The Rage and The Pride (La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio) by Oriana Fallaci
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It did nothing to discourage the other arrogant guests of the city: the Albanians, the Sudanese, the Bengalese, the Tunisians, the Algerians, the Pakistani, the Nigerians who contribute with so much fervor to the drug trade and prostitution which, it appears, are not prohibited by the Koran. Oh yes: they're all right where they were before my policeman took away the tent. In the courtyard of the Uffizi Galleries, at the foot of Giotto's tower. In front of the Loggia dell' Orcagna, around the Loggie del Porcellino. Opposite the National Library, at the entrances to the museums. On Ponte Vecchio where every so often they kill each other with knives or revolvers. Along the banks of the Arno where they asked for and received municipal funding. (That's right, ladies and gentlemen: municipal funding.) In the churchyard of San Lorenzo where they get drunk on wine and beer and liquor, bunch of hypocrites, and where they utter obscenities at women. (Last summer in that churchyard they even tried it with me, an old lady. Needless to say they lived to regret it. Oooh, did they regret it! One of them's still there whimpering over his genitals.) In the historic streets where they camp out on the pretext of selling merchandise. By "merchandise" I mean purses and bags illegally copied from patented models, photo murals, pencils, African statuettes that ignorant tourists take for Bernini sculptures, stuff–to–sniff. ("Je connais mes droits, I know my rights" one of them hissed at me on Ponte Vecchio, one who I'd seen selling stuff–to–sniff). And God forbid that a citizen protest, God forbid that someone tell him to take–those–rights–of–yours–and–go–exercise–them–at–home. "Racist, racist!" God forbid that a pedestrian brush up against a presumed Bernini sculpture while trying to walk through the merchandise that blocks the way. "Racist, racist!" God forbid that a metro cop should walk up to him and dare to say, "Signor son of Allah, Your Excellence, would you mind moving over a hairsbreadth to let people get by?" They'd eat him alive. They'd go after him with knives. At the very least, they'd insult his mother and progeny. "Racist, racist!" And people just take it, resigned. They don't react even if you yell what my old man used to yell during fascism: "Don't you care at all about dignity? Don't you have even a little pride, you big sheep?"

The same thing happens in other cities, I know. At Turin, for example. That Turin that created Italy and now doesn't even seem like an Italian city. It seems like Algiers, Dacca, Nairobi, Damascus, Beirut. At Venice. That Venice where the pigeons of Piazza San Marco have been replaced by little rugs with "merchandise" and even Othello would feel ill at ease. At Genoa. That Genoa where the marvellous palazzi that Rubens so admired have been seized by them and are now perishing like beautiful women who have been raped. At Rome. That Rome where the cynicism of a politics of every falsehood and every color courts them in the hope of obtaining their future votes, and where the Pope himself protects them. (Your Holiness, why in the name of the One God don't you take them into the Vatican? Strictly on condition, of course, that they refrain from shitting on the Sistine Chapel and the paintings of Raphael.) And here's something I really don't understand. Instead of sons of Allah, in Italy they call them "foreign laborers." Or else "manual–labor–for–which–there–is–demand." And I don't doubt that some of them work. The Italians have become such little lords. They vacation in Seychelles, come to New York to buy sheets at Bloomingdale's. They're ashamed to be laborers and farmers, and won't be associated with the proletariat. But those of whom I speak, what kind of laborers are they? What work do they do? In what way do they satisfy the demand for manual labor that the Italian ex–proletariat no longer supplies? Camping out in the city on the pretext of selling merchandise? Loitering and defacing our monuments? Praying five times a day? And then there's something else I don't understand. If they're really so poor, who's giving them the money for the voyage by ship or rubber dinghy that brings them to Italy? Who gives them the ten million lira a head (at least ten million) necessary to buy the ticket? It's not by any chance Osama Bin Laden looking to launch a conquest not only of souls, but of real estate?

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