is one who claims to rule according to these principles.) The murderous tyranny to be resisted, in Ramadan’s book, is “the northern model of development,” which means that “a billion and a half human beings live in comfort because almost four billion do not have the means to survive.” For Ramadan, global capitalism, promoted by such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is the “abode of war” (alam al-harb), for “when faced with neoliberal economics, the message of Islam offers no way out but resistance.”

To be a sworn enemy of capitalism does not mean you are a communist, a fascist, a religious fundamentalist or indeed an anti-Semite, but it is something these otherwise disparate groups frequently have in common. Advocating a revolt against Western materialism on the basis of superior spiritual values is an old project, which has had many fathers but has never been particularly friendly to liberal democracy. Ramadan’s brand of Islamic socialism, promoted with such media-friendly vitality, in conferences, interviews, books, talks, sermons and lectures, has won him a variety of new friends, especially in Britain and France.

Gilles Kepel, a leading French scholar of Islam, describes in his book “The War for Muslim Minds” how Ramadan “reached out to make alliances with the far left, working a territory abandoned by his rivals” — rivals, that is, like André Glucksmann, once a Maoist, now a supporter of the war in Iraq. Kepel goes on to explain that Ramadan “exchanged his costume as the Muslim Youth’s spokesman — an outfit too tight to accommodate his ambitions and talent — for the garb of the universalist intellectual.” Just as Marxists claim a universal validity for their political ideology, Ramadan says he believes that religious principles, as revealed in the Koran, are universal. It was as a universalist that Ramadan promoted the right of Muslim women to wear the veil at French schools. “Rights are rights,” he said, “and to demand them is a right.”

This has been read as a rallying cry to convert the West to Islam, the first step toward the establishment of Eurabia. Ramadan denies that this is his intention. “Whatever your faith,” he explained to me, “you are dealing with your fundamental principles. The message of Islam is justice. The neoliberal order leads to injustice. The point is to extract universal principles from one’s faith, but in politics it has to be a personal decision. The danger of my discourse in France is that I’m telling people to be citizens. Muslims are still treated as aliens. I’m telling them to vote.”

Ramadan, as Kepel observes, is “balanced on a tightrope,” for his socialism is not always congenial to devout Muslims. Marx (along with “the Jew,” “the Crusader” and “the Secularist”) is a demonic figure for the Muslim Brothers. Ramadan is candid about his enemies: “My fiercest critics come from majority Muslim countries. Traditional Salafists condemn me for being against Islam.” Conversely, Ramadan’s defense of certain practices rooted in Islamic tradition creates much suspicion among those who might otherwise agree with his politics.

Two media-driven controversies helped to make Ramadan both famous and notorious. The first was an exchange on French television in 2003 with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister (now running for president as the candidate of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement party), well known for his description of rioters in poor immigrant neighborhoods as “scum.” Sarkozy accused Ramadan of defending the stoning of adulterers, a punishment stipulated in the section of the Islamic penal code known as huddud. Ramadan replied that he favored “a moratorium” on such practices but refused to condemn the law outright. Many people, including Sarkozy, were outraged. When I talked with Ramadan in London, the mere mention of the word “stoning” set him off on a long explanation.

“Personally,” he said, “I’m against capital punishment, not only in Muslim countries, but also in the U.S. But when you want to be heard in Muslim countries, when you are addressing religious issues, you can’t just say it has to stop. I think it has to stop. But you have to discuss it within the religious context. There are texts involved. I am not just talking to Muslims in Europe, but addressing the implementation of huddud everywhere, in Indonesia, Pakistan and the Middle East. And I’m speaking from the inside to Muslims. Speaking as an outsider would be counterproductive. But now I can say that Sarkozy helped me enormously, because the controversy helped me to spread my ideas.”

The other, perhaps even more contentious issue, also raised by Sarkozy, was Ramadan’s supposed anti-Semitism. A month before the television debate, Ramadan posted an article on a Web site named Oumma.com, titled “Critique of the (New) Communalist Intellectuals.” This article had been turned down by both Le Monde and Libération. Ramadan’s main argument was that “French Jewish intellectuals” — like Bernard-Henri Lévy, Alain Finkielkraut, Bernard Kouchner, André Glucksmann and Pierre-André Taguieff (in fact not Jewish at all) — who used to be “considered universalist intellectuals” had become knee-jerk defenders of Israel and thus “had relativized the defense of universal principles of equality and justice.” Ramadan was trying to turn the tables on those who accuse Muslims of obsessing about their victimhood by accusing “Jewish intellectuals” of doing precisely that, thinking of just their own tribal concerns, while Ramadan’s pursuit of justice for Palestinians was supposedly part of a universalist project. These intellectuals were of course “the rivals” who, in Kepel’s phrase, had “abandoned” the left, just as many early neoconservatives had done in the U.S.

Ramadan’s attack was unfair. The intellectuals he mentioned had all championed many causes other than Israel, including putting a stop to the mass murder of Muslims in Bosnia. And by compiling this blacklist of Jews and placing a philosopher whose name merely sounded Jewish among them, he opened himself to the charge of anti-Semitism. The response was shrill. André Glucksmann wrote: “What is surprising is not that Mr. Ramadan is anti-Semitic, but that he dares to proclaim it openly.” Bernard-Henri Lévy compared Ramadan’s article with “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the vicious Russian forgery about Jewish world domination. It all was vastly overblown, but these labels have a way of sticking to their target. When I asked the British Labor politician Denis MacShane, one of the few British politicians with a deep knowledge of France, about Ramadan, he repeated all the allegations about Ramadan’s religious bigotry but said that the “fundamental dividing line is about Israel and the Jews.”

Ramadan himself says that it was because of his views on Israel and on U.S. policy in Iraq that he was deprived of his visa to teach in the U.S. He told me: “I was asked to take part in a dialogue in Paris with representatives of American Jewish organizations, including Jack Rosen, head of the American Jewish Congress. It turned out to be less of a dialogue than an interview about my opinions on the Palestinian conflict. Rosen promised to talk to President Bush. But after this interview, I knew I would never get a visa.”

This might sound like just the kind of conspiracy theory anti-Semites tend to indulge in. But unlike some Islamic activists, Ramadan has never expressed any hostility to Jews in general. There is no question that he is ferociously anti-Zionist. He sees this as part of his resistance to colonialism. A glance at his Web site shows precisely where he stands. “The dignity of the Palestinians is to resist, ours is to denounce. ... That means denouncing fears as much as the unjust and wretched policies which continue to kill an entire people in an occupied territory.”

Ramadan is in fact one of the few Muslim intellectuals to speak out against anti-Semitism. In an article in Le Monde, he wrote: “We have heard the cries of ‘down with the Jews!’ shouted during protest demonstrations, and reports of synagogues being vandalized in various French cities. One also hears ambiguous statements about Jews, their secret power, their insidious role within the media, and their nefarious plans. ... Too rarely do we hear Muslim voices that set themselves apart from this kind of discourse and attitude.”

Nonetheless, Ramadan’s criticism of Jewish intellectuals missed the point. The main reason his European critics, Jews or non-Jews, have turned against Islam, and political Islam in particular, is not Israel so much as a common fear that secularism is under threat. That fear is coupled with a deep disillusion, in the wake of failed Marxist dictatorships, with the kind of anticolonial leftism that Ramadan now promotes in the name of universal principles rooted in the heart of Islam. As Denis MacShane put it to me, “Ramadan repudiates core European principles that developed from Galileo to gay marriages.”

What enrages former or current progressives is the apparent paradox that lies at the heart of Ramadan’s political rhetoric. On global capitalism he speaks like a 1968 left-wing student revolutionary, but on social affairs he can sound like the illiberal conservatives whom those students opposed. In American terms, he is a Noam Chomsky on foreign policy and a Jerry Falwell on social affairs. One of Ramadan’s fiercest critics in France, Caroline Fourest, fears that he has long-term plans to challenge European secularism through religious bigotry. She told me over the phone that she considered Ramadan “more dangerous than the obvious extremists, precisely because he sounds more reasonable.” The question of women is key to this.

I wanted to know what exactly Ramadan meant by “Islamic femininity,” described in “Western Muslims and the Future of Islam” in terms of “natural complementarity” and “autonomy of the feminine being.” This sounded a trifle vague. He replied: “When you are struggling for your rights, you can achieve a legal status. This is necessary. We must have the struggle for equal rights of women. But the body must not be forgotten. Men and women are not the same. In Islamic tradition, women are seen in terms of being mothers, wives or daughters. Now woman exists as woman.”

