Part 2 Oriana Fallici

The Enemy We Treat Like a Friend
By Oriana Fallici

PART II


Will the massacre touch us too?--will it really touch us the next time? Oh, yes. I haven’t the slightest doubt. I’ve never had the slightest doubt. I’ve been saying this, too, for the last four years. And I add: They have not yet attacked us [only] because of their need for a landing zone, a bridgehead, a handy outpost named “Italy.“ Geographically handy because it is the closest one to both the Middle East and Africa; that is, to the countries that supply the greatest number of troops. Strategically handy because we offer succor and collaboration to those troops.

But soon, they will go on a rampage. Bin Laden himself has promised it--explicitly, clearly, precisely. More than once. His lieutenants (or rivals) have done likewise. The Corriere itself demonstrates this with its interview with Saak Al-Faqih, the exiled Saudi who became friends with Bin Laden during the conflict with the Russians in Afghanistan and who, according to the American secret services, a financer of Al Qaeda.

“It is only a question of time. Al Qaeda will strike you soon,“ said Al Faqih, adding that the attack upon Italy is the most logical thing in the world. Is not Italy the weak link in the chain of allies in Iraq? A link comes soon after Spain and was preceded by London only out of pure convenience. Then [he said]: “Bin Laden well remembers the words of the Prophet: “You will force the Romans to surrender. And he wants to force Italy to abandon its alliance with America.“
In sum, [and] emphasizing that similar operations will not be carried out [by Muslims] who have just arrived at Lampedusa or Malpensa; but instead after having achieved a mature familiarity with the country, after having penetrated its social fabric: “[The only problem with] recruiting the needed manpower will be the embarrassment of riches.“

Many Italians still don’t believe this. Notwithstanding the declarations of the Minister of the Interior, Rome and Milan are at risk; and look out--so are Turin, Naples, Trieste, and Treviso; not to mention the cities of art like Florence and Venice. [But] the Italians carry on like children for whom the word “death” has no meaning. Or like the scatterbrained to whom death seems to be a stroke of bad luck that only happens to other people. In the worst case, a stroke of bad luck that will save them for last. Worse: they believe that to avoid it they only need to be clever; that is, to kiss butt.

Vittorio Feltri was right when he wrote at “Libero” that the decadence of Westerners is to be identified with their illusion of being able to deal amiably with the Enemy, and even less with their fear. A fear that induces them to meekly host the enemy, to attempt to conquer him with sympathy, hoping that he will allow himself to be absorbed; while [the enemy] is the one who wants to absorb.

And this does not even take into account our familiarity with being invaded, humiliated, and betrayed. Like I said in “The Apocalypse,“ [it’s] the general attitude of resignation. Resignation generates apathy. Apathy generates inertia. Inertia generates indifference and, besides impeding moral judgment, indifference suffocates the of self-defense; that is, the instinct to fight back.

Oh, that for a week or a month they might understand that they are hated and despised by the enemy that they treat like a friend, and that he is completely indifferent to the virtues known as Gratitude, Loyalty, [and] Mercy! They would indeed be roused from their apathy, their inertia, their indifference. They would indeed believe in the announcements of Saad al-Faqih and the explicit, clear, [and] precise warnings pronounced by Bin Laden and Company.

They would avoid taking underground trains. They would travel by automobile or bicycle. (But Theo van Gogh was killed while riding his bicycle.) They would knock off the good-naturedness (or servility) They would trust the immigrant who sells them drugs or cleans their houses a little less. They would be less cordial towards unskilled workers who, waving a worker’s visa in our faces, claims to want to be like them, but in the meantime beats the hell out of his wife--his wives--and kills his daughter [for wearing] blue jeans.

They would even renounce the litanies of the “Voyages of Hope,” and perhaps they would realize that, in order not to lose Liberty, sometimes you have to sacrifice a little bit of liberty. That self-defense is legitimate defense, and that legitimate defense is not barbarism. Maybe, they would even cry out that Fallaci was right; that she didn’t deserve to be treated like a delinquent. But then, they would begin anew to treat me like a delinquent. To call me a retrograde xenophobic racist, etc. And when the attack will come, we’ll hear the usual nonsense:

It’s the Americans’ fault; it’s Bush’s fault.
***

When will the attack come? How will it come? Oh, God; I hate being a Cassandra. I hate being a prophetess. I am not a Cassandra; I am not a prophetess. I am only a citizen who reasons; and by reasoning foresees things that will happen according to logic. But one who hopes that she is wrong and, when they happen, curses herself for not being wrong. Nonetheless, regarding an attack on Italy, I fear two things: Christmas and the elections.

