Oriana Fallaci: Rage and doubt of a threatened civilisation

The Sunday Times ^ | March 16, 2003 | Oriana Fallaci

[Interesting Times]

In a world of yappy talking heads and interchangeable pundits, Oriana Fallaci stands alone.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Well, remember it wasn't the police who found her but the public who watched the TV show "most wanted" and recognized David Brian Mitchell's face. By the way, there is so much about this case then what we have been told. The media keeps calling her "little girl" yet, the parents and relatives called her "young woman."

[Victoria Delsoul]

then= than

[Alberta's Child]

I know -- I just thought that was a funny quote. LOL.

I've gone through a lot of threads on that case, and I agree with you -- there is a lot about it that we haven't heard. In fact, there was something fishy about that story last year, but I never questioned it because it would have been in bad taste with a missing child involved.

Now that she's back home, I'd say it's even more strange.

[Victoria Delsoul]

I never questioned it because it would have been in bad taste with a missing child involved.

Now that she's back home, I'd say it's even more strange.

That's why I don't post on those threads. The last buzzword is that she was brainwashed. I have never seen or read a case when someone so brainwashed could behave as if nothing has happened in a matter of minutes after the cops talked to her. Her photos look better and more cheerful than before this ordeal. I just don't know what to think, but it doesn't sound right.

[stripes1776]

She completely glosses over how we established freedom in Japan

No she doesn't. Perhaps you skipped over this part of her article:

In Japan, those two pieces of chocolate were somehow a gift, a refund for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Japan had already started its march towards progress and did not belong to the world that in my book I call “the mountain”. A mountain that for 1,400 years has not moved or changed, has not emerged from the abyss of its blindness. In other words, Islam

She points out is that Japan was not part of that unmoveable "mountain" that is Islam. So they had the possiblity to change, and they did.

It is naive to think that 1400 years of an oppressive, intolerant religious tradition called Islam will be changed over night.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Alberta's Child]

I think you are a very discerning person. Or a good judge of character. Or both!

[Nachum]

Great post.

[Victoria Delsoul]

:-)

[185JHP]

I'm reminded of a 60s songabout some sad but inevitable consequences: "You knew I was a snake, before you took me in!"

[MHGinTN]

Noting your tagline ... "L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace." Oriana has learned the lesson well!

[185JHP]

One smart biscotti.

[Truthsearcher]

No she doesn't...
She points out is that Japan was not part of that unmoveable "mountain" that is Islam. So they had the possiblity to change, and they did.


That's exactly what I'm talking about, this is a really intellectually empty argument. The Japanese were every bit as fanatic and bend on destruction as the Islamicist today, because the true cause of such fantaticism is a flaw in human nature. Our nature hasn't change, it's same enemy, not some new enemy. It can be defeated in the same way we defeated the other enemies.

I"t is naive to think that 1400 years of an oppressive, intolerant religious tradition called Islam will be changed over night."

I think I distinctively said it will not happen over night. But 1,400 years is meaningless. Since nobody actually lives 1,400 years. All it takes is one generation to change a culture.

[Eva]

This was on Opinion Journal a few days ago. It is really very well written and very moving. I think that I am going to buy her book. She sounds like quite a woman.

[Tax Government]

Great article.

...[In France,] nobody wishes to remove Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein means the oil that the French companies pump from Iraqi wells.

If we do NOTHING else after the war, France has to lose its Iraqi oil.

[denydenydeny]

Indexing.

[Sabertooth]

The final reason for my dilemma is the definition that Bush and Blair and their advisers give of this war: “A liberation war. A humanitarian war to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq.” Oh, no. Humanitarianism has nothing to do with wars. All wars, even just ones, even the legitimate ones, are death and destruction and atrocities and tears.

And this is not a liberation war, a war like the second world war. (By the way: neither is it an “oil war”, as the pacifists who never yell against Saddam or Bin Laden maintain in their rallies. Americans do not need Iraqi oil.) It is a political war. A war made in cold blood to respond to the holy war that the enemies of the West declared upon the West on September 11.

It is also a prophylactic war. A vaccine, a surgery that hits Saddam because, among the various focuses of cancer, Saddam is the most obvious and dangerous one.

He is also the obstacle (Bush and Blair and their advisers believe) that once removed will permit them to redesign the map of the Middle East as the British and the French did after the crash of the Ottoman empire.

To redesign it and to spread a Pax Romana, pardon, a Pax Americana, where freedom and democracy reign; where nobody bothers us any longer with attacks and massacres. Where everybody can prosper and live happily as in the fairy tales — nonsense. Freedom is not a gift, like a piece of chocolate, and democracy cannot be imposed with armies.

< -snip- >

The modern concepts of freedom and democracy are totally unrelated to the ideological texture of Islam, and totally opposed to the despotism and tyranny of theocratic states. In that ideological texture, it is God who commands, it is God who decides the destiny of man, and men are not the children of God: they are his subjects, his slaves. Inshallah — as God wants — inshallah.

Thus in the Koran there is no room for individual judgment, individual choice and freedom. There is no room for a regime that, at least in law, is based on equality and universal suffrage. In fact Muslims do not understand these modern concepts. They refuse them and hope to erase them from our lives by invading and conquering us.

Upheld by their stubborn optimism, the same optimism for which at Fort Alamo they fought so well and all died slaughtered by Santa Anna, Americans think that in Baghdad they will be welcomed as they were in Rome, Florence and Paris. “They’ll cheer us, throw us flowers,” a Washington egghead joyfully said to me.

That hoped-for bouquet is where "Islam means peace" will come back to haunt us. Our leaders do not correctly perceive our enemy, and do not recognize the clash of civilizations that has been thrust upon us by the devoted followers of Mohammed.

The founder of Islam was a butcher and a conqueror, who enslaved millions. Can true Muslims be any different? Those who emulate Mohammed will always be with us, so long as Islam remains a viable force. If we do not know our enemy, how can we hope to prevail? How can we win the War, if we're unprepared to define the peace?

If we fight under the delusion that "Islam means peace," we will settle for a peace that means Islam. There can be no victory without the unconditional surrender of our enemy. Without that surrender, all our bugles and drums and parades will be nothing more than vain charades... and we will have once again put off the real war for a later, and more bloody day.

[Sabertooth]

All it takes is one generation to change a culture.

In the case of Japan, it took utter devastation, unconditional surrender, and a square one rebuilding and redesigning of their culture under occupation. Islam will require at least that.

Are we prepared to exact the price?

[Victoria Delsoul]

The founder of Islam was a butcher and a conqueror, who enslaved millions. Can true Muslims be any different? Those who emulate Mohammed will always be with us, so long as Islam remains a viable force. If we do not know our enemy, how can we hope to prevail? How can we win the War, if we're unprepared to define the peace?

Good point. I have listened to a few Iraqi dissidents speak on the radio and the impression I've gotten was that there are many Iraqis unhappy with Saddam. I've heard how he's killed many people and controls them with an iron fist. I have also heard them saying that they get along between all those other factions but it was Saddam who doesn't allow them getting together. When they were asked if they would get along and live in peace without Saddam, the answer was yes.

I agree with you, regarding "Islam means peace," I wish the administration would drop that term. Speaking of radio clips, here is one I found on another thread.

Radio LINK