Excerpts from “Rage and Pride” by Oriana Fallaci

Below, excerpts from a very powerful and moving piece by Oriana Fallaci. For those of you who may not have heard of her, Oriana is a world-renowned journalist who was particularly feared for her blunt and fearless style of interviewing.

She penned this rousing piece for the Italian newspaper “Corriere Della Sera” in late September (29th Sept ’01) soon after the attacks on World Trade Centre (she was living in Manhattan at that time) and I am reproducing some excerpts below (from the translation) in which she laments the complacency of Italy and Italians and their unwillingness to face up to the menace of terrorism and the apparent lack of patriotism amongst the people today.

To really feel the impact, substitute the words “India” for “Italy” – and you will realise why I chose these excerpts.

Just before the beginning of this paragraph, she writes about how Americans responded to the attacks and how they have united in the face of this adversity forgetting their partisan leanings and different ideological affiliations. To continue:

“Oh, if Italy would learn these lessons! It is such a divided country, so factious, so poisoned by it’s tribal squabbles. In Italy, they hate each other even within the same party. They cannot be united even when they belong to the same party, they’re jealous, argumentative, vain and petty, they don’t consider anything but their own personal interests. Their own petty little career, their petty little glory, their suburban popularity. For their own petty interests they betray each other, play mean tricks on each other, they accuse each other and prostitute themselves… I am absolutely convinced that if Bin Laden would blow up Giotto’s tower or The Tower of Pisa, the opposition would hold the government responsible, and the government would accuse the opposition [ – does this ring a bell…remember the recent attempt to blow up the Ram Janambhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya?]…Having said this, let me explain from where the capacity to unity that characterizes the Americans is born. It is born from their patriotism.

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… In English the word “Patria” does not exist. To say “Patria” one needs to put together two words, Father Land, Mother Land, Native Land. Or say simply My Country. However, the substantive patriotism does exist. The adjective Patriotic exists. Besides France, I cannot imagine a more patriotic country than America. I was so moved to see those workers with their fists clenched waving the little American flags and roaring “USA! USA! USA!” without anyone having ordered them to.

I also felt a kind of humiliation. Because I am incapable of even imagining Italian workers that wave the tri-color and roar “ITALY, ITALY”. In demonstrations and meetings I saw them wave many red flags. Rivers, lakes of red flags. But the tri-color I have seen very few. As a matter of fact, none. Misled and tyrannized by an arrogant left devoted to the Soviet Union, they have always left the tri-color to their adversaries. In my opinion, their adversaries failed to put this advantage to good use. Thank God, they also did not abuse it. The same holds true for those that go to Mass. As for the boors with the green shirts and ties, they don’t even know what the colors of the tri-color are. “I am a Lombard, I am a Lombard is their cry”. They would bring us back to the war between Florence and Siena. The result of all this is that the Italian flag today is only seen at the Olympics if by chance you win a medal. Even worse, you see it only in the stadiums when there is an international soccer game. The only occasion, furthermore, where one can hear the crowd screaming “Italy-Italy”.

When I first read this piece, I was stunned by the parallels between the situation in India today and what Oriana describes in her essay. Right from the first sentence down to the last one (incl. the reference to the tri-colour), I doubt if anyone could have written a piece that so sharply brings the situation in focus.

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Here she writes about how it the battle with Islamic terrorism is going to be long and hard and how some amongst us still refuse to grasp the full enormity of what we are up against.

“With the sons of Allah the matter will be difficult. Very long and very difficult. Unless the rest of the Western world stops shitting in it’s pants and start reasoning a little and lend it a hand.
Obviously, I am speaking of the hyenas who enjoy seeing images of massacres and laugh under their breath “good, it serves the Americans right”. I am speaking to the people who although they are not stupid or bad, they are still rocking themselves in prudence and doubt. To them I say: wake up, people, wake up! Intimidated as you are by the fear of going against the main stream, that is to appear racist (a word inappropriate here because we are not discussing race, but religion), you do not understand or don’t want to understand that what is underway here is a reversed Crusade. As used as you are to the double play, blinded as you are by your myopia, you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that what is in motion here is a religious war. A war that they call Jihad. Holy War.

