What can you all tell me about Oriana Fallaci?

[proud2BlibKansan]

She is being hailed as a heroine by the right. She is an Italian who lives in NYC while dodging an indictment in Italy. She sounds like a racist to me; her latest book condemns the "Islamification" of Europe.

Anybody know much about her?

[BrklynLiberal]

1. She used to be a great interviewer.

Maybe old age affected her objectivity..or even her rationallity.

At the site below there are more details about the controversy,
and it mentions that in August of 2005 she had a private audience with Pope Benedict.:evilgrin:

Oriana Fallaci (born July 29, 1930) is an Italian journalist , author and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career.

She has been called Italy's most celebrated female writer by Ferruccio de Bortolo.<1>,<2>. and the Los Angeles Times described her as "the journalist to whom virtually no world figure would say no."

After retirement, she returned to the spotlight after writing a series of articles and books highly critical of Islam and Arabs that aroused substantial support, controversy and accusations of Islamophobia and Racism.

She has interviewed many internationally known leaders and celebrities such as Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Walter Cronkite, Omar Khadafi, Federico Fellini, Sammy Davis Jr, Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Archbishop Makarios III, Golda Meir, Nguyen Van Thieu, Haile Selassie and Sean Connery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriana_Fallaci

[murielm99]

2. I remember that.

She interviewed Khomeni and Kissinger.

I thought she was dead by now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. She is dying of cancer

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. A few of her remarks that concern me:

Muslims, in Fallaci's view, adhere to a barbaric religion in which there is no important distinction between terrorists and the mainstream.

She makes gutter remarks about the sexual desires and desirability of Muslims, and compares them to vermin.

"European citizens do not want Turkey in our home."

“There is not,” she asserted, “good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam."

[BrklynLiberal]

8. I am not sure if she has become insane, feeble with age, or just plain

mean and she thinks this kind of garbage will some how guarantee her entrance into Heaven.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. A freeper is bringing her up in an online debate

He thinks she is some kind of heroine. :crazy:

[BrklynLiberal]

11. They will grasp onto ANYONE who supports their hate filled rhetoric...

even if they are senile or suffering the intellectual ravages of terminal cancer.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. He just grabbed on to her anti Islamic rhetoric

I called her a fruitcake and he accused me of being a name caller. I guess he forgot about all the times he has called ME a traitor. LOL

[BrklynLiberal]

13. Wonder if he knows she interviewed Ayatollah Khomeini, WITHOUT

negative comment? And Yasir Arafat as well.

An interestng article about Fallaci...and Salman Rushdie too.
It seems they were both America haters, beloved in Iran, who became America-philes, and now hated in Iran.
Note that this article was writen back in 2002 BEFORE all this controversy, and yet seems to hit the nail on the head.

<snip>
Fallaci is not alone among former anti-Americans who have suddenly become pro-US. Another example is Salman Rushdie, the British novelist who once described the United States as "the fountain of evil." In his book "The Jaguar Smile," a hymn in praise of Marxist terrorists in Nicaragua, Rushdie even called for the murder of Americans as a revolutionary act. Now, however, Rushdie lives in New York, a few blocks from Fallaci, and sings the same song in praise of America. Not surprisingly, both Rushdie and Fallaci achieved hero status in Iran. Fallaci was the only foreign woman journalist allowed to interview the late Ayatollah Khomeini. (She wore the "hijab" on that occasion!) Her praise of Khomeini, and her vicious attacks on the late Shah, are still part of the official literature of Iran. Rushdie won the Ayatollah Beheshti Prize for his anti-American novels. Both Fallaci and Rushdie have cured themselves of their hatred of the United States by replacing it with an even more illogical hatred of Muslims. They are people who cannot live without hating someone or something. The problem is that their hatred seems to be shared by many people in the West. Fallaci's work has sold almost a million copies in Italy, the biggest sales figures ever of the first edition of a book in Italy. The French publisher hopes to sell almost as many. Translations of the book are already under way in 10 other languages. Fallaci, like Rushdie before her, has always had a provocative streak. This is any writer's right and, in the cases of Fallaci and Rushdie, has often proved a selling gimmick for mediocre books. But there is a limit even to provocation. That limit is simple: The writer should not deliberately lie to his readers.

<snip>

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/113

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. He will be learning that soon LOL

Thanks

[BrklynLiberal]

15. Here is the full excerpt:

You are wrong, Ms Fallaci
by Amir Taheri
Arab News
October 24, 2002

<snip>
Fallaci says that all Muslims are Arabs, even when they belong to other nationalities. For her, being Muslim means abandoning one's true identity and adopting that of the Arabs. She goes further by suggesting that all Arabs are actual or potential Bin Ladens. In her view, Islam can produce only Bin Ladens. She even ridicules suggestions that Muslims ever contributed anything to science, art and philosophy. Addressing the West, she cries out: "You do not understand or do not want to understand that if we remain passive, if we do not fight back, the jihad will triumph."

Those who know Fallaci may not be surprised by the vehemence of her passion and the intensity of her hatred. Now in her mid-70s, Fallaci began her journalistic career as one of the fashionable leftist "truth-seekers" in the 1960s. Those were the days of the Vietnam War and "the adversary" was the United States, the arch-imperialist demonized by Soviet propaganda. Over 40 years later, Fallaci has been transformed into an America-lover of almost comic proportions. She now loves everything American and believes that only the United States can save humanity from falling under the control of "Muslim hordes of fanatics.

Fallaci is not alone among former anti-Americans who have suddenly become pro-US. Another example is Salman Rushdie, the British novelist who once described the United States as "the fountain of evil." In his book "The Jaguar Smile," a hymn in praise of Marxist terrorists in Nicaragua, Rushdie even called for the murder of Americans as a revolutionary act. Now, however, Rushdie lives in New York, a few blocks from Fallaci, and sings the same song in praise of America. Not surprisingly, both Rushdie and Fallaci achieved hero status in Iran. Fallaci was the only foreign woman journalist allowed to interview the late Ayatollah Khomeini. (She wore the "hijab" on that occasion!) Her praise of Khomeini, and her vicious attacks on the late Shah, are still part of the official literature of Iran. Rushdie won the Ayatollah Beheshti Prize for his anti-American novels. Both Fallaci and Rushdie have cured themselves of their hatred of the United States by replacing it with an even more illogical hatred of Muslims. They are people who cannot live without hating someone or something. The problem is that their hatred seems to be shared by many people in the West. Fallaci's work has sold almost a million copies in Italy, the biggest sales figures ever of the first edition of a book in Italy. The French publisher hopes to sell almost as many. Translations of the book are already under way in 10 other languages. Fallaci, like Rushdie before her, has always had a provocative streak. This is any writer's right and, in the cases of Fallaci and Rushdie, has often proved a selling gimmick for mediocre books. But there is a limit even to provocation. That limit is simple: The writer should not deliberately lie to his readers.

<snip>
more..
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/113

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Great read - thanks

[NoPasaran]

3. I haven't been keep up with her

But I remember her as a journalist from the 1970s who specialized in interviewing the high and mighty and letting them talk and talk until they said something they would regret... like getting Henry Kissinger to make the remark about how the US acted like a cowboy ridng into town.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Wow I will look for that quote. Thanks!

[undeterred]

7. I can't resist saying that her name

looks like an exotic porn name. :shrug:

[Cleita]

9. She's a European journalist who at one time was held in high

repute there. Also, I believe she is a communist or at least leans that way. I never have read her works, but an Italian friend of mind praised her highly, also another who leaned toward being a communist.