It is strange how the entire world is staring at this tiny man. As if he were the new David, fighting Goliath with a piece of paper and a pen. Although he might look tiny on the outside, Magdi Cristiano Allam does not lack of courage. “I want to belong to God,” said the deputy director of Il Corriere della Sera to his religious mentor, Father Gabriele Mangiarotti, just before his sensational conversion. Clearly that was not Allah . . .
|
Thursday is book day at Telos. We use this time and space for posts about books, authors, and all sorts of writing, considered in light of the sorts of questions that are at home at Telos. As with all our blogs, you are invited to post a comment. If you have a book review that you’d like to post here, or some other comment on the worlds of writing, drop a line to us at telospress@aol.com. As discussed in this space previously, a leading Italian author and journalist converted from Islam to Catholicism this Easter. This is the letter to the editor of Corriere della Sera in which Magdi Cristiano Allam discusses his conversion. Thanks to Vernaccia for the translation. Dear Editor, What I am about to relate has to do with a religious choice and a choice in my personal life. As such, it does not involve or represent in any way the position of Il Corriere della Sera, of which I am honored to be part since 2003, as vice-director ad personam. I am, therefore, writing as a private citizen about a private choice… People in Italy have become accustomed to hearing, in perfect and elegant Italian, Magdi Allam speak about the very difficult relationship between the West and the Muslim world. They also appreciate reading his editorials on Il Corriere della Sera devoted to the same topic. He is an extraordinarily popular figure in this country, one of the deputy directors (vice-director ad personam) of the leading Italian newspaper, and a man with a very fine intellect who tries to understand and to explain a situation, much more than a mere clash of cultures, that is getting worse by the hour. It is enough to look at his most recent contributions to Il Corriere della Sera (he was appointed vice-director in 2003) to get a clear idea of what kind of man he is and what kind of views he shares with his readers. Though different enemies have come and gone, the ideological underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy have remained fairly consistent from the Vietnam War to the present War in Iraq. The goal of this foreign policy has been to defend liberal democracy against its opponents, but this goal has been undermined both in Vietnam and in Iraq by the neoconservative belief that the aspiration to democracy is universal because everyone is interested in freedom. This argument neglects the fact that the U.S. is not promoting democracy per se, but a particular form of democracy dominated by liberal principles of government. Because liberal democracy consists of a set of procedures like elections and legislative decision-making, neoconservatives assume that it is a universal and rational form of government that can be implemented anywhere and anytime in order to create human freedom. But procedures such as elections and legislatures are not in fact a part of a universal aspiration toward freedom but make up a set of specific traditions and rituals. The establishment of liberal democracy consequently is not simply a matter of allowing a natural development to occur in the absence of violence, but consists in the establishment of a certain form of political representation and liberal procedures. March 2, 2008, marked the most uneventful event in Russian and, indeed, world politics—the election of Dmitry Medvedev to the post of the President of Russia. Having reached a cathartic pitch in the period immediately preceding the naming of Medvedev as the “successor” (preyemnik) to Putin, the speculation and suspense have been exhausted long before the elections. Yet, despite its profoundly anticlimactic quality, which left the Russian public absolutely cold and apathetic to a pre-fixed outcome, March 2 was a culmination of sorts. It functioned as a conclusion to a particularly insidious aspect of “Putin’s Plan,” the most ambitious aim of which was to drain the political sphere of uncertainty and risk that render it political in the first place. Smacking of the Soviet bureaucratic regulation of economy, the formal utopian core of the plan was the creation, by the year 2020, of a completely administered society devoid of antagonisms or disagreements within the chain of command, all the way down to local and municipal authorities. Hear Matthias Küntzel, author of the controversial Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11, speak at Cooper Union in New York City: Saturday, March 22 Directions (by subway): Astor Place stop on the #6 line, or 8th St. stop on the R train, or a short walk from the Union Square subway station. Admission is free! |
   |
|||
|
Privacy Policy · Data Protection Copyright © 2026 Telos Press Publishing · All Rights Reserved |
||||