A war that is not after the conquest of our territory, perhaps, but certainly aims to conquer our souls. To the disappearance of our freedom and our civilization. To the annihilation of our way of living and of dying, our way of praying or not praying, of our way of eating and drinking and dressing and enjoying ourselves, and informing ourselves… You don’t understand or don’t want to understand that if it is not opposed now, if we don’t defend ourselves, if we don’t fight, the Jihad will win. It will destroy the world that good or bad we have managed to create, change, make better and render it a little more intelligent, that is less bigoted or not bigoted at all. With that it will destroy our culture, our art, our science, our morality, values, pleasures… Christ! Don’t you realize that the Osama Bin Ladens consider themselves authorized to kill you and your children because you drink wine or beer, because you don’t wear a long beard or wear a chador, because you go to the theatre and the cinema, because you listen to music and sing some songs, because you dance in the discothèques or in your house, because you watch TV, because you wear mini skirts or short pants, because at the beach or pool you’re naked or almost naked, because you make it with whom you want, when you want, where you want? Don’t you care not even about this, idiots? I am an atheist, thank God. I don’t have any intention to let someone kill me because of it.”

I’ve been saying this for twenty years, twenty. With a certain degree of mildness, not with this passion, twenty years ago I wrote an article for “Il Corriere” which dealt in depth with this topic. It was an article of a person used to being with all races and creeds, of a citizen used to fighting all the fascisms and intolerances, of a lay person without taboo. But it was also the article of one indignant with whom did not smell the stench of a Holy War coming, and with the sons of Allah she forgave a little too much. I followed a reasoning that more or less followed these lines, twenty years ago. “What sense is it to respect someone that does not respect us?” What sense does it make to defend their culture or presumed culture when they scorn ours? I want to defend ours, and I inform you that I like Dante Alighieri more than Omar Khayan”.

Open up Heavens. They crucified me. “Racists, Racists”, they were the same progressivists (at that time they were called communists) who crucified me. I also was handed that insult when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. I remember those bearded men with a slip and turban who before shooting the mortar, in fact each mortar round, bawled out the praises of the Lord. “Allah akbar! Allah akbar!” I remember them well. And to see the pairing of the word God with the mortar rounds I got the chills. It felt like I was in the middle ages, and I used to say “The Soviets are what they are. But one must admit that waging that war they also protect us. And I thank them” . Heavens open up again, “Racist, racist!”. In their stubborn blindness they didn’t want to even hear me speak of the monstrosities that the sons of Allah were committing on military prisoners. (They used to saw off their legs and their arms, remember? A vice to which they had already abandoned themselves to in Lebanon with Christian and Jewish prisoners). They did not want that I should say this, no. And in order to pose as progressives they applauded the Americans who out of fear of the Soviet Union, foolishly armed the-heroic-Afghan-population. They trained the bearded, and with the bearded, an extremely bearded Osama Bin Laden. Get-the-Russians-out-of-Afghanistan-OOOOOUT! The Russians-must-go! Well, the Russians went, happy? From Afghanistan, the bearded ones of the most bearded Osama Bin Laden arrived in New York with the unbearded Syrians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, Saudis that comprised the band of the nineteen identified kamikazes: happy? Worse: now here they discuss the next attack that will hit us with chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear arms. The say that the new attack is inevitable because Iraq is supplying the material. The talk of vaccinations, gas masks, plague. We ask ourselves when it will occur, happy?Some are neither happy nor unhappy. They don’t give a damn, that’s all.”

This indifference (that Oriana refers to the last sentence) is our biggest enemy…and as I wrote in my last newsletter, I can understand a point of view that is against my thinking but inaction and apathy would be suicidal.

