French Group Bashes Italian Writer (over anti-Muslim book)

Associated Press ^ | Tuesday, June 11, 2002

[Dog Gone]

PARIS (AP) -- A French anti-racism group has started legal proceedings against Italian writer Oriana Fallaci to try to stop French distribution of her latest book, which it says incites hatred against Muslims.

The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People referred to Fallaci's book, ``Rage and Pride,'' as ``a scathing Islamophobe attack.'' The proceedings started Monday also target Plon, the book's publisher in France.

Fallaci, best known for her uncompromising interviews with world leaders, ended a decade-long, self-imposed silence after Sept. 11 by writing a book in angry reaction to the terrorist attacks in New York, where she lives.

Critics have accused the former Resistance fighter and war correspondent of writing an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant tirade.

In one passage that the Movement Against Racism objects to, Fallaci writes that Muslims ``multiply like rats.'' In another, she says that ``the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day.''

A spokeswoman for the book's French publisher said it had just been informed of the complaint and did not immediately have a comment. Her agent in New York did not immediately return a call for comment.

Rizzoli, which publishes Fallaci's book in Italy, said the book was due in September in the United States. The title was unknown and Rizzoli refused to disclose the name of American publisher.

Mouloud Aounit, the Movement Against Racism's secretary general, said his group believes in freedom of expression -- ``but this incites racial violence.''

``It's racist delirium,'' Aounit said.

Since ``Rage and Pride'' was released in France in May, most major newspapers have devoted opinion pieces to it. In Friday's edition of Le Figaro, Fallaci said she has been receiving death threats.

[Dog Gone]

the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day

[tet68]

If there's one thing the left cannot abide it's when one of their own realizes the truth.

[DB]

Mouloud Aounit, the Movement Against Racism's secretary general, said his group believes in freedom of expression -- ``but this incites racial violence.''

Since when is being Muslim racial?

What race you are is not a choice. What religion you choose is totally your choice. What foolish people.

[Cachelot]

A French anti-racism group has started legal proceedings against Italian writer Oriana Fallaci

Oh well. Another "must-have" for the library :).

[Dog Gone]

[browardchad]

A must read, from a previous FR thread

Oriana Fallaci: Anger and Pride

[Dog Gone]

Thanks for the link!

Here's some of the "hate speech" this French group is trying to censor:

I don’t go pitching tents at Mecca. I don’t go singing Our Fathers and Hail Marys in front of Mohammed’s tomb. I don’t go peeing on the marble of their mosques; I don’t go shitting at the feet of their minarets. When I find myself in their countries (something from which I never derive pleasure), I never forget that I am a guest and a foreigner. I am careful not to offend them with clothing or gestures or behavior that are normal for us but impermissible to them. I treat them with dutiful respect, dutiful courtesy, and I excuse myself when through mistake or ignorance I infringe some rule or superstition of theirs. And the images I’ve had before my eyes while writing this scream of pain and indignation haven’t always been those of the apocalyptic scenes I started with. Sometimes I see another image instead, a symbolic (and therefore infuriating) one: the huge tent with which the Somalian Muslims disfigured and befouled and profaned the Piazza del Duomo at Florence for three months last summer. My city.

[CatoRenasci]

I read the long article she wrote that was published a few months ago. It was pretty astonishing stuff, written with a vigor and honesty one rarely sees in the US. I will definitely buy the book.

[dennisw]

If you want on or off me Israel/MidEast ping list please let me know. Via Freepmail is best way.............

[fporretto]

Doesn't it strike you as just too, too, predictable that this assault on Miss Fallaci should have emanated from France? The new Anti-Semitic capital of Europe?

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[Paul Atreides]

PARIS (AP) -- A French anti-racism group has started legal proceedings against Italian writer Oriana Fallaci to try to stop French distribution of her latest book, which it says incites hatred against Muslims.

Remember, these are the same snotty people who were looking down their noses at us during the Bubba Impeachment.

[PeteePie]

How ironic it is when one ponders the image of the vast sea of white crosses (and the occasional Star of Davids) that grace the coast of Normandy, commemorating those fallen heros who gave their lives to erradicate those book-burning facists from the France and the whole of Europe. Now the very same soil where great men died supports vermine like The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People. History and current events alike have thoroughly demonstrated that the concept evoked in this pipe-dreaming group's title is uterly impossible. These people are nothing but faithless liberals living in a state of perpetual fear and anxiety over just about everything.

[Jason Gade]

Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!

I thought that the Vichy regime went out after WWII.

[B Knotts]

In one passage that the Movement Against Racism objects to, Fallaci writes that Muslims ``multiply like rats.''

I was not previously familiar with this race, "Muslim." Is that a new race?

[Valin]

Critics have accused the former Resistance fighter and war correspondent of writing an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant tirade.

And this is a bad thing?

I for one eagerly await this book.

[Attillathehon]

Mouloud Aounit, the movement's Secretary General"

Is this a French name?

[lavaroise]

Teh French are so good at telling what a book means to mean, yet they are so bad when we tell them how their behavior toward muslims make them look like a terror front. It's socialist hypocrisy as usual, theirs is so sinless, none can denounce, all must accept the pronouncements thereof.

[NeoCaveman]

In Friday's edition of Le Figaro, Fallaci said she has been receiving death threats.

Death threats from the practioners of the "peaceful religion" TM.

[Jason Gade]

Thanks for the Oriana Fallaci link. I didn't read it the first time around because it was so long. I read it this time.

[tictoc]

Fallaci is not the only writer in France targeted by the Religion of Peace(TM).

Another is Michel Houellebecq (quick, say that name three times!), who had the temerity of calling Islam the most stupid of all religions.

More here: "A blasphemy trial out of the 17th century" (even the Guardian gets it).