I was not sure this answer left me much the wiser. Later I put some of Caroline Fourest’s allegations to him — that he had advised Muslim girls to avoid shaking hands with men; that he warned against mixed swimming pools; that women should not be allowed to engage in sports if their bodies were exposed to men. He claims that these quotes were taken out of context. “What I mean,” he said, “is that men and women should have a choice. If they want to follow the rules of modesty, they should be able to choose to do so. Myself, I shake hands with women.” I asked him whether his own daughters practiced their faith. He laughed and said that he certainly hoped so, but they were free to choose. Both were sent to ordinary public schools in Switzerland and Britain.

The question is how far secular society should be pushed to accommodate Islamic principles. “We are in favor of integration,” Ramadan says in a recorded speech, “but it is up to us to decide what that means. ... I will abide by the laws, but only insofar as the laws don’t force me to do anything against my religion.” A Muslim must be able to practice and teach and “act in the name of his faith.” If any given society should take this right away, he continues, “I will resist and fight that society.” There is some ambiguity here. What does it mean to act in the name of one’s faith? In 1993 he was against the performance of “Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet,” a play by Voltaire, in Geneva, saying it “would be another brick in the edifice of hatred and rejection.” And yet he is careful not to call for violence or legal bans. As in the case of the Danish cartoons lampooning Islam, he prefers to use such words as “respect” or “tact.”

Olivier Roy, perhaps France’s greatest authority on Islam, says that the matter of respect, what he calls “the discourse of dignity,” is Ramadan’s greatest appeal to his followers. I asked Roy in a telephone interview recently who Ramadan’s main followers were. “Not the first generation of immigrants,” he replied, “and certainly not the fundamentalists. The poor in the French suburbs don’t care about him, either. He appeals to people of the second generation, who have a college or university education but do not feel fully integrated. They are the would-be middle class, and for them the discourse of respectability, of dignity, is very important.”

I thought of Roy’s words as I walked through Brick Lane, in London’s East End, on the way to the mosque where I was to meet Ramadan one day in December. Brick Lane used to be a poor Jewish area, where refugees from Russian pogroms eked out a living in the Sunday markets, cheap clothing stores and kosher dining halls. Now the Jews have moved up and on, and the area has become “Bangla Town,” home to Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. Brick Lane itself is lined with curry restaurants and stores selling “Muslim fashion” — head scarves, burqas, men’s baggy pants, even “Halal cosmetics.” I was struck by the word “fashion.” It denotes choice, a matter of modern identity more than a tradition left behind in the villages of Pakistan or Bangladesh. The same stores sold audiocassettes of the kind used to promote Ramadan’s speeches: cassettes with such English titles as “Islam for Children” or “How to Live as a Muslim.”

This is the world in which Tariq Ramadan operates, an urban Western environment full of educated but frequently confused young Muslims eager to find attractive models they can identify with. I thought of the Somali-born Dutch activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as charismatic in her way as Ramadan. Having had her fill of controversies in the Netherlands (she wrote the film “Submission,” which led to the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist), she now works at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Her mission, too, is to spread universal values. She, too, speaks of reform. But she has renounced her belief in Islam. She says that Islam is backward and perverse. As a result, she has had more success with secular non-Muslims than with the kind of people who shop in Brick Lane.

Ramadan offers a different way, which insists that a reasoned but traditionalist approach to Islam offers values that are as universal as those of the European Enlightenment. From what I understand of Ramadan’s enterprise, these values are neither secular, nor always liberal, but they are not part of a holy war against Western democracy either. His politics offer an alternative to violence, which, in the end, is reason enough to engage with him, critically, but without fear.

Ian Buruma is a frequent contributor to the magazine and the Henry R. Luce professor at Bard College. His most recent book is “Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/ianburuma

Ian Buruma's Author Profile on Guardian

Ian Buruma, the author of Murder in Amsterdam: the Death of Theo van Goth and the Limits of Tolerance, is professor of human rights at Bard College, New York

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China's burden

10 Apr 2009:
Ian Buruma: Tibetans are only as oppressed as all Chinese are. Their problem is not one of nationality or discrimination, but lack of democracy
How free is speech?

8 Mar 2009:
Ian Buruma: The proper limits of free expression must be constantly tested, contested, and renegotiated
The 'Jewish conspiracy' in Asia

9 Feb 2009:
Ian Buruma: Few Chinese, Japanese, Malaysians, or Filipinos have ever seen a Jew – and yet antisemitism persists
End of the neocons

9 Dec 2008:
Ian Buruma: The neoconservative movement will no longer influence US foreign policy when George Bush and Dick Cheney leave office
Europe's Obamamania

5 Nov 2008:
Ian Buruma: Obama wins: The president-elect is seen as something more than an American – he looks like a citizen of the world
Remote control warfare

11 Sep 2008:
Ian Buruma: Europeans criticise the US for military intervention, but rely on it when crisis strikes: they can't have it both ways
The death of a nation

7 Aug 2008:
Ian Buruma: The fate of Belgium should interest all Europeans, since what is happening there now could be repeated on a continental scale
No more war games

30 Jun 2008:
Ian Buruma: Euro 2008 revealed a more united Europe, in which memories of past conflicts and aggression are being buried ever deeper
Orientalism? Not a term of endearment

16 Jun 2008:
Ian Buruma: Said's book had valid arguments, but it left too much unsaid and as a result his thesis has become a pejorative term
Send in the clowns

12 May 2008:
Ian Buruma: Europeans like to sneer at American politics, but candidates in the US have a much better understanding of the power of comedy to ask questions
Tibet's last stand

14 Apr 2008:
Ian Buruma: The last glimmers of Tibetan culture are in danger of being extinguished by restrictions on language and the breakneck pace of development
The music of liberation

8 Mar 2008:
Ian Buruma: What Zappa did for the Prague Spring, the New York Philharmonic could emulate in North Korea
Culture is no excuse for China denying its people democracy

3 Feb 2008: Ian Buruma: Repressive regimes are playing on our colonial guilt, but we must stand up for those values to which oppressed people aspire
Year of the 'China model'

9 Jan 2008:
Ian Buruma: China's non-western develoment model has global appeal - especially to the world's dictators
The dustbin of history

9 Dec 2007:
Ian Buruma: The new Spanish law against rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco will not foster free thinking, but impede it

When small is not beautiful

10 Nov 2007:
Ian Buruma: In some European states, fears over crime, immigration and islamist militancy have allowed rightwing nationalists to dominate.
David Robins

12 Oct 2007: Obituary: 1960s underground journalist, sociologist and charity worker. By Ian Buruma.
Still a force for good?

13 Sep 2007:
Ian Buruma: President Bush's recent invocation of Vietnam was misguided, but American foreign policy hasn't always been a failure.
National treasures

4 Aug 2007:
Japan's centuries-old tradition of exquisite craftsmanship has survived both modernisation and westernisation. Ian Buruma admires how everyday objects and rituals are transformed into art.
This is not a 1938 encore

26 Jun 2007: Ian Buruma: The idea that liberals are appeasing Islamism as once they did Hitler is a dangerous delusion.
Extremism: the loser's revenge

25 Feb 2006: Ian Buruma: Can sexual inadequacy or deprivation turn angry young men into killers?
Cross purposes

7 Jan 2006: Ian Buruma: Conflicting views about religion threaten to divide Europe from the US.
Enter the dragon

10 Dec 2005:
Ian Buruma: China's much-heralded rise has business in thrall to an enemy of democracy.
Silent protest

12 Nov 2005:
Ian Buruma: Why are we still turning to Dylan for the soundtrack to our demonstrations?
Tainted ground

15 Oct 2005: Essay: In a landscape scarred by history, is fresh paint an appropriate memorial, asks Ian Buruma.
What became of the Israeli left?

23 Oct 2003: Israel was founded by Europeans with socialist ideals and utopian dreams. Now the embattled country is dominated by the right and religious fanaticism is on the rise. What went wrong? Ian Buruma heads for the cafes of Schenken Street in search of the answer.
More tea, Mister Chairman?

8 Aug 2003: On Monday, Yasser Arafat spent his 74th birthday in his bombed-out offices in Ramallah. Ian Buruma popped in to celebrate with him
A battle for hearts and minds

10 Dec 2002:
As a writer, promoting your country's culture is fine. But spreading its political values is another thing altogether, writes Ian Buruma.
Let's hear it for bad taste

3 Dec 2002:
Comment: Our reaction to the riots in Nigeria shows us to be snobbish, racist and playing a dangerous game of double standards, writes Ian Buruma.
Germany's unmourned victims

26 Nov 2002: Many German civilians died in the second world war. But recognising the fact is not an apology for Hitler's crimes, writes Ian Buruma.

