| Submit your comments on this article |
| Oriana on trial... |
| 2002-10-09 |
| A second author Wednesday went to trial in Paris in as many months on charges of inciting racial hatred for a book that has denigrating passages on Islam. The latest case involves "Rage and Pride," a best-selling novel by Italian writer Oriana Fallaci. Even old and sick, they'd best think twice before screwing with Oriana... One plaintiff, the anti-racist group MRAP, wants the book banned from France altogether. Two others, including the Human Rights League, simply want disclaimers that its disparaging passages on Islam don't accurately reflect the Muslim religion. Fallaci, 72, who has cancer, was not present during the opening hearing. But her lawyer, Christophe Bigot, denounced the trial as a campaign for political correctness, to the detriment of free expression. Good move. Open with a statement of the obvious... Fallaci "has been very shocked by recent events, notably Sept. 11," Bigot told France-Info in an interview Wednesday. "She wanted to raise a cry of alarm against fundamentalism." That's because she's never suffered fools gladly... In her book — a best-seller in Italy and Spain — Fallaci characterized Muslims as "vile creatures, who urinate in baptistries" and "multiply like rats." Could she have been thinking of the occupation of the Church of the Nativity? And the fact that they relegate their women to the status of breeding stock? But Bigot argues Fallaci was targeting extremism, rather than the Muslim religion as a whole. "She's attacking a certain manner of expressing it," he said. I think we've all got the point that it's not all Muslims, but the ones it is are pretty awful... The anti-racist associations argue otherwise. "When one finishes reading the book, one recognizes the right to kill any Muslim on the street," argued Hacen Taleb, the lawyer representing MRAP, in a statement to the court. In June, another French judge refused MRAP's request to ban the book in France. Meaning there's still hope for La Belle France... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |