UK: "England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims"

UK: "England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims"


A Nobel prizewinning author has accused England of being a “cesspit” that nurtures terrorism.


Wole Soyinka, the first African winner of the prize, claimed the Nigerian student who tried to blow himself up over Detroit on Christmas Day, was radicalised during his time at University College London.


His comments come amid an increasing row between Nigeria, Britain and Yemen about where Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab turned to violent extremism.


In London last week Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said that “ideology knows no boundaries” and the blame for Abdulmutallab’s extremisim could not be “pinned on any one place.”


But Mr Soyinka, 76, who was born in Nigeria and studied at Leeds University in the 1950s, said: “England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims.”


He added: “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."


Mr Soyinka said Britain took pride in its “openness” and added: "I doubt you can have the kind of indoctrination schools in America as you do in the UK…The Muslims there are open Muslims, whereas in Europe they tend to go into ghetto schools.”


During a lecture at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India, he told the audience: “We should assemble all those who are pure and cannot abide other faiths, put them all in rockets, and fire them into space."


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Source: Daily Telegraph