Wednesday, May 31, 2006

A Long Read, But...


A MUST read! Yeah, yeah...I know, it's The New Yorker, but humor me.

John at the Alpaca Burger Forum hipped me to this piece on Oriana Fallaci.
An amazing tale of an amazing life. Pack a snack, it's a long, but engrossing article. Personal politics aside, here's one stand up broad who always spoke her mind and has no regrets.

Some quotes that stood out for me-

Fallaci on Khomeini :
"Do believe me: everything started with Khomeini. Without Khomeini, we would not be where we are. What a pity that, when pregnant with him, his mother did not choose to have an abortion.”

And here's the money shot: (actually, just one of many.)

Fallaci sees the threat of Islamic fundamentalism as a revival of the Fascism that she and her sisters grew up fighting. She told me, “I am convinced that the situation is politically substantially the same as in 1938, with the pact in Munich, when England and France did not understand a thing. With the Muslims, we have done the same thing.” She elaborated, in an e-mail, “Look at the Muslims: in Europe they go on with their chadors and their burkas and their djellabahs. They go on with the habits preached by the Koran, they go on with mistreating their wives and daughters. They refuse our culture, in short, and try to impose their culture, or so-called culture, on us. . . . I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture. Toward my values, my principles, my civilization. It is not only my duty toward my Christian roots. It is my duty toward freedom and toward the freedom fighter I am since I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism. Islamism is the new Nazi-Fascism. With Nazi-Fascism, no compromise is possible. No hypocritical tolerance. And those who do not understand this simple reality are feeding the suicide of the West.”

Now go, read!

4 Comments:

Blogger Walker said...

Wow the little socialist twit grew up. That freaking amazes me.

5/31/2006 5:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, her personal narrative of the rise of Islam (in The Rage and the Pride) goes back well into the 1970s, which means even as a "twit" she had an accurate picture of one aspect of the world. From what I have heard, she was one of the first writing warnings - from a secularist, classically liberal view point - before it had showed up on most radar screens.

(WTR, if this comment shows up twice can you please delete one of them - by browser just hiccuped)

6/01/2006 1:36 PM  
Blogger Walker said...

Okay I loved the piece. But, a little off the subject, is there some sort of elite charity that gives people like Oriana Fallaci a pile of dough so she can have a Manhattan townhouse?

6/01/2006 4:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Walker,

I'm neither an atheist or socialist, so I really have no dog in this particular fight, but my impression from reading her books is Fallaci made her money as a journalist and author.

6/01/2006 11:35 PM  

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