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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
March 19, 2006
Woman in trench
I will never be reconciled to putting women as soldiers in the front line of combat; though once they are there, on our side, I pray godspeed to them, exactly as I do for the men -- and my heart is lifted when one of our women does something valorous. There are reasons why women will not make good soldiers, that are so obvious you have to explain them, these days. On balance, women are not tall, women are not strong (especially in the upper body), they are not resilient, and they understand orders differently from men. And lowering standards to admit women, into the army or the fire brigade or whatever, means ranking political correctness above matters of life and death. This is not merely a mistake, but an evil. It is nevertheless true that some women are more male than men, but that’s not where I was going this week.Instead, I was going to again praise the courage of the women who are taking the most daring, risky, and necessary positions in the battle for the survival of our civilization. Not as soldiers, but as writers and thinkers, researchers, and impassioned propagandists for the truth. In recent weeks I have had occasion to praise Wafa Sultan, Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bat Yeor; and I only hesitate to list others from the fear that the qualities I’m admiring will be misunderstood. It will be seen from this list what I mean when I write, “The West”. The list so far consists of two ambiguous Muslims, an ex-Muslim atheist, and a Coptic Christian. The next I name will be an Italian atheist. All these, I consider champions of our Western heritage, of its openness to inquiry, and real personal freedom. We have a history going down to ground some 20 centuries beneath us, with roots sunk much deeper. Our outlook was formed in Catholic Christianity, and continues to observe very Western Christian norms, even when they are not acknowledged. But we have created a civilization -- which remains in many ways the highest yet known to man -- in which non-Christians and irreligious can also flourish, and in which their freedom and security can be assured. Yet if we give away the principles -- the very Christian principles -- upon which our civilization was built, we surrender this, too. Oriana Fallaci has embraced this reality, and at several points in her new book, The Force of Reason (published by Rizzoli; translated from La Forza della Ragione, 2004, which has sold a million copies in Europe), she states explicitly what once she left to be understood implicitly. She calls herself today “a Christian atheist”. She has even had an audience with the new Pope. When her previous book, The Rage and the Pride, appeared in the year after the terror strikes of Sept. 11th, 2001 (she watched the WTC buildings collapse from the window of her flat in Manhattan) -- my response was, “She is saying things that are true, but in a way that is over-the-top.” Since then, my own views have developed, and I now think shouting from the rooftops is indicated. For her part, Ms Fallaci, whose nature is very passionate, has tried to write a sequel to that earlier book in which she explains, as calmly as she can, why she is angry. She has been dying of cancer all these years, has been ridiculously frail, but anger over the betrayal of her heritage seems to sustain her. She is one of those with a sibylline gift, who embodies a prophetic force in human nature. And while the “research” in her new book is largely derivative or anecdotal, its immense power comes from Ms Fallaci’s scarifying willingness “to call a spade a spade”. She is trying to focus our attention on aspects of hard factual history that explain the predicament into which we have slid: the whole sorry history of Europe’s surrender to radical Islam, which began in earnest over the oil scare of 1973. She tells a true story that would not require the rage, were it not bound up in so many signal acts of betrayal, of the West and of its values, by our decadent, spineless, and venal ruling classes. I urge my readers to read this book, if they can find copies. For major bookstore chains in Canada are already voluntarily suppressing books like this, in deference to the tender sensitivities of the Muslim fanatics -- for whose growing presence among us Ms Fallaci accounts. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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