Remembering Oriana Fallaci in Florence

The International Civil Liberties Alliance sent delegates to the annual memorial conference honoring Oriana Fallaci that convened today in Florence. Aeneas filed the following report on the event at the ICLA website:


Oriana Fallaci Memorial Events Begin Today in Florence, Italy

People are arriving in Florence for events surrounding the annual Oriana Fallaci Memorial conference. A ceremony in honour of Oriana has already taken place earlier today at her graveside in the Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori. The ceremony was presided over by Père Samuel who spoke at our conference in the European Parliament back in July.

Human rights activists from around the world will be present at a related conference. ICLA has sent delegates to help promote the Brussels Process that we launched in the European Parliament back in July. Freedom is under increasing threat especially in freedom’s heartland — the West. Conferences like this one are increasingly necessary to ensure that important issues are not brushed under the carpet by those powerful people who have a vested interest in kicking the most important concerns into the long political grass.

Oriana Fallaci was a veteran in the cause of freedom and was involved in Italy’s anti Nazi resistance during World War 2. This did not stop critics who would not have dared to stand up to real Nazis from calling her a Nazi because of her concerns about Islamic extremism and the spread of sharia philosophy. After the 9/11 atrocities she wrote two bestselling books in relation to her concerns — The Rage and The Pride and The Force of Reason. She was persecuted for these efforts in a way that has now become familiar to other pro-freedom activists in Europe, where true freedom of expression already appears to be a distant memory.

It is highly appropriate for human rights activists to be assembling in Florence. Firstly it is the anniversary of Oriana’s tragic passing (yesterday) — she was a resident of Florence, and secondly it is in a place that was the capital of the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a time when Western Civilisation rediscovered its classical roots and made huge artistic and cultural strides forward. Today the Western world is desperate for a new Renaissance following years of misrule, moral relativism, and self destructive cultural Marxist thought. Its institutions have become ineffective and corrupt, its laws are being subverted and its culture is being deliberately marginalised. In the last 500 years, the West has never been in greater need to rediscover itself. That rebirth might be hastened by the efforts of those gathered in Florence today.

The Renaissance was made possible in large part due to the migration of refugees from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, people who wanted to escape from the inequalities and indignities of sharia. Like those who love freedom today, those refugees did not want to live under the yoke of sharia compliance. That same love of freedom is what has brought people together in that great city today.

Today it is the not fall of an important city that has brought people to Florence, but a potent political attack on the philosophical cornerstone of our civilisation — Freedom of Expression. This time it is not the Ottoman Turks who are attacking freedom, it is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation who rather than using the Great Turkish Bombard to bring down the walls of freedom are instead using the Istanbul Process. But the walls may be damaged but have not fallen yet — there is still time.

The Brussels Process is the antidote to the Istanbul Process, but it requires all defenders of freedom to come together and work together against the OIC and its attempts to enforce sharia compliance. The Brussels Process aims to:

1.		Educate and inform the public to ensure that laws that undermine our freedoms are repeals and laws that enhance it are enacted.
2.		Demonstrate that sharia compliance is against human rights and should not be embraced when human rights decisions are being made.
3.		Encourage human rights practitioners to consider rulings such as that made by the European Court of Human Rights in 2003 which said that Sharia is incompatible with democracy.
4.		Create a framework for individuals and organisations to stand up and protect liberty from the sharia threat.

You don’t need to work directly with ICLA to be involved in the process but ICLA would like to work with you if you share our values. You just need to be committed to peacefully opposing the OIC’s efforts to subvert human rights.