Someone to watch over me

19 Nov 2002: Watch out - extra government powers granted as security measures have a nasty habit of sticking around, writes Ian Buruma.
A thoroughly modern religion

12 Nov 2002: How a Somalian-born Dutch woman discovered the danger of speaking her mind. Ian Buruma reports.
Israeli liberalism may not be dead. But it needs a lot of help

5 Nov 2002: The Meir Kahane are running riot and giving Jews a bad name, writes Ian Buruma.
A Chinese ghost story

29 Oct 2002: Humble Lei Feng was an icon of the cultural revolution. So why is he still a hero in modern entrepreneurial China? asks Ian Buruma.
Loving the alien

25 Oct 2002: We mustn't swallow the East versus West propaganda over the Bali bomb, writes Ian Buruma.
Come the revolution

15 Oct 2002: This talk of restoring democracy to Iraq is absurd. It never had a democracy. What it does need is a revolution, writes Ian Buruma.
The joy of tittle-tattle

8 Oct 2002:
Ian Buruma comment: What the blanket coverage of the Edwina Currie diaries really tells us about the British.
Milosevic the boy scout

1 Oct 2002: Slobodan Milosevic puts on a show at the international criminal tribunal - and what a performance it is! writes Ian Buruma.
Annie Hall get your gun

17 Sep 2002: How Woody Allen turned into John Wayne and changed the face of American conservatism, writes Ian Buruma.
No more excuses

10 Sep 2002: Ian Buruma: Dictators of the world, it's time to stop blaming us for all your problems.
The importance of being peculiar

3 Sep 2002: Not all upper class Englishmen are effete homosexuals or sado-masochists. But that's how the world sees them, writes Ian Buruma.
Theatre of rage

27 Aug 2002: Ian Buruma: What Hieronymus Bosch, Shinto feasts and southern lynchings tell us about the mob that jeered Maxine Carr.
Brutish, short, and probably pointless

13 Aug 2002: The US wants to crush Iraq - and also implement a democratic revolution. The first part will be short and bloody, the second like running a colony. Both are foolish, writes Ian Buruma.
Don't be fooled - China is not squeaky clean

30 Jul 2002: After gunning down thousands of unarmed civilians in 1989, the Chinese government has managed to become utterly respectable again, writes Ian Buruma.
Do not treat Israel like apartheid South Africa

23 Jul 2002:
Ian Buruma: Whatever it was that prompted Steven and Hilary Rose to call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, it is unlikely to have been anti-semitism.

Why we must share America's dirty work

16 Jul 2002: In defence of the US's refusal to sign on to the international criminal court (ICC), it has been argued that international tribunals are a typically European idea which clashes with American notions of democracy. Ian Buruma questions this view.
Let's leave Adolf Hitler out of this

9 Jul 2002: The British like to think they are the only people in the world with a sense of humour. So it should be no surprise that the campaign against the euro started with a joke. Ian Buruma reports.
Why we are right to impose democracy

2 Jul 2002: Ian Buruma: Is breaking the despotism of religious or political extremists really such a bad thing?
South Korea guilty of unfair play?

25 Jun 2002:
That's rich, coming from professional cheats, writes Ian Buruma.
What football fans can learn from geese

18 Jun 2002: 'Football is war". I can't remember who said that. Perhaps it was Rinus Michels, the former Dutch soccer coach, also known to his adoring fans as "The General", writes Ian Buruma.
The cult of the ultimate sacrifice

4 Jun 2002: Ian Buruma: Why would a young man or woman wish to blow up the world, or at least part of it? And what explains the ease with which some people can be cajoled into blowing themselves up into the bargain?
Why I'm wary of child porn prosecutions

28 May 2002: Last week, the Dean of Reading, Michael O'Kelly, was jailed for nine months after being found in possession of a vast collection of child pornography. Few people will feel sorry for him. Yet there is something disturbing about at least some of the child pornography cases in our courts, writes Ian Buruma.
To say that jihadis are a threat is not Islamophobic

21 May 2002: Is Islamophobia a problem in Europe? This claim has been made by some worried members of what is commonly referred to as "the Muslim community" (as in "gay community"), writes Ian Buruma.
What Pim and Diana had in common

14 May 2002: Ian Buruma: All fanatics are dangerous, and vegan fanatics especially so. That is about the only lesson to be drawn from the murder of Pim Fortuyn by an animal rights promoter.
Children of the revolution

11 May 2002:
They challenged China's regime and suffered for it. In this exclusive extract from his new book, Ian Buruma meets three women, now in the US, who are still haunted by memories of brutal repression
Why bashing the US is chic... in America

7 May 2002: When Chalmers Johnson recited a list of all the bad things US governments had done in the 20th century, I could hear people around me going "Yess! Yess!", in the rapturous, almost voluptuous manner of true believers at an evangelical meeting, writes Ian Buruma.
When cultures clash in a climate of fear

30 Apr 2002: Ian Buruma: The empire strikes back in strange ways. A few weeks ago I strolled around one of the more arresting monuments of European imperialism.
If we must go to war, let's not go Dutch

23 Apr 2002: Ian Buruma: Wim Kok did the honourable thing. He was prime minister when more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers were slaughtered by Serb troops.
Our modern-day Zolas

16 Apr 2002: Ian Buruma: Jose Saramago's comparison of the West Bank to Auschwitz proves one thing: writers should stay out of politics.
Suicide bombers don't want political compromises...

9 Apr 2002: ... they just want death, writes Ian Buruma.

Right is the new left

26 Mar 2002: Why is Europe falling for the new right? Blame all those wishy-washy, mealy-mouthed, third-way parties, writes Ian Buruma.
Law of Return outdated

19 Mar 2002: Israel needs to reform its unfair citizenship laws if it wants to become a more normal country, writes Ian Buruma.
Yes, it is arrogant to intervene in Zimbabwe - but it's also our duty

12 Mar 2002: Ian Buruma: It has been proposed, most recently in this paper by Seumas Milne, that former colonial powers should not put pressure on former colonies whose politics have gone bad.
The Hague vs Belgrade

19 Feb 2002: The Hague might not be the ideal place to try Slobodan Milosevic, but it's a better option than Belgrade.
This time Blunkett is right

12 Feb 2002: Why Blunkett is right about curbing arranged marriages - even if means stepping on extra-sensitive toes.
The weight of public opinion

5 Feb 2002: American democracy is led by public opinion. So at Guantanamo, are we seeing the mob baying for blood?
Competing for victimhood

29 Jan 2002: Yes, acts of barbarism should be remembered, but I'm still against Holocaust Day.
Personal modesty in east-Asian cultures

22 Jan 2002: Why do Japan, China and Korea produce so many egomaniacs? Could it be a lack of criticism?
Lonely Planetland

8 Jan 2002: Pudding shops, well-worn copies of The Beach and Eric Clapton tapes - welcome to Lonely Planetland.
Moral policemen

18 Dec 2001: America's PC police are the new clergy - and standing up to them is the postmodern version of sin.
A sad reflection on our democracy

11 Dec 2001: Patriotism is nothing to be afraid of - except when it goes hand in hand with the trampling of civil liberties, writes Ian Buruma.
New York may be a modern-day Babylon - but it doesn't deserve the wrath of God

27 Nov 2001: Robert Crumb, the creator of Mr Natural, Fritz the Cat, and other great American comic heroes, also has views on the destruction of the World Trade Centre. He has expressed his hope that the buildings around them would soon collapse into Ground Zero too.
Schadenfreude in Japan

22 Nov 2001: Anti-US sentiment sounds shocking after September 11. But much of it stems from America's flawed idealism.
It's easy to be good. But it's not always right

16 Nov 2001: Iam Buruma discusses what is, for most people, a tricky moral dilemma.
Afghanistan vs. Vietnam

6 Nov 2001: If the US retreats with a bloody nose, the consequences for the world would be too dreadful to contemplate.

The warrior nation

30 Oct 2001: In today's Europe, Britain stands proud as a warrior nation. But would we be happy if Germany did the same?
Nothing surprises the Chinese

23 Oct 2001: The Chinese are so used to being lied to by their media that they don't trust ours. You can't altogether blame them.
The demons that drive terror

19 Sep 2001: Islamist extremists may not be the Nazis of the 21st century but, says Ian Buruma, they share the same need to be victimised.
The land of the free

13 Sep 2001: For its citizens, America has always seemed a well-guarded refuge from the big, bad world. Not any more.
Why the cricket test fails

4 Jun 2001: A week ago British Asians rioted on the streets of Oldham. So what would happen when Pakistan's cricketers took on England a few miles down the road? And what can a cricket match tell us about race and identity anyway?
The election campaign is a farce - so why not let theatre critics cover it?