We might slide by for Christmas. Their attacks are not rude, showy strikes. They are refined crimes, well-calculated and well-prepared. They need time to prepare themselves, and I don’t think they’ll be ready by Christmas. But the will be ready by the 2006 elections--the elections they want to see won overwhelmingly by pacifism. And of us, I fear, they will not be content [just] to massacre people. Because this is an intelligent and well-informed Monster, my dears. A Monster who (on our dime) studied in our universities, our renowned colleges, our luxurious schools. (With the money of their parents; be they sheikh or honest day-worker). A Monster who is not only knowledgeable about engineering, chemistry, physics, airlines, and subways: he is also knowledgeable about Art.

Art, that their presumed “Beacon of Civilization” has never known how to produce. And I think that, along with our people, they want to massacre come work of art. How hard would it be to blow the Cathedral of Milan or Saint Peter’s Basilica sky-high? How hard would it be to blow Michelangelo’s David, the Uffizi, and the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence--or the Palace of the Doges in Venice--sky-high? How hard would it be to blow the Leaning Tower of Pisa--a monument recognized in every corner of the world, and therefore even more famous than the Twin Towers--sky-high?

But we cannot escape. We can confront the monster with honor, [with] courage; and by remembering the words that Churchill said to the English when he went to war against Hitler’s Nazism. He said “We will pour out tears and blood.” Oh, yes: we too will pour out tears and blood. We are at war: do we or do we not want to get this through our heads?!? And in war, you cry. Period.

Thus I had already concluded four years ago in this newspaper.
***

Yes, it’s true: Now, thorough searches are being made in the cases of the accused Muslims; suspects are arrested; perhaps it will even be decided to expel them. But in substance, nothing has changed. Nothing.

From anti-Americanism to anti-Westernism to philo-Islamism everything goes on as before. Even in England. On Satruday, June 9--that is, two days after the massacre--the BBC decided to no longer use the word “terrorist,” word-that-bears-overtones-of-the-Crusades, and chose the word “bombers.“ Bombardiers, bombarinos. On Monday, July 11--that is, four days after the massacre--the Times published on its opinion page the most dishonest and unfair political cartoon I have ever seen, in which alongside a suicide bomber with a bomb is depicted an Anglo-American general with an identical bomb.

Identical in size and shape. On the bomb was written, “Indiscriminate killer who targets urban centers. The cartoon was entitled: “Spot the difference.” At almost the same time, on American television, I saw a journalist from the Guardian, the daily of the extreme English Left, who was giving the same explanation for the crime that was being given by the Muslim newspapers of London.

And that, de facto, attributed all of the blame to Bush, the criminal, the greatest criminal in History, George W. Bush. “You must understand them,“ she prattled on. “American politics have exasperated them. Had it not been for the war in Iraq…“ (Little missy, on September 11 there was no war in Iraq.

On September 11 they declared war on us. Did you forget that?) And at the same time, I read an article in La Repubblica that declared that the attack on the London subway wasn’t an attack on the West. It was an attack that the sons of Allah carried out against their own phantoms. Against a “lecherous” Islam (I suppose it meant to say “Westernized”), and a “secularized” Christianity.

Against Hindu pacifists and the-magnificent-variety-that-Allah-has-created. In fact, it explained, in England there are two million Muslims, and in the London Metro, you could not find one Englishman if you paid him gold. All in turbans, all in keffiya. All with long beards and djellabahs. If you were to find a person with blond hair and blue eyes, he would be a Circassian. (Oh yeah?!? Who could have known?

