The Reith Lectures: Archive 1976-2012 - I am Right; You are Dead

In his fifth and final Reith Lecture, the Nobel Laureate, playwright, poet and political activist Wole Soyinka examines the causes and impact of fanaticism.

When Osama Bin Laden declares that the world is divided between believers and non-believers, it is easy to identify the menace of the fanatical mind but, in what other company can we place George Bush when we hear him declare that 'you are either with us or you are on the side of the terrorists'? We fail at our peril to recognize a twin strain of the same fanatic spore that threatens to consume the world in its messianic fires. What could be the role of the 'invisible' religions and world views in tempering the forces that seek to dichotomise the world?

Published on Wednesday, 5th May 2004.

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