how the Left reasons.   A foundational tactic is to exclude proponents of other views from the tribe, to demonize and dismiss those persons.   Its easier to shun, and probably shuning and exclusion from the tribe, are more in tune with human nature, than the burden of repartee and reason.  

 
So, to change tact, the Left first genuflects to that exclusion, so, "of course, we didn't listen to Oriana and others, they were excluded".   Again, there is no reasoning here, and we are not going to listen to Oriana, not now. 

And yes, we were wrong about the Communists too, but remembering and referring to history, is also work.  

Now, reality is truely a bitch.  The area of the secular world dries up like a puddle on a hot day.   So now parts of urban Europe, academia, and the government, are no longer hospitable.   Shock.    So the barbarians, who now live in  our city and murder us, how can we stop them?

We secularists have money, we can move.  We secularists can't see the difference between Christian America and Islamic Arabia, but we move to New York City, not Mecca.   Of course, that means giving up London, Paris, Marseilles, Brussels, Utretch, Zurich.   But we have not memory, and no children to worry about.    

An exception and a key figure in the discussion is the deputy chief editor of Corriere della SeraMagdi Allam. Born in Cairo, where he grew up under Western influences,Allam came to Italy to study and stayed. He began his successful careeras a journalist withthe communist newspaper Manifesto.

RoyE, you are right to say that "[t]oo many draw their conclusions based upon the presentation style rather than the actual substance of the message".  I would in fact go further and say we all do, in one form or another. But let's face it, since we humans are an imperfect species that doesn't only respond to reason, logic and evidence, anybody who's in politics (and being a journalist, a blogger or a polemicist is being in politics, and certainly writing a book on Islam is one of the most political things one can do these days) should take such imperfection into account and make an effort to put the message across in a palatable way to as many people as possible. Personally speaking, I don't only like invective - I actually love it. Sometimes, however, it is better to abstain from it. Put bluntly, being principled doesn't mean being clueless about tactics. Let's do, at least a bit, what the Muslims do (and what the Stalinists used to do), shall we? They are very good at tailoring the message to suit their audience, and that's one of the reasons why they take in so many people.

By choosing to give vent to her anger instead of being guided by tactics, Oriana blew, to an unnecessary extent, the great opportunity she had of building on her progressive credentials and at least beginning to persuade people of the left of the justness of her vision. And let's face it: that one is a crucial constituency to win over, whether you like it or not. If people who have understood the dangers of Islam don't manage to alienate the average voter from the traditional parties and the appeasing policies they follow on this issue, we might as well all go home and (speaking as a woman) start knitting our burqas. And sorry lads, but getting through to the leftwing electorate, as opposed to the politicians, is crucial in this regard.  It's a challenge that will have to be faced, and the sooner the better. By ignoring it, one just does, and continues to do, the leftwing politicians' dirty work for them.

"The first reaction to truth is hatred" --  Tertullian 

 Oriana displayed a  rare courage in correctly calling the political class out on its cowardice, yet most Europeans  seem to  prefer the Hans Blix approach to conflict resolution.  

Too many draw their conclusions based upon the presentation style rather than the actual substance of the message. Well, they deserve what they get. Future generations will be paying the horrible costs of the sins of their fathers. They do not deserve what they are being bequeathed.

The left never wanted to talk about the problematic aspects of their new islamic fellow-travellers, even now they don't talk about it, only denigrating peoples fears, manipulating information, and criminalisation of those who stand up against islam(isation). Just hypocrite to blame Fallaci (and others) for that.

Blaming her seems so lame considering many of these are the same people who were unable to recognize the dangers of communism. Unfortunately, having advanced degrees doesn't necessarily give one a higher moral acuity, but rather a greater sense of one's moral superiority. And a recent study showed that a sense of moral superiority can often lead to unethical acts.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071115/sc_livescience/oddlyhypocri...

It's unfortunately true that, while she had the everlasting merit of breaking a taboo that needed to be broken, Oriana Fallaci used language that was intemperate and unnecessarily offensive, thus doing (as the article points out) her own cause a disservice. While the core of her argument was totally reasonable, she failed to use a reasonable tone; a pity, because she put off many people who might have otherwise seen the force of her argument.

Magdi Allam is an admirable man, and is doing a lot of good in exposing the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism (the Italian Left hates him, by the way), but he still has illusions about the nature of Islam, which he sees as having been hijacked by extremists. However, one wishes there were many like him around the place.

In the original article he compares the fight between christianity and islam to the fight between Don Camillo and Peppone.

Don Camillo is still a little bit alive but Peppone doesn't exist, to stay in the same image, he is replaced by the original Stalin himself. There are no italian islamists, apart from a crazy few by marriage.

Whereas the big official mosques are places of tolerance???

Ever been in one, Mr. Haas???