In the photos of the wounded I notice neither turban, nor keffeya, nor long beard, nor djellabah. Nor even a burka or chador. I see only Englishmen like those Englishmen in the Second World War who were dying under the Nazi bombardments. And in reading the names of the missing, I see Phil Russell, Adrian Johnson, Miriam Hyman, along with an occasional German, Italian, or Japanese name. To this day, the only Arab name I have seen is that of a young woman named Shahara Akter Islam.)
***

The folderol of “moderate” Islam also continues; the comedy of tolerance, the lie of integration, the farce of multiculturalism. The mosques they demand and that we build are worth discussing. In the course of a debate on terrorism in the city council of Florence on Monday, July 11, the leader of the Leftist Democrats [DS] declared: “It’s time we had a mosque in Florence.” Then he said that the Islamic community had long expressed the desire to build a mosque and an Islamic cultural center similar to those in the DS-dominated Colle val d’Elsa, [in] the DS-dominated province of Siena and its philo-DS Monte dei Paschi; already the bank of the PCI [Italian Communist Party] and now that of the DS [as well].

Almost no one was opposed. Even the leader of the Margherita [Center Left party] spoke favorably [of the proposal]. Almost everyone applauded the proposal to contribute municipal funds (that is, funds of the citizens) to the project, and the assessor for town planning added that from the point of view of zoning, there is no problem. “Nothing could be easier.“

A episode from which you may deduce that the city of Dante, Michelangelo, and Leonardo, the cradle of Renaissance art and culture, will soon be defaced and made into a laughingstock by its Mecca.
It gets worse: The Political Correctness by which judges are ever ready to send me to jail and, in the meantime, absolve the sons of Allah continues. It continues to forbid their expulsion, to annul the rare harsh sentences, as well as tormenting the Carabinieri or policemen who, to their great displeasure, arrest them.

In Milan, in the afternoon of July 8--that is, the day after the London massacre, 42 year-old Mohammed Siliman Sabri Saadi, an Egyptian and illegal immigrant, was caught without a ticket on the number 54 bus. In order to make him pay the fine, the two ticket takers make him get off of the bus and get off with him. They ask him for some I.D., and he reacts by starting a brawl. He injures one of them who winds up in the hospital. He escapes, leaving his passport behind. A police unit finds Saadi and stops him.

Notwithstanding his resistance, they handcuff him in front of a small crowd. And in that very same moment, here comes a lady all in a huff who volunteers to be a witness in the event that the poor man is arrested and charged with resisting arrest. The police answer with lady-let-us-do-our-job. And at that point, she produces her I.D. which reveals that she is a judge. So, being a little embarrassed, they take Mohammed to the station and here…Well, instead of taking him to the temporary permanence center where (instead of prison) illegal immigrants are put, they let him go, inviting him to show up in court the following week where he will be charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a public official. Saadi leaves and disappears (will we ever see him again?). And guess who the lady was--who was all in a huff because the policemen cuffed him according to standard procedure: The same judge who, seven months ago, had her fifteen minutes of fame for having completely exonerated three Muslims accused of international terrorism and for having added [in her decision] that in Iraq there is no terrorism, but rather guerilla warfare; that in sum the head-choppers are part of the Resistance. The same person whom the keenly intelligent Lega Nord politician Borghezio defined as “a shame for Milan and the magistrate.“ And guess who praises her, defends her, declares that she did the right thing: the Leftist Democrats, the Communists, and the usual Greens.

Another thing that continues is the big lie that Islam is a religion of peace, that the Koran preaches kindness, love and mercy. As if Mohammed had come into the world with an olive branch in his mouth and had died on the cross with Jesus. As if he had never been a head-chopper and, instead of hordes of soldiers with scimitars, had left us Saint Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John occupied with writing their Gospels. Yet another lie that continues is that of Islam as victim-of-the-West. As if for fourteen centuries the Muslims had never touched a hair on anyone’s head; and that Spain, Sicily, North Africa, Greece, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe as far as the Ukraine and Russia had been occupied by my Waldensian great-grandmother. As if the Sisters of Saint Ambrose and Benedictine monks had besieged Vienna.

