A man of prodigious fortune, coming to add his opinion to some light discussion that was going on casually at his table, began precisely thus: "It can only be a liar or an ignoramus who will say otherwise than," and so on. Pursue that philosophical point, dagger in hand.
And they say we’re nuts about religion in this country.
Alright, I have the text of the Italian penal code provisions underlying Smith’s complaint against Fallaci. Are you ready for this? Here’s both the Italian and my translation. Suggestions for improving the latter are welcome from those in a position to offer them.
Art. 402 Vilipendio della religione dello Stato Chiunque pubblicamente vilipende la religione dello Stato e' punito con la reclusione fino a un anno.
Art. 402 Vilification of the State religion Whoever publicly vilifies the State religion shall be punished by up to one year imprisonment.
Art. 403 Offese alla religione dello Stato mediante vilipendio di persone Chiunque pubblicamente offende la religione dello Stato, mediante vilipendio di chi la professa, e' punito con la reclusione fino a due anni. Si applica la reclusione da uno a tre anni a chi offende la religione dello Stato, mediante vilipendo di un ministro del culto cattolico.
Art. 403: Offenses against the State religion by means of vilification of persons Whoever publicly offends the religion of the State, by means of vilification of one who professes it, shall be punished by up to two years imprisonment. Imprisonment from one to three years shall be applied to one to offends the religion of the State, by means of vilification of a minister of the Catholic faith.
Art. 404 Offese alla religione dello Stato mediante vilipendio di cose Chiunque, in un luogo destinato al culto, o in un luogo pubblico o aperto al pubblico, offende la religione dello Stato, mediante vilipendio di cose che formino oggetto di culto, o siano consacrate al culto, o siano destinate necessariamente all'esercizio del culto, e' punito con la reclusione da uno a tre anni. La stessa pena si applica a chi commette il fatto in occasione di funzioni religiose, compiute in luogo privato da un ministro del culto cattolico.
Art. 404 Offenses against the State religion by means of vilification of things Whoever, in a place of worship, or in a public place or place open to the public, offends the State religion, by means of vilification of things that form objects of worship, or are consecrated to worship, or are necessarily designed for the exercise of worship, shall be punished by one to three years imprisonment. The same penalty shall be applied to one who commits this act in the occasion of religious functions, carried out in a private place by a minister of the Catholic faith.
Art. 405 Turbamento di funzioni religiose del culto cattolico Chiunque impedisce o turba l'esercizio di funzioni, cerimonie o pratiche religiose del culto cattolico, le quali si compiano con l'assistenza di un ministro del culto medesimo o in un luogo destinato al culto, o in un luogo pubblico o aperto al pubblico, e' punito con la reclusione fino a due anni. Se concorrono fatti di violenza alle persone o di minaccia, si applica la reclusione fino a tre anni.
Art. 405 Disturbance of religious functions of the Catholic faith Whoever impedes or disturbs the exercise of functions, ceremonies or religious practices of the Catholic faith, the which are carried out with the assistance of a minister of the same faith or in a place of worship, or in a public place or place open to the public, shall be punished with up to two years imprisonment. If this is accompanied by acts of violence to persons or threats, the imprisonment shall be for up to three years.
Art. 406 Delitti contro i culti ammessi nello Stato Chiunque commette uno dei fatti preveduti dagli articoli 403, 404, e 405 contro un culto ammesso nello Stato, e' punito ai termini dei predetti articoli, ma la pena e' diminuita.
Art. 406 Crimes against faiths admitted in the State Whoever commits one of the acts provided by articles 403, 404, and 405 against a faith admitted in the State, shall be punished in accordance with the designated articles, but the penalty shall be reduced.
The complaint against Fallaci cites article 406 in relation to article 403. Thus the charge is that Fallaci offended Islam by vilifying some individual or individuals who profess it.
