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September 15, 2006Oriana and Rosie - two women of the leftThe fearless Oriana Fallaci has died at age 76, after a long battle with cancer which inspired her to drink champagne, if she couldn’t eat, but which never silenced her furiously working brain. Fallaci was an unapologetic woman of the left who - like Christopher Hitchens - had the brains, moral courage and obstinacy to depart from leftist orthodoxy when intellectual honesty demanded it. She was no one to simply “fall in line” with the prevailing thought-of-the-day. She dared the left to honor its pretensions to liberalism and open-mindedness by speaking her mind in dissent. And the left never forgave her for it, either. In fact, they called her a fascist, for it. (As you know, only they are allowed to fling that word about.) The WaPo piece linked to above does not do her justice. Given her provocative last books, The Rage and the Pride and The Strength of Reason, which brought her up on charges for -essentially - daring to call Europe “Eurabia” and freely criticizing Islam, I would imagine they dare not go into just how solidly leftist were her views. (Both books are available via The Bookshelf). This New Yorker piece by Margaret Talbot does a better job of it, and you’ll really want to print it out and read it to get a sense of this woman:
In 1968 she was shot while covering student demonstrations in Mexico. Forced to wear a chador while interviewing the Ayotollah Khomeini,
I think, too, she probably “got” what President Bush has been trying to say:
Fallaci, an avowed atheist, nevertheless said she had great hope in the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the papal throne, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal: “I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger.” I had asked Ms. Fallaci whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. “I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It’s that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion.” Writes Tunku Varadarajan
Oriana Fallaci was no standard-issue leftist. This was a great woman who had put her life on the line to work against fascism, who personified much of the revolutionary mindset of the 1960’s, but who dared to think a thing through and come to her own conclusions. As she got older, she became more extreme in her views, but she never, never succumbed to the intellectual laziness of moral equivalence. It is a privilege to salute Fallaci, regardless of where one might disagree with her, because she was a woman of integrity, tenacity, foolish courage, humor, spirit and vigor and rigorous intellect. We will not see her like again, and we’ll be poorer for it. So great is my respect for Fallaci, that to mention Rosie O’ Donnell in the same post feels like dipping roses into a land-fill. Both are fragrant but one rises in graceful beauty and the other simply emits noxious gas. But I must mention O’ Donnell, because while she claims herself a woman of the left, she is the polar opposite of Fallaci, and I cannot let Fallaci go without focusing for a second on how far the left as devolved. Where resistance-member Fallaci was intelligently confrontational, trendy-cause committed O’ Donnell is merely shrill. Where Fallaci dared to look at the effects of Christianity and Islam on civilizations and see real differences and moral distinctions, O’Donnell casts a vapid, bigoted glance and calls them all cake, declaring: “Radical Christianity Is Just As Threatening As Radical Islam.” After all, she doesn’t have to think. The thinking has been done for her by her co-ideologues. All she has to do is fall in line and parrot. I gag. I barely want to waste the energy to respond to it, because she’s really not worth it. So, I’ll simply leave it to Ms. O’Donnell to point out to the rest of us the buildings that have been flown into, the throats that have been slit, the genitals which have been mutiliated, the raped women who have been killed for their victimhood, the countless suicide bombers who have died screaming “Jesus is Lord” as they blew themselves up, the gays who have been hanged for being gay, the raging Catholics who rampaged through the streets burning Andres Serrano in effegy when he submerged a crucifix in urine and called it “art,” the Christian who have murdered filmmakers for making less-than-flattering films about their faith… Come on, Rosie, make your case and justify that moral equivalence you so easily, lazily, thoughtlessly burp out to the assured applause of your Upper West Side audience. Don’t point to a few sick extremists who have killed abortionists, unless you are willing to admit that the Christians themselves have condemned such violence. Show us the justification for your statement that “Radical Christianity Is Just As Threatening As Radical Islam.” The truth is, Ms. O’ Donnell, “radical” anything is unappetizing, whether that be “radical” judges creating laws out of whole cloth, just because they want to, or “radical” gays storming St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Notre Dame Cathedral (hmmmm, musta missed it when the “radical” Christians stormed the Lilith festivals!). Can you admit that? Do you have that much intellectual honesty? When you are done justifying that incredibly prejudiced, stupid and unfounded statement, Ms. O’ Donnell, you might then (to compound the moral strength of your own superior ideology) point