THE ALIEN THREAT TO AMERICA AND WESTERN CULTURE
A memorial review of
THE FORCE OF REASON
by Oriana Fallaci
Rizzoli International, 2006
307 pp $19.95
Controversial crusading journalist Oriana Fallaci died Thursday night (September 14, 2006) in her native Florence after a long battle with lung cancer. She was 77.
Oriana Fallaci's THE FORCE OF REASON deals with the Muslim invasion of Europe. Settling in by the tens of millions, legal and illegal, the Muslim interlopers continue to plant their roots in all corners of the continent. The book reveals a Europe few Americans have been told about or discovered. The media and its mentors, peddling multiculturalism and political correctness, marginalize and silence those like Ms Fallaci who would speak the truth about the transformation of Europe into "Eurabia."
Eurabia is a metaphor for a similar situation in the United States. Again we have invading multitudes counted by millions, Muslims included, but largely Latino. Again we have political correctness with multiculturalism enshrined such that anyone who objects is labeled racist and dangerously reactionary. "Diversity" has replaced "E Pluribus Unum."
The European model described by Ms Fallaci is instructive. Throughout Eurabia are Muslim communities that form, ghetto-like, in countless cities and towns. "From the Strait of Gibraltar to the fjords of Sørøy, from the cliffs of Dover to the beaches of Lampedusa, from the steppes of Volvograd to the valleys of the Loire and the hills of Tuscany....in each of our cities there is a second city....a State within a State. A government within the government. A muslim city, a city ruled by the Koran."
To amplify the portent of the current invasion, Ms Fallaci paints a history of past Muslim encounters with Europe. Muslim cruelty and violence visited upon the peoples of Europe is seldom taught in European or American schools. I am familiar with that history because of research for my books on Spain, Sicily and Greece. All suffered vicious and deadly Muslim encroachments that lasted centuries. Oriana Falllaci's book accurately and vividly brought that history to the fore. For that she was hated throughout the Muslim world and by the Prophet's western collaborators who for reasons of their own facilitated the Muslim invasion ---no less than there are those in the United States who facilitate the open borders which plague our society with Latino and Asian gangs and incipient threats of Islamic terror.
Originally written in Italian, the English edition of THE FORCE OF REASON was not published until February of this year, long after Italian, French and other editions had become best sellers in Europe. The delay resulted because Ms Fallaci elected to translate it herself, in spite of her precarious health and other literary commitments. Now, with the book in hand, what do we find?
THE FORCE OF REASON is best described as a literary rant, chapter after chapter. No matter. It is stimulating, curiously readable in her very unusual style of English, and every bit a page turner. Good grief! What will she tell us on the page after this one? What we have here are facts and solid reporting by a life-long journalist, plus unafraid analysis and commentary marked by peculiar spellings and occasional expletives.
Oriana Fallaci describes a civilization committing suicide. Leading the way to cultural perdition are what she calls the "Triple Alliance"; the Left, the Right and the Christian Church. She writes in precise detail how the elite of all branches of that alliance sold out the people of Europe for the sake of cheap oil, cheap labor and a phony peace. Sound familiar? I imagine the elite are sure the ensuing maelstrom will resolve itself in a decade or so with themselves firmly in control as a global oligarchy. I doubt it.
Supposing the success of the Muslim conquest, the European "elite" will be dealt with as was the Gothic pretender in Iberia who conspired with Muslim invaders to defeat the army of the reigning king. The pretender, instead of being handed the throne, was "disappeared" and his wife taken into the harem of the conqueror. The remainder of the surviving elite were marched off in chains, driven on foot across North Africa as trophies of victory, later to fade from sight in the slave markets of the Middle East. It took seven hundred years for the Spanish to undo that single day of perfidy.
Ms Fallaci retained a faith that, in a future beyond her own, the people of the West will awake to realization that their Christian culture is worth saving from the barbaric politics and morality of the Koran and the law of Sharia. It can be saved, she believed, because the culture of the West is based upon reason, while that of Islam is based on a contrived code of behavior stemming from the greed, lusts and hates of the Prophet.
The warmth of her regard for the culture of the Christian West is remarkable, coming from a woman who for so long declared herself an atheist. In this book she qualified the term, writing: "I am a Christian atheist. I do not believe in what we imply by the word God... I think that we invented Him out of weakness, namely out of fear of living and dying. Living is very difficult, dying is always a sorrow." Nevertheless, she believed that whatever is valuable in the life that our culture makes possible is a product of a long history of ideas connected to the Christ.
Towards the end of her life she is reported to have made peace with her Catholic origins and the Church. This is presaged in THE FORCE OF REASON. She wrote, "I am a Christian because I like the discourse which stays at the roots of Christianity. Because it convinces me: It seduces me to such an extent that in it I do not find any contradiction with my atheism and my secularism. I mean the discourse conceived by Jesus of Nazareth... This discourse which transcending metaphysics, climbing over it, concentrates on Man. Which admitting free will, claiming Man's conscience, makes us responsible for our actions. Masters of our destiny."
Opposed to that, she avers, are both the Left and Islam. "The Left is a Church. And not a Church similar to the Church which came out of Christianity, thus open to free will. A Church similar to Islam. Like Islam it considers itself sanctified by a god who is the custodian of the Truth. Like Islam it never acknowledges its faults and its errors, it considers itself infallible and never apologizes. Like Islam it demands a world at (sic) its own image, a society built on the verses of its Prophet. Like Islam it enslaves its own followers. It intimidates them, it makes them feel stupid even when they are intelligent. Like Islam it does not accept different opinions and if you think differently it despises you. It denigrates you, it punishes you. Like Islam, in short, it is illiberal. Autocratic, totalitarian, even when it plays the game of democracy."
She held that the force of reason is the only hope for Europe and America. Only reason will save us from the "decline of intelligence" where thought is reduced to "recipes for atrophied brains" and truth is quashed by a Left which "clings to Islam," a Right which seeks out economic and political advantage, and a Church which strangely aids and abets its own destruction. (See Paul Sperry's book, "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington," for perspective on how America is following the European model.)
The principal fault of Ms Fallaci's work is that she allowed the "elite" to remain behind the curtain, like the Wizard of Oz, as they manipulate the levers of European and American betrayal. The reader can look behind the curtain by going to "How the World Really Works," by Alan B. Jones. That book is a collection of analytical reviews of selected works which detail the nature, history and goals of the "establishment elite" who are undermining the strength and sovereignty of the Western republics. Ms Fallaci deftly outlines the history of the agreements and conventions entered into by the European elites by whom the Muslim invasion was invited and implemented. Jones explains their motivation.
Finally, we may question whether the Muslim evil described by Ms Fallaci has anything to do with the "real" religion taught by the Prophet Mohammed. Is it some later radical deviation that good Muslims reject, or is it the same evil doctrine disparaged by Emperor Manuel II, quoted recently by the Pope --- much to the anger of the Muslim "street"? That question is answered by Srdja Trifkovic in his book, "The Sword of The Prophet." There he analyzes the Koran virtually page by page, replete with its internal contradictions, describing its development and its creedal basis for the Islamic religion. Dr. Trifkovic shows that what we see in the Middle East and Europe, in all its violence and barbarity, is not other than what was advised and encouraged by the Prophet himself.
THE FORCE OF REASON, whether considered literarily or in terms of its message, is not a pretty book. None the less, it holds its reader to the final page. More, it is a book that present circumstances indicate that one ought to read. The quality of life as we know it is at issue. Left in ignorance we will lose it, perhaps for generations to come.