When I read these provisions, I wrote to an Italian lawyer friend of mine to ask some questions, among the first of which were: “There’s a State religion in Italy?” and “So how exactly do other faiths get ‘admitted’? His responses were as follows:
Article 403 has its origins in the fascist period, and is therefore regarded as having been superseded by the new Concord between the Italian State and the Holy See to the effect that the Roman Catholic religion is no longer the State religion, but a free religion equal to other faiths admitted by the State.
As for the faiths “admitted” in article 406, the Court of Cassation [like our Supreme Court for constitutional issues] has held that it is “necessary to ascertain whether the statute of a religious confession is in contrast with the Italian juridical order, and in particular whether the exercise of the religion violates penal norms relating to matters of public order and protection of the rights of persons”
Well, this makes Fallaci’s defense quite obvious, as the main theme of her book is to point out all the ways in which the social and religious practices of Muslim immigrants, from infibulation to subjugation of women to polygamy to wearing headgear in I.D. photos, violate Italian and European norms regarding public order and the rights of persons. Her book is, in effect a long brief arguing that Islam should not be regarded as a “culto ammesso nello Stato” according to the court’s definition. That, of course, is not the way it will actually play out. It would be a stupid defense from a legal realist perspective, as there’s no way in hell a judge is going to hold that Islam is not allowed in Italy. I’ve asked my friend if he can find me an opinion defining the distinction between “offending by means of vilification” and merely criticizing. That, I imagine is where the argument will be if it actually takes place.
As for the imposition of lighter penalties for offending religions other than Catholicism, that's apparently been struck down in a case involving none other than our friend Adel Smith. (Hat tip Bartholomew.)
The complaint also invokes another provision, from the “Act of ratification of the Convention of the rights of man":
1. Unless the act constitutes a more serious crime . . . the following penalties shall be imposed:
a) imprisonment of up to three years for one who spreads in any manner ideas founded on racial or ethnic superiority or hatred, or who commits or incites commission of acts of discrimination for reasons of race, ethnicity, nationality or religion;
b) imprisonment from six months up to four years for one who, in any manner, commits or incites commission of violence or acts of provocation to violence for reasons of race, ethnicity, nationality or religion;
2. (left blank)
3. Every organization, association, movement or group having among its goals the inciting of discrimination or violence for reasons of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion, is prohibited. One who participates in such organizations, associations, movements or groups, or lends assistance to their activities, shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to four years. Those who promote or direct such organizations, associations, movements or groups, for this alone, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to six years.
Whether Fallaci falls within the meaning of 1a) depends I think on the meaning of “ethnic.” She unabashedly espouses the superiority of Western civilization, culture, and mores over those of Islamic civilization. Her book also expresses a fair amount of personal distaste for most people from the latter civilization, but it certainly doesn’t call for acts of discrimination against them. Mostly it just calls for evenhanded application of existing norms to them without making exceptions in deference to their religious or other practices that violate those norms. I also don’t think it can fairly be said that she has incited violence against anyone. (Though there is a marvellous passage in the book where she suggests that a couple Italian male politicians who have defended the Muslims’ right to perform “soft infibulation” on their daughters try out the analogous procedure on their own bodies, and offers to do the honors.)
Well, between the free speech and establishment issues above, I’ve provided Eugene with enough fodder for a day or two. I need to go bed, as tomorrow it’s off to Family Camp with the Boy Scouts. Buona notte. posted by CMN at 12:26 AM
2 stab(s) back
Thursday, May 26, 2005
One from the referral logs:
Here's an interesting post that provides some links to more background on Adel Smith, one of which illustrates that this is not one of those situations where only the non-PC speech is subject to censure. Apparently Smith himself has faced charges for denigrating the Catholic church as a "criminal organization." And as I noted before, Fallaci herself has sued a newspaper for libel simply for responding to her celebrated "Fuck you" with a "Thanks, same to you." I get the sense that filing libel suits in Italy is largely a symbolic gesture (as it sometimes is here), though I'd be curious to know how often people actually go to the mats on them.
