Nigerian Nobel Laureate: “England is a Cesspit”
Nobel laureate in literature – and Nigerian democracy advocate – Wole Soyinka is angry that his country was put on the terrorism watch list in the wake of his countryman’s attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009. The finger of blame, he argues, shouldn’t be pointed at Nigeria, but at England.
The man did not get radicalized in Nigeria. It happened in England, where he went to university.
“England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there.”
Why is Britain the way it is? “This is part of the character of Great Britain,” Mr. Soyinka declares. “Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.” And so it is, he says, that Britain lets everyone preach whatever they want: It confirms a self-image of greatness.
Later on, Soyinka identifies the cause of the present religious war of all against all: the Ayatollah Khomeini. Why? Because the fatwa against Salman Rushdie escalated the range of acceptable physical aggression within certain spheres of the Muslim world. That heightened acceptable aggression eventually trickled down to other radical Muslim groups, sanctioning terrorism and murder for groups like Al Qaeda.
Luckily, Soyinka thinks radical Islam won’t take root in America because Muslims have gone mainstream through the work of the Nation of Islam. I guess it’s all relative.
H/T: Daily Beast
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