From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Mon Oct 28 2002 - 00:48:56 MST
October 23, 2002
Italian author slams Islam's 'hate' for West
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Islamic world is engaged in a cultural war with the West and the worst
is still to come, Italian author Oriana Fallaci told a receptive Washington
audience last night.
Spinning off a long list of Islamic countries, she told a group of about 80
people: "The hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. "The
clash between us and them is not a military one. It is a cultural one, a
religious one, and the worst is still to come," she continued in what she
said was her first public address in more than a decade. Tight security was
in place for the speech at the American Enterprise Institute after death
threats were issued against her and her attorney as a result of her latest
book, "The Rage and the Pride," which contains harsh criticism of Muslims.
The book, which she called a "sermon" to Europe, was written in New York in
the two weeks after September 11 as the smoke and dust from the destruction
of the World Trade Center blanketed the city. Miss Fallaci contends in the
angry polemic that the only difference between "moderate Islam" and "radical
Islam" is the length of their beards. She said last night that critics have
attempted to ban the book or have her arrested in France, Belgium,
Switzerland and Italy. The 72-year-old author described these efforts as
"intellectual terrorism." Miss Fallaci, who lives in New York and is
afflicted with cancer, also criticizes Western culture for its loose morals
and licentiousness. "Freedom cannot exist without discipline,
self-discipline, and rights cannot exist without duties. Those who do not
observe their duties do not deserve their rights," she said. In her prime,
Miss Fallaci was famed as a belligerent journalist and argumentative
interviewer, who had unprecedented access to the world's most reclusive and
wary leaders. A partisan in the Italian resistance in World War II and a
lifelong leftist, she once became so disgusted while interviewing Iran's
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that she ripped off her head scarf and threw it
in his face. The act of defiance was considered an unpardonable sin in the
ayatollah's Iran. "The Rage and the Pride," originally published in an
Italian newspaper and then as a book, has sold more than 1 million copies in
Italy and has been popular in Germany and France as well. All three nations
have large Muslim immigrant populations. Variously praised as the painful
truth or decried as a "bigoted, anti-Muslim screed," Miss Fallaci's book is
under threat of judicial action in France for inciting racial hatred.
A lawsuit brought by the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between
People, a Muslim human rights group, is demanding that the book be banned in
France. In a ruling yesterday that may affect her case, a French court
acquitted best-selling French author Michel Houellebecq of charges of racial
insult and inciting racial hatred for calling Islam the "dumbest religion."
The Paris court threw out the case brought by officials from the main
mosques in Paris and the central-eastern city of Lyon and other Muslim
groups after an interview Mr. Houellebecq gave to the French literary
magazine Lire. "The dumbest religion, after all, is Islam," he told the
magazine. "When you read the Koran, you're shattered. The Bible at least is
beautifully written because the Jews have a heck of a literary talent."
While the court ruled that the 44-year-old author's comments were "without a
doubt characterized by neither a particularly noble outlook nor by the
subtlety of their phrasing," they did not constitute a punishable offense.
While Mr. Houellebecq indeed had expressed hatred for Islam as a religion,
the court said, he had not expressed hatred for Muslims, nor did he
encourage others to share his views or discriminate against Muslims. Miss
Fallaci, in her first book in more than 10 years, said she was prompted to
write by demonstrations throughout the Muslim world and in pockets of Europe
celebrating the September 11 attacks on the United States. Her anger, based
on years of reporting in Muslim countries, is evident. Her detractors call
the work an incitement to kill Muslims. Unrepentant, Miss Fallaci calls the
downing of the Twin Towers an act of cultural war and says the superior
Western civilization must stand up and defeat Islam. "War you wanted, war
you want? Good. As far as I am concerned, war it is and war it will be.
Until the last breath," she writes.
---------------------------------------------------------
French Author Acquitted of Charges for Anti-Islam Comment
By ALAN RIDING
(New York Times)
PARIS, Oct. 22 - The French novelist Michel Houellebecq, who often seems to
delight in shocking his readers, was acquitted by a Paris court today of
charges of inciting racial hatred when he declared in an interview last year
that Islam was "the most stupid religion."
The verdict by a three-member bench had been expected after the public
prosecutor recommended during a court hearing last month that all charges be
dropped. The case was brought by three Muslim associations and the Human
Rights League in Paris.
Mr. Houellebecq (pronounced WELL-beck), 45, who lives in Ireland and was not
present in court today, made his comment about Islam during an interview
last year with the literary magazine Lire. "When you read the Koran, you
give up," he said at the time. "At least the Bible is very beautiful because
Jews have an extraordinary literary talent."
The writer, best known in the United States for his second novel, "The
Elementary Particles," was being interviewed by Lire to publicize his third
novel, "Plateforme." As with his other works, "Plateforme" is an acid
commentary on modern Western society told largely through sexual encounters
and frustration. But it ends with a Muslim extremist attack on a tourist
resort in Thailand, which prompts the narrator to wish for the death of
Palestinians.
Mr. Houellebecq's lawyers argued that his commentary fell within the bounds
of free speech. When the public prosecutor endorsed that position, the
lawyer for the Muslim and rights groups, Jean-Marc Varaut, expressed
astonishment. "To call Islam `the most stupid religion' is a provocation,"
he said.
Still, while the case has drawn attention in the news media here, it has not
brought on a crisis in France's oft-troubled relations with its large Muslim
population. Rather, it appears to have been viewed more as another example
of Mr. Houellebecq's talent in drawing attention to himself by being
outrageously politically incorrect.
Mr. Houellebecq nonetheless won support from from the British writer Salman
Rushdie, who lived under a death fatwa after Iranian clerics said they found
blasphemy in his 1988 novel, "The Satanic Verses." This week another British
novelist, Martin Amis, was quoted as telling The Times of London that "it
seems to me that the key to radical Islam is that it is quivering with male
insecurity." And he added, "There's a huge injection of sexuality - men's
sexuality - in radical Islam."
In a case parallel to Mr. Houellebecq's, also currently before French
courts, the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is facing charges of inciting
racial hatred for the assertion in her post-Sept. 11 book, "The Rage And The
Pride," that Muslims "multiply like rats."
In its ruling today, the Paris court acknowledged that Mr. Houellebecq's
remark about Islam was "without a doubt characterized by neither a
particularly noble outlook nor by the subtlety of its phrasing." But the
court said it was not a punishable offense. "This remark does not contain
any intent to abuse verbally, show contempt for or insult the followers of
the religion in question," it said.
Mr. Houellebecq's lawyer, Emmanuel Pierrat, said he noted with "great
satisfaction" that the crime of blasphemy had not been reinstated in French
law.
Speaking for the Muslim groups, Mr. Varaut told reporters that he intended
to appeal the verdict.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:49 MST