Posted on 05/25/2005 5:07:01 AM PDT by an italian
Controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is to face trial for allegedly insulting the Muslim faith in her latest book, a court in Italy says. Ms Fallaci is being sued by the head of the Muslim Union of Italy, who says The Force of Reason is defamatory.
The journalist caused an uproar with The Rage and the Pride, published two weeks after the 11 September attacks.
In it, she said Western culture was superior to Islam and Muslim immigrants in the West had "multiplied like rats".
Her lawyers have defended her right to express controversial opinions.
"At the heart of her thinking is the following reasoning: the fight against Islamic terrorism is made more difficult by intellectual terrorism cloaked in anti-racism," Gilles Goldhagen, said in 2002, when a French judge was hearing a case to ban The Rage and the Pride.
'No good Islam'
The Force of Reason is said to have gone to print about 24 hours after the 11 March 2004 train bombings in Spain.
In it, Ms Fallaci argues that Europe is turning into "an Islamic province, an Islamic colony" and that "to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason".
Italian preliminary investigative judge Armando Grasso ordered the formulation of charges against the author, saying the book had expressions which were "unequivocally offensive to Islam".
Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, sued the writer on 8 April 2004. He says Ms Fallaci has been advocating and spreading hate against Islam and Muslims, sometimes by allegedly distorting real historical facts and inventing others.
The case is being tried in the northern town of Bergamo, where the book was published. The prosecution has 10 days to come up with a charge.
Ms Fallaci, who lives in New York, was a Resistance fighter in World War II and a former war correspondent.
What a shame! I was born in Abruzzo (I came to the US a long time ago) where the case took place. I can't imagine people not raising hell - I guess italians have changed.
How sad though that they are giving up their culture so easily, and to people that want to kill them.
This, in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism - they're tolerant of every one but themselves, respect other's culture, but not their own!!
America is a country that has great things to teach us. Speaking of heroic efficiency let me sing the praises of the Mayor of New York. That Rudolph Giuliani, whom we Italians should thank on our knees. Because he has an Italian last name, he is of Italian extraction, and he makes us look good in the entire world. He is a great, in fact a very great Mayor. This is coming from someone who is never happy about anything or anyone, starting with herself. He is a Mayor worthy of another great Mayor with an Italian last name, Fiorello La Guardia, and many of our Mayors should go to be schooled by him. Present themselves with their heads bowed, in fact with ashes on their heads, and ask him: “Mr. Giuliani, please tell us how to do it.” it.”
He does not delegate his duties to others. He does not waste time in being a prick and thirsting for power. He does not divide his time between being Mayor and a senator or a representative. (is there anyone listening in the three cities of Stendhal, namely Naples, Florence and Rome?). Running to the site immediately, he entered the second skyscraper, and he risked being transformed into ashes with the others. He saved himself by a hair and by chance. Within four days he had the city back on it’s feet again. A city that has nine and a half million residents, note, and two million only in Manhattan. How he did it, I don’t know. He is ill like me, poor man, he makes believe he is well: he works just the same. However, I work at a table, sitting comfortably! He instead…He looked like a general that was personally participating in a battle. A soldier that throws himself forward with his bayonet. “Come on people, Get on with it! Let’s pull up our sleeves and get to work!, hurry!!” He was able to do this because these people were, are, like he is. People without conceit and laziness, my father would have said “people with balls”. As to the admirable capacity to unite, the compact almost martial manner in which the Americans respond to tragedies and the enemy, well, I must admit that there and then it even surprised me. I knew that at the time of Pearl Harbor, the population rallied around Roosevelt, who had entered into the war against Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy and Hirohito’s Japan. I had smelled it, after Kennedy’s assassination.
I don’t know if in Italy you saw and understood what happened in New York, when Bush went there to thank the workers (men and women) that are digging in the ruins of the two towers, trying to save survivors but have not found anything but a nose here a finger there. Without giving up, nonetheless. Without fatalism, so that if you ask them how they do it, they reply, “I can allow myself to be exhausted not to be defeated.” Everyone. Young, very young, old, middle age. Whites, blacks, yellows, browns, purple… Did you see them? While Bush thanks them they waved little American flags, lifted a clenched fist and roared: “USA! USA! USA!”. In a totalitarian state, I would have thought, “look how well the powers have organized this demonstration!”. In America, no! In America one does not organize these things. You can’t command them, you can’t stage them. Especially not in a disenchanted metropolis such as New York, and especially not with New York City workers! They are terrible types, the workers of New York. Freer than the wind. They don’t even obey their unions. But if you touch their flag, if you touch their country…
Read my home-page.
Yes sir, but consider that there are still Italians that want to fight: Oriana is not alone.
If he did that today he would probably be arrested.
Hello, from a Texan Italian!
I'll have to put "Force of Reason" on my reading list. Thanks for posting this article.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0847827534/qid=1117039681/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-3000318-1019223?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
The book won't be available here until August 23rd.
PS-If anyone can take on a fatwa she can, unlike that whiney Salmon Rushdie.
This woman is one of my all-time heroes. I've been waiting to hear about her again. Thank you so much for posting this and anything else you find on her. I had not heard anything since I read The Rage and the Pride, and I was concerned about her health. I have never known of anyone as passionate as Oriana Fallaci. She is truly an phenomenon and inspiration, a beacon of truth.
I am in the U.S. (all my life) and I have known of her ever since A Man. That was not a book, that was a runaway train of emotion and humanity and love.
I wonder if he's willing to extend such respect to Catholic icons. Or is funding for the NEA sacrosanct?
She and Brigitte Bardot, 2 of the few Europeans to have the courage to tell it like it is. And then be prosecuted for it. Ms. Fallaci is proving herself, once again, as an intelligent and courageous woman.
That book is an act of love, freedom and justice. I started to love Alekos Panagulis while I was reading it.
Yes, that is true...
good point.
Thanks for the new tagline
You're more than welcome. I'm always glad to see that message going out anywhere and everywhere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.