30 May 2001: Isn't it time we left election campaigns to the pros? Just as modern art has merged seamlessly with the world of advertising and marketing, politics is now a branch of showbiz.
Oh! What a lovely war

28 May 2001:
It has a huge budget, A-list stars and the best special effects that money can buy. So why does Pearl Harbor remind Ian Buruma of a 1942 Japanese propaganda film? Could it be the mawkish patriotism, cartoon-like heroes and unashamed glorification of war?
Cult of the chairman

7 Mar 2001: He presided over mass murder and cultural devastation. But 25 years after his death, Mao Zedong is a demigod with a lucrative line in merchandise. Ian Buruma on how China rediscovered the Great Helmsman.

http://www.bard.edu/academics/faculty/faculty.php?action=details&id=153

Ian Buruma, Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism

Program(s): Middle Eastern Studies (Affiliate); Human Rights Program; Asian Studies (Affiliate); Social Studies

Biography:
Studies in Chinese literature and history at Leyden University; graduate studies in Japanese cinema at Nihon University, Tokyo. Documentary filmmaker and photographer in Tokyo (1977–80); cultural editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong (1983–86); foreign editor of The Spectator, London (1990–91). Fellowships: Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin (1991–92); Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. (1998–99); Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford (1999–2000). Regular contributor to New York Review of Books, New York Times Magazine, New Republic, New Yorker, and The Guardian. Books include Behind the Mask (1983); God’s Dust (1988); Playing the Game (1990); The Wages of Guilt (1995); The Missionary and the Libertine (1997); Anglomania: A European Love Affair (1999); Bad Elements (2001); Inventing Japan: 1853–1964 (2003); Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (2006). Coauthor, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (2004). (2003– )

Phone: 845-758-7535
E-mail: bur...@bard.edu

http://www.nybooks.com/authors/8

Ian Buruma book reviews on The New York Review of Books

Ian Buruma is the Henry R. Luce Professor at Bard. He received the 2008 Erasmus Prize. His novel The China Lover was published in September 2008.

From the Review

February 12, 2009: More on V.S. Naipaul (letter)

January 15, 2009: On V.S. Naipaul: An Exchange

December 4, 2008: Desire in Berlin

Kirchner and the Berlin Street an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, August 3–November 10, 2008.

November 20, 2008: The Lessons of the Master

The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French

June 26, 2008: Ghosts

Standard Operating Procedure a film directed by Errol Morris

Standard Operating Procedure by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris

May 1, 2008: The Cruelest War

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 by Max Hastings

January 17, 2008: The Genius of Berlin

Berlin Alexanderplatz directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz Catalog of the exhibition edited by Klaus Biesenbach

November 8, 2007: 'His Toughness Problem—and Ours': An Exchange

September 27, 2007: His Toughness Problem—and Ours

World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism by Norman Podhoretz

July 19, 2007: Herzog and His Heroes

Rescue Dawn a film written and directed by Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog: Documentaries and Shorts, 1962–1999

Herzog (Non)Fiction

June 14, 2007: Fascinating Narcissism

Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl by Steven Bach

Leni Riefenstahl: A Life by Jürgen Trimborn, translated from the German by Edna McCown

March 15, 2007: Dressing for Success

Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita, the Artist Caught Between East and West by Phyllis Birnbaum

March 1, 2007: Thailand: All the King's Men

The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley

February 15, 2007: Eastwood's War

Flags of Our Fathers a film directed by Clint Eastwood

Letters from Iwo Jima a film directed by Clint Eastwood

December 21, 2006: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Case (letter)

November 2, 2006: Weimar Faces

September 21, 2006: Why They Hate Japan

The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States by Takashi Yoshida

April 6, 2006: Mr. Natural

The R. Crumb Handbook by R. Crumb and Peter Poplaski

February 9, 2006: Louis, Schmeling, and Leonard (letter)

January 12, 2006: The Great Black Hope

Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink by David Margolick

June 23, 2005: Virtual Violence

The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa by Yasunari Kawabata, translated from the Japanese by Alisa Freedman, with a foreword and afterword by Donald Richie and illustrations by Ota Saburo

Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture Catalog of the exhibition edited by Murakami Takashi

June 9, 2005: Between Two Worlds

The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life by Tom Reiss

The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey Without Borders by Masayo Duus, translated from the Japanese by Peter Duus

May 12, 2005: The Indiscreet Charm of Tyranny

March 24, 2005: Chinese Shadows

War Trash by Ha Jin

November 4, 2004: The Election and America's Future

October 21, 2004: The Destruction of Germany

Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945(The Fire: Germany in the Bombing War, 1940–1945) by Jörg Friedrich

Brandstätten: Der Anblick des Bombenkriegs(Scenes of Fire: A View of the Bombing War) by Jörg Friedrich

May 13, 2004: Master of Fear

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

March 11, 2004: Seeds of Revolution

January 15, 2004: The Antipodes of Glory

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

December 18, 2003: Staging the Empire

Curzon: Imperial Statesman by David Gilmour

September 25, 2003: On John Schlesinger (1926–2003)

June 12, 2003: AsiaWorld

May 15, 2003: Pioneer

The Donald Richie Reader: 50 Years of Writing on Japan edited and with an introduction by Arturo Silva

The Inland Sea by Donald Richie, with an introduction by Pico Iyer

The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan by Christopher Benfey

May 1, 2003: Revolution from Above

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman

December 19, 2002: The Circus of Max Beckmann

Max Beckmann: Un Peintre dans l'histoire

Beckmann Catalog of the exhibition edited by Didier Ottinger

December 5, 2002: Portrait of the Artist

Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II by J.M. Coetzee

December 5, 2002: On the West Bank

November 21, 2002: Suicide for the Empire

Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalists: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney

Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 by Donald Keene

August 15, 2002: Making a Fetish of Mystery

Essay on Exoticism: An Aesthetics of Diversity by Victor Segalen, translated and edited by Yaël Rachel Schlick, with a foreword by Harry Harootunian

April 11, 2002: The Blood Lust of Identity

In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong by Amin Maalouf, translated from the French by Barbara Bray

Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America by Tom Hayden

January 17, 2002: Occidentalism

October 4, 2001: The Muslims of Tibet (letter)

September 20, 2001: The Fall of Mr. Toad

Jeffrey Archer: Stranger than Fiction by Michael Crick

July 19, 2001: The Japanese Berlusconi?

July 5, 2001: The Japanese Malaise

Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan by Alex Kerr

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel

May 31, 2001: The Road to Babel

May 17, 2001: Pearl Harbor: An Exchange

March 29, 2001: The Emperor's Secrets

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix

July 20, 2000: Tibet Disenchanted

June 29, 2000: Found Horizon

Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood by Orville Schell

The Search for the Panchen Lama by Isabel Hilton

April 27, 2000: Dancing on a Wobbly Deck

March 23, 2000: East Is West

A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee

Waiting by Ha Jin

February 24, 2000: Divine Killer

Mao: A Life by Philip Short

Mao Zedong by Jonathan Spence

November 4, 1999: China in Cyberspace

October 21, 1999: MacArthur's Children

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower

September 23, 1999: The Singapore Difference (letter)

June 10, 1999: The Man Who Would Be King

The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew

Can Asians Think? by Kishore Mahbubani

April 8, 1999: The Joys and Perils of Victimhood

March 4, 1999: Back to the Future

February 4, 1999: Sex and Democracy in Taiwan

November 19, 1998: Hello to Berlin

Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin by Alexandra Richie

Capital Dilemma: Germany's Search for a New Architecture of Democracy by Michael Z. Wise

September 24, 1998: Don't Say Goodbye

East and West: China, Power, and the Future of Asia by Christopher Patten

July 16, 1998: In the Empire of Islam

Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples by V.S. Naipaul

June 25, 1998: Down and Out in East Tokyo

San'ya Blues: Laboring Life in Contemporary Tokyo by Edward Fowler

Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life by Sheldon Garon

May 28, 1998: Anne Frank's Afterlife, cont'd. (letter)

