@John Klopfer The religion theme is really well done… I’m impressed!

The only thing wrong with Magnera’s minor critiques of Fallaci is that, while the ‘journalist’ exaggerated heavily in her attacks on Muslims, she did it for normative rather than for descriptive purposes; i.e. she attacked Muslims to make sure they would have a hard time getting into Italy, to make sure Italians were on guard against their coming.

If Coulter were to attack Muslims in the US (who knows, maybe she has), people would be stirred up against each other in an ugly way. Fallaci’s attacks simply keep Muslims out of Italy, a state which is unprepared to integrate any immigrants, and especially those with a history of refusing secularism. Quite a few Italians are afraid and have been afraid—reasonably so—that their country will go the way of France. Fallaci’s polemics have played a major role in slowing that change.

Following that, it is easier to see that any change in public opinion here in America is not so much linked to Fallaci’s sort of exigencies, but rather to a recycling of prejudices we were supposed to have got over some fifteen or twenty years ago. Or maybe forty years ago, if you want to look deeper.

We’re much more similar to the French than we like to think, and a long way from being Italians. Please look at Materazzi’s famous comportment for an example; and know that Mr. Sarkozy idolises Rudolph Giuliani.

Ignoring her slight troubles with context, however, Magnera does a fine job. Ancora ancora!