UPDATE: And here's another. Scroll down to see a nice photo showing the reaction of some Italian sports fans to Mr. Smith. posted by CMN at 5:01 PM
0 stab(s) back
The 18 things you can't say about Muslims in Italy. Thanks to Ilario Vige, my indefatigable source of Oriana intel, I now have a pdf copy of an article from the Italian newspaper Libero, which reproduces the text of the complaint filed against Fallaci. How’s that for social capital in the internet age? (Ah, Prof. Putnam, there are more things in heaven and earth…) I don’t have time now to try to translate all of it, but eventually I hope to obtain copies of the cited code provisions so as to be in a position to understand the way the legal issues are being framed. What I can do for now is list the 18 “incriminating sentences.” As I had guessed, a few of the offending passages are from the section I translated earlier. Many of them are mere snippets taken from longer contexts. For now I will present them only as they appear in the complaint (at least as cited in the article), ellipses and all. If there is reason to do so later I can provide more of the context for each.
1) during the occupation of Montecassino in the 9th century “the Muslims amused themselves by sacrificing each night the virginity of a nun. Do you know where? On the altar of the cathedral.”
2) while occupying Constantinople in 1453, the Turks led by Mohammed II “decapitated even newborns. And extinguished candles with their little heads.”
3) “In a woman the Koran sees above all a womb to give birth.”
4) “In the dream that the sons of Allah have been nurturing for years, the dream of blowing up Giotto’s Tower or the Tower of Pisa or the cupola of St. Peter’s or the Eiffel Tower or Westminster Abbey or the cathedral of Cologne and so on . . .”
5) “…halal butchery is barbarous” just as “shechita butchery is barbarous. That is, the Jewish version which is carried out in the same way and consists of slitting the animals’ throats without dazing them.”
6) France is a country “where Islamic racism, that is the hatred of the infidel-dogs, reigns supreme and is never put on trial, never punished. Where the Muslims declare openly: “We must take advantage of the democratic space that France offers us, we must exploit democracy, that is, make use of it to occupy territory.” Where not a few of them add: “In Europe the Nazi position was not understood. Or not by all. It was judged a vehicle of homicidal folly, when actually Hitler was a great man.”
7) for Muslims “biology is a shameless science because it is occupied with the human body and sex.”
8) “ . . . we will have to resign ourselves to the yoke of a creed that . . . instead of love spreads hatred and instead of liberty slavery.”
9) “a Right and a Left . . . that (in Italy) are both on the side of the enemy (Islam).”
10) the demands of the Islamics with regard to school curricula mean that in literature classes “we will not be allowed to include for example The Divine Comedy . . .nor the Canticle of Creatures nor the Sacred Hymns of Alessandra Manzoni . . .” etc. etc.
11) “ . . . the uncouth wailing of the muezzin . . .”
12) the terrorist attacks of the last twenty years have caused six thousand deaths “to the glory of the Koran. In obedience to its verses.”
13) “Our Jesus of Nazareth . . . they put him in their Danna where he eats like Trimalchio, drinks like a drunkard, screws like a sexual maniac.”
14) “. . . the revolting, reactionary, obtuse, feudal Right is found today only in Islam. It is Islam.”
15) infibulation is “the mutilation that the Muslims force on little girls to prevent them, once they are grown . . . from enjoying the sexual act. It is a female castration that the Muslims practice in twenty-eight countries of Islamic Africa and because of which two million persons die each year from sepsis or loss of blood . . .”
16) the Italians afflicted by atavistic loss of pride “are not offended when Islamic immigrants urinate on their monuments or soil the sacristies of their churches or toss their crucifixes out the window of a hospital.”
17) “. . . Islam is a pond. And a pond is a trough of stagnant water. . . it is never purified . . . it is easily polluted, like a watering hole for livestock of little value. The pond does not love life: It loves death . . .”
18) “ . . .despite the massacres through which the sons of Allah have bloodied us and bloodied themselves for over thirty years, the war that Islam has declared against the West . . . is a cultural war. . .they kill us in order to bend us. To intimidate us . . . Their goal is not to fill cemeteries. Not to destroy our skyscrapers . . . It is to destroy our soul, our ideas. Our feelings and our dreams. It is to subjugate the West once again.”