out the hospitals and soup kitchens and crisis centers you and your leftist pals have built around the world, and you can reassure us that they treat anyone in need, even if they don’t belong to your club. I’m sure they can be found in every city. You can display the free clinics and kitchens and schools and job training centersyou and your friends have built in Haiti and in Africa, and in Appalachia. You can show us the homes built to help single mothers who choose to keep their babies (because you’re “pro-choice,” right?) and which teach them to become independent. Please make your case, Ms. O’ Donnell. We’ll wait. While we wait, we’ll raise a glass to Oriana Fallaci, a leftist woman whose shoes you are not fit to shine. She embodied all that leftism was, and you are all it has become. And, ummm…Benedict warned us against the dictatorship of relativism only 17 months ago:
Read Oriana Fallaci’s essay The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt, 2003 Pajamas Media has all the links and Michael Ledeen, who knew Oriana eulogizes her here. Blogs and news stories covering Fallaci: http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/09/15/oriana-and-rosie-two-women-of-the-left/trackback/ 25 Responses to “Oriana and Rosie - two women of the left” |
September 15th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
You’ve done a good job of both eulogizing Oriana and tearing apart Rosie, but I would like to add that Rosie in her mini-rant, jumped directly from the radical Christian threat to the bombing of innocents in Iraq as if there were a direct causal relationship between the two. This doesn’t even address the validity of her depiction of the war effort in Iraq. I am not entirely at ease with what’s been happening in Iraq, but that characterization is grossly unfair. And it illustrates yet again the intellectual laziness that she is guilty of.
September 15th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
[...] UPDATE III: The Anchoress in an amazing post that eulogizes Oriana Fallaci and scolds Rosie O’Donnell in practically the same breath; showing how two women with the same supposed left-leanings can be so, so different. Here are a few snippiets - read the whole thing. Fallaci was an unapologetic woman of the left who - like Christopher Hitchens - had the brains, moral courage and obstinacy to depart from leftist orthodoxy when intellectual honesty demanded it. She was no one to simply “fall in line” with the prevailing thought-of-the-day. She dared the left to honor its pretensions to liberalism and open-mindedness by speaking her mind in dissent. And the left never forgave her for it, either. [...]
September 15th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
IN MEMORIAM: ORIANA FALLACI, 1929 - 2006
ORIANA - Michael Ledeen remembers his friend: “Yeah, we knew she was sick, we’d known it for a long time, but we somehow figured she’d overwhelm it, that the combination of cigarettes and her own abundant bile would drive out…
September 15th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Amen.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
That’s very kind of you, Imam. And since you said so, I’m going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now.” She yanked off her chador.
God, I love that woman. She was a warrior in the truest, most noble sense.
And she’s right about the commonality of belief between herself, an atheist, and Pope Benedict–it reveals universal truth.
That’s a wonderful tribute to a great woman, Anchoress. Thanks.
September 16th, 2006 at 4:13 am
Orianna Fallaci RIP
The Anchoress also remembers, and compares the heroic Fallaci to the farcical Rosie ODonnell:
September 16th, 2006 at 5:19 am
[...] She placed herself front and center in this latest war between Western civilization and Islam. Oriana pulled no punches, as ferocious against the surrender of her beloved Italy to multiculturalism as she was when sitting face to face with the Ayatollah Khomeini. From The Anchoress: Forced to wear a chador while interviewing the Ayotollah Khomeini, Fallaci asked a more insolent question: “How do you swim in a chador?” Khomeini snapped, “Our customs are none of your business. If you do not like Islamic dress you are not obliged to wear it. Because Islamic dress is for good and proper young women.” Fallaci saw an opening, and charged in. “That’s very kind of you, Imam. And since you said so, I’m going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now.” She yanked off her chador. [...]
September 16th, 2006 at 5:32 am
I gather you’re somewhat sickly, but take good care ofyourself, Anchoress. We’re going to need brave women like you. RIP, Oriana.
September 16th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Rosie O’Donnell: Barking Moonbat
Poor Rosie, she has reduced herself to playing the role of a barking moonbat. There are evangelical Christians whose views differ from mainstream Christianity, but there is no terrorism endorsed by world-wide Christianity. Murder, terrorism, and deat…
September 16th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
Fallaci vs. Rosie
A spectacular post from the Anchoress. I just wish O’Donnell would read and respond to it. A sample:Forced to wear a chador while interviewing the Ayotollah Khomeini, Fallaci asked a more insolent question: “How do you swim in a chador?”…
September 17th, 2006 at 7:57 am
I wouldn’t worry too much about Rosie, after all she’s only a clown.
