I see that Enza Ferreri has a piece remembering the late Italian journalist and ethnopatriot Oriana Fallaci.
That's a coincidence; I was about to post some quotes from Fallaci, because in the wake of the events in Paris I thought of Miss Fallaci and her fiery spirit, her outspoken warnings about the dangerous course Europe was pursuing. As Enza Ferreri says, Fallaci's words seem especially apropos now.
"The canard of "moderate" Islam, the comedy of tolerance, the lie of the
integration, the farce of multiculturalism continue. And with that, the
attempt to make us believe that the enemy consists of a small minority
and that small minority lives in distant countries. Well, the enemy is
not a small minority. And he's in our home."
Fallaci was an inspiration to me back in the days when I had just begun blogging, and Islam was very much in the forefront of our concerns. I was drawn to Fallaci because she displayed the passionate spirit that is so essential on our part in these times. Her words were a breath of fresh air, and I admired the boldness with which she expressed herself. Was she perfect? No; she started out as a leftist, and her experiences led her away from some of her earlier views. (I mention this pre-emptively, lest someone say ''but, but, she was a Communist"). But she was capable of learning by life experience -- a rare thing amongst leftists. Few people of any political mindset seem capable of re-thinking their habitual views, but she did.
J. R. Nyquist, back in 2006, in an article about Fallaci, said:
Fear is
the determining factor in the decline of democracy, Fallaci claims. And
therefore courage is the antidote. Tried in Paris for writing that Muslims
“breed like rats” (“Ils se multiplient comme les rats”),
Fallaci denounces Europe’s intellectuals as “the oblivious ones.”
Her analysis is precise. She identifies a mortal threat to Western
Civilization. It is the mortal threat of our own cowardice before the
truth. The Muslims are flooding into Europe, building mosques and having
babies. Europe is being inundated by this invasion, and soon it will cease
to exist as Europe. Already, she explains, it is too late because Europe
has been poisoned by socialism and enslaved by a comfortable and false
conservatism. Caught between the two there is no manhood left, no freedom
for reason, and no chance for reemergence. Europe has fallen to the
“gurus of Political Correctness and the agitprops of victimism …
wailing in the name of Human-Rights.”
[...]
Decades
ago Europe bought into the nonsense that “peace” is a choice if only
we set aside our belligerent instincts. And so, Europe sees no enemy in
Islam. Instead, Europe protects and incubates the Islamic serpent’s egg
held fast to its bosom. Any other course is viewed as “racism.” The
very act of protecting one’s culture, of defending the boundary that
separates “them” from “us,” is considered illegitimate. The Muslim
response to European tolerance is simple: They defend their cultural
identity, threatening death to anyone who criticizes the Prophet Mohammed.
At the same time, Western Europe sacrifices freedom of speech in order to
placate Muslim immigrants. Islam can defend its “rights” while
European culture must give way.
And further, this all-important passage:
We forget that the
boundary of our collective self was established through centuries of
bloodshed. Do we imagine our ancestors were so stupid that they would risk
life and limb sacrificing for something that need not exist? The
geographical separation of peoples is a necessary precondition for
preserving national identity and culture. Without boundaries there can be
no people, no culture and no context for peace. And today, as the boundary
between Christendom and Islam is erased, we find what Fallaci calls “the
most terrible thing of all.” A community based on intolerance and terror
begins to integrate with a community based on tolerance and freedom with
the result that our journalists, teachers and intellectuals are turning
against freedom because they are afraid to oppose the oppression and
intolerance of Islam. And therefore they announce that Islam is a
“religion of peace.”
[Emphasis above is mine.]
How much has changed since 2006? Has all this tolerance and appeasement improved our situation?
Fallaci is no longer with us, sadly, and there are few who are as bold as she was and as intense, and so obviously a patriot towards her region, Tuscany, and her people, the Italian people, or Western Christendom.
Where is her successor? I say there is no obvious successor. Politicians, trying to be all things to all people, and choosing their words carefully, cannot or dare not speak as much truth as Fallaci did. Yet we need someone to speak with the enthusiasm and genuine love -- yes, love, because behind her ire towards Islam was a love for her home, her people, and the heritage of the European people generally. Such love is never inspired by dry principles and ideologies; it can't be. No one can love an abstract proposition. Love is inspired by tangible, real things, not theories: by blood-connection: kin and kind, and there is also love for one's native soil, and all the associations thereof.
We have our spokesmen and even a few women who express the ethnonationalist, ethnopatriot point of view, but do we have people who are motivated by ''excess of love'' as Yeats said in another poem? We need more such people. Passion and zeal are needed; they are contagious and they alone can animate a group which seeks to inspire and move others, to reawaken their fellow-feeling and their group-consciousness.