And thus continues the lie, or illusion, of Moderate Islam and, with it, the attempt to make us believe that the enemy is composed of a tiny minority; and that said tiny minority lives in countries far from us. Well, the enemy is not, in fact, a tiny minority. And he is very near. He was near on September 11, 2001; that is, in New York. He was near on March 11, 2004; that is, in Madrid. He was near on the first, second, and third of September of last year at Beslan when he amused himself by targeting children who fled terrorized from the school and killed 150 of them. He was near on July 7; that is, in London, where the suicide bombers were born and raised; where they had gone to school, where they grew up in a civil society, where--right up until the night before the attacks, enjoyed playing games of soccer or cricket.

He has been near for over thirty years, for God’s sake! And he is an enemy who, at first glance, does not seem to be an enemy. Without a beard, in western dress, and like his accomplices--in good faith or bad--perfectly integrated into our social system. That is, with a green card. With a car. With a family. Never mind that the family is often composed of two or three wives; never mind that he beats his wife (or wives); never mind that he occasionally kills his daughter for wearing blue jeans; never mind that now and then his son rapes a 15 year-old girl from Bologna while she was going for a walk in the park with her boyfriend.
***

This is an enemy we treat like a friend. Who nevertheless hates and despises us intensely. With such intensity that one is spontaneously moved to cry out: “If we’re so awful, so evil, so sinful, why don’t you go back to where you came from? Why are you here?

To slit our throats or blow us sky-high?”

An enemy, moreover, who in the name of humanitarianism and political asylum (but what political asylum for what political reasons?) we take in by the thousands at a time even though the processing stations for immigrants are overflowing, bursting at the seams, and we don’t know where to put them anymore.

An enemy who, in the name of “necessity“ (but what necessity--the necessity to fill our streets with itinerant vendors and drug dealers?) we invite through our Constitutional Olympus. “Come, dears, come. We need you so much.“

An enemy who doesn’t need fertility drugs or stem cells in order to give birth. His birth rate is so high that, according to the National Intelligence Council, by the end of this year the Muslim population of Eurabia will have doubled.

An enemy who transforms mosques into army bases, into training camps, into recruiting stations for terrorists; and who blindly obey the imam (but woe unto you if you arrest the imam. And greater the woe if it was done by some CIA agent with the tacit consent of our own secret services).

An enemy who, by virtue of the freedom of circulation demanded by the Treaty of Schengen travels all over Eurabia as much as he pleases, going from London to Marseilles, from Cologne to Milan or vice-versa, without having to show any documents. He may be a terrorist who moves about in order to organize or plan a massacre; he might be carrying around all the explosives he could want: no one will stop him; no one will touch him. (But when, following the London massacre, France excused herself from the provisions of the Treaty of Schengen, and even Zapatero‘s Spain thought about doing the same, Italy and the other European countries responded with a scandalized “no, no.“)

An enemy who, as soon as he has inserted himself in our cities or our countryside indulges in bullying and demands free or almost-free lodging, as well as citizenship and the vote. He obtains everything he needs without difficulty.

An enemy who, protected by the Caviar Left, the Fois Gras Right, and the Prosciutto Center prattles on, in fact, about integration and multiculturalism but, in the meantime, imposes his rules and customs on us. Who banishes pork and pork products from our school cafeterias, from our fabrics, from our prisons. Who assaults a teacher or a principal because a student politely offered a rice fritter to her Muslim classmate that had been made with Marsala; that is, “with liquor.” And-you’d-better-not-repeat-the-offense.

An enemy who, in our kindergartens, wants to abolish--actually, is abolishing, the Creche and Santa Claus. Who takes the Crucifix out of our classrooms; who throws it out of hospital windows, calling it “a little naked cadaver put there to scare Muslim children.“ (I am referring to the Arab of Italian citizenship who had me charged with publicly defaming Islam; who about me wrote a filthy and illiterate libel where, listing four Suras from the Koran, he called on his coreligionists to eliminate me, who has never been charged with a crime for his evil-doing.) An enemy who, in England, filled his shoes with explosives in order to blow up a jumbo jet on a Paris-Miami flight (I am referring to the Arab with English citizenship who by a sheer miracle was caught on the American Airlines flight trying to do just that.)

