DAR AL HARB - AUSTRALIA: NONIE DARWISH, THE PEN & THE SWORD OF ISLAM

The power of the pen, and the sword of Islam
James Langton

A MIDDLE-AGED Californian woman emerges briefly from her kitchen carrying a tray weighed down with a pot of coffee and a plate of fresh croissants and doughnuts.

Moments later she is back, this time brandishing a vast slice of pumpkin pie. "I'm sorry," says Nonie Darwish, with a half-apologetic smile. "You are my guest. I can't help my upbringing."

With her sense of hospitality and her accent, Darwish, 57, still carries much of the Middle East about her. In the front room of her Los Angeles home, she is caught between the old world and the new.

On the coffee table there is a model of the Statue of Liberty next to a replica of Anubis, the ancient Egyptian jackal god of the dead, and a copy of the American edition of Melanie Phillips' Londonistan rests on a gold-embossed Bible.

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Pertinent Links:

1) The power of the pen, and the sword of Islam