9/11 'not as bad' as IRA blasts

2007-10-21 16:06

Madrid - Nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing said in an interview published on Sunday that the September 11 attacks had not been "so bad" when compared to Irish Republican Army action.

"September 11 was terrible, but if one re-examines the history of the IRA, what happened in the United States wasn't so bad," Lessing - who captured this year's Nobel literature prize - told Spain's leading El Pais daily.

The IRA waged a lengthy armed struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland. It declared an end to its armed campaign in 2005.

"Some Americans believe I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor so extraordinary as they think," Lessing said of the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington in which about 3 000 people were killed.

Bush 'world calamity'

In similarly pointed remarks in the Spanish translation, she described former British prime minister Tony Blair as a "little showman" who proved disastrous for Britain and US President George W Bush as a "world calamity".

"Everyone is weary of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever," Lessing said of Bush adding that the US leader came from "a social class which has profited from wars".

She told El Pais she had recently finished a book on war.

The 87-year-old British author, who has written about feminism, politics and her childhood in Africa, won the Nobel Prize on October 11.

Along with her epic novels, she is also known for her political views that have embraced Marxist, anti-colonialism, anti-apartheid and feminist causes over the years.

- AFP