IRON LADY ORIANA FALLACI

Oriana Fallaci (Italian: [oˈrjaːna falˈlaːtʃi]; 29 June 1929 – 15 September 2006) was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, and her interviews with many world leaders during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Her book Interview with History contains candid, lengthy, penetrating interviews with Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Willy Brandt, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Henry Kissinger, South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and North Vietnamese General Võ Nguyên Giáp during the Vietnam War. The interview with Kissinger was published in Playboy, with Kissinger describing himself as "the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse". Kissinger later wrote that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press". She also interviewed Deng Xiaoping, Lech Wałęsa, Muammar Gaddafi, Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 18th Duchess of Alba, Mário Soares and many others.

After retirement, she returned to the spotlight after writing a series of controversial articles and books critical of Islam that aroused condemnation as well as support.

Fallaci received much public attention for her controversial writings and statements on Islam and European Muslims. Fallaci considered Islamic Fundamentalism to be a revival of the Fascism she fought against in her youth, that politicians in Europe were misunderstanding the threat of Islam in the same way that their 1930s equivalents misunderstood the threat of German Fascism; she denied that "moderate Islam" actually existed, calling it a mendacity. Both support and opposition have been published in Italian newspapers (among which, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera had a series of articles), and David Holcberg, at the Ayn Rand Institute, supported her cause with a letter to The Washington Times.

Fallaci received criticism as well as support in Italy, where her books have sold over one million copies. At the first European Social Forum, which was held in Florence in November 2002, Fallaci invited the people of Florence to cease commercial operations and stay home. Furthermore, she compared the ESF to the Nazi occupation of Florence. Protest organizers declared, "We have done it for Oriana, because she hasn't spoken in public for the last 12 years, and hasn't been laughing in the last 50".

#ScientistBaba03 #OrianaFallaci