UPDATE: As you can see, Oriana doesn't really live up to her claim that this time around she is appealing solely to the power of reason and putting aside her rage and pride. This was my main disappointment with the book when I read it. She does cite a lot of facts in support of her attacks on Islam, and as you can see several of the 18 sentences are simply historical assertions. She doesn't provide any footnotes or sources for any of her facts though (no doubt Muslim historians paint things differently), and it is undeniable that the overall tone of her book is one of visceral revulsion for Muslims, not just rationally alarmed criticism of certain political and cultural developments in Europe. This is unfortunate, because her book does raise a lot of genuinely alarming and important issues, and I think this time around her haranguing jeremiads, bracing and delightfully trenchant though they can be (particularly when directed at various politicians and organizations), actually wind up detracting from the message. They surely detract from the chances of persuading anyone not on her side already, or even of getting them to give her an open-minded hearing. They also make it easy to understand why a Muslim who does not wish to blow up the Eiffel Tower or conquer the West would rightly feel that he was being stereotyped and hatred being fomented against him. On the other hand, plenty of people like the ones Fallaci describes assuredly exist, and the gap will not be bridged by pretending it isn't there. None of my criticism, of course, changes my view that in a free society this sort of expression ought to be beyond the reach of legal sanctions.
UPDATE 2: David Harbottle has another translation of these items here, except that the source he was looking at lists a few of them differently. I have no idea why that is. posted by CMN at 1:14 PM
141 stab(s) back
I’m trying to track down a copy of the actual complaint so I can find the 18 sentences Eugene is interested in. In the meantime, here’s a quick and dirty translation of a relevant passage from the book in question, The Force of Reason. Relevant both because it talks about the earlier legal process Fallaci was subjected to in France, and because it illustrates the general tone of her comments about Muslims. This is the beginning of Chapter 2:
I understood that the dream [nurtured by the sons of Allah] of destroying the Eiffel Tower was superfluous in the late spring of 2002, when “The Rage and The Pride” came out in France, where a novelist had just been criminally charged for saying that the Koran is the most stupid and dangerous book in the world. And where, in 1997 and then in 1998 and then in 2000 and then in 2001 Brigitte Bardot had been condemned (as a racist-xenophobe-blasphemer-etcetera) for having written or said those things people never get tired of repeating, poor Brigitte. That the Muslims have robbed her of her country, that even in the most remote villages French churches have been replaced by mosques and the Our Father with the cries of muezzins, that tolerance has a limit even in democratic regimes, that halal butchery is barbarous... (By the way: it is. It is, I’m sorry to say, in just the same measure as shechita butchery is barbarous. That is, the Jewish version which is carried out in the same way and consists of slitting the animals’ throats without dazing them, thus causing them to die little by little. Slowly, bleeding to death. If you don’t believe it, go to a shechita or halal slaughterhouse and observe that never-ending agony accompanied by heart-rending glances that stops only when the lamb or calf no longer has a drop of blood remaining. So at that point the meat is “pure,” nice and white, pure...).