September 17th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Oriana Fallaci was a communist, with all the arrogance, “I know better for you than you do for yourself,” that entails. But, I loved your dismemberment of Rosie. Thank you.
Regards,
Sarah
September 17th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
[...] Tributes are pouring in from such diverse quarters as Daniel Pipes, Tammy Bruce, Victor Davis Hanson, The Anchoress, Rusty Shackleford, and many others. [...]
September 17th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
“Oriana and Rosie - two women of the left”
But I must mention [Rosie] O’ Donnell, because while she claims herself a woman of the left, she is the polar opposite of Fallaci, and I cannot let [Oriana] Fallaci go without focusing for a second on how far the…
September 17th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Oriana was a lioness.
Rosie means well. She almost had clarity after 9/11, praising Bush at the time and chiding her fellow celebrities to give substantial cash donations(rather than promote) to the 9/11 charities. Bill O’Reilly is no WFB, but his interview with Rosie on the factor is interesting.
Rosie’s problem is she is not well educated. She is probably of above average intelligence–but she is (like most celebrities) sheltered and not challenged. Because Christians frown on her lesbian lifestyle, she lashes out without thinking. If she actually thought about the benefits of Western Civilization (which owes a lot to Christianity) vs. the shackles of most Islamic countries–maybe she would not make such stupid comments.
September 17th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
The Pope Incident gets hot in Europe.
The Gateway Pundit has a lot of links, but I wanted to share this bit: In a scathing attack, barely 48 hours after a Somali Islamic cleric
called for Muslims to kill the Pope for his Tuesday utterances,
Archbishop Christodoulos told a sermon in…
September 18th, 2006 at 8:17 am
[...] Allegra at The Anchoress has a beautiful essay describing the narrative details of Fallaci’s career, including her curiously close relationship to Pope Benedict’s works, and the fact that she was a woman of the left and an atheist. Allegra also has an important Pope events roundup with everything about the issue from around the world here. [...]
September 18th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
En Memoriam
Somehow in all the confusion I missed that Orianna Fallaci died last Friday. I guess she really wasn’t too mean to die after all. Definitely my favorite Italian female. Well, except for the one I currently live with. Little…
October 21st, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Worth reading
Something I stumbled across just recently, an obituary of the great Oriana Fallaci by The Anchoress. I remembered Fallaci from her days as one of the great journalists of the Left, and the interviews she had with the movers and
October 26th, 2006 at 10:43 am
[...] People, particularly the hardline secularists, do not want to admit it but America is going to be forced to play things out on both a secular and supernatural stage, if she is going to stay alive, and not just alive but comprehensively American. Those, like Rosie O’ Donnell, who would lump the Taliban and American Christians into the same boat do not realize that in doing so they are consigning themselves to Europe’s fate. And Europe is dying. Europe will not fight. [...]
October 26th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Diagnoising Death through Demographics
As a long-time fan of Mark Steyn I looked forward to reading this interview with him out of Human Events, just as I have had his book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. One of…
November 3rd, 2006 at 6:33 am
[...] 3. Melanie Phillips is far from being the only non-Christian in Europe who holds to the above view. Said Oriana about Pope Benedict XVI: “I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It’s that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion.” Upon her death Oriana left all her books and papers to Pope Benedict. She had a private audience with him last year and considered him “an ally in her campaign to rally Christians in Europe against what she saw as a Muslim crusade against the West.” This emerging alliance between the anti-Islamisation secularists and conservative Christians is as natural, even as it is as odd, as the alliance between the Islamists and the far Left. And even religion needs good publicity. Don’t also underestimate the ability of Pope Benedict himself to pump some life back into European Christianity. And by the way, why did he chose the name Benedict? Here’s why: He was thinking of not one, but two previous Benedicts. [...]
December 28th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
[...] Reacting to the death of one great leftist woman while another goes off the rails: Oriana and Rosie two women of the left. [...]
April 5th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
[...] while back I wrote about the differences between two women of the left, Oriana Fallaci and Rosie O’ Donnell. Now Kathryn Jean Lopez writes about two women of the right in an interesting piece on [...]
May 25th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
[...] Related: Popular Mechanics on Rosie’s Steel theories Oriana and Rosie, Two Women of the Left [...]