Anybody know who I'm talking about?
Posted on 06/06/2020 1:42:21 PM PDT by robowombat
Italian Woman, Kidnapped by Muslim Terrorists, Converts to Islam and Returns to Rome JUN 6, 2020 10:00 AM BY HUGH FITZGERALD
When Silvia Romano was freed from her 18-month captivity in the hands of al-Shebaab, after the payment of a large ransom by the Italian government to her captors, she arrived in Rome to be welcomed as a returning hero. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister were both at the airport to greet her. There was one loud dissenting voice, from a member of Parliament, Alessandro Pagano, who derided Romano as a “neo-terrorist.” This horrified many of the Great and Good.
The acting president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mara Carfagna, quickly admonished Pagano, saying: “Using the term ‘neo-terrorist’ is thoroughly improper, especially in this chamber.”
Romano’s sympathy for her captors – members of the Muslim terrorist group al-Shebaab — was palpable in her remarks. They never tied her up. They treated her kindly. She had enough to eat. They gave her books to read, including the Qur’an in an Italian translation. She had nothing to say against them for having kidnapped and held her for 18 months. She offered only praise. This makes her at the very least a useful idiot for, and a sympathizer with, terrorists. Finally, she converted to the faith that justified her captors in kidnapping her, a faith that commands Muslims, it bears repetition, to “strike terror in the hearts” of Infidels (as in 3:151 and 8:12). Isn’t that justification enough to earn her the description of “neo-terrorist”?
Democratic Party lawmaker Emanuele Fiano went further, blasting Pagano for accusing a victim of a violent extremist group of committing the crime of terrorism.
“She was a prisoner of a band of terrorists! She was a prisoner of a band of terrorists!” Fiano shouted.
She was indeed “a prisoner of a band of terrorists,” but not only that. She came to share their views by converting to Islam, and had only praise, not blame, for them. She was no longer their victim, but had become their collaborator. She told her tale of being captured, and then walking nine hours a day, at one point even having to walk waist-deep in mud, all the way from Kenya into Somalia, describing it as a kind of excellent adventure.
Pagano defended himself, saying he quoted from a newspaper.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte was scathing about anyone trying to politically exploit the young woman’s experience.
“To whoever’s speculating about her, first become a 23-year-old, kidnapped in Kenya, forced to walk nine hours a day, in a forest, by those with Kalashnikovs,” Conte replied when a reporter asked him about the virulent campaign targeting Romano. ”If you live through this experience, come back” and then give an assessment.
Isn’t it Conte himself who, by showing up at the airport to welcome Romano back to Italy, the one who has been “trying to politically exploit” Romano’s release? Isn’t he, as the head of the Italian state, attempting to suggest that it was he, the Prime Minister, who deserves all the credit for Romano’s return to her family and her country?
Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq in 2005, said she also experienced a backlash after she was freed because an Italian agent was killed in a firefight during her rescue.
“Obviously all the polemics begin when it’s a women who is kidnapped,” she told Swiss radio RSI. “No one complains when ransom is paid for a man, or when a man goes to such places. But when it’s a woman, it’s that we went looking for it.”
Sgrena was working in extremely dangerous conditions in Iraq. She was an obvious target for Islamic jihad, but in putting herself in such danger, she thought only of what a boost to her career as a journalist it would be to come back with a story about terrorists. She didn’t think carefully either about the likelihood of capture, nor of what might happen to those sent to rescue her. She was ransomed, for $6 million, money which has only helped finance more terrorism by Islamic jihadis. As she was being escorted to freedom by a major general in Italy’s secret service, SISMI, Nicola Calipari, they were attacked; he shielded her with his own body; and was shot and killed. Sgrena has expressed no guilt over this; she does not think she did anything wrong in ignoring all the warnings of extreme danger that led, ultimately, to the murder of General Calipari. She was determined to make her name as a war correspondent, and reap the reputational and financial rewards that would follow.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano denounced the “inhuman” attacks on Romano and demanded that her detractors think instead about how much suffering she endured.
The “inhuman” attacks that L’Osservatore Romano claims were launched against Romano in Italy consist of exactly two items: first, a small bottle thrown against the wall of her family’s house, and second, a single epithet – “neo-terrorista” – used by MP Alessandro Pagano in a fiery outburst against her. Both were to be deplored, but can they really be described as “inhuman”? Surely the Vatican newspaper ought to have said something about the “inhuman” attack Romano endured when kidnapped by Kalashnikov-toting terrorists in Kenya, forced to walk for nine hours at a time, sometimes in mud up to her waist, and then was imprisoned for 18 months. Isn’t that an even more “inhuman” attack on Romano than merely calling her a “neo-terrorist”? On this L’Osservatore Romano is silent.
