Frayed sensibilities, angry explosions
Farida Shaikh examines a writer's anger
The book continues to be a top best seller in Italy, and has been in that position in other European countries. This book broke the writer's ten years' silence, until 9/11.The central theme revolves round what is described as Islamic terrorism and the incompatibility between the Western world and Islam. It is to be noted that the comparison is on uneven ground between secularism in the West and religious order in third world countries. Would she have dared to compare the two monotheistic religions and the subsumed terrorism content? The book might as well have done with the title 'Freedom from Fear' which, as the writer notes, is the first of the Human Rights? It deals with the weak response of the West towards Jihad. The writer has pronounced some uncomfortable truths. The book in an essay form was condemned as bigoted, hysterical propaganda, not only by Muslim leaders but also politicians, media figures, and academics. The author calls this work 'my small book.' and 'the portrait of a soul.' The book has been translated into several European languages and into Italian-English by Fallaci herself, and published in America, with a note to the American reader by the writer. 'The translation… contains…what my critics define as "the oddities of Fallaci's English" Oriana Fallaci, the veteran Italian semi-exile journalist who died not long ago, was one New Yorker who did not fight with her fury; she let it erupt, like a volcano in a book, at first published in Italy's leading newspaper 18 days after the attacks, under the title The Rage and the Pride. Similar to the writer's well known work, Interview with History, it is supposed that if the writer could interview Ousama Bin Laden, (spelling used by the writer) she would ask what pleasure his psyche got from destruction? And how his defunct ultra-polygamist father who begot fifty-four children portray the seventeenth, Ousama Bin Laden, as the "nicest, sweetest and best?" And why his sisters when in London or the Riviera like to be photographed in uncovered head and face '…exposing plump breasts and fat buttocks. No burkah …no chador." Further, Ousama's relationship with Saudi Arabia; how much money Al-Qaeda receives from the royal family of Saudi Arabia, are issues to reflect on. Upon reconsideration, such an interview with Laden would be a waste of time and it would be more befitting to inform him that he has not succeeded in bringing New York to its knees. About her own country, the writer notes that if Ousama had destroyed the tower of Pisa, the Italian opposition would have blamed the government, and not the Islamic terrorists. Fallaci praises the American capacity to unite, to react to misfortune and enemies. This quality is compared to the compactness as revealed before the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The major political parties getting together to fight terrorism is contrasted with conditions in Italy, which is sectarian and politically divided. Political parties are obsessed with their own glory. The execution of twelve impure men executed in 1975 at Dacca, Bangladesh, is cited as an example of religious atrocity. The case of Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani prime minister, is an instance of ultra-Moslem realities. The writer had interviewed him earlier, and his double and arranged marriages are cited as glaring examples of despicable polygamy. Cultural differences are elaborated. There is her account of her seeking an Iranian visa, the dress rehearsal she had to undertake to reach Qom to interview Khomeini and dealing with the question of marriage so as to avoid being unmarried in a room. About the book, there is always this nagging question whether The Rage and the Pride would have been a better book had Fallaci been less caustic in rhetoric, and written with more control of her passion. In all probability, the book would not draw the sharp reactions it did. But then this is a document written amid the smoke rising from a crematorium down the street from Fallaci's apartment, and as a critic notes, "I can attest that this elderly Italian virago perfectly captured the mood of the moment, when so many of us who are less articulate than she felt nothing but pride in our country and rage at the Islamic holy warriors who had done this to us (and their co-religionists who cheered them on)." Many Americans have lost much of the righteous anger they felt in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 crime. And Fallaci's book is not really meant for American readers. As has been noted, "Oriana Fallaci brings it all back home, and speaks more necessary truth in her unfettered fury than you'll hear from more politely equivocating souls."
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