Posted on 11/29/2005 12:49:34 AM PST by dervish
I was at a tribute sponsored by Center for Popular Culture (David Horowitz) honoring Oriana Fallaci, the Italian Journalist now living in NYC who has come out strongly against Islam in the post 9/11 world.
Attending were Daniel Pipes, who introduced her, Robert Spencer who will be writing about the event in Frontpage, Norman Podhoretz, Frank Gaffney, Phyllis Chessler, John Fund of WSJ, Josh Gerstein of NY Sun, and assorted other who I probably did not recognize. It was an honor to be there. Fallaci is very sick and near death. But you would never know it from the fire in her speech. She spoke for almost an hour.
She began by saying that people live in denial. Appeasement is easier than fighting. People get tired.
Woven throughout her talk were references to Alexis DeTocqueville's comments on how authoritarian systems try to attack democracy by turning people who speak the truth and go against the tide into pariahs and objects of scorn. They attack the “soul of freedom.” She was talking about herself and how she has been maligned by the leftists in Italy and Europe even now she is being sued in Italy for a hate crime against Islam in her book "The Force of Reason." Yet Islam which is full of hate is above Western reproach. Santa Claus offends Muslim children so he is banished. Muslims defile and urinate on Christian sites in Italy and that is tolerated as free expression. The Mayor of Murano changed the planned name of a street from “The martyrs of Nassiriya” (in memory of the Italian servicemen killed in a terrorist attack there), to “Yasser Arafat Street”.
She chastised President Bush for calling Islam “a religion of peace.” “Shut up Bush” she says to herself “but he doesn’t listen to me.”
“Moderate Islam is our invention, there is Islam and that is all,” she said. She referred to the Koran as the ‘Mein Kampf’ of Islam.
On the French riots she commented that of course they were Islamic. Other poor residents of French slums were not involved only Muslim youth. Why else were the rioters yelling “Allah Akbar” as they pillaged.
She spoke warmly of her meeting with Pope Benedict XVI who she admires greatly, and said if an atheist and the Pope can find common ground in the threat to European and Western civilization there must be truth there. She praised the religious of Europe as more tolerant of differing beliefs than the secular – Pope Benedict did not berate her on her atheism.
On the political left and right she said she was on neither side, and had gripes against the right as well. She was especially angry at Secretary Rice and the State Department for pushing Europe to include Turkey in the EU. Rice may be a very smart person but she knows nothing about Turkey, their human rights abuses, their women taking up the veil again. She described the right and left as jockeying for the football of power. She called herself a revolutionary on no side whose weapon was words. She praised the audience for participating in what she believes is the struggle of our times.
Terrorism is not the greatest threat; immigration is. By the year 2100 Europe will be majority Muslim. Europeans will be described as Natives the way American Indians who were conquered by the West are now. The Muslims do not even want to assimilate. They do not embrace their new country with loyalty or love. The French rioters do not want to be called French. The struggle according to some Muslims is not whether the Muslims will dominate Europe but whether they will be able to impose Sharia. She repeatedly called it Eurabia and mentioned Bat Yeor as a reference.
She closed by saying that it gave her great comfort to know that as her life ebbed others like those in the room tonight would continue the war. She said that at the end she would cross herself because even though she was an atheist “you never know.”
And at the end of the day, that's all anyone can ask of a reportor, writer or another human being.
And today what matters, regardless of any errors or mistakes she may well have been guilty of in the past... on the topic of Islam and middle eastern politics, this woman knows what she's talking about, feels passionately about her love for the United States and for the need to preserve the tolerant western civilization that allows her to be the atheist she is, to have some self respect and self direction as a woman and to play some part in how she is governed.
The rest of the world would do well to pay some attention to the words she writes.
Sorry, but I have to say it again... God Bless Oriana Fallaci
Cheers,
Lloyd
She also confronted the Ayatoilet Khomeini during her interview of him. I don't think the mull-hole saw it coming when he okayed the interview.
And they say there's no such thing as "smoker face."
Good question. R&P is kind of an odd book. It's highly personal. Actually, all of her stuff is very personal. (Letters to an Unborn Child and A Man are really, really personal.) And for the record, she has never claimed to be an impartial journalist.
Probably many conservatives related very strongly to some parts of the book, but disliked others. I can't imagine very many conservatives agree with her that we should have let the Soviets have Afghanistan. So it boils down to a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of logic.
Personally, I think she's great. I don't always agree with her, but ALWAYS walk away from her stuff with lots to think about.
And they say there's no such thing as "smoker face."
That picture is fairly recent. She's in her mid-sixties and terminally ill.
"as well as Afghan assistance during the 1980s'
In hindsight was she wrong? I ask this with an open mind. The Bush Doctrine is that realism is a failed policy of expediency that has not led the US or the world to good places.
Further, I am not sure she has the same views on all fronts as she had then.
My understanding of her interview of Kissinger, which was mentioned by Daniel Pipes in his introduction, was that she got him to open up and he made a bit of a fool of himself. That is her talent, getting under the skin of her interviewees.
Pipes also said she was the only one to make Ayatollah Komeini smile. And at the interview she ripped off her Chaldor (head covering). For this alone I respect her.
Fallaci is a Hitchens style ally.
I think she's more like 75 and not likely to survive the winter.
"She also confronted the Ayatoilet Khomeini during her interview of him."
Right.
ping to #40
The interview with Kissinger is a classic. He planned some pretty interesting mind games with her and she parried. I wouldn't call what he did as making a fool of himself...what he said was something like "Americans like the guy on the white horse. The hero." It's a good interview because you can tell that she respects his intellect -- she viewed him as a "worthy opponent," unlike, say, Arafat. That said, it's still something of a hatchet job. The Komeini interview is just so-so, but I haven't re-read it in 10 years.
Here is the NY Sun's take --
http://www.nysun.com/article/23705
If only she were 45 years younger...
ping for later
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