I understood it, in other words, even before being incriminated like the novelist and Brigitte Bardot. Becuase you know who was the first to pile up the wood for my pyre? The same Parisian weekly to whose editor I had granted excerpts to publish in anticipation of the book. And you know how he piled up that wood? By publishing, next to my text, the requisitories of the French Fra Accursios. Journalists, psychoanalysts, islamists, philosophers or rather pseudophilosophers, politologists, everythingologists. (Not infrequently, with Arab names. Sometimes, with Jewish names.) You know who set it on fire? The extreme leftist periodical that dedicated a cover to me with the title (in cubital letters, naturally) of the article-condemnation: “Anatomy of an Abject Book.” You know what happened right afterward? It happened that, even though demand was insatiable in every bookstore, many sons of Allah demanded that it be removed from both windows and shelves, and many frightened booksellers were constrained to sell it in secret. As for the trial, it happened not only because of the complaint presented by the Muslims of MRAP, that is “Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l’Amitie’ entre les Peuples” (sic), but also because of one presnted by the Jews of “LICRA.” “Ligue Internationale contre le Racisme et l’Antisemitisme.” The Muslims of MRAP, demanding that every copy be sequestered and (I suppose) burned. The Jews of LICRA, demanding that each of them bear a label: “Attention! This book may be hazardous to your mental health!” A warning, that is, just like the ones that deface packs of cigarettes: “Attention! Tabacco is gravely harmful to health.” Both, demanding that I be condemned to a year in prison and to pay a savory damages award to be poured into their pockets... I was not condemned, as you know. A procedural technicality saved me from prison, from the damages award, from sequestration, from the label like the ones that deface the packs of cigarettes. With notable acumen, the judge remembered that the first edition had been sold out in less than forty-eight hours, that the successive ones were being sold unstoppably, so that granting one of the two requests would be like closing the barn door after the cows have escaped. But this didn’t change the fact that the Jews of LICRA had wanted that trial just as much as the Muslims of MRAP. In fact I did nothing but torment myself over this, during those days. I did nothing but shake my head and repeat: I-don’t-understand-I-don’t-understand. And in reality it was hard to understand. Because the Fra Accursios of LICRA were quite familiar with the j’accuse I had written against European antisemitism. It had caused a tumult in France as well, and it was in response to that tumult as well that the website “thankyouoriana” had been put up. They also knew that the threats against my life had multiplied because of that article. And to this day I do not forgive them. But in a certain sense, today, I understand them.
I understand them because, even if your grandparents died in Dachau or Mauthausen, it’s not easy to be courageous in a country where there are more than three thousand mosques. Where Islamic racism, that is the hatred of the infidel-dogs, reigns supreme and is never put on trial, never punished. Where the Muslims declare openly: “We must take advantage of the democratic space that France offers us, we must exploit democracy, that is, make use of it to occupy territory.” Where not a few of them add: “In Europe the Nazi position was not understood. Or not by all. It was judged a vehicle of homicidal folly, when actually Hitler was a great man.” Where not a few of them would like to abolish the article of the French constitution that in 1905 rigorously separated Church from State and with that article all the laws that prohibit polygamy, repudiation of wives, religious proselytizing in the schools. Where ten years ago a franco-turkish girl of Colmar was carved up by her family that is by her mother and brothers and uncles because she had fallen in love with a Catholic and wanted to marry him. (“Better dead than dishonored” was the comment of that family.) Where in November 2001, thus only two months after September 11, a female french-moroccan student in Galeria, Corsica, was put to death with twenty-four stabs by her father because she was going to marry a Corsican, he too a Catholic. (“Better imprisoned than dishonored” was the father’s comment.) Where already in 1994 the stylist of Maison Chanel had to formally ask for pardon from the Muslim community not to mention destroy dozens of beautiful outfits because in the summer collection he had used fabrics stamped or embroidered with decorative verses from the Koran in Arabic. Where recently a farmer was required to remove the cross he kept in a wheat field (a field that belongs to him) because “the sight of that religious symbol causes tension among Muslims.” Where Islamic arrogance would like to abolish in the schools the “blasphemous” texts of Voltaire and Victor Hugo. With them the teaching of biology, a “shameless science because it is occupied with the human body and sex.” With the teaching of biology, lessons in gymnastics and swimming, sports that you cannot perform with burkah or chador.
