The Italian journalist and interviewer Oriana Fallaci died a couple of weeks ago.
For those not in the know La Fallaci was one of those rare journalists who was independent of any label. She was neither Left nor Right. She embarrassed Henry Kissinger and angered the Ayatollah Khomeni. During the riots at the University of Mexico, while reporting, she was shot several times by the Mexican police.
Since September 11, 2001 she focused in on Islam and the effects of Islam in the West. Her book, The Rage and the Pride, earned her lawsuits from various Islamic organizations and individuals in Europe. The nation of Switzerland tried to have her extradited from Italy to face criminal charges for what they considered "hate speech." In a rare example of grit the Italian government told the Swiss to go blow their alpenhorns and leave the woman alone.
La Fallaci, who participated in the resistance against the Fascist government of Italy during World War II, was one of the all too rare European intellectuals who loved the United States. She kept an apartment in New York City, as well as a domicile in Italy.
As far as your faithful correspondent knows, her last book to be translated into English (translated by herself so it sometimes reads odd) was The Force of Reason. The book is a long tirade against Islam and the Islamification of Europe. One could even say it is one long scream of rage by a woman who sees her homeland ruined by the Son of Allah. It is sharp. It is hard. It is sometimes cruel. But it all makes sense for those who know that the civilization of Europe is superior than that of the desert kingdoms and that Christianity, even for those who are not Christians, is a better religion for freedom and reason loving societies than is Islam. ... La Fallaci was one of those rare people who were able to admit that she hated with an exquisite hate. She hated Islam and everything it stood for. And despite her self admitted atheism she loved what Christianity, culturally, stood for and the values that it brought to the Western world.
What follows are quotations from The Force of Reason that may excite some thought:
"What I say is that today's Islamic invasion of Europe is nothing else than a revival of its century-old expansionism, of its centuries-old imperialism, of its centuries-old colonialism. More underhand, though. More treacherous. Because this time it is characterized not only by the current Kara Mustafas and Lala Mustafas and Ali Pashas and Ahmet Pashas and Suleymans the Magnificent, that is by Bin Ladens and the Al Zarkawis and the various Arafats and the butchers who blow themselves up with the skyscrapers and buses. It is characterized also by the immigrants who settle in our countries, our homelands. And without any respect for our laws impose on us their own laws. Their own customs, their God."
"Last summer in Florence don Roberto Tassi, parish priest of Santa Maria de' Ricci (the little church where in 1274 Dante Alighieri first saw his beloved Beatrice), put up two moving posters. The first, in front of the main altar. A poster which simply said: 'Hail our Cross, out only hope! Those bearded zealots want to destroy all of us!' The second, in the churchyard along with an image of the disintegrated Twin Towers. A poster which offered a perfect syllogism: 'Islam is theocracy. Theocracy denies democracy. Ergo, Islam is against democracy.'"
(Quoting the economist Hayek) "It is not only the principles of Adam Smith and Hume and Locke and Milton which are being abandoned. It is also the bedrock of civilization developed by the Greeks and the Romans and Christianity. Meaning the western civilization. What is being relinquished is not only the liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, that is the liberalism which completed that civilization."
"In my lecture 'Wake up, West, wake up' I said that the West has lost its passion. That we must regain our passion, the force of passion. And God knows if this is true. Living takes passion. Refusing to submit, to comply, to surrender, means living with passion. But Europe does not refuse at all to submit. to comply, to surrender. On the contrary, it cowardly waves a white flag of servitude and resignation which is suicide itself..."
And here is a longer speech by La Fallaci herslef made in 2003: FrontPage magazine.com :: A Sermon for the West by Oriana Fallaci
She will be missed more than she ever knew.
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