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In this excerpt, she talks about how things will not stop with the arrest, capture or even death of Osama bin Laden, for there are many like him and to treat them lightly would be disastrous.

“But, if they demand to impose these things on me, in my house… and they do demand it. Osama Bin Laden affirms that the entire planet Earth must become Muslim, that we must convert to Islam, that either by convincing us or threatening us, he will convert us, and for that goal he massacres us and will continue to massacre us. This cannot please us. It has to give us a great desire to reverse roles and kill him. However, this will not resolve itself, it will not be exhausted with the death of Osama Bin Laden. This is because the Osama Bin Ladens number in the tens of thousands now and they are not confined to the Arabic countries. They are everywhere, and the most militant are in the West. In our cities, our streets, our universities, in the nerve centers of our technology. That technology that any obtuse can manage. The Crusade has been underway for a while. It works like a Swiss watch, sustained by a faith and a malice which compares only to the malice of Torquemada when he led the Inquisition. In fact it is impossible to deal with them. To reason with them, unthinkable. To treat them with indulgence or tolerance or hope, a suicide. Anyone who believes the contrary, is deluding himself.”

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In the following excerpt, she laments about the refugees that now flood the towns of Italy and who many in the West believe are actually fulfilling the gap caused by rich Italians (or Westerners) refusing to do manual labour (- the thoughts echo my own fears about Bangladeshi refugees):

“I am not at ease with the present situation. Even if our guests are absolutely innocent, even if among them there isn’t a single individual who want to destroy the Tower of Pisa or the Tower of Giotto, not one that wants to impose a dress code on me, not a single one that wants me burned at the stake of a new inquisition, their presence still alarms me. It fills me with foreboding and ill ease. Those who react to this situation with optimism or taking it lightly are wrong. Above all, those who compare this migratory wave to the one that took place at the end of the eighteenth century the beginning of the nineteenth, are especially mistaken. I will now tell you why they are wrong.More than an immigration, it is an invasion conducted in a clandestine manner. One that disturbs me because it was not meek nor painful. It is arrogant and protected by the cynicism of the politicians that close an eye, or perhaps both. I will never forget the meetings which the illegals called last year and filled up all the piazzas of Italy in order to obtain legal residence. Those distorted evil faces, with their fists in the air, threatening. Those angry voices that reminded me of Khomeini’s Teheran. I will never forget them because I was offended by their demands in my own home, also because I felt taken advantage of by those ministers that said: “We would like to deport them but we don’t know where they are hiding”. Turds! In those piazzas there were thousands of them, they weren’t hiding at all. To repatriate them all one needed to do was line them up, please kind sir, have a seat, and accompany them to the nearest port or airport.”

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And in this final excerpt, you could almost substitute, word for word, India for Italy and Ram or Krishna for Jesus or Christ and Hinduism for Christianity:

“Italy, on the other hand, is a very old country. It’s history is at least three thousand years old. It’s cultural identity therefore is set …all chatter to the contrary aside. You cannot leave out Christianity or the Catholic church. People like me have a saying: “I have nothing to do with the church”. I do, heaven help me, I certainly do. Whether I like it or not, I am involved. How could I not be involved? I was born in a landscape of churches, convents, Christs, Madonnas, Saints. The first music I heard coming into the world was the music of church bells. The bells of Santa Maria del Fiore which were drowned out by the shrill voice of the muezzin during the episode of the tent. With that music, with that landscape I grew up. Through that music and that landscape I learned what architecture is, what sculpture and painting is, what art is. Through that church (which I later rejected) I began to ask myself what is “good”, what is “evil”, by God!
Here, see? I have once again written “by God”. With all my laicism, my atheism, the culture of Catholicism is so intrinsic to me that it is part of my way of expressing myself. Oh my God, my God, thank God, by God, oh Jesus, Christ here and Christ there. These words and phrases are so spontaneous that I am not even aware of uttering them or writing them.”

The full text of this moving piece can be accessed here (no formatting)