April 9, 1998: Anne Frank's Afterlife (letter)

February 19, 1998: The Afterlife of Anne Frank

The Diary of Anne Frank a play by Frances Goodrich, by Albert Hackett, adapted by Wendy Kesselman, directed by James Lapine. at the Music Box Theater, New York City

An Obsession with Anne Frank: Meyer Levin and the Diary by Lawrence Graver

The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Staging of the Diary by Ralph Melnick

December 4, 1997: India: The Perils of Democracy

The Idea of India by Sunil Khilnani

The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India by Christophe Jaffrelot

October 9, 1997: Royal Comedy

Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert by Stanley Weintraub

Mrs. Brown a film directed by John Madden. distributed by Miramax Films

October 9, 1997: Royal Tragedy

August 14, 1997: Selling Out Hong Kong

June 12, 1997: Holding Out in Hong Kong

Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux

Hong Kong Remembers by Sally Blyth and Ian Wotherspoon, Introduction by the Rt. Honorable the Baroness Thatcher

The Fall of Hong Kong: China's Triumph and Britain's Betrayal by Mark Roberti

Red Flag over Hong Kong by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, by David Newman, by Alvin Rabushka

The Hong Kong Advantage by Michael J. Enright, by Edith E. Scott, by David Dodwell

March 27, 1997: God's Choice

Gladstone: A Biography by Roy Jenkins

January 9, 1997: Artist of the Floating World

Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller 12, 1997 (first at the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., April 28-August 18, 1996) Exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, September 21, 1996-January

Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller catalog of the exhibition, by H. Perry Chapman, by Wouter Th. Kloek, by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

January 9, 1997: 'Fear & Loathing in Europe' (letter)

November 28, 1996: The Sky's the Limit

S,M,L,XL (Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large) by Rem Koolhaas, by Bruce Mau, edited by Jennifer Sigler, photography by Hans Werlemann

October 17, 1996: Fear and Loathing in Europe

June 6, 1996: Japan: In the Spirit World

The Idea of Japan: Western Images, Western Myths by Ian Littlewood

A Zen Romance: One Woman's Adventures in a Monastery by Deborah Boliver Boehm

A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine by John K. Nelson

June 6, 1996: 'The Singapore Way' (letter)

May 23, 1996: Mrs. Thatcher's Ghost (letter)

May 9, 1996: The Beijing Rebellion (letter)

March 21, 1996: Mrs. Thatcher's Revenge

The Path to Power by Margaret Thatcher

Letters from London by Julian Barnes

The Disenchanted Isle: Mrs. Thatcher's Capitalist Revolution by Charles Dellheim

December 21, 1995: The Beginning of the End

Moving the Mountain a documentary film directed by Michael Apted, produced by Trudie Styler

The Gate of Heavenly Peace a documentary film directed and produced by Carma Hinton, by Richard Gordon

Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China by Craig Calhoun

November 30, 1995: 'The New War Over Hiroshima': An Exchange

October 19, 1995: The Singapore Way

To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew's Prison by Francis T. Seow

Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore by Dr. Chee Soon Juan

September 21, 1995: The War Over The Bomb

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth by Gar Alperovitz, by Sanho Tree, by Edward Rouse Winstead, by Kathryn C. Morris, by David J. Williams, by Leo C. Maley III, by Thad Williamson, by Miranda Grieder

Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb by John Whittier Treat

Judgment at the Smithsonian: The Uncensored Script of the Smithsonian's 50th Anniversary Exhibit of the Enola Gay edited and introduced by Philip Nobile, afterword by Barton J. Bernstein

Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial by Robert Jay Lifton, by Greg Mitchell

Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan—And Why Truman Dropped the Bomb by Thomas B. Allen, by Norman Polmar

Nagasaki Journey: The Photographs of Yosuke Yamahata, August 10, 1945 edited by Rupert Jenkins

July 13, 1995: George Grosz's Amerika

George Grosz: Berlin-New York Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, May 6-July 30, 1995. an exhibition Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, until April 16, 1995;

George Grosz: Berlin-New York catalog of the exhibition edited by Peter-Klaus Schuster

February 16, 1995: The Great Art of Embarrassment

Writing Home by Alan Bennett

The Madness of King George III a film directed by Nicholas Hytner. screenplay by Alan Bennett, based on his play The Madness of George III

The Madness of George III by Alan Bennett

October 20, 1994: Action Anglaise

Mrs. Thatcher's Minister: The Private Diaries of Alan Clark by Alan Clark

The Faber Book of Conservatism edited by Kenneth Baker

September 22, 1994: Indian Love Call

Bengal Nights by Mircea Eliade

It Does Not Die: A Romance by Maitreyi Devi

August 11, 1994: Revenge in the Indies

The Hidden Force by Louis Couperus, translated by Alexander Teixera de Mattos

May 12, 1994: Japan Against Itself

Blueprint for a New Japan by Ichiro Ozawa, translated by Louisa Rubinfein

January 13, 1994: The Way They Live Now

Naked a film directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh, produced by Simon Channing-Williams

It's a Great Big Shame! a play by Mike Leigh

Life is Sweet directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh

High Hopes directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh

Four Days in July directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh

Meantime directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh

Abigail's Party directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh

Nuts in May directed by Mike Leigh, screenplay by Mike Leigh

Bleak Moments directed by Mike Leigh

'Abigail's Party' and 'Goose-Pimples'

'Smelling a Rat' & 'Ecstasy'

Too Much of a Good Thing (broadcast by the BBC in 1992)

December 16, 1993: An Exchange on Ernst Jünger

December 16, 1993: What the Butler Saw

The Remains of the Day directed by James Ivory, produced by Mike Nichols, by John Calley, by Ismail Merchant, screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

November 18, 1993: Soul Food

The Phantom Empire by Geoffrey O'Brien

August 12, 1993: Weeping Tears of Nostalgia

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Megan Backus

June 24, 1993: The Anarch at Twilight

Aladdin's Problem by Ernst Jünger, translated by Joachim Neugroschel

A Dangerous Encounter by Ernst Jünger, translated by Hilary Barr

May 27, 1993: Looking for the Center

March 25, 1993: Americainerie

Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation, 1945–1952 by Kyoko Hirano

A Map of the East Photographs by Leo Rubinfien

Re-Made In Japan: Everyday Life and Consumer Taste in a Changing Society edited by Joseph J. Tobin

How to Work for a Japanese Boss by Jina Bacarr

December 3, 1992: Bashing Japan? (letter)

October 8, 1992: Bad Boy

Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima, 1956–1978 by Nagisa Oshima, edited and with an introduction by Annette Michelson, translated by Dawn Lawson

July 16, 1992: The Ways of Survival

Jakob Littners Aufzeichnungen aus einem Erdloch by Wolfgang Koeppen

A Feast in the Garden by George Konrád, translated by Imre Goldstein

April 23, 1992: It Can't Happen Here

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton

April 9, 1992: Outsiders

April 9, 1992: White Noise (letter)

December 19, 1991: Ghosts of Pearl Harbor

Visions of Infamy: The Untold Story of How Journalist Hector C. Bywater Devised the Plans that Led to Pearl Harbor by William H. Honan

Pearl Harbor Ghosts: A Journey to Hawaii Then and Now by Thurston Clarke

A Time For War: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Path to Pearl Harbor by Robert Smith Thompson

An Enemy Among Friends by Kiyoaki Murata

Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II by James Rusbridger, by Eric Nave

December 5, 1991: Against the Japanese Grain

In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: A Portrait of Japan at Century's End by Norma Field

September 26, 1991: Samurai of Swat

Slugging It Out in Japan: An American Major Leaguer in the Tokyo Outfield by Warren Cromartie, with Robert Whiting

May 30, 1991: The 'We' Generation

Our Age: Portrait of a Generation by Noel Annan

April 25, 1991: The Pax Axis

March 28, 1991: After the Fall

The Secret Pilgrim by John le Carré

February 14, 1991: Signs of Life

India: A Million Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipaul

January 17, 1991: The Nuclear Difference (letter)

December 20, 1990: There's No Place Like Heimat

Vom Glück und Unglück der Kunst in Deutschland nach dem Letzten Kriege by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

Patterns of Childhood by Christa Wolf, translated by Ursule Molinaro, by Hedwig Rappolt

