Oriana Fallaci: The Woman and the Myth

7. Superstar on a Balcony

• IN LATE SEPTEMBER 1968, FALLACI FLEW TO Mexico City to report on student discontent with a government that continued to spend millions of dollars in preparation for the Olympics while a large segment of the population lived in dire poverty. She again immersed herself in the reportage and made her dose call with death, as well as her emotional outrage with Mexican authorities, high points of her articles. Through her eyes, readers watched Mexican students in context and felt the inner dynamism of the crucial events. Fallaci allowed circumstances to speal, for themselves but, once more, made SUl'e that she was always at the center of the unfolding drama. The entire episode, meticulously analyzed in articles for Europeo and in an addendum to Nothing and Amen, focuses on the image of a heroic, upright jomnalist who champions the underdogs against a totalitarian regime. The article wTitten by Fallaci's editors, Tommaso Ciglio and Ren:t:o Trionfera, sets the pace. They emphasize the importance of FaUaci's style of reporting but also stress her degree of commitment, even though it resulted in personal injury during a demonstration. "It is the price paid when journalists 116 8UPERS'l'AH ON A BALCONY 117 believe in their work and write their articles not only for others bllt also for themselves."l Both editors herald her as a superstar who paid the bloody price for witnessing fTOm within history in the making and reinforce the noble portrait of a champion declicated to tTl1th, no matter what the consequences . Participating in a demol1stTation that the military had savagely quelled, Fallaci suffered injmies and underwent surgery in a hospital. The setting is ideal for her first-person style. The titles of her articles aceelltuate the jomnalist rather than the event: "Oriana Fallaci Relates: The Night of Bloodshed in Which 1 Was Wounded" 1cUld "Here Is the Article That I Had Lost.,,2 The first article is in the form of a transcribed cassette recording. Fallaci, in her hospital bed, too injmed to write, speaks into the microphone. "1 feel sick; I am still confused. You see, there is something that hurts me more than physieal pain, than this tremendous pain in my shoulder, lung, knee, leg ... this recurring nightmare hurts me.,,3 The Fallaci I plmctuates the entire e0111ll1lmique . Photographs in two articles strongly complement and magnify her personal voice. The first shows her in Vietnam wearing a GI's tmiform and wTiting notes. The caption quotes Fallaci: "Mexico was worse than Vietnam." The second is her picture in the French hospital recovering from her wounds and dictatillg her story onto a tape recorder. The third, a ch-arnatic series of photos taken by an Associated Press (AP) photographer, frames journalists wounded and killed on a balcony during the massaere-the same bloodbath in which Fallaei is shot. The fomth is one of Fallaci on her abdomen with her hand eovering her face, as the operating surgeon medicates her back wounds. The fifth-a meloch-amatic photo of Fallaci ch'cssed in black with a stylish haircut and holding dark sunglasses- dcpicts her inspecting the sight of the massacre on 2 October.4 Before the tragic event, Fallaci met with student leaders of the protest movement in a classroom at the Politecnico. She creates the impression that she has strong bonds of solidarity with the group. Thirty individuals anxious to reveal their innermost feelings to foreign journalists gather there and allow her to record their opinions, plans, and aspirations. The grollp had chosen three of their members - Ernesto, Graziano, and Socrates- to speak on everyone 's behalf this clay. Their anger, related to the three million pesos spent by the government on the Olympics, is also caused by their inability to communicate with the outside world ahout the popular discontent that had begun with the student uprisings in 1961. The thrust of the meeting, however , deals with their nmnediate survival needs since, unlike then- American, 118 SUPERSTA n ON A BALCONY French, Italian, and German counterparts, they fight an establishment that brutally represses all opposition.5 On the day of the rally, Wednesday, 2 October, students had planned on celebrating troop withdrawal from the Politecnico, an appal"ent gesture of goodwill, and urging the evacuation of soldiers from their university campus and lecture halls. Student leaders had encouraged Fallaci to attend because they had predicted a huge, enthusiastic turnout. Fallaci arrives at...