“Silvia Romano’s freedom should have produced joy and nothing else,” the newspaper wrote on May 13. “Instead, it is incredible the sequence of reactions and filthy judgments that have rained down from every corner of the country that have dissected what happened to this child, starting from her original choice.”
Many Italians were displeased with the way the government was treating Aisha Romano as someone to admire, a veritable heroine. They don’t think she did anything heroic, nothing that should have caused the Prime Minister and the minister of foreign affairs to greet her at the airport. Nor do they agree with the Vatican paper’s attempt to excuse her behavior by describing her, a woman in her 20s, as “a child.” Those angered by Romano felt she had identified so completely with her captors as to provide excuses for their behavior: “They didn’t tie me up.” “They gave me books to read.” She seems to overlook the main point: she was held prisoner for 18 months. She had converted to Islam, the very faith that justified her captors’ behavior toward her. She had even changed her name to “Aisha.” Her embrace of Islam was total. Many Italians found her identification with her captors appalling, and expressed their displeasure on social media. Of course her behavior was a fit object of criticism. L’Osservatore Romano wanted her freedom to have “produced joy and nothing else.” Why? Isn’t her conversion worth discussing? Does the Vatican paper wish to celebrate her abandonment of the Christian faith and her embrace of Islam? Is that what the Vatican wishes to become — a cheerleader for those who leave Christianity for Islam?
The famous Italo-Egyptian convert to Christianity Magdi Allam, who grew up as a Muslim in Egypt, has written that he does not believe that Romano’s conversion, despite her assurances, was either “spontaneous” or “free”; he believes that living among dangerous Muslim terrorists for 18 months, men who sensed she might be spiritually malleable, took as one of their objectives — along with the receipt of ransom — convincing her to submit to Islam, it proved impossible for her to resist the intellectual and emotional pressures that she still refuses to recognize. Allam thinks that Romano will, now that she is safely back in Italy, reread and study the Qur’an, look into the most “authentic” Hadith, and will, as a consequence, come to recognize the extreme misogyny of the faith, as well as the murderous hatred toward Infidels, and rethink her conversion. She may also be surprised to learn, Allam points out, that the Muslim name she chose is that of little Aisha, whom Muhammad married when she was six, and with whom he consummated the marriage – that is, had sexual intercourse with her – when Aisha was nine and he was fifty-four. Allam thinks such information, withheld from her by her captives, will shock her into abandoning Islam.
That is Magdi Allam’s hope and his expectancy, and it should be ours as well.
Already being done
Started with MTV a few decades ago.
She had a Drew Brees conversion.
> freed from her 18-month captivity in the hands of al-Shebaab, after the payment of a large ransom by the Italian government to her captors <
I wonder if al-Shebaab offers refunds.
Classic Stockholm Syndrome?
They better keep her under strict house arrest with no visitors or un-examined communications. I sure hope they’ve learned their lessons.
Anybody know who I'm talking about?
Converted from what?
Patty Hearst
Heard the burst...
This, too, is the story of Drew Brees.
These women get dominated and gang banged. Kadafi’s most loyal body guards were women he personally raped. It is the psychology of leadership whereby to be associated with a man - who has a trait of belonging to a group, who she will dominate others through him, and other social and personal erogeneous advantages overweighing the rape violence itself - happens to feel very advantageous.
Every woman who told me they have been raped, often happened to have the man keeping them in from running to the cops in physical or social ways, and they always name them by their first name! Never do they do that about boyfriends they broke up with, who they refer as “this man” or “a school mate” etc.
Absolutely incredible.
Islam is a war plan
Patty Hearst. Heiress. Kidnapped and brainwashed by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
A very big deal when I was a kid.
People are often mystified by this - modern people oppressed by Muslims becoming Muslims - but it is understandable when you look at their previous lives.
They are liberals. They have no real values or beliefs other than an empty, general “do-gooderism”. Then they go through the shock of kidnapping. Then they are see people who actually believe in a religious faith and who have visible practices connected with that faith every day, multiple times a day. If they are treated relatively well (considering they are prisoners - there is a chance they will convert - because they now feel like they have something to fill the void they lived with restlessly for years.
Patty Hearst is Italian?
That was my point, that he is effectively being held hostage.
The man is rich many times over. To bad he doesn’t have the guts or is so greedy that he can’t do a Gary Cooper in ‘High Noon’ and say ‘here is my jersey and you can go to hell.’
He certainly had that option.
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