The Quest for Christa T. by Christa Wolf, translated by Christopher Middleton

No Place on Earth by Christa Wolf, translated by Jan van Heurck

Was bleibt (extracts entitled "What Remains" were published in English translation in Granta 33) by Christa Wolf

Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays by Christa Wolf, translated by Jan van Heurck

The Fourth Dimension: Interviews with Christa Wolf translated by Hilary Pilkington, Introduction by Karin McPherson

October 25, 1990: The Devils of Hiroshima

Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars by George L. Mosse

The Bomb by Makoto Oda

The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat by Robert Jay Lifton, by Eric Markusen

October 25, 1990: The Indonesian Way (letter)

July 19, 1990: Workers & Warriors

The Fugitive by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, translated by Willem Samuels

The Great World by David Malouf

June 28, 1990: Tokyo Boogie-Woogie

Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake by Edward Seidensticker

June 28, 1990: A Bad Scout? (letter)

April 12, 1990: The Last Days of Hong Kong

Hong Kong Voices edited by Gerd Balke, with an introduction by Anthony Lawrence

Kowtow! by William Shawcross

City on the Rocks: Hong Kong's Uncertain Future by Kevin Rafferty

Hong Kong Countdown by George Hicks

March 15, 1990: Boys Will Be Boys

The Boy-Man: The Life of Lord Baden-Powell by Tim Jeal

December 21, 1989: War Crimes (letter)

December 7, 1989: Just Say Noh

The Japan That Can Say 'No': The Card for a New US–Japan Relationship by Morita Akio, by Ishihara Shintaro

October 26, 1989: From Hirohito to Heimat

La Mémoire vaine: du crime contre l'humanité by Alain Finkielkraut

Hotel Terminus a film by Marcel Ophuls

From Hitler to Heimat: The Return of History as Film by Anton Kaes

In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape From the Nazi Past by Richard J. Evans

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?: Growing Up German by Sabine Reichel

The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials by Arnold C. Brackman

Hirohito: Behind the Myth by Edward Behr

June 1, 1989: The Bartered Bride

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow

The US and the Philippines: In Our Image Neudel, KCET, Los Angeles A three-part television series, produced by Andrew Rearson and Eric

Ermita: A Filipino Novel by F. Sionil José

May 18, 1989: Good Night, Sweet Princes

Raj: A Novel by Gita Mehta

Maharaja: The Spectacular Heritage of Princely India by Andrew Robinson, photographs by Sumio Uchiyama

March 16, 1989: In Fancy Uniform (letter)

March 2, 1989: The Double Life of Benazir Bhutto

Daughter of the East by Benazir Bhutto

December 22, 1988: Art of Cruelty

Hell Screen, Cogwheels, A Fool's Life by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Takashi Kojima, by Cid Corman, by Will Petersen, with a foreword by Jorge Luis Borges, an introduction by Kazuya Sakai

Childhood Years: A Memoir by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, translated by Paul McCarthy

December 8, 1988: The Last Laugh

Thy Hand, Great Anarch! India 1921–1952 by Nirad C. Chaudhuri

November 10, 1988: Playing for Keeps

June 30, 1988: Wilfred of Arabia

The Life of My Choice by Wilfred Thesiger

Visions of a Nomad by Wilfred Thesiger

March 17, 1988: What Keeps the Japanese Going?

Imperialist Japan: The Yen to Dominate by Michael Montgomery

Occupation by John Toland

A Cultural History of Postwar Japan: 1945–1980 by Shunsuke Tsurumi

Different People: Pictures of Some Japanese by Donald Richie

Remaking Japan: The American Occupation As New Deal by Theodore Cohen, edited by Herbert Passin

The Japanese Educational Challenge: A Commitment to Children by Merry White

November 19, 1987: The Last Bengali Renaissance Man

The Unicorn Expedition and Other Fantastic Tales of India by Satyajit Ray

The Home and the World A film directed by Satyajit Ray. produced by the National Film Development Corporation of India

August 13, 1987: Marcos and Morality

Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy by Raymond Bonner

June 11, 1987: St. Cory and the Evil Rose

Imelda Marcos by Carmen Navarro Pedrosa

Cory Aquino: The Story of a Revolution by Lucy Komisar

March 26, 1987: An Exchange on Burma

March 12, 1987: We Japanese

My Life Between Japan and America by Edwin O. Reischauer

Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita, with Edwin M. Reingold, by Mitsuko Shimomura

January 29, 1987: Korea: Shame & Chauvinism

Prison Writings by Kim Dae Jung, translated by Choi Sung-Il

November 6, 1986: Saint Cory and the Yellow Revolution

The Snap Revolution by James Fenton

People Power: An Eyewitness History edited by Monina Allarey Mercado

Bayon Ko!

Crisis in the Philippines: The Marcos Era and Beyond edited by John Bresnan

October 23, 1986: The Road from Mandalay

August 14, 1986: Us and Others

War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower

May 29, 1986: City of Dreadful Night

The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, translated by Kathryn Spink

March 13, 1986: Japanese Lib

The Issue of War: States, Societies, and the Far Eastern Conflict of 1941–1945 by Christopher Thorne

January 16, 1986: Who Can Redeem Mother Filipinas?

Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines by David Haward Bain

Revolution in the Philippines: The United States in a Hall of Cracked Mirrors by Fred Poole, by Max Vanzi

The Philippines After Marcos edited by R. J. May, edited by Francisco Nemenzo

October 10, 1985: Rambo-san

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters a film written by Paul Schrader, by Leonard Schrader, directed by Paul Schrader

Barakei: Ordeal by Roses photographs of Yukio Mishima by Eikoh Hosoe

Mishima ou la vision du vide by Marguerite Yourcenar

September 26, 1985: 'Rabu' Conquers All

Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era Vol. I: Fiction by Donald Keene

Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era Vol. II: Poetry, Drama, Criticism by Donald Keene

July 18, 1985: O So Uchi!

Pictures from the Water Trade: Adventures of a Westerner in Japan by John David Morley

From New York Review Books
René Leys
This quirky tale of spiritual adventure tells of a Westerner in Peking seeking the mystery at the heart of the Forbidden City.

Books by Ian Buruma

Inventing Japan, 1853-1964 (2003)
Rene Leys (2003)
Bad Elements: Among the Rebels, Dissidents, and Democrats of Greater China. (2001)
Voltaire's Coconuts: Anglophiles and Anglophobes (1999)
Anglomania: A European Love Affair (1998)
The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West (1996)
The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (1994)
Playing the Game (1991)
God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey (1989)
Behind the Mask: On Sexual Demons, Sacred Mothers, Transvestites, Gangsters, Drifters and Other Japanese Cultural Heroes (1984)
A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture (1984)

http://www.theglobalist.com/AuthorBiography.aspx?AuthorId=25

Ian Buruma biography on The Globalist

Writer

Ian Buruma was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch father and English mother in 1951. Though educated in both Holland and Japan, Ian Buruma spent a great portion of his life in Asia.

He has written such books as "God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey," "Behind the Mask" and "The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan."

His novel, "Playing the Game," is a fictional biography about the life of an Indian prince who played cricket in Britain.

Besides being an outstanding author, Mr. Buruma has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Institute for the Humanities in Washington, D.C.

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1161.html
http://print.signandsight.com/features/1161.html
29/01/2007

Freedom cannot be decreed

There are many reasons why it would be desirable for Muslims, or anybody else, to feel free to reinterpret their religious texts. But this surely is not the business of the state, for that opens the way to authoritarianism. By Ian Buruma

French philosopher Pascal Bruckner accused Ian Buruma of propagating a form of multiculturalism that amounts to legal apartheid. Here, the Dutch journalist and historian defends his position. By now Timothy Garton Ash, Necla Kelek and Paul Cliteur have also stepped into the ring. Read their contributions here.

I cannot answer for Timothy Garton Ash, or "the Anglo-Saxons," so I shall speak only for myself. If Mr Bruckner has been kind enough to read my book, I'm not sure how he came to the conclusion that it was an attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The last two sentences of "Murder in Amsterdam" are: "And Ayaan Hirsi Ali has had to leave the scene [The Netherlands]. My country seems smaller without her."

