Nobel Prize winner author VS Naipaul has condemned terrorism and blamed Saudi Arabia for funding it. He has also attacked multiculturalism in Britain and said immigrants must integrate into their host country instead of demanding special privileges.
Nabanita SircarBorn in Trinidad of Indian origin, Naipaul calls multiculturalism "absurd" and a "racket" creating jobs for the race relations industry. In an interview with Tatler he said: "What do they call it? Multi-culti? It's all absurd, you know. I think if a man picks himself up and comes to another country he must meet it halfway."
The author of A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River said: "He can't say I want the country, I want the laws and protection, but I want to live in my own way. It's become a kind of racket, this multiculturalism. Jobs for the boys."
While condemning terrorism, Naipaul, 72, blames Saudi Arabia for funding it. "All this comes from Saudi Arabian money. I don't know who we are kidding. Here is the war on terror and it is being subsidised by an ally."
He further adds: "It (Saudi Arabia) has contributed nothing to the world - it has just filled the gambling dens and brothels. They are not fine people actually."
Naipaul who lives in Wiltshire, came to Britain in the 1950s and was educated at Oxford. His latest interview is to coincide with the publication of his novel Magic Seeds. In 2001 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
