[lit-ideas] Remember what happened to Oriana Fallaci
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 22:19:02 -0400
extract of
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=110006858
Prophet of Decline
An interview with Oriana Fallaci.
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Thursday, June 23, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK--Oriana Fallaci faces jail. In her mid-70s, stricken with a
cancer that, for the moment, permits only the consumption of
liquids--so yes, we drank champagne in the course of a three-hour
interview--one of the most renowned journalists of the modern era
has been indicted by a judge in her native Italy under provisions of
the Italian Penal Code which proscribe the "vilipendio," or
"vilification," of "any religion admitted by the state."
In her case, the religion deemed vilified is Islam, and the
vilification was perpetrated, apparently, in a book she wrote last
year--and which has sold many more than a million copies all over
Europe--called "The Force of Reason." Its astringent thesis is that
the Old Continent is on the verge of becoming a dominion of Islam,
and that the people of the West have surrendered themselves
fecklessly to the "sons of Allah." So in a nutshell, Oriana Fallaci
faces up to two years' imprisonment for her beliefs--which is one
reason why she has chosen to stay put in New York. Let us give
thanks for the First Amendment.
It is a shame, in so many ways, that "vilipend," the latinate word
that is the pinpoint equivalent in English of the Italian offense in
question, is scarcely ever used in the Anglo-American lexicon; for
it captures beautifully the pomposity, as well as the anachronistic
outlandishness, of the law in question. A "vilification," by
contrast, sounds so sordid, so tabloid--hardly fitting for a grande
dame.
"When I was given the news," Ms. Fallaci says of her recent
indictment, "I laughed. Bitterly, of course, but I laughed. No
amusement, no surprise, because the trial is nothing else but a
demonstration that everything I've written is true." An activist
judge in Bergamo, in northern Italy, took it upon himself to admit a
complaint against Ms. Fallaci that even the local prosecutors would
not touch. The complainant, one Adel Smith--who, despite his name,
is Muslim, and an incendiary public provocateur to boot--has a
history of anti-Fallaci crankiness, and is widely believed to be
behind the publication of a pamphlet, "Islam Punishes Oriana
Fallaci," which exhorts Muslims to "eliminate" her. (Ironically, Mr.
Smith, too, faces the peculiar charge of vilipendio against
religion--Roman Catholicism in his case--after he described the
Catholic Church as "a criminal organization" on television. Two
years ago, he made news in Italy by filing suit for the removal of
crucifixes from the walls of all public-school classrooms, and also,
allegedly, for flinging a crucifix out of the window of a hospital
room where his mother was being treated. "My mother will not die in
a room where there is a crucifix," he said, according to hospital
officials.)
Ms. Fallaci speaks in a passionate growl: "Europe is no longer
Europe, it is 'Eurabia,' a colony of Islam, where the Islamic
invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a
mental and cultural sense. Servility to the invaders has poisoned
democracy, with obvious consequences for the freedom of thought, and
for the concept itself of liberty." Such words--"invaders,"
"invasion," "colony," "Eurabia"--are deeply, immensely, Politically
Incorrect; and one is tempted to believe that it is her tone, her
vocabulary, and not necessarily her substance or basic message, that
has attracted the ire of the judge in Bergamo (and has made her so
radioactive in the eyes of Europe's cultural elites).
"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder," the historian
Arnold Toynbee wrote, and these words could certainly be Ms.
Fallaci's. She is in a black gloom about Europe and its future: "The
increased presence of Muslims in Italy, and in Europe, is directly
proportional to our loss of freedom." There is about her a touch of
Oswald Spengler, the German philosopher and prophet of decline, as
well as a flavor of Samuel Huntington and his clash of
civilizations. But above all there is pessimism, pure and unashamed.
When I ask her what "solution" there might be to prevent the
European collapse of which she speaks, Ms. Fallaci flares up like a
lit match. "How do you dare to ask me for a solution? It's like
asking Seneca for a solution. You remember what he did?" She then
says "Phwah, phwah," and gestures at slashing her wrists. "He
committed suicide!" Seneca was accused of being involved in a plot
to murder the emperor Nero. Without a trial, he was ordered by Nero
to kill himself. One senses that Ms. Fallaci sees in Islam the
shadow of Nero. "What could Seneca do?" she asks, with a discernible
shudder. "He knew it would end that way--with the fall of the Roman
Empire. But he could do nothing."
The impending Fall of the West, as she sees it, now torments Ms.
Fallaci. And as much as that Fall, what torments her is the blithe
way in which the West is marching toward its precipice of choice.
"Look at the school system of the West today. Students do not know
history! They don't, for Christ's sake. They don't know who
Churchill was! In Italy, they don't even know who Cavour was!"--a
reference to Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the conservative father,
with the radical Garibaldi, of Modern Italy. Ms. Fallaci, rarely
reverent, pauses here to reflect on the man, and on the question of
where all the conservatives have gone in Europe. "In the beginning,
I was dismayed, and I asked, how is it possible that we do not have
Cavour . . . just one Cavour, uno? He was a revolutionary, and yes,
he was not of the left. Italy needs a Cavour--Europe needs a
Cavour." Ms. Fallaci describes herself, too, as "a
revolutionary"--"because I do what conservatives in Europe don't do,
which is that I don't accept to be treated like a delinquent." She
professes to "cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and
I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to
enter politics somehow."
Here she pauses to light a slim black cigarillo, and then to take a
sip of champagne. Its chill makes her grimace, but fortified, she
returns to vehement speech, more clearly evocative of Oswald
Spengler than at any time in our interview. "You cannot survive if
you do not know the past. We know why all the other civilizations
have collapsed--from an excess of welfare, of richness, and from
lack of morality, of spirituality." (She uses "welfare" here in the
sense of well-being, so she is talking, really, of decadence.) "The
moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment
you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your
culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period." The force with
which she utters the word "dead" here is startling. I reach for my
flute of champagne, as if for a crutch.
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