I admire Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and agree with most of what she stands for. Liberal democracy must be defended against violent extremism, and women should be protected from abuse. There can be no religious justification for it. My skepticism is about her analysis of the social problems in European societies caused by the influx of large numbers of non-Western refugees and immigrants. Revolutionary Islamism, emanating from the Middle-East, is indeed a threat to all free societies. Where I differ from Hirsi Ali is perhaps a matter of emphasis. Having turned from devout Islamism to atheism, she tends to see religion, and Islam in particular, as the root of all evils, especially of the abuse of women. Cultural traditions, tribal customs, historical antecedents, all of which are highly diverse, even inside the Muslim world, are flattened into a monolithic threat. Islam, as practised in Java, is not the same as in a Moroccan village, or the Sudan, or Rotterdam. In her autobiography, Hirsi Ali herself describes the considerable differences between her native Somalia and Saudi Arabia.

In Europe, even the issue of headscarves cannot be treated simply as a symbol of religious bigotry. Some women wear them to ward off male aggression, others because their parents insist on it, and some by their own choice, as a defiant badge of identity, even rebellion. Bruckner admires rebels. Should we only side with rebels whose views and practices we like? Or does living in a free society also imply that people should be able to choose the way they look, or speak, or worship, even if we don't like it, as long as they don't harm others? A free-spirited citizen does not tolerate different customs or cultures because he thinks they are wonderful, but because he believes in freedom.

To be tolerant is not to be indiscriminate. I would not dream of defending dictatorship in the name of tolerance for other cultures. Violence against women, or indeed men, is intolerable, and should be punished by law. I would not defend the genital mutilation of children, let alone wife-beating, no matter how it is rationalized. Honour killings are murders, and must be treated as such. But these are matters of law enforcement. Figuring out how to stop violent ideologies from infecting mainstream Muslims, and thus threatening free societies, is trickier. I'm not convinced that public statements, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has made, that Islam in general is "backward" and its prophet "perverse", are helpful.

She has the perfect right to say these things, of course, just as Mr Bruckner has the right to describe Muslims as "brutes". I am not in the slightest bit "embarrassed" by her critique of Islam, nor have I ever denied her the right "to refer to Voltaire." But if Islamic reform is the goal, then such denunciations are not the best way to achieve it, especially if they come from an avowed atheist. Condemning Islam, without taking the many variations into account, is too indiscriminate. Not every Muslim, not even every orthodox Muslim, is a holy warrior in spe. Isolating the jihadis and fighting their dangerous dogmas is too important to be dealt with by crude polemics.

Mr Bruckner is an important French intellectual, so I'm sure he doesn't have to be told this, just as I don't need to be lectured by him on the perils of cultural relativism. But he appears to be less interested in a subtle argument than in easy rhetorical tricks. One is the use of the strawman, or tainting by association. Take the example of Ayaan Hirsi Ali being compared to fascists or even Nazis. I, for one, have never accused her of being either. The example, quoted by Bruckner, of a Dutch critic "calling her a Nazi," is from my own book. In fact, the Dutch writer Geert Mak never called her a Nazi. He compared the tone of her film "Submission" to Nazi propaganda, and I criticized him for it. But Bruckner uses this isolated example to suggest that I, and other "armchair philosophers" brand "the defenders of liberty" as fascists, while portraying the fanatics as victims.

It is an interesting sensation, by the way, to be called an armchair philosopher by Mr Brucker. And here I can also speak for Timothy Garton Ash; while he was spending years with Central European dissidents, and I with Chinese and South Korean rebels, Bruckner, so far as I know, rarely strayed far from the centre of Paris. But this is by the by.

In another typical fit of exaggeration, designed to tar by association, Bruckner mentions the opening of an Islamic hospital in Rotterdam and reserved beaches for Muslim women in Italy. I fail to see why this is so much more terrible than opening kosher restaurants, Catholic hospitals, or reserved beaches for nudists, but to Bruckner these concessions are akin to segregation in the southern states of America, and even Apartheid in South Africa. No wonder, then, that I, among others, am also associated with the Inquisition and medieval witch-hunting. Why? Because Tim Garton Ash pointed out Ayaan Hirsi Ali's undeniable beauty and glamour. Perhaps he shouldn't have pointed this out, but the Inquisition?

The question is what to do about radical Islamism. Bruckner, in a strange sleight of hand, believes that Garton Ash and I "fall in" with US and British policies, even as we "disapprove of these policies." I'm not quite sure what he means by this. But then he goes on to attack Bush and Blair for "focussing on military issues to the detriment of intellectual debate." I was indeed against this "focussing", especially in the case of the second Iraq war, while Bruckner was busily writing petitions promoting that war. He is entitled to change his mind, of course, but it is not immediately clear why messrs Blair and Bush were guilty of "starry-eyed naivete," if Bruckner himself was not. Anyway, he now believes that our governments should "strike on the 'terrain of dogma', on the reinterpretation of holy scriptures and religious texts."

Here we may indeed have stumbled on a cultural difference. In a peculiar fit of Gallic chauvinism, Bruckner declares "the superiority of the French model." There is something quaintly old-fashioned, and even refreshing, about this kind of national pride. But what is it that Bruckner finds so superior? Laicité, I suppose, and republicanism. I would immediately concede that there is much to be admired about France, and its "model". However, Bruckner's notion that the state should get involved in dogmas, or the interpretation of holy scriptures, may have some bearing on the history of post-revolutionary France. In any case, I think it is a bad idea. There are many reasons why it would be desirable for Muslims, or anybody else, to feel free to reinterpret their religious texts, and for all of us to challenge dogmas. But this surely is not the business of the state, for that opens the way to authoritarianism.

What, in any case, does Bruckner propose to do about millions of Muslim believers living in Europe? Tell them how to intepret their holy scriptures? Force them to follow Ayaan Hirsi Ali's example and renounce their faith? Perhaps it would be better if they did so of their own free will, but expecting the state to make them do so is not entirely in keeping with Bruckner's self-image of an enlightened freedom-fighter.

A common feature of Bruckner's kind of polemics is the frequent use of the words "appeasement" and "collaborator". This is rarely done innocently. The idea is to associate people who seek an accommodation with the majority of Muslims with Nazi collaborators. Unless he is simply being vicious, this can only mean that Bruckner sees the rise of Islamism as something on a par with the emergence of the Third Reich. If so, he is not alone. While seeing the dangers of Islamism, I regard this as too alarmist.

But here we get to the final Brucknerian sleight of hand, for after all his huffing and puffing about not giving an inch to the Muslims, about defending Ayaan Hirsi Ali against "the enemies of freedom," such as myself, he suddenly concludes that "there is nothing that resembles the formidable peril of the Third Reich" and even that "the government of Mullahs in Tehran is a paper tiger." Now it is us, the armchair philosophers, who are the panic-stricken alarmists, who have lost the courage to "defend Europe." Now where have we heard that kind of thing before? The need to defend Europe against alien threats; the fatigued, self-doubting, weak-kneed intellectuals… but no, now I am descending to the level of Pascal Buckner, the rebel king of the Left Bank.

*

This text, published in German in the online magazine Perlentaucher is a response to an article by Pascal Bruckner, which appeared on signandsight.com on January 24, 1007.

Ian Buruma is a Dutch-born historian and journalist. He is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

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signandsight.com - let's talk european. Comments on the article: Freedom cannot be decreed
29/01/2007
There are many reasons why it would be desirable for Muslims, or anybody else, to feel free to reinterpret their religious texts. But this surely is not the business of the state, for that opens the way to authoritarianism. By Ian Buruma

Inverse chronological order

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Theocraphobe
(1 comments)
registered on 31/03/2007

Disappointment with Murder in Amsterdam

Quote:

Condemning Islam, without taking the many variations into account, is too indiscriminate.

I read Buruma, here and his book Murder in Amsterdam, with mounting disappointment since I had high expectations after reading Johann Hari's quote about an earlier book.

The book is a series of well-turned stories about some interesting people connected, vaguely, by some laboured links passed off as analysis. It is timid and ultimately a betrayal of Hirsi Ali. It is not enough to bemoan her absence "my country seems smaller without her". Better to stand up to those whose murder threats hounded her away.

And it is not enough to separate out Islamists for condemnation (though not it seems for effective opposition). Neither it is enough to separate out Islam. Sam Harris in his "End of Faith" shows that it is the religious so-called moderates of EVERY theistic, irrational faith that license the extremists. To kill Theo Van Gogh in Europe or bomb an abortion clinic in the USA or bulldoze a Palestinian village in the Middle East in the name of a God, all require a safe area where irrational faith in a creator, "inspired" texts and an afterlife are acceptable.

This is not defending Europe against an alien force. It is not even only about defending the Enlightenment. It is defending reason itself. A new dark age is upon us and sadly the resistance,led by Dawkins, Harris, Hirsi Ali and their like is in retreat.