Even less is it easy to be heroic in a country where, often, Muslims are not the official ten percent but rather thirty or even fifty percent. If you don’t believe it, go to Lione or Lille or Roubaix or Bordeaux or Rouen or Limoges or Nizza or Tolosa or even better to Marsailles which in substance is no longer a French city. It is an Arab city, a city of the Maghreb. Go look at the the central quartiere of Bellevue Pyat, by now a slum of filth and delinquency, a casbah where on Friday you can’t even walk along the street because the great mosque is not sufficient to contain the faithful and many pray outside. And where the police refuse to go, saying “It’s too dangerous.” Go there and look at the famous Rue du Bon Pasteur where all the women are veiled, all the men wear jalabah and long beards and turbans, and lounge from morning till evening in the cafes with the televisions that trasmit programming in Arabic. Go there and see the College Edgard Quinet where ninety-five percent of the scholars are Muslims and where last year a fifteen year old girl named Nyma was beaten by her schoolmates and thrown into a trashcan for wearing blue jeans. In the trashcan she came close to being burned. I say “came close” because she was saved by the principal of the school, Jean Pellegrini, who received two stab wounds for his trouble. (You know who gave them to him? Nyma’s brother.) So yes I understand the ungrateful signori of LICRA, yes I understand them. Collaboration almost always springs from fear. But they remind me of the German Jewish bankers who in the thirties, hoping to save themselves, lent money to Hitler. And who, in spite of this, wound up in the crematorium ovens.
Fra Accursio, by the way, was the inquisitor who went after Mastro Cecco. Oh, and for anyone who's not familiar with Oriana's J'accuse, here's the (somewhat corrected since) translation I did of that when it first came out in April 2002:
I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swasitka, incite people to hate the Jews. And who, in order to see Jews once again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the ovens of Dachau and Mauthausen and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen et cetera, would sell their own mother to a harem.
I find it shameful that the Catholic Church should permit a bishop, one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a saintly man who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to participate in that procession and plant himself in front of a microphone to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre the Jews in pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them "martyrs who go to their deaths as to a party."
I find it shameful that in France, the France of Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, they burn synagogues, terrorize Jews, profane their cemeteries. I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany and Denmark flaunt the kaffiah just as Mussolini's avantgarde used to flaunt the club and the fascist badge. I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-semitism. That in Sweden they asked that the Nobel Peace Prize given to Shimon Peres in 1994 be taken back and conferred on the dove with the olive branch in his mouth, that is on Arafat. I find it shameful that the distinguished members of the Committee, a Committee that (it would appear) rewards political color rather than merit, should take this request into consideration and even respond to it. To hell with the Nobel Prize and honor to he who does not receive it.
I find it shameful (we're back in Italy) that state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent antisemitism, crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones. I find it shameful that in their debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or kaffiah who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel Aviv. I find it shameful that the press does the same, that it is indignant because Israeli tanks surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, that it is not indignant because inside that same church two hundred Palestinian terrorists well armed with machine guns and munitions and explosives (among them are various leaders of Hamas and Al-Aqsa) are not unwelcome guests of the monks (who then accept bottles of mineral water and jars of honey from the soldiers of those tanks). I find it shameful that, in giving the number of Israelis killed since the beginning of the Second Intifada (four hundred twelve), a noted daily newspaper found it appropriate to underline in capital letters that more people are killed in their traffic accidents. (Six hundred a year).
I find it shameful that the Roman Observer, the newspaper of the Pope--a Pope who not long ago left in the Wailing Wall a letter of apology for the Jews--accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the millions by Christians. By Europeans. I find it shameful that this newspaper denies to the survivors of that people (survivors who still have numbers tattooed on their arms) the right to react, to defend themselves, to not be exterminated again. I find it shameful that in the name of Jesus Christ (a Jew without whom they would all be unemployed), the priests of our parishes or Social Centers or whatever they are flirt with the assassins of those in Jerusalem who cannot go to eat a pizza or buy some eggs without being blown up. I find it shameful that they are on the side of the very ones who inaugurated terrorism, killing us on airplanes, in airports, at the Olympics, and who today entertain themselves by killing western journalists. By shooting them, abducting them, cutting their throats, decapitating them. (There's someone in Italy who, since the appearance of The Rage and the Pride, would like to do the same to me. Citing verses of the Koran he exorts his "brothers" in the mosques and the Islamic Community to chastise me in the name of Allah. To kill me. Or rather to die with me. Since he's someone who speaks English well, I'll respond to him in English: "Fuck you.")
