Rage & Pride
by
Oriana Fallaci
English translation by Letizia Grasso
I want to give you the conclusion of my argument. A conclusion that will not please many, seeing that to defend one’s own culture is becoming a mortal sin in Italy. And seeing that intimidated by the improper word “racist”, everyone is keeping quiet like rabbits.
I don’t go and put up tents in Mecca. I don’t go to sing Our Father or Hail Marys before the tomb of Mohamed. I don’t go and pee on the marble walls of their Mosques, I don’t do cacca at the feet of their minaret. When I find myself in their countries (something from which I have never derived any pleasure) I never forget that I am a guest and a foreigner. I am careful to not offend them with my dress or my gestures or the way I act which for us is normal and for them inadmissible. I treat them with due respect, with due courtesy. I apologize if by some absent mindedness or ignorance I break one of their rules or superstitions. I wrote this scream of pain and disdain while having in my mind's eye scenes which did not always give me apocalyptic fits. Sometimes I would see the image, for me symbolic (therefore infuriating), of the big tent with which one summer ago the Somali Muslims disfigured, smeared with shit and profaned for three months piazza Del Duomo in Florence. My city. A tent raised to curse and condemn and insult the Italian government that was hosting them but would not give them the necessary documents to run around Europe and would not let them bring into Italy their hordes of their relatives. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, pregnant in-laws and even the relatives of their relatives. A tent raised next to the beautiful building of the Archbishop’s residence on whose sidewalk they kept their shoes and slippers which in their countries they line up outside of their Mosques. And with their shoes and slippers, the bottles of water with which they wash their feet before prayer. A tent raised in front of Brunelleschi’s cupola and next to the Baptistery with Ghiberti’s doors of paradise. A tent, furnished like a primitive apartment: chairs, tables, chaise-lounges, mattresses to sleep on and to copulate, ranges to cook the food and stench up the piazza with the smoke and smell. Thanks to the usual unconscionable Enel who cares about our works of art as much as it cares for our countryside, the tent was furnished with electricity. Thanks to a tape recorder, enriched by the coarse ugly voice of a muezzin who punctually exhorted the faithful, deafening the infidels, and suffocated the sound of the bells. To add to this, the yellow lines of urine that profaned the marble of the Baptistery. (My gosh! They have a long "spray" these sons of Allah! How did they manage to
hit their objective, which is separated from the street by a protective fence, hence almost two meters distant from their urinary apparatus?) With the yellow lines of urine, and the stench of the excrements the huge door of San Salvatore was blocked and the Bishop unable to use it. The exquisite romanic styled church (built in the year one thousand) which is right behind Piazza del Duomo and that the sons of Allah had transformed into a shit-hole. You know it well............
The other arrogant guests of the city: the Albanians, Sudanese, Bengalis, Tunisians, Algerians, Pakistani, Nigerians who with much fervor contribute to the commerce of drugs and prostitution, which apparently is not prohibited by the Koran.
If the citizen dares protest, or say to them “go exercise those rights in your own home”, then the dreaded cry “Racist, Racist” is heard.
If a police officer dares to say to them “Mr. Allah’s son, your excellency, would you mind moving over an inch so that people can get by?” They eat him up alive. They assault him with knives. At the very least, they insult his mother and his ancestors, along with the cry “Racist! Racist!"
It happens in other cities too, I know. In Turin, for example. That Turin that made Italy and that now doesn’t even look like an Italian city. It looks like Algeria, Dacca, Nairobi, Damascus, Beirut. In Venice, where the pigeons of St. Mark’s square have been replaced by carpets with wares, even Othello would feel out of place there.
More here
http://www.borg.com/%7Epaperina/fallaci/fallaci_1.html
Oriana Fallaci
English translation by Letizia Grasso
I want to give you the conclusion of my argument. A conclusion that will not please many, seeing that to defend one’s own culture is becoming a mortal sin in Italy. And seeing that intimidated by the improper word “racist”, everyone is keeping quiet like rabbits.
I don’t go and put up tents in Mecca. I don’t go to sing Our Father or Hail Marys before the tomb of Mohamed. I don’t go and pee on the marble walls of their Mosques, I don’t do cacca at the feet of their minaret. When I find myself in their countries (something from which I have never derived any pleasure) I never forget that I am a guest and a foreigner. I am careful to not offend them with my dress or my gestures or the way I act which for us is normal and for them inadmissible. I treat them with due respect, with due courtesy. I apologize if by some absent mindedness or ignorance I break one of their rules or superstitions. I wrote this scream of pain and disdain while having in my mind's eye scenes which did not always give me apocalyptic fits. Sometimes I would see the image, for me symbolic (therefore infuriating), of the big tent with which one summer ago the Somali Muslims disfigured, smeared with shit and profaned for three months piazza Del Duomo in Florence. My city. A tent raised to curse and condemn and insult the Italian government that was hosting them but would not give them the necessary documents to run around Europe and would not let them bring into Italy their hordes of their relatives. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, pregnant in-laws and even the relatives of their relatives. A tent raised next to the beautiful building of the Archbishop’s residence on whose sidewalk they kept their shoes and slippers which in their countries they line up outside of their Mosques. And with their shoes and slippers, the bottles of water with which they wash their feet before prayer. A tent raised in front of Brunelleschi’s cupola and next to the Baptistery with Ghiberti’s doors of paradise. A tent, furnished like a primitive apartment: chairs, tables, chaise-lounges, mattresses to sleep on and to copulate, ranges to cook the food and stench up the piazza with the smoke and smell. Thanks to the usual unconscionable Enel who cares about our works of art as much as it cares for our countryside, the tent was furnished with electricity. Thanks to a tape recorder, enriched by the coarse ugly voice of a muezzin who punctually exhorted the faithful, deafening the infidels, and suffocated the sound of the bells. To add to this, the yellow lines of urine that profaned the marble of the Baptistery. (My gosh! They have a long "spray" these sons of Allah! How did they manage to
hit their objective, which is separated from the street by a protective fence, hence almost two meters distant from their urinary apparatus?) With the yellow lines of urine, and the stench of the excrements the huge door of San Salvatore was blocked and the Bishop unable to use it. The exquisite romanic styled church (built in the year one thousand) which is right behind Piazza del Duomo and that the sons of Allah had transformed into a shit-hole. You know it well............
The other arrogant guests of the city: the Albanians, Sudanese, Bengalis, Tunisians, Algerians, Pakistani, Nigerians who with much fervor contribute to the commerce of drugs and prostitution, which apparently is not prohibited by the Koran.
If the citizen dares protest, or say to them “go exercise those rights in your own home”, then the dreaded cry “Racist, Racist” is heard.
If a police officer dares to say to them “Mr. Allah’s son, your excellency, would you mind moving over an inch so that people can get by?” They eat him up alive. They assault him with knives. At the very least, they insult his mother and his ancestors, along with the cry “Racist! Racist!"
It happens in other cities too, I know. In Turin, for example. That Turin that made Italy and that now doesn’t even look like an Italian city. It looks like Algeria, Dacca, Nairobi, Damascus, Beirut. In Venice, where the pigeons of St. Mark’s square have been replaced by carpets with wares, even Othello would feel out of place there.
More here
http://www.borg.com/%7Epaperina/fallaci/fallaci_1.html
posted by VIVA at 12:17 AM
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