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September 15, 2006
Oriana Fallaci: 1929 - 2006
Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci died today in her beloved Florence, after a long battle with cancer. She was 77.
Fallaci is best known since 9-11 as a fervent champion of Western civilization, foe of Islam, and severe critic of multiculturalist ideology. Her proud passion for European culture planted a flag in the ground that a depressed and confused people could rally around, if they chose. A few did, most were ambivalent, some tried to have her flag torn out and destroyed.
I appreciated her contribution to the 21st century clash of civilizations, but my favorite Oriana was the author of If the Sun Dies, a paean to the Apollo space program which I read in high school (on the advice of Stewart Brand in his Whole Earth Review days).
This is a younger version of the Oriana who rose from her invalid couch to defend the West after 9-11: She unabashedly loves the shiny technology, the American optimism of the astronauts, the romanticism of exploring space. She tries to explain all this to her Italian working-class communist father, hero of the Resistnce, who is outraged by the impractical exuberance of those adolescent Americans. It was my first vivid encounter with the attitudinal gap between America and Europe.
Since my parents were European immigrants who loved opera and high art, you would think I would have experienced that at home. But my parents liked being Americans, and whatever Old World values they wanted to keep, they integrated into their suburban Dallas life without any visible conflict. And I grew up reading science-fiction, for the same reasons Oriana loved the space program. Like my parents, she saw no contradiction between loving shiny new America and venerable sophisticated Europe. She refused to give up any part of herself, she refused to allow her enemies to take her country away from her, and she went home to die.
An interview with Oriana Fallaci from June of this year, possibly the last thorough depiction of her life.
Judith | 09/15/06 at 08:00 AM | Categories: Life and how to live it
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Blogs which link to Oriana Fallaci: 1929 - 2006:
» IN MEMORIAM: ORIANA FALLACI, 1930 - 2006 from Pajamas Media
In remembrance: Roger Simon Fausta Wertz Michelle Malkin Babalu Protein Wisdom Gateway Pundit Belmont Club Jawa Report Kesher Talk LawHawk Allahpundit An obit by Michael Ledeen, who knew her personally, will appear on PJM later today.... [Read More]
Tracked on September 15, 2006 11:52 AM
» Arrivederci Oriana from In Context
It's sort of just not conceivable that we won't be seeing her again, so ... Too many amazing and moving tributes are already up, so... [Read More]
Tracked on October 1, 2006 10:42 AM
Comments
Very well put. I don't suppose for one moment I'd have liked her if I'd met her, but I shall have to read some of her writing, that's for sure.
Rob | September 18, 2006 12:07 PM
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