From Michael Leeden of Pajamas Media:
Oriana was one of those bigger-than-life personalities who dwarf everyone around them, and there wasn’t much grey in her world, things were always sharply defined. This made friendship a challenge, since at any given moment you were either dearly beloved or this week’s dolt. But it didn’t really matter, since she prized friendship, and last week’s idiot was invariably destined to return as tomorrow’s beloved; you had to accept that it would happen, and it would pass, and we were fortunate to know her and be provoked, stimulated, embraced and insulted. She was a hell of a lady.
She was a hell of a writer, too, one of the greatest of our generation. Her tirades against Islamic Nazi-fascism appeared in thirty different languages and sold more than three million books. In hard cover. And her earlier books, especially the incredible interviews in which she managed to provoke powerful, brilliant, and evil people to totally expose themselves, are still must-reads. You just can’t comprehend the history of the past thirty years without Oriana’s guidance.
And she was a hell of a woman. I only knew her when she was older, and marked with the deep lines of her long fight against the “alien,” but she was still a vivacious and flirtatious gal who delighted in the flow of her powerful pheremones and very much enjoyed being around men who appreciated her considerable charms. Just look at some of those photos from her younger days. Wow.
Very late in her life, Fallaci faced a lawsuit for defaming Islam, or I should say, allegedly defaming Islam, by an Italian court.
From Tunku Varadarajan in the Opinion Journal, June 23, 2005:
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.
Rest in peace.
Technorati tags: Oriana Fallaci Italy Italia Islam Muslims
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