I find it shameful that almost all of the left, the left that twenty years ago permitted one of its union processionals to deposit a coffin (as a mafioso warning) in front of the synagogue of Rome, forgets the contribution made by the Jews to the fight against fascism. Made by Carlo and Nello Rossini, for example, by Leone Ginzburg, by Umberto Terracini, by Leo Valiani, by Emilio Sereni, by women like my friend Anna Maria Enriques Agnoletti who was shot at Florence on June 12, 1944, by seventy-five of the three-hundred-thirty-five people killed at the Fosse Ardeatine, by the infinite others killed under torture or in combat or before firing squads. (The companions, the teachers, of my infancy and my youth.) I find it shameful that in part through the fault of the left--or rather, primarily through the fault of the left (think of the left that inaugurates its congresses applauding the representative of the PLO, leader in Italy of the Palestinians who want the destruction of Israel)--Jews in Italian cities are once again afraid. And in French cities and Dutch cities and Danish cities and German cities, it is the same. I find it shameful that Jews tremble at the passage of the scoundrels dressed like suicide bombers just as they trembled during Krystallnacht, the night in which Hitler gave free rein to the Hunt of the Jews. I find it shameful that in obedience to the stupid, vile, dishonest, and for them extremely advantageous fashion of Political Correctness the usual opportunists--or better the usual parasites--exploit the word Peace. That in the name of the word Peace, by now more debauched than the words Love and Humanity, they absolve one side alone of its hate and bestiality. That in the name of a pacifism (read conformism) delegated to the singing crickets and buffoons who used to lick Pol Pot's feet they incite people who are confused or ingenuous or intimidated. Trick them, corrupt them, carry them back a half century to the time of the yellow star on the coat. These charlatans who care about the Palestinians as much as I care about the charlatans. That is not at all.
I find it shameful that many Italians and many Europeans have chosen as their standard-bearer the gentleman (or so it is polite to say) Arafat. This nonentity who thanks to the money of the Saudi Royal Family plays the Mussolini ad perpetuum and in his megalomania believes he will pass into History as the George Washington of Palestine. This ungrammatical wretch who when I interviewed him was unable even to put together a complete sentence, to make articulate conversation. So that to put it all together, write it, publish it, cost me a tremendous effort and I concluded that compared to him even Ghaddafi sounds like Leonardo da Vinci. This false warrior who always goes around in uniform like Pinochet, never putting on civilian garb, and yet despite this has never participated in a battle. War is something he sends, has always sent, others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent who playing the part of Head of State caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton's mediation. No-no-I-want-Jerusalem-all-to-myself. This eternal liar who has a flash of sincerity only when (in private) he denies Israel's right to exist, and who as I say in my book contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is, so that you can never trust him. Never! With him you will always wind up systematically betrayed. This eternal terrorist who knows only how to be a terrorist (while keeping himself safe) and who during the Seventies, that is when I interviewed him, even trained the terrorists of Baader-Meinhof. With them, children ten years of age. Poor children. (Now he trains them to become suicide bombers. A hundred baby suicide bombers are in the works: a hundred!). This weathercock who keeps his wife at Paris, served and revered like a queen, and keeps his people down in the shit. He takes them out of the shit only to send them to die, to kill and to die, like the eighteen year old girls who in order to earn equality with men have to strap on explosives and disintegrate with their victims. And yet many Italians love him, yes. Just like they loved Mussolini. And many other Europeans do the same.
I find it shameful and see in all this the rise of a new fascism, a new nazism. A fascism, a nazism, that much more grim and revolting because it is conducted and nourished by those who hypocritically pose as do-gooders, progressives, communists, pacifists, Catholics or rather Christians, and who have the gall to label a warmonger anyone like me who screams the truth.
