Reviewing Ian Buruma’s book Murder in Amsterdam Nick Cohen takes exception to Buruma’s willingness to appease the Muslim hordes:

“Buruma shows that Muslim immigration pushed the fantastically vituperative van Gogh and at least a part of the Dutch left into the appalled realisation that they were going to have to fight the old battles for free speech and the emancipation of women and homosexuals all over again. Interestingly, given his anti-fascist pedigree, Buruma won’t go along with them.

“He doesn’t quite say it, but he implies that it is one thing to make a stand against the ayatollahs’ Iran or al-Qaeda in the Middle East, and quite another to take on the same ideas at home when they are found in a minority community that is already vulnerable and often powerless….

“Murder in Amsterdam is well written, well researched and often wise, but a faint whiff of intellectual cowardice rises from its pages none the less.”

New Statesman, 30 October 2006

It’s reassuring to know that, unlike the cowardly Buruma, Cohen has the courage to wage a battle against the vulnerable and powerless.