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.”
Great post dervish! Excellent reportage. Was this in NYC? If so, I am very, very, extremely sorry I missed it.
She gets it,big time.
thought this might be of interest.
also --
Oriana Fallaci and the War Against Islamofascism
This is the text of David Horowitz's speech given at a dinner organized by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, when he bestowed the Center's prestigious Annie Taylor Award on Oriana Fallaci for her lifelong struggle against totalitarian ideologies. – The Editors.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20343
So weird seeing Fallaci praised on a conservative site...
Thank you.
Yes, it was in NYC. At the Republican Women's Club near Rockefeller Center.
What Italian will come forward to fill her shoes?That will be be a task.She is a courageous woman and it's a pity she can't run for president.
"At the Republican Women's Club near Rockefeller Center."
Oh, that is such a great place. I went to the "Right to Life Ball" there once. Wish I'd been there with you all.
I love Oriana! Thanks for the post! She does get it, and I have written to Bush to state my objection to his Israeli policy, but no response, of course. Maybe we need a petition, drawn up by an organization that he listens to, to get his attention. I realize there are things we don't know that he is privy to, but overall, this path looks to be a dnagerous one for Israel, and I'm ashamed that we are pushing them to continue it.
Other threads about Fallaci can be found here.
I agree, but it should not be (weird).
Truth is Truth, even when spoken by an atheist.
Ms. Fallaci speaks the truth as she knows it, and this woman has been around the block a time or two. I am personally inspired by her stand, by her bravery and by the message she is so inflamed about.
Would that our precioius Republicans in office had 10% of this woman's courage and dedication to speaking the truth.
Cheers,
Lloyd
Another useful idiot (Kember, the "Peacemaker" kidnapped in Iraq).
Oriana Fallaci is so right - we just don't get it. Or perhaps we refuse to get it because it would mean so many changes in our preconceptions and ideas about the world, and we've gotten comfortable with them, even though they don't work.
I wonder if those "assorted other" included those warriors who are forced to write under pseudonyms, such as Ibn Warraq and Bat Y'eor -- those, like Spencer, whose lives are threatened by Islamists on a daily basis for speaking the truth about Islam.
What a great honor to be in Fallaci's presence, and the presence of those who have sacrificed personal security to wage a life and death struggle against the threat of Islam -- and what a contrast to those, like Murtha, who choose security and denial over the future of their grandchildren.
Thanks for the report.
How large was the crowd and what was the gender mix? How did the audience respond to her?
"Moderate Islam is our invention. There is Islam and that is all." If the West doesn't accept this truth, we are doomed.
Oriani ping
Thanks for the report!
btttt
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