I see it, yes, and I say the following. I have never been tender with the tragic and Shakespearean figure Sharon. ("I know you've come to add another scalp to your necklace," he murmured almost with sadness when I went to interview him in 1982.) I have often had disagreements with the Israelis, ugly ones, and in the past I have defended the Palestinians a great deal. Maybe more than they deserved. But I stand with Israel, I stand with the Jews. I stand just as I stood as a young girl during the time when I fought with them, and when the Anna Marias were shot. I defend their right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. And disgusted by the antisemitism of many Italians, of many Europeans, I am ashamed of this shame that dishonors my Country and Europe. At best, it is not a community of States, but a pit of Pontius Pilates. And even if all the inhabitants of this planet were to think otherwise, I would continue to think so.
The individual to whom she sends the two word salutation, by the way, is Adel Smith, the same person who is now behind the lawsuit against her in Italy. As I've explained elsewhere, while I don't doubt that Oriana has received death threats, I don't think the statement by Smith that she refers to above really was one.
UPDATE: It occurs to me that the account Fallaci gives of the proceedings in France doesn't make a lot of sense, at least to American legal eyes. I suppose I can imagine a judge denying a preliminary injunction on the ground that the feared damage is already done, so that the balancing of the equities weighs in favor of the burden on the publishers. But you wouldn't throw out the suit on that ground. It certainly wouldn't save you from prison or a damages award, assuming you had committed acts for which those were the legal consequences. Nor would it save you from a permanent injunction against further selling of the book. (As in copyright cases, for example.) So either Fallaci's not explaining what happened very well, or the French legal system is not very precise in the way it deals with these matters. Anybody know? Wouldn't surprise me if the answer was both. posted by CMN at 1:47 AM
1 stab(s) back
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Here we go again... So Adel Smith is finally getting his way, and now Oriana's to be tried in Italy. (For my take on an earlier Italian legal scuffle involving this character, see here.) That makes the third European country to entertain legal charges against her for writing a book. Remember that the next time you hear someone asserting the cultural and intellectual superiority of Europeans over Americans. (Ironically, Oriana herself has done that at times.) The European populace is apparently so enlightened and sophisticated that the only adequate response to publication of a book containing harsh rhetorical swipes (backed by a fair amount of factual research) at a religious group is to legally suppress it. Otherwise, who knows what those gullible mobs might do.
At least one Italian commentator gets this. Pierluigi Battista has a piece on the front page of the Corriere:
It will be a sad day for the law if we discover that in Italy crimes of opinion exist, and are not confined, as they should be, to the antique shop. It will be a sad day for liberty of expression if The Force of Reason is dragged into court and a judge decides … to credit the complaint filed by Adel Smith in which Fallaci is accused of nothing less than “vilifying relgion.”
It will be a sad day if the only protest to have emerged is that of the minister Castelli, who properly termed this judicial tenacity against a book as “coercion of thought.”
It will be a sad day if no-one, but no-one, among those who have legitimately criticized Oriana Fallaci’s opinions, raises his voice to say that ideas, even the most extreme ones, can never be put on trial. A final and bitter confirmation of the Italian malaise, in which we are incapable of thinking that principles apply even to those who disagree with us and that diverse opinions are to be treated and respected as opinions and not as crimes. Far, very far from courts of law.
It would be nice if Umberto Eco, who has spent some time criticizing Fallaci (with customarily opaque erudition), and who also once wrote a novel dramatizing quite vividly the lengths to which some will go to effect the "coercion of thought," would rise to this challenge.
In any event, I doubt Oriana will be much fazed by this. She could probably just move back to New York and stay there, but I suspect she won't. She's already got such a martyr complex, and is so close to death, that this will simply provide her with a last glorious chance to grandstand on the way out. She'll get to write another long comparison of herself to Mastro Cecco or some other suitably noble wronged heretic, and the streets outside the courthouse will be packed with her admirers. posted by CMN at 9:48 AM
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Sunday, May 01, 2005
"You wouldn't really legalize heroin, would you?" Yes. Here's why. As usual, Jim does a great job of showing why what many assume to be an absurd, extreme libertarian position is merely a sensible cost-benefit analysis informed by principle. posted by CMN at 12:05 AM
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