In despair.

Created on 31/03/2007 | Reviewed on 02/04/2007
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leo mandel
(1 comments)
registered on 01/03/2007

you have to consider the context of islam

Quote:

"nudist beach"

dear Ian Buruma, if there is no formal difference between a nudist beach and a for-women-only beach or swimming pool(as demanded by some moslems in Italy or in France), there is indeed a difference when you consider the context.
The nudists or else do not intend to make propaganda or change our way of life. On the contrary, some strong currents in the moslem world do intend to change our way of life, by propaganda, or even by violence (against western people or against moderate moslems) .
So we must be very careful to some moslem revendications in democratic countries. No comparison possible between nudist beaches, kosher restaurants or else from one side, and for-women-only beaches and swimming pools.

Created on 01/03/2007 | Reviewed on 01/03/2007
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pb
(1 comments)
registered on 27/02/2007

Freedom cannot be decreed

Ian Buruma says Ayaan Hirsi Ali "tends to see religion, and Islam in particular, as the root of all evils, especially of the abuse of women." Let's challenge Buruma to cite where she has said that. I say she's said it nowhere. I say Buruma made it up as a club to support the ludicrous claim that she is as fundamentalist as the Islamic lunatics she opposes.

Buruma says Islamic violence against women is just a matter of law enforcement. That's exactly wrong. Islam opposes the distinction between civil and religious law, and "holy" spokesmen for Islam promote, encourage and practise violence against women. That is a cultural and religious matter. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's statements that Islam in general is backward are very helpful indeed in this respect, especially where civil governments suicidally seek to legalise Sharia.

Buruma's claim not to see why an Islamic hospital in Rotterdam "is so much more terrible than opening kosher restaurants" is spectacularly obtuse. An Islamic hospital will be organised to enforce Islamic domination of women according to the wishes of the most autocratic Islamic men. A kosher restaurant enforces no such abomination.

Created on 27/02/2007 | Reviewed on 27/02/2007
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erik
(1 comments)
registered on 24/02/2007

freedom cannot be decreed

i am puzzled by the socio-economic vacuum in which this discussion takes place. there is an amazing reluctance to concentrate on surface realities and events such as Mr van Gogh's murder or the film he produced. extremist islam - like many other revolutions that have shaped the world - is perhaps cannot succeed without the implicit support of very powerful groups willing to finance or provide support though other means. it is high time that these forces are made visible and exposed for what they are. islam remains far too often silent about the way it gets hijacked by an islamist agenda that serves the purpose of a small group of fanatics. the same happened in russia during the revolution (and perhaps is still happening in russia) and during the darker episodes of european history - reluctant here to single out germany and italy because many countries wer very very sympathetic to what went on then possibly in the same was as many muslims appease what is happening in their name in the middle east. without greater clarity about who in the region is trying to achieve what by behaving in this manner the west's concern about the islamist agenda will remain caught in expressing shock and horror about some of the outrages that are taking place but will never move much beyond that point. we live in very dangerous times indeed

Created on 24/02/2007 | Reviewed on 26/02/2007
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http://www.ianburuma.com/

IAN BURUMA's personal website

Ian Buruma was educated in Holland and Japan, where he studied history, Chinese literature, and Japanese cinema.

In 1970s Tokyo, he acted in Kara Juro's Jokyo Gekijo and participated in Maro Akaji's butoh dancing company Dairakudakan, followed by a career in documentary filmmaking and photography. In the 1980s, he worked as a journalist, and spent much of his early writing career travelling and reporting from all over Asia.

Buruma now writes about a broad range of political and cultural subjects for major publications, most frequently for The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, The Financial Times, and The Guardian.

He was Cultural Editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong (1983-86) and Foreign Editor of The Spectator, London (1990-91), and has been a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., St. Antony's College, Oxford, and Remarque Institute, NYU.

He has delivered lectures at various academic and cultural institutions world-wide, including Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard universities. He is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Latest News:
Ian Buruma will be giving Stafford Little Lectures, entitled "No Divine Right: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents Three-lecture series", at Princeton University on November 3, 10, 17, 2008. For further details, please click here.

Ian Buruma's novel The China Lover (Penguin USA) was published in September 2008. See reviews here.

Ian Buruma was voted as one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals by the Foreign Policy/Prospect magazines (May/June 2008).

Ian Buruma was awarded the 2008 international Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to culture, society or social science in Europe."

Ian Buruma was awarded the 2008 Shorenstein Journalism Award, an annual award which "honors a journalist not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way that work has helped American readers to understand the complexities of Asia." It is awarded jointly by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, and the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (Penguin USA) was the winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Current Interest Book.

See his monthly columns for Project Syndicate.

http://www.cbc.ca/wordsatlarge/blog/2009/02/eleanor_wachtel_talks_to_dutch_1.html

Eleanor Wachtel talks to Dutch author Ian Buruma about The China Lover, his fascinating new novel of turbulent times

Posted by Kimberly Walsh on February 16 at 12:00 AM

Listen here:

The China Lover When Ian Buruma won the 2008 Erasmus Prize for his "contribution to culture in Europe," the Dutch jury praised him as a "new cosmopolitan." The author of such acclaimed works as Inventing Japan and Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Leo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, he was also named one of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals.

The Dutch novelist and journalist has often written about Asian culture, and he returns to that territory in his latest novel. The China Lover (Penguin) spans roughly 50 years of Japan’s turbulent modern history, and is a fascinating look at a woman caught between two countries at war. Buruma tracks the curious career of the Japanese actress known variously as Ri Koran, Yoshiko Yamaguchi and Shirley Yamaguchi from three diverse perspectives: one American and two Japanese, all of them confidants at different stages of her life.

During the Japanese occupation of Manchuria from 1932 to 1945, the studios of the Manchurian Film Association produced a series of propaganda movies intended for Chinese audiences. Their principal box-office star was the doe-eyed singer and actress who was so successful at pretending to be Chinese that after the Japanese surrender she was arrested by the Chinese government and charged with collaborating with the enemy, a capital crime. Only by producing proof of her pedigree as a bona fide Japanese was she exonerated and allowed to leave for Japan.

Eleanor Wachtel spoke to Ian Buruma from the CBC’s New York studio.

First aired February 15, 2009 on Writers & Company . [runs 51:56]

Writers & Company airs on Thursdays at 11:00 p.m. (11:30 in Newfoundland) and on Sunday afternoons (times vary across the country). You can also listen to the show as a podcast.

Comments

Was fascinated by the remnarks of IAN BURUMA about the death of LEO
Van Gogh, connected to the problems of new immigrants.
I too am an immigrant but I came from Holland.
Live in a very conservative Dutch christian Reformed Senior complex,rhough I am not that kind of a believer.It was a marvelous interview, and I am sure to listen via the blog every week, may even repear to share the program with likemined friends.
Thank you for an enlightening program.
All my best,
Lini R.Grol.

Posted by: Lini R.Grol. | February 16, 2009 01:12 PM

Words at Large is CBC’s online destination for Canadians who love books. Look for something new every day, from CBC programs and podcasts, to interviews with writers and more. Stay tuned for our newly designed and expanded site.

wanghx

unread,

Apr 16, 2009, 4:26:33 PM4/16/09

to lihlii-g, Salon Friends

Ian Buruma: 藏传佛教被视为守旧和暴虐的象征也绝不是无缘无故。而中国共产党
则承诺实现现代化。

lihlii: 这篇文章中，Ian 在有限的篇幅中，还是没有把最主要的事实说清楚，甚
至有粉饰血腥的倾向。这句话就是典型，他很可能因为中共的大量谎言在自由世界
借助奴才学者的作品传播而被统战了。:) 如果说59年前藏区行政当局可能是“守旧
和暴虐”的，我认为这是可以有一些论据的；但如果说“藏传佛教被视为守旧和暴虐
的象征”，这纯属一个无神论者对宗教的偏见蒙蔽了双眼而被谎言所击倒。

在这个访谈中，Ian Buruma 坦诚地谈到他对宗教的态度是不认同的，这可以看出
他的思维上的局限性。固然，他的家庭曾经宽容地收留受迫害的犹太儿童，并帮助
天主教家庭的儿童实现宗教教育的愿望，但一个无神论者对宗教的鄙视，是很难不
影响到他们对事实的判断力的。我作为一个对无神论持批判立场的无神论者，从对
自己的思想史的分析，对同样被无神论洗脑的朋友亲人的言行，深深地感受这一强
大的力量。

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