An enemy who, in Amsterdam, killed Theo van Gough--guilty of having filmed documentaries about the slavery of Muslim women--and who, after having killed him, sliced open his guts and stuck a letter containing a death sentence for his girlfriend inside. (I am referring to the Arab with Dutch citizenship who probably--no, I hope--will be condemned to life in prison and who, at the trial had hissed at Theo’s mother: “I don’t feel any pity for you, because you are an infidel.”)

In sum, an enemy for whom you will always find a clement judge; that is one ready to set him free. And that the Eurobean governments (N.B.: that’s not a typo--I mean precisely to say “Eurobean,“ not “European”) will not expel; not even if he is an illegal alien.
***

The discourse of the Dialogue of the Two Civilizations also continues. And watch all hell break loose if you dare to ask what that other civilization is; if you ask what is civil in a civilization that does not even know the meaning of the word “liberty.“ For which liberty--”hurryya”--means “emancipation from slavery.“ Which coined the word “hurryya” only at the end of the nineteenth century in order to be able to sign trade agreements.

Which sees Satan in democracy and fights against it with explosives and beheadings. Which concerning the Rights of Man--loudly trumpeted by us and scrupulously applied to Muslims--does not even want to hear them spoken of.

In fact, it refuses to subscribe to the Human Rights Charter compiled by the U.N., and substitutes it with the Human Rights Charter compiled by the Arab League. And watch all hell break loose if you dare to ask what is civil in a civilization that treats women the way it treats them. Islam is the Koran, my dears.

In every way and everywhere. And the Koran is incompatible with freedom; it is incompatible with Democracy; it is incompatible with Human rights. It is incompatible with civilization.

And now that I have touched on this argument, pay close attention to me, mister judge of Bergamo who wanted to incriminate me for defaming Islam, but who has never been incriminated for defaming Christianity. Not even for incitement to homicide. (Mine.) Listen to me, and go ahead and condemn me. You can even condemn me to three years in prison; a punishment that Italian judges would not even inflict on Islamic terrorists caught with explosives in their cantinas.

Your trial is pointless. As long as I have breath left in me I will repeat what I have written in my books and what I am writing again here. I have never allowed myself to be intimidated--not by death threats, not by persecution, not by denigration, by insults against which you made sure to protect me even as a simple citizen.

So figure if I’m going to allow myself to be intimidated by you--you who negate my constitutional right to think and express my opinion. But before the trial starts, I must ask you something that I’ve been very curious about. Will you leave me alone in my jail cell, or with Carabinieri that the Italian State courteously imposed upon me so I don’t end up murdered like Biagi or Theo van Gough?

I ask because our Minister of the Interior says that more than fifty percent of the prisoners in our prisons are Muslims, and I’m guessing that I would have more need of the protection of those Carabinieri in jail than in my own home. (And the same goes for you, lords of Parliament; congratulations for having rejected the proposal by the Minister of Justice to abolish the crimes of opinion. And particular congratulations go to the honorable National Alliance party which, besides having negotiated that rejection, also asked to abolish the crime of defending Fascism).

The indulgence that the Catholic Church (of all, the greatest sustainer of The Dialogue) professes in regards to Islam. That is, her steadfast, unyielding will to emphasize the “common spiritual patrimony furnished to us by the three great monotheistic religions. The Christian one, the Jewish one, the Islamic one. All based on the concept of one God; all three inspired by Abraham. Good Abraham who, in order to obey God, was about to slit his son’s throat as if he were a sacrificial lamb. What common patrimony?!?

Allah has nothing in common with the God of Christianity. With God the Father, the Good Lord, the affectionate God who preached love and forgiveness. The God who in men saw his children. Allah is a master God, a tyrant God. A God who in men sees his subjects; no, his slaves.

A God who, instead of love, teaches hate; who through the Koran calls those who believe in another God infidel dogs and orders them to be punished. To be subjugated, to be killed. So how can you place Christianity and Islam on the same plane?!?

How can you Jesus and Mohammed equally?!? Does the matter of the One God really suffice to establish a concord of concepts, of principles, of values?!?

"The interests of Muslims and the interests of the socialists coincide in the war against the crusaders"
Osama Bin Laden, Feb. 14, 2